Daughter of Theon, the mathematician Hypatia got involved in power politics in ancient Alexandria which led to her murder.

WHO IS

Copyright by Allison Nies 1990
inspired by a mummy case

Papyrus Press

Alexandria, March AD 415 - Christian and non-Christian students of Hypatia expressed shock and outrage when informed of their teacher's murder. Hypatia had been a popular, public lecturer in philosophy and mathematics. She was also a close advisor of Orestes, the Roman governor of Alexandria. He and other officials have called for a complete investigation of Hypatia's death.

Hypatia is the most recent victim of the mob violence that has racked this city over the last 6 months. It began with an attack on Orestes by a group of fanatical Christian monks. The monks were enraged over rumors that Orestes had been making sacrifices to outlawed Pagan gods. Orestes escaped from the mob uninjured, but the monk Peter was arrested, put on trial, and executed. The ensuing controversy over Peter''s execution has developed into a serious rift between city hall and church leaders.

Cyril, the Christian Bishop, held a press conference this morning. He denied that he ordered the attack on Hypatia. Meanwhile bands of monks continue to roam freely about the city.

According to eyewitness accounts, the monks grabbed Hypatia in the street and dragged her into the Caesarium (now St. Michael's church). Inside, the monks tore off her clothes and used sharpened oyster shell to stab her and scrape the skin from her body. Her dead body was then butchered and thrown into a bonfire.

No arrests have been made.

It's too bad that a newspaper account of Hypatia's death isn't available; so many historians have speculated about who killed her and why. There are as many theories as there are books about Hypatia. What is certain is that she lived at a time when pagans and Christians were trying to drive each another out of .

By the year AD 415, the Christians had gained the upper hand in the power struggle. For their own safety, most scholars converted to Christianity, but Hypatia resisted. She was conspicuous because she was a pagan and because she was a woman scholar.

The martyrdom of Hypatia, of course, did insure that her name would live on. For centuries afterwards, Hypatia was the most written about woman scientist in history. Only Marie Curie in the 20th century would rival her fame.

In retrospect, Hypatia does stand out as one of those rare women in patriarchal society who managed to get first rate technical training. Every detail of her education was supervised by her father, Theon. Theon, not surprisingly, was himself a famous mathematician and astronomer. He invented, among other things, the , a device for measuring the altitutde of a star or planet.

A POPULAR TEACHER

After studying with her father at the Museum in Alexandria, Hypatia traveled to Athens and Italy to do some "post-graduate" work. Very quickly, she acquired a reputation throughout the capitals of the Mediterranean for her brains and her beauty.

Upon her return to Alexandria, Hypatia had no problem attracting many students. Besides her public lectures on philosophy, she also tutored privately many socially prominent men. Orestes was one and Synesius, later bishop of Ptolmais, was another. Much of what is known about Hypatia comes from Synesius' letters to her. In one letter, he describes a silver astrolabe that he is making with Hypatia's help. In another letter, he refers to her considerable political influence.

"You always have power and long may you have
it and make good use of that power," he wrote to her.

According to the ancient encyclopedia when Hypatia was 31, she became the director of the Museum. The Museum was sort of like the ancient equivalent of M.I.T. or Caltech. Top scientists and mathematicians such as Euclid, Galen, Archimedes, and Erastothenes came from around the Mediterranean to work there. The Museum was founded in 300 B.C. by Ptolemy, the ruler of egypt after Alexander the Great. He provided the scholars with a salary, and they lived on the palace grounds in a magnificent complex called the Museum.

An Archeological Disaster

Next to the Museum, Ptolemy built the greatest in the ancient world. It housed as many as 500,000 papyrus rolls. Unfortunately, the army of Julius Caesar set fire to the library accidentally, and everything was destroyed. Many archaeologists consider this to be the greatest disaster in the history of the ancient world. A has been designed for Alexandria inspired by the ancient one.

Hypatia was not the first woman to head an important school like the Museum. From ancient Greece, there are several examples of wives and daughters who took over for their philosopher husbands or fathers after the men died. In the 6th century B.C., for example, Theano, a talented healer in her own right, assumed the mantle of her husband, , after he was killed at Croton. She and her daughters traveled throughout Greece and Egypt spreading the Pythagorean philosophy. Arete of Cyrene is another example.

Sexual Harassment

Simply because Hypatia was the director, however, doesn't mean that she was free from the typical problems women excounter working with men. Hypatia did experience one instance of sexual harassment that we know of, and it is interesting how she handled it. One day, according to the a young student became amorous towards her. Hypatia was unmarried and, like most Egyptian women, she was probably quite sexually liberated. Nevertheless, she wasn't interested in him as a lover, and she tried to remind him of more lofty pursuits, the nature of culture, etc. He continued to force himself on her, so she grabbed a sanitary napkin and threw it at him. She called him a few nasty names, and that brought him to his senses.

After the Romans took control of Egypt, fewer and fewer scholars at the Museum were doing original work. Hypatia and Theon were probably the last two. Members of the Museum faculty were being recruited from political posts and even famous athletes joined the staff. In AD 391, the Christian Church inflicted a death blow to future scholarship at the Museum. It ordered the destruction of all Greek temples, including the one at Serapis. Fanatics ransacked this second biggest library in Egypt, destroying all 200,000 papyrus rolls.

Math and Science Books

Despite the dangerous times in which Hypatia lived, she produced one science and two mathematics books. She wrote commentaries on the works of both Diophantus and Apollonius. She also published a set of astronomical tables in which she computed the positions of the planets. These books have all been lost as well as all of her personal papers.

Some modern historians believe she may have written Theon's third book on 's Almagest. She may also have co-authored Theon's version of s thirteen books on geometry, These works are of great importance since they contain most of what was known about math and astronomy in the classical world. Theon's version of the Elements was used for all translations of Euclid up until the 1800's.

To historians such as Gibbon, the murder of Hypatia signifies the end of free thought and creativity in the classical world. To the student of women's history, it marks the beginning of the degradation of women in Christian society, culminating centuries later in the witch hunts. After Hypatia, 700 years would pass before another woman dared
to be a scientist.