Themistoclea (; ''Themistokleia''; also Aristoclea (; Ἀριστοκλεία ''Aristokleia''), Theoclea (; Θεοκλεία ''Theokleia''); fl. 6th century BCE) was a

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

ess at

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), was an ancient sacred precinct and the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient Classical antiquity, classical world. The A ...

who was said to be a teacher of

Pythagoras Pythagoras of Samos (; BC) was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher, polymath, and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His political and religious teachings were well known in Magna Graecia and influenced the philosophies of P ...

. In the biography of Pythagoras in his '' Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'',

Diogenes Laërtius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; , ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving book ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek ph ...

(3rd century CE) cites the statement of

Aristoxenus Aristoxenus of Tarentum (; born 375, fl. 335 BC) was a Ancient Greece, Greek Peripatetic school, Peripatetic philosopher, and a pupil of Aristotle. Most of his writings, which dealt with philosophy, ethics and music, have been lost, but one musi ...

(4th century BCE) that Themistoclea taught Pythagoras his

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...

doctrines: Porphyry (233–305 CE) refers to a teacher of Pythagoras called Aristoclea, although there is little doubt that he is referring to the same person. The 10th-century ''

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; ; ) is a large 10th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine encyclopedia of the History of the Mediterranean region, ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas () or Souidas (). It is an ...

'' encyclopedia calls her Theoclea and states that she was the sister of Pythagoras, but this information probably arises from a corruption and misunderstanding of the passage in Diogenes Laertius.Se
Suda On Line, ''Pythagoras'', π3124, and footnote 25

References

{{Authority control 6th-century BC births 6th-century BC deaths 6th-century BC clergy 6th-century BC Greek women Delphi Pythagoreans Ancient Greek women philosophers Ancient Greek priestesses Presocratic philosophers 6th-century BC Greek philosophers