A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Tymicha
TYMICHA, was a Lacedemonian Lady, the Consort of one Myllias, a native of Crotona.
Jamblichus, in his life of Pythagoras, places her at the head of his list or roll of the most celebrated female philosophers of the Pythagorean sect. When Tymicha was taken into custody with her husband, and carried before Dionysius the tyrant, he made them both very advantageous offers; but they rejected them with scorn and detestation. Whereupon the tyrant took the husband aside first; and promised to release him with honour, on condition only that he would discover the reason why the Pythagoreans chose rather to die than to trample upon beans: without the least hesitation, he made him the following reply, viz. that as that sect chose rather to die, than to tread upon beans, so he would chuse to tread upon beans, rather than to gratify his curious enquiry. The tyrant not succeeding with the husband, took the wife apart, not doubting from her situation at that time, and the additional terror of the torture with which he intended to menace her, she would soon be prevailed on to discover the important secret. Upon the trial, however, he found himself perfectly baffled: for she instantly bit off her tongue, and spat it in the tyrant's face, that no torture, how inhuman soever, might force her to divulge the mysteries of the Pythagorean science.