Who Was Hypatia?

We’re going to be hearing lots about Hypatia, the 4th and 5th century AD Greek mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, over the next few months before and after the release of Agora – a major movie about her life and tragic death, directed by Alejandro Amenábar and starring Rachel Weisz. So it’s probably a good time to meet the lady properly.

History regards Hypatia fondly, even though contemporary writings about her are scant and all evidence of her work non-existent. Inevitably, her life has become heavily romanticised, especially in the last couple of centuries, which have seen her depicted glowingly in various different forms in art and literature (see the article Top Ten Portrays of Hypatia). This is mainly because of her bloody murder – in 415 AD, at the hands of enraged and fearful Christians – which turned her into a martyr for reason and feminism.

It’s important to not be too caught up in the legend of Hypatia. But it’s also important to respect that it exists for good reason, because she was by all accounts not only fiercely intelligent, but also immensely beautiful, extremely popular, very well-connected, strictly chaste, and all-round something of a rock star-style celebrity for her time. Her grim demise was a sad indictment of the darkening age in which she lived.

Theon’s Prize Pupil

Hypatia was born in Alexandria, Egypt – then part of the Roman Empire – around 350 AD. She was the daughter of the Greek scholar Theon, who was the last known curator of the Museum of Alexandria – a large centre of learning, which was effectively the city’s university. It used to attract great thinkers from all over the world, to hear about the latest advances in science and philosophy.

It was in this intensely academic environment that the young Hypatia grew up. She was schooled from a young age by her father, who gave his prize pupil a classical education, and had her read the works of Plato and pour over the equations of Diophantine. She later traveled to Athens and Italy to further her studies, before returning to Alexandria to become a lecturer and writer in the fields of mathematics, philosophy, astronomy and mechanics.

Her school of philosophical and mathematical thought was Neoplatonism, and she was eventually appointed director of Alexandria’s Neoplatonist school in 400 AD. She penned various highly-respected books, many of them in collaboration with her father, including a commentary on the 13-volume Arithmetica by Diophantine and a commentary on the Conics of Apollonius.

Independent Woman

As already mentioned, contemporary writings on Hypatia are extremely few and far between – one expert dedicated six years to studying ancient texts for mention of her, and came away with just 14 typed pages. The only first-hand sources we have are letters to Hypatia by her student Bishop Synesius of Cyrene; beyond that, the best available evidence comes from more removed voices, such as Christian historiographer Socrates Scholasticus, who described Hypatia in his Ecclesiastical History, and referred to such qualities as her “extraordinary dignity and virtue.”

Nevertheless, on the basis of what little evidence there is, it’s hard to overestimate Hyaptia’s status, power and influence. She was the eminent female mathematician and intellectual in an age when women simply didn’t engage in learning to advanced degrees. She was especially passionate about practical technology, and invented such gadgets as the astrolabe for determining the position of the sun and the stars, and the hydroscope – the first ever laboratory device for measuring the gravity of liquids. Large crowds apparently used to gather outside of her house just to catch a glimpse of her.

It didn’t do any harm that she was exceptionally attractive – even if she apparently thought it a bit of a burden. In one, oft-quoted anecdote – the only real insight we have into her personal life – Hypatia coarsely turned off a student with a crush by flinging her bloody menstrual rags in his face (a simple “no” would probably have sufficed). The letters of Bishop Synesius have an unmistakable tone of unrequited love at points. Yet according to all reliable sources, Hypatia never married, despite keeping company with many of Alexandria’s most eligible movers and shakers. She was a busy woman, and chastity was one of her sacred values.

Witch and Satanist

The Roman Empire was divided and in a mess in the 4th and 5th century AD. It was officially Christian, but had to placate various other sects too, from Jews to heretics, all of whom hated each other. Intercommunal rivalry and bitterness was particularly rife in Alexandria, where there was friction – and with it, frequently sparks – between the opposing forces of science and religion. Intellectualism was on its way to being ousted by the brute force of fundamentalism, and the world on the brink of being plunged into centuries of backward thinking known as the Dark Ages.

It wasn’t a good time to be an intellectual advocating free thought, then – let alone a pagan and a female to boot. While there were many Christians among Hypatia’s students, who were fully able to respect her pagan beliefs (Christian authors would later applaud her for her purity), other more dogmatic believers demonised the Greek scholar as a witch and Satanist, or at least a woman with ideas way above her station. It didn’t help that she became mixed up in a dispute between Orestes, the pagan governor of Alexandria, of whom she was a friend and supporter, and Orestes’ political rival Cyril, a powerful priest.

In March 415 AD, for reasons not strictly known, Hypatia’s carriage was sidetracked by a gang of monks in the grips of a violent frenzy. They dragged her to a nearby church called the Caesareum, and – according to various accounts – stripped her naked, beat her to a pulp with slates, scraped her skin off with oyster shells and finally burned her mangled corpse. Later, in the continued turmoil of anti-intellectual ire, her writings and those of other great thinkers were destroyed completely when the Museum of Alexandria – and with it its great library – was burned to the ground, setting back the advance of learning perhaps by centuries in one flick of a match.

Philosophical Martyr

Cyril’s role in Hypatia’s death has been disputed over the years – Catholic commentators defend him as having had no involvement, anti-clericals gladly denounced him as a murderer. Certainly Cyril was never punished for his involvement – quite the opposite in fact, as he was later canonized. Sadly, Hypatia was neither the first nor last thinker to suffer a cruel end at the hands of religious zealots fearful of enlightenment. It would take a thousand years for the shadow cast by such fanaticism to pass.

We’re at least now able to reflect on a figure who stood alone as the only female to make any impact on classical mathematics. Her work is believed to have later been expanded upon by such famous names in the field as Newton, Leibniz and Descartes. Some admirers revere Hypatia as a philosophical martyr up there with Socrates, who was forced to commit suicide in the Agora of Athens for apparently corrupting the city’s youth with his ideas.

Women intellectuals didn’t achieve so highly again until as late as the 18th century, when the likes of Émilie du Châtelet, Caroline Herschel and Maria Agnesi became noted for their skill in the field of mathematics and other sciences. Even then, did any of them achieve in quite such a vacuum of female academic excellence as that which Hypatia overcame? Probably not.

School of Athens picture by Justin Norris. All rights reserved.

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