Hypatia interesting facts

When was hypatia born and died
How old was hypatia when she died
What is hypatia known for

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The Life of Hypatia

Taken from an archived version of an Internet site no longer available (6 September 2012): http://cosmopolis.com/people/hypatia.html

Also available (7 August 2013) at: http://cassian.memphis.edu/history/jmblythe/3370/HypatiaDocs.htm

[I have added some notes in square brackets, and have put the three sources in chronological order (the page numbers reveal the original order as published in Alexandria, vol. 2, 1993).]

Hypatia of Alexandria

Mathematician, Astronomer, and Philosopher (d. 415 C.E.)

Hypatia was a mathematician, astronomer, and Platonic philosopher. According to the Byzantine encyclopedia The Suda, her father Theon was the last head of the Museum at Alexandria.

Hypatia’s prominence was accentuated by the fact that she was both female and pagan in an increasingly Christian environment. Shortly before her death, Cyril was made the Christian bishop of Alexandria, and a conflict arose between Cyril and the prefect Orestes. Orestes was disliked by some Christians and was a friend of Hypatia, and rumors started that Hypatia

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Hypatia of Alexandria

Hypatia (d.415 CE) was a Greek reared at Alexandria. She is reported to have been proficient in mathematics and astronomy. She is also associated with Neoplatonism, generally credited as commencing in the third century CE. Over a century before her, Ammonius Saccas had taught in Alexandria; this entity is viewed as the effective founder of Neoplatonism.Ammonius was an obscure philosopher, apparently self-taught, who functioned outside the conventional Platonist curriculum. His pupil Plotinus (c.204-270 CE) appears to have shared the same independent orientation. Plotinus moved from Alexandria to Rome, where he lived for the remainder of his life.

According to the early report of Socrates Scholasticus: “Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she [Hypatia] explained the principles of philosophy” (Ecclesiastical History, VII.15). Hypatia apparently rejected Iamblichus, a theurgist who became very influential at that period. According to Damascius (d.540), Hypatia was not satisfied with her father’s knowledge of mathematics. She commi

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Ammonius

1. Life and Works

1.1 Life

Ammonius’ father Hermeias, after studying in Athens under Syrianus (Head of School in Athens 431/2–437), returned to Alexandria, where he established the teaching of Platonism as an additional subject in the school of Horapollo (see below), alongside the principal curriculum in rhetoric. Ammonius’ mother Aedesia had been chosen as a young girl by Syrianus, a relative of hers, to marry Proclus, who would succeed their teacher Syrianus as head on the latter’s death in 437. When Proclus was kept from marrying her by ‘some god’, Aedesia was then married to Proclus’ fellow student Hermeias. From these details, it is clear that Ammonius, second of three sons of Hermeias and Aedesia (the eldest died in childhood), must have been born after about 435, presumably not long before 445. He seems to have been dead when Damascius (ca. 460-after 532) was writing his Life of Isidore or Philosophical History in 526, but alive in 517, when his course on Aristotle’s Physics was first published by Philoponus