A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Tymicha
TYMICHA,
A Lacedæmonian lady, consort of Myllias, a native of Crotona. Jamblichus, in his life of Pythagoras, places her at the head of his list, as the most celebrated female philosopher of the Pythagorean school. When Tymicha and her husband were carried as prisoners before Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, B. C. 330, he made them both very advantageous offers, if they would reveal the mysteries of Pythagorean science; but they rejected them all with scorn and detestation. The tyrant not succeeding with the husband, took the wife apart, not doubting, from her situation at the time, that the threat of torture would make her divulge the secret; bat she instantly bit off her tongue, and spat it in the tyrant's face, to show him that no pain could make her violate her pledge of secrecy.