1659 painting by Elisabetta Sirani depicting Timoclea of Thebes pushing the Thracian captain who raped her into a well.

Timoclea before Alexander the Great, in a painting by Domenico Zampieri, ca. 1615.

Timoclea of Thebes is a woman mentioned by Plutarch in his Life of Alexander. According to Plutarch, when the forces of Alexander the Great seized Thebes during Alexander's Balkan campaign of 335 BC, Thracian forces pillaged the city, and the captain of the Thracian forces raped Timoclea, a lady of high birth.^[1] After raping her, the captain asked if she knew of any hidden money. She told him that she did, and led him into her garden, and told him there was money hidden in her well.^[1] When the Thracian captain stooped to look into the well, Timoclea pushed him into the well, and then hurled heavy stones into the well until the captain was dead.^[1] Timoclea was seized by the Thracian soldiers and brought before Alexander the Great. She comported herself with great dignity and told Alexander that her brother had fought at the Battle of Chaeronea with Alexander's father, Philip II of Macedon, "for the liberty of Greece." Alexander was so impressed with Timoclea that he ordered her released and she was not punished for killing the Thracian captain.^[1]

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