Hypatia

c. 350/370–415 · Greek (Roman Egypt, Alexandria)

Mathematics and astronomy; Neoplatonist philosophy

Hypatia of Alexandria was a mathematician, astronomer and Neoplatonist philosopher, the daughter of the mathematician Theon of Alexandria and the first woman mathematician whose life is reasonably well recorded. She taught philosophy and science to pagan and Christian students alike and wrote commentaries on Diophantus and Apollonius. In 415 she was murdered by a Christian mob amid a feud between the prefect Orestes and Bishop Cyril, and she later became a symbol of reason and of women in science.

How to spot them

▸Alexandria; daughter of Theon; murdered by a Christian mob in 415
▸Commentaries on Diophantus' Arithmetica and Apollonius' Conics
▸Teacher of Synesius of Cyrene, whose letters mention an astrolabe and a hydrometer
▸Played by Rachel Weisz in Alejandro Amenábar's film Agora (2009)

Key discoveries & works

Commentary on Diophantus's Arithmetica (c. 400)

Commentary on the great Greek work on equations, attributed to her by the Byzantine Suda; lost

Commentary on Apollonius's Conics (c. 400)

Commentary on the classic treatise on conic sections, also attributed by the Suda; lost

Revised text of Book III of Ptolemy's Almagest (late 4th century)

Her father Theon's commentary on this book states that the edition was prepared by his daughter

The Astronomical Canon (c. 400)

Astronomical tables attributed to her by the Suda, possibly linked to Ptolemy's Handy Tables

Key ideas

Taught Neoplatonist philosophy in the tradition of Plotinus, alongside mathematics and astronomy
Her murder was long treated as a symbol of the end of classical learning, though historians now see it mainly as a local political killing
Became an icon of women in science and of free thought

Quick-fire facts

•Daughter of Theon of Alexandria, whose edition of Euclid's Elements was the standard text for centuries
•Her pupil Synesius of Cyrene, later a bishop, wrote letters to her, including one about constructing an astrolabe and one asking for a hydrometer
•Killed in March 415 by a Christian mob during the conflict between the prefect Orestes and Bishop Cyril of Alexandria
•None of her writings is known to survive under her own name
•Subject of Charles Kingsley's novel Hypatia (1853)
•Rachel Weisz played her in the film Agora (2009), directed by Alejandro Amenábar
•The feminist philosophy journal Hypatia is named after her

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Sources

MacTutor History of Mathematics, University of St Andrews — Hypatia of Alexandria
Maria Dzielska — Hypatia of Alexandria