@@ -39,9 +39,9 @@ But who was "the real" Hypatia and how much of her can we discern today?
Hypatia was the daughter of Theon who was, as noted above, the distinguished professor of mathematics, well known even today as our primary source for the extant text of Euclid's Elements, and later the head librarian or director of the Library (or Museum) of Alexandria. Apparently, Theon intended to transform his (gorgeous) daughter into a "perfect human" and "trained" her, mentally and physically from birth. Her physical regime included swimming, horseback riding, and mountain climbing. Her social skills were not avoided. She was trained in speech, persuasion, debate, acting and rhetoric. She also learned literature, logic, physics, astrology, history, politics and philosophy. Theron taught her enough of all religions to turn her from the lot. He is said to have said, "All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final. Reserve your right to think, for even to think and be wrong is better than not to think at all." She obviously took this to heart, as she said, "Fable should be taught as fable, myth as myth, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truth is horrifying. The mind of a child accepts them and only through great pain, perhaps tragedy, can the child be relieved of them. Men will fight for superstition as quickly as for the living truth - even more so, since a superstition is intangible you can't get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable."
-Her mental skills were honed such that at 19 she edited the third book of her father's Commentary on the Almagest of Ptolemy. As a young adult, she did the almost unthinkable for a lady of her day, left Alexandria and toured the ancient world, studied in Athens at Plutarch's school of Mathematics and her reputation for "The mind of Plato in the body of Aphrodite", was treated like royalty. Returning to Alexandria she first taught mathematics and later philosophy, drawing scholars from around the world to hear her lectures. Hypatia authored several treatises on mathematics including papers "On the Conics of Apollonius", apparently forever lost, and "On the Astronomical Canon of Diophantus" a portion of which reemerged from the Vatican library during the Renaisance. However, while she was well regarded as a mathematician, her real fame was as a philosopher. Letters from around the world were delivered to her - even tough
addressed merely with "The Muse" or "The Philosopher". A true polymath, as an atrologer and applied engineer, she is credited with inventing an astrolabe and a planesphere and as a physicist and applied engineer, she is credited with having developed a water still, a hydroscope (a form of densitometer for measuring the density of liquids) and a level measurement system.
+Her mental skills were honed such that at 19 she edited the third book of her father's Commentary on the Almagest of Ptolemy. As a young adult, she did the almost unthinkable for a lady of her day, left Alexandria and toured the ancient world, studied in Athens at Plutarch's school of Mathematics and her reputation for "The mind of Plato in the body of Aphrodite", was treated like royalty. Returning to Alexandria she first taught mathematics and later philosophy, drawing scholars from around the world to hear her lectures. Hypatia authored several treatises on mathematics including papers "On the Conics of Apollonius", apparently forever lost, and "On the Astronomical Canon of Diophantus" a portion of which reemerged from the Vatican library during the Renaisance. However, while she was well regarded as a mathematician, her real fame was as a philosopher. Letters from around the world were delivered to her - even though
addressed merely with "The Muse" or "The Philosopher". A true polymath, as an atrologer and applied engineer, she is credited with inventing an astrolabe and a planesphere and as a physicist and applied engineer, she is credited with having developed a water still, a hydroscope (a form of densitometer for measuring the density of liquids) and a level measurement system.
Often said never to have married because, "she was wedded to the truth", it has been suggested (by her enemies) that she had a number of lovers. It seems more likely that she had a husband, as Hypatia seems to have been known for her chastity, virtue, and beauty as much as for her ideas. If she had not been married, it is likely that her enemies would have made a great deal more fuss about her "brazeness" in an era of Isreali-Palestinian-style conflict between pagans and Christians. Instead they (Damascius' Life of Hypatia) told the story, "She was so beautiful and shapely that one of her students fell in love with her and was unable to control himself and openly showed her a sign of his infatuation. Uninformed reports had Hypatia curing him of his affliction with the help of music. The truth is that the story about music is corrupt. Actually, she gathered rags that had been stained during her period and showed them to him as a sign of her unclean descent and said, 'This is what you love, young man, and it isn't beautiful!' He was so affected by shame and amazement at the ugly sight that __he experienced a change of heart and went away a better man__." If she was indeed married, her husband may well have been Isidorus the philospher, who like her father has been eclipsed and largely forgotten.
Belonging to a school of Neo-platonic thought her doctrine was thoroughly in opposition to the prevailing Christian dogma which, traditional Roman tolerance being cast aside, had been made compulsory in 390 CE. However, Hypatia had ignored this and continued teaching the neoplatonic position. Her prominence, widespread popularity, and friendship with Orestes, prefect of Egypt, tended to counter the jealous anger of Cyril, the Christian patriarch and Bishop of Alexandria.
