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Hypatia of Alexandria
Hypatia of Alexandria () (Greek: ; born between AD 350 and 370 ? 415) was a Greek[1] scholar from Alexandria in Egypt,[2][3] considered the first notable woman in mathematics, who also taught philosophy and astronomy.[4] She lived in Roman Egypt, and was killed by a Coptic Christian mob who blamed her for religious turmoil. She has been hailed as a "valiant defender of science against religion",[5] and some suggest that her murder marked the end of the Hellenistic Age.[6][7] A Neoplatonist philosopher, she followed the school characterized by the 3rd century thinker Plotinus, and discouraged mysticism while encouraging logical and mathematical studies.[8]
LifeHypatia was the daughter of Theon, who was her teacher and the last known mathematician associated with the Musaeum of Alexandria.[9] She traveled to both Athens and Italy to study,[10] before becoming head of the Platonist school at Alexandria in approximately AD 400.[11] According to the Byzantine Suda, she worked as teacher of philosophy, teaching the works of Plato and Aristotle.[12] It is believed that there were both Christians[13] and foreigners[8] among her students. Although Hypatia was herself a pagan, she was respected by a number of Christians, and later held up by Christian authors as a symbol of virtue.[8] The Suda controversially[14] declared her "the wife of Isidore the Philosopher"[12] but agreed she had remained a virgin.[15] Hypatia rebuffed a suitor by showing him her menstrual rags, claiming they demonstrated that there was "nothing beautiful" about carnal desires.[12] Hypatia maintained correspondence with her former pupil Bishop of Ptolomais Synesius of Cyrene.[16] Together with the references by Damascius, these are the only writings with descriptions or information from her pupils that survive.[17] The contemporary Christian historiographer Socrates Scholasticus described her in his Ecclesiastical History: Works
A 1885 painting by Charles William Mitchell. A partial list of specific accomplishments:
Her contributions to science are reputed to include the charting of celestial bodies[4] and the invention of the hydrometer,[23] used to determine the relative density and gravity of liquids. Her pupil Synesius wrote a letter defending her as the inventor of the astrolabe, although earlier astrolabes predate Hypatia's model by at least a century - and her father had gained fame for his treatise on the subject.[21] DeathBelieved to have been the reason for the strained relationship between the Imperial Prefect Orestes and the Bishop Cyril, Hypatia attracted the ire of a Christian population eager to see the two reconciled. One day in March 415,[24] during the season of Lent, her chariot was waylaid on her route home by a Christian mob, possibly Nitrian monks[24] led by a man identified only as "Peter". She was stripped naked and dragged through the streets to the newly christianised Caesareum church and killed. Some reports suggest she was flayed with ostrakois (literally, "oyster shells", though also used to refer to roof tiles or broken pottery) and set ablaze while still alive, though other accounts suggest those actions happened after her death:
Despite her actual background, authors Soldan and Heppe wrote a text in 1990 arguing that Hypatia may have been the first famous "witch" punished under Christian authority.[25] Legacy
The 1867 photograph Hypatia by Julia Margaret Cameron 
An actress, possibly Mary Anderson, in the title role of the play Hypatia, circa 1900 
Hypatia as imagined in a 1908 illustration In the 14th century, historian Nicephorus Gregoras described Eudokia Makrembolitissa as a "second Hypatia".[17] In the early 18th century, the deist scholar John Toland used her death as the basis for an anti-Catholic tract entitled "Hypatia: Or the history of a most beautiful, most vertuous, most learned, and every way accomplish?d lady; who was torn to pieces by the clergy of Alexandria, to gratify the pride, emulation, and cruelty of their archbishop, commonly but undeservedly stil?d St. Cyril.[27] This led to a counter-claim being published by Thomas Lewis in 1721 entitled The History Of Hypatia, A most Impudent School-Mistress of Alexandria.[28] Eventually, her story began to be infused with Christian details, as her story was first substituted for the missing history of Saint Catherine of Alexandria.[29][30] In the nineteenth century, interest in the "literary legend of Hypatia" began to peak.[17] Diodata Saluzzo Roero's 1827 Ipazia ovvero delle Filosofie suggested that Cyril had actually converted Hypatia to Christianity, and that she had been killed by a "treacherous" priest. In his 1847 Hypatie and 1857 Hypatie et Cyrille, French poet Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle portrayed Hypatia as the epitome of "vulnerable truth and beauty".[31] Charles Kingsley's 1853 fictionalized novel Hypatia - or New Foes with an Old Face, which portrayed the scholar as a "helpless, pretentious, and erotic heroine",[32] recounted her conversion by a Jewish-Christian named Raphael Aben-Ezra after supposedly becoming disillusioned with Orestes. In 1868, Julia Margaret Cameron produced a photographic depiction of the ancient scholar Hypatia.[33] The lunar crater Hypatia was named after the philosopher, in addition to craters named for Cyril and her father Theon. Measuring 28x41 kilometres, the crater is located 4.3°S and 22.6°E of the meridian. The 180km Rimae Hypatia, is located north of the crater, one degree south of the equater, along the Mare Tranquillitatis.[34] Later references
ReferencesExternal links
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