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Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr

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Deakin is a mathematician, not a classical historian, and apart from his discussion of Hypatia's place in Alexandrian mathematics, this biography contains little that is not already to be found elsewhere, most notably in Maria Dzielska's study. Deakin does a reasonable job of putting Hypatia in a cultural context, but his understanding of late antiquity is superficial and admittedly garnered largely from encyclopedias. On the other hand, he has closely studied the sources for Hypatia's life (which he includes in an appendix) and the meagre evidence for her influence on philosophy and science. His introduction to astrolabes and conic sections is of some intrinsic interest and helps illuminate the state of knowledge in the fifth century, but since we have not one shred of writing that is inarguably Hypatia's work, the connection is rather tenuous. Nonetheless Deakin's conclusions give a valuable new perspective on this best-known of female Hellenists: one of a teacher with a wide range of interests, if not an original thinker.

The disappointing thing about this book is the lack of a good narrative. The problem is that there is so little known about Hypatia and her world that not a lot can be said. Try to imagine a colony in Egypt of mostly Greek ethnicity, where pagans and Christians both fought and coexisted and interacted, if not always well, with a Jewish minority. The culture was in decline and the science, such as it was, died with Hypatia. This resembles the contemporary USA more than Egypt or any place in North Africa or the Middle East today. The academic mathematics community has become utterly moribund and it is being followed by theoretical physics (see Lee Smolin's book "The Trouble with Physics"). Who is our version of Hypatia? Perhaps Lynn Margulis, a biologist whe dares to be different.

Deakin covers much of the same territory as Maria Dzielska's "Hypatia of Alexandria", but being a mathematician, also comments on her mathematical contributions, which were significant.

The problem for both authors is that there just isn't that much to go on. Deakin used to (and maybe still does) maintain a list on his site of all the contemporary and semi-contemporary writings on Hypatia. Would you be surprised to learn that they all fit on a single double-spaced sheet of printer paper? That's how little we really have, and not a word from Hypatia's own hand; most from her adoring ex-pupil, Synesius of Cyrene. Small wonder that even the most skeptical scholars are willing to use the entry on her from the 10th Century Suda, a sort of lexicon written almost 400 years after her death.

With so few contemporary historical documents to draw on, both books are somewhat dry, as all patient, scholarly works must be; but readers looking for thoroughness will be well rewarded. Plus, I check up on Hypatia scholarship pretty regularly, and while there is almost no end to Hypatia fantasies, pseudo-scholarship, etc, Deakin's and Dzielska's are the only scholarly works for the non-specialist that I'm aware of (references to any others will be GREATLY appreciated!).

This book is very good. The historical context about Hypatia's time and life is very interesting. Read this book, you'll learn much more about the christian's church in the first times.