NewsCenter – In an era when women's participation in education and intellectual life was limited, Theano emerged as one of the pioneering figures engaged in mathematics and philosophy. She is likely to have lived between 600 and 550 BC, although information about her life is largely based on later sources.

Through her relationship with Pythagoras, Theano joined Pythagorean intellectual circles and took an interest, alongside mathematics, in geometry, music, and philosophy. She adopted the Pythagorean vision that explains the order of the universe through numbers, and she also defended the idea of the transmigration of the soul from one life to another.

After the death of Pythagoras, she is credited with having played an important role in managing the school, and with having contributed particularly to making mathematics education available to girls.

As for the saying attributed to Theano — "It is better for a woman to be a free horse than a woman who does not think" — it has contributed to cementing her symbolic image in the modern era as a figure who affirms women's intellectual freedom.