Hypatia of Alexandria was a philosopher, mathematician and astronomer who taught in the Egyptian city of Alexandria around the turn of the fifth century CE. She was the most respected teacher of Neoplatonist philosophy in the city, an adviser to its leading men, and in March 415 she was murdered by a Christian mob amid a bitter feud between the city's governor and its bishop. A short animated lesson from TED-Ed, written by Soraya Field Fiorio, tells her story in a few minutes and is a good starting point; this article adds the background and evidence behind it.
Who Hypatia was
Hypatia was the daughter of Theon, a mathematician who edited Euclid's Elements and wrote commentaries on Ptolemy. Theon is sometimes called the last member of the Mouseion, the research institution to which the famous Library of Alexandria belonged, but that is doubtful: recorded membership of the Mouseion ends in the 260s, and Theon more likely headed a school that borrowed its prestigious name.
Her birth date is unknown. Some popular accounts place it around 355 CE, which would make her roughly 60 when she died; historians generally give a range of about 350 to 370, and many favour the later date. What is clear is that she became head of a Platonist school in the city, taught publicly and privately, and attracted students from across the eastern Mediterranean, pagans and Christians alike. One of them, Synesius of Cyrene, later a bishop, wrote her admiring letters that still survive and give the best contemporary picture of her as a teacher.
Her work in mathematics and philosophy
None of Hypatia's own writings has survived under her name, a fate she shares with many ancient authors. Later sources, especially the Byzantine encyclopedia known as the Suda, say she wrote commentaries on Diophantus' Arithmetica and on Apollonius' Conics, and an astronomical canon. Scholars also think she helped prepare her father's edition of part of Ptolemy's Almagest. These attributions are reasonable but not certain.
Her teaching drew on Plato and Aristotle and on the Neoplatonist tradition of Plotinus. In that tradition, mathematics and astronomy were steps toward contemplating an ordered universe. Synesius' letters describe her helping him build a plane astrolabe and ask her to have a hydrometer made, which suggests a practical side to her scholarship, though popular claims that she invented them go beyond the evidence.
Politics in Alexandria and her death
Alexandria in the early 400s was tense. Christianity had become the official religion of the empire, pagan temples had been closed, and the city's Christian, Jewish and pagan communities clashed repeatedly. When Cyril became bishop in 412, he quickly came into conflict with Orestes, the imperial governor, who was himself a Christian.
Hypatia was an adviser to Orestes, and rumours spread that she was the obstacle to reconciliation between the two men. According to the church historian Socrates Scholasticus, a crowd led by a church reader named Peter seized her in the street, dragged her into a church and killed her. The TED-Ed lesson traces the feud back to the conduct of a militia of monks and shows how it ended in an accusation of witchcraft against Hypatia, a charge that played on suspicion of a learned woman. Socrates, himself a Christian, condemned the killing as a disgrace to the Alexandrian church.
Myth, film and memory
Hypatia's story has been retold for centuries, often to serve the teller's argument. Enlightenment writers made her a martyr to reason, Victorian novelist Charles Kingsley turned her into a romantic heroine, and Carl Sagan's Cosmos paired her murder with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria as a warning about lost knowledge.
The 2009 film Agora, directed by Alejandro Amenábar and starring Rachel Weisz, premiered out of competition at Cannes and brought her to a new audience. It was criticised for historical liberties, such as inventing heliocentric discoveries for her, while some religious critics objected to its portrayal of Christian mobs as anti-intellectual. Every film about the ancient world takes liberties, from Agora to Spartacus, whose hero led a real slave revolt in 73–71 BCE but whose screen version is largely invented. Films can spark interest, but they are not evidence.
Common myths about Hypatia
- She died when the Great Library burned. The Library declined over centuries, and there is no good evidence that her death coincided with its destruction.
- She was killed only for being a woman scientist. Gender prejudice and suspicion of her learning played a part, but the ancient sources place her death in a local power struggle between bishop and governor.
- Her death ended ancient science. Philosophy and mathematics continued in Alexandria and Athens for generations.
- She was a young woman. If the usual estimates of her birth are right, she was in middle age or older when she died.
Where to learn more
The TED-Ed page for The murder of ancient Alexandria's greatest scholar includes discussion questions for classrooms. For a short reference overview, the entry on Hypatia of Alexandria at the World History Encyclopedia is a useful start. The writer of the lesson, Soraya Field Fiorio, has also written for Lapham's Quarterly.
For a careful scholarly account, Polish historian Maria Dzielska's book Hypatia of Alexandria (Harvard University Press) separates the historical woman from the legends that grew around her. When you read about Hypatia anywhere, ask whether a detail comes from an ancient witness, a much later retelling or a modern interpretation.
Sources: TED-Ed: The murder of ancient Alexandria's greatest scholar, by Soraya Field Fiorio; Wikipedia: Hypatia; Wikipedia: Agora (film); Wikipedia: Cosmos: A Personal Voyage; Wikipedia: Spartacus; Maria Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (Harvard University Press, 1995).
COMMENTS