Woman of the Week – Hypatia

Hypatia was a philosopher, astronomer and mathematician who lived and learned in Alexandria, Egypt.

She was the daughter of the mathematician Theon. He taught her in math, astronomy and philosophy, which in their day was considered science. Her father is best known for his edits and interpretation of Euclid’s elements. Nothing is on record about her mother.

Little is known for sure about her life but she appears to be the first mathematician whose life is somewhat on record, though sparse.

She was born somewhere between 350-370 AD. She continued her father’s work, which basically was a preservation of Greek mathematic and astronomical heritage. She wrote commentaries on Apollonius of Perga’s Conics (geometry) and Diophantus of Alexandria’s Arithmetic (number theory), as well as an astronomical table (possibly a revised version of Book III of her father’s commentary on the Almagest).

Those are the only works recorded with her name on them, but her influence and teachings are prevalent in many other places. Her philosophy was Neoplatonist and was seen as “pagan” in a time of religious conflict between Christians, Jews and pagans.

She taught students all over the Mediterranean, lecturing on Plato and Aristotle. Her father never imposed traditional “female” roles on her and raised her to learn a trade so she could find success without help from others.

Her city, Alexandria, became known as a place of learning and culture. It held libraries with works from around the world. The largest library held 500,000 books. Hypatia had daily access to these works during her time teaching.

One day she was on her way home when she was attacked by a mob of Christian monks. She was stripped naked, beaten to death and her body burned. In the time after her death, Alexandria was ravaged; the intellectual buildings were destroyed and pagan temples were burned. Her death has long been seen as a big moment in the history of paganism in a Christian time.

Her life story was adapted into a 2009 film called Agora. It accurately details the religious conflict at the time of her death, but some of the remaining details are more freely adapted. When the film was released, some Christian groups felt it was a fanatical approach to the events.