4th-century BC women writers

thumb|Fanciful portrait of Erinna from Finden's Gallery of Graces (1834) Erinna (; ) was an ancient Greek poet. She is best known for her long poem The Distaff, a 300-line hexameter lament for her childhood friend Baucis, who had died shortly after her marriage. A large fragment of this poem was discovered in 1928 at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Along with The Distaff, three epigrams ascribed to Erinna are known, preserved in the Greek Anthology. Biographical details about Erinna's life are uncertain. She is generally thought to have lived in the first half of the fourth century BC, though some ancie

thumb|right|Marble bust of Nossis by Francesco Jerace

thumb|upright=1.3|Philaenis was said to have written a sex manual containing descriptions of various sexual positions. This [[red-figure kylix painting from 480–470 BC depicts a man having sexual intercourse with a hetaira, a kind of ancient Greek prostitute.]] Philaenis of Samos was supposedly the author of a famous ancient sex manual. According to a surviving fragment of a treatise which claims to have been written by her, she was from Samos, and her father was called Ocymenes. However, many modern scholars consider "Philaenis" a fictional character whose persona may have been adopted by a v

Aesara of Lucania (, Aisara) (fl. 400BC - 300BC) was a Pythagorean philosopher and attested author of On Human Nature, a fragment of which is preserved by Stobaeus. The authorship has been contested, most notably by Holger Thesleff in a critical note to the Greek text. Thesleff suggests that the attribution by Stobaeus to Aesara (a feminine name) is an emendation error in the manuscript. He attributes it instead to Aresas, a male writer from Lucania who is also mentioned by Iamblichus in his Life of Pythagoras.

Phintys was a Pythagorean philosopher, probably from the third century BC. She wrote a work on the correct behaviour of women, two extracts of which are preserved by Stobaeus.