Conclusion

To write a biography that truly tells the story of a person’s life I believe you have to include how they acted on a day to day basis and what the people they encountered the most thought of them. Ronchey is unable to do this because she is writing centuries after Hypatia lived and there are limited records on her life. Therefore she was forced to take information from many different sources and piece together Hypatia’s life the best she could and give the reader a broad overview of her life. We can imagine that if it were not socially unacceptable to write about women in ancient Rome and Laertius had written about Hypatia that he would have taken the opposite root of Ronchey, going in depth into the way Hypatia thought. He would have studied Hypatia’s works and teachings and found direct quotes to show the readers her beliefs on philosophy and the status of her country and world. Along with direct quotes from Hypatia Laertius would have found quotes from the people who knew her the best to tell the readers what she was actually like when she was living her daily life.