Remembering and Misremembering Hypatia: the Lessons of Agora

HYPATIA OF ALEXANDRIA (ca. 350/370-415) cannot speak for herself, but that has not prevented others from speaking for her. Perhaps this is not surprising since the little that is known about her makes one eager to know more and invites speculation. Contemporary with Augustine of Hippo (354-430), she was a mathematician-philosopher who, though she had no sectarian affiliation and was never married, held a position of respect and influence in a city torn by religious strife. With her father Theon, she helped preserve Ptolemy's Almagest and she wrote commentaries on Diophantus' number theon' and on the Conics of Apollonius. Whatever may survive of her writing is incorporated in the mathematical commentaries of later scholars. She went beyond her father and had students to whom she taught the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. One report says that some of her students came from great distances to study with her; another source says that she gave public lectures on philosophy. Her style of teaching and the content of her lectures are almost completely lost from memory. The only words attributed to her in the ancient sources reveal a resourceful mind and a forceful personality. She deflected the amorous advances of a student by thrusting a used sanitary napkin at him, saying, "This is the focus of your learning, young man, but it is nothing beautiful." All of these facts make her interesting, but the savage violence of her death at the hands of thugs loyal to Cyril, bishop of Alexandria (ca. 376-444), makes her an object of sympathy as well as of curiosity. Her murder may be the greatest single factor that has kept her story alive. The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, published in 440, gives the most reliable overview of Hypatia's life and death, notwithstanding that she is mentioned in the Suda, a tenth century Byzantine encyclopedia which preserves the sixth century pagan accounts of Damacius and Hesychius of Milesius. The most informative source contemporary with her is the writings of her student Synesius. Six epistles (cited as Ep), and part of a seventh that he wrote to her are extant, written between 394 and 413. Several letters to other correspondents also allude to her. Synesius sent three of his writings to Hypatia--Dion, On Dreams, and On the Gift of an Astrolabe. One can mine these works for clues about what he learned from her. His lighthearted In Praise of Baldness--he was bald--is also useful in this regard. Synesius was probably born around 370 and studied with Hypatia in the 390s. He became Cyrenes bishop in 409 or 410. He died in 413, two years before the death of the one he called "mother, sister, teacher" (Ep 16). The books of Maria Dzielska (1995) and Michael A. B. Deakin (2007) are the most reliable recent treatments of Hypatia. Deakin's book discusses Hypatia's place in the history of mathematics and is especially useful because it includes an appendix with translations of the most ancient sources that make explicit mention of her. Dzielska documents that Hypatia's story has inspired artists, playwrights, poets, and novelists. Like other striking figures, however, Hypatia has been as influential when misunderstood as when understood. For example, Elbert Hubbard's fanciful account of Hypatia, published in 1908 in the Little Journeys series, makes her out to be a "free thinker." Quotations from Hubbard's booklet are widely cited on the internet as the authentic words of Hypatia (cf. Donovan, pp. 43, 48). In the words of Bryan Whitfield, "Hypatia has suffered a fate worse than neglect; she has become a symbol" (14). Agora (2009), the work of Alejandro Amenabar and Mateo Gil, provides the first film incarnation of Hypatia, starring Rachel Weisz in the lead role. It is historical fiction and, as such, one should not expect from it the accuracy of a documentary. Nevertheless, one may ask if it is good historical fiction. On the negative side, I take this question to mean, taking into account the dramatic license of film making and story-telling, do its fictional aspects detract from what is known from history? …