The murder of ancient Alexandrias greatest scholar Soraya Field Fiorio
In the city of Alexandria in 415 CE,
the bishop and the governor
were in a fight.
It started with a disagreement over the
behavior of a militia of monks,
and ended with an accusation
of witchcraft
leveled against one of the most
powerful figures in the city.
Hypatia of Alexandria was a prominent
mathematician, philosopher,
and advisor to the city’s leaders.
In the centuries since she lived,
the details of her life have been
the subject of much dispute
and have taken on an almost
mythical status.
But while none of Hypatia’s
own writings survive,
her contemporaries’ and students’
accounts of her work and life
paint a picture of the qualities that
made her renowned as a scholar,
beloved as a teacher, and ultimately
led to her downfall.
Hypatia was born around
355 in Alexandria,
then part of the Egyptian province
of the Eastern Roman Empire,
and an intellectual center.
Her father Theon was an accomplished
Greek mathematician and astronomer;
her mother is unknown.
Hypatia was likely an only child, and
Theon educated her himself.
By adulthood, she had surpassed her
father in both mathematics and philosophy,
becoming the city’s foremost scholar
and taking over his position
at the head of the Platonic school,
similar to a modern university.
She refined scientific instruments,
wrote math textbooks,
and developed a more efficient
method of long division.
But perhaps her most significant
contributions to intellectual life
in Alexandria came through her teaching.
The philosophy Hypatia taught drew
from the legacy of Plato and Aristotle,
as well as the mystical philosopher
Plotinus and the mathematician Pythagoras.
The convergence of these influences merged
to form a school called Neoplatonism.
For the Neoplatonists, mathematics
had a spiritual aspect,
divided among the four branches of
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.
These subjects were not studied merely
for the sake of curiosity
or practical utility, but because they
authenticated the belief
that numbers were the sacred
language of the universe.
In the repeated patterns of algebraic
formulas and geometric shapes,
the orbits of the planets, and the
harmonious intervals of musical tones,
the Neoplatonists saw a rational
cosmic force at work.
Students delved into this ordered
mathematical world
to achieve higher unity with this force,
known as “the One.”
While Hypatia was considered pagan—
a term for traditional Roman
belief before Christianity—
she worshipped no particular
deity or deities,
and her ideas could be applied alongside
multiple religious viewpoints.
Jewish and Christian as well
as pagan students
travelled from the farthest reaches of
the empire to study with her.
The nonpartisan environment
Hypatia fostered,
where all students could feel comfortable,
was especially remarkable given the
religious and political turmoil
that was fracturing the city of
Alexandria at the time.
Christianity had recently become
the Empire’s state religion.
The local archbishop Cyril had steadily
gained political power,
commanding zealous militias of Christian
monks to destroy pagan temples
and harass the Jewish population.
In doing so, he encroached on the secular
authority of the Roman governor Orestes,
himself a moderate Christian, leading to
a bitter public feud between the two men.
Because she was seen as a wise
and impartial figure,
governor Orestes consulted Hypatia,
who advised him to act with
fairness and restraint.
But when a group of Cyril’s
monks incited a riot,
badly injuring Orestes in the process,
he had their leader tortured to death.
Cyril and his followers blamed Hypatia,
accusing her of witchcraft to
turn Orestes against Christianity.
In March 415, as Hypatia was
traveling through the city,
the bishop’s militia of monks
dragged her from her carriage
and brutally murdered and dismembered her.
Hypatia’s death was a turning point
in the politics of Alexandria.
In the wake of her murder,
other philosophers in the Greek
and Roman tradition fled,
and the city’s role as a center of
learning declined.
In a very real way,
the spirit of inquisition, openness,
and fairness she fostered
died with her.