The facts about Hypatia of Alexandria

The claim

Hypatia of Alexandria has been depicted as a revolutionary woman scientist,[1] the last of the ancient pagan scientists,[2] a representative of feminist values,[3] and the designer of the astrolabe and hydrometer.[4] Her death has been considered exemplary of the intolerance of religion and the death of Greek science.[5]

The following meme is a typical example of the way she is treated in social media and popular culture.

The facts

Contrary to this meme, there is no evidence that she was ‘known for having surpassed many of her male contemporaries in both literature and science’, and the fact that one of her own male students had to explain to her what a hydrometer was, how to make one, and how to use it, suggests the opposite. Although the hydrometer is a useful tool for scientific research, in Hypatia’s day the Greeks used it as a divination tool to tell the future, not as a scientific instrument.[7]

Hypatia was a neo-Platonist lecturer and scholar in fourth century Alexandria (Egypt), who taught mathematics and astronomy to members of the privileged elite[6] as part of the mysteries of Neoplatonism. To her disciples Hypatia was a medium of divinely revealed truths. She taught mathematics as a system of mysticism, rather than as a practical discipline.

She was not the first woman ‘scientist’. In Hypatia’s day there was actually no such thing as a ‘scientist’ in the modern sense of the term, only the ‘natural philosopher’, who studied the natural world and typically combined observations with religious and philosophical commentary. However she was not even the first woman natural philosopher, nor was she the world’s first mathematician.[7]

Her position as a teacher of men did not threaten the existing social or religious order.[8] She did not invent the astrolabe,[9] and there is no evidence she invented the hydrometer. In fact her male student Synesius (a Christian), wrote her a letter telling her how to make one for him, and explaining how to use it, demonstrating she was unfamiliar with it. [10]

Her brutal murder by a Christian mob was due to political power play, not conflict between Christianity and paganism or science.[11] Her demise did not herald the decline of science in antiquity, or even in Alexandria. [12] Her earliest historian (a Christian), praised her and condemned her murderers.[13]

She is quoted as having expressed many rationalist ideals.[14], as shown in the following memes.

This reputation for ‘wokeness’ has derived support from Lynn Osen’s ‘Women in Mathematics’ (1975), which ironically does not attribute these statements to her at all, but to her father Theon. [15]

However, all these alleged quotations are fictional. They were invented by Elbert Hubbard, an American traveling soap seller in the early twentieth century. All quotations attributed to Hypatia or her father are the invention of Hubbard, who had no historical training.[16]

There are no extant historical quotations like this from Hypatia herself, and her only surviving writings are commentaries on mathematics. In fact Hypatia’s long standing reputation as a mathematician, philosopher, and “scientist”, has, not survived historical scrutiny.

The modern day reputation held by Hypatia as a philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and mechanical inventor, is disproportionate to the amount of surviving evidence of her life’s work. This reputation is either built on myth or hearsay as opposed to evidence. Either than or we are missing all of the evidence that would support it. [17]

There is no evidence for the mathematical tables she supposedly added to Ptolemy of Alexandria’s work on astronomy.

Even more implausible is the hypothesis that Hypatia compiled new tables of which nothing has survived. [18]

There is no evidence for the commentaries she supposedly wrote on the works of other mathematicians, such as Diophantus.

Such a quantity of entirely conjectural reconstructions is self-perpetuating, as any new hypothesis is allegedly supported by all the others taken as established facts, and very often they consist in questionable projections of doctrines and textual formats typical of some of the works of Hypatia’s pupils or relatives. [19]

There is no evidence that she wrote on philosophy, or lectured at a philosophical school in Alexandria.

No testimony about her philosophical writings has survived, and it is reasonable to doubt that any such writings ever existed. It seems sufficiently established that a circle of pupils of remarkable intellectual level gathered around her, but it is not clear whether her teaching was a public or a private one, whether formal or informal, and there is not the slightest hint that she held an official chair. She was never the head of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria. [20]

For an excellent critique of the movie “Agora” (purporting to depict the life of Hypatia), see this review and this followup.

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[1] ‘Hypatia of Alexandria (ca. 370–415) Egyptian astronomer, philosopher, teacher, and mathematician regarded as the first woman scientist, and the first woman to contribute to the study of mathematics.’. Deborah Todd, The Facts on File Algebra Handbook (Infobase Publishing, 2003), 66.

[2] ‘Alic, Margaret. Hypatia’s Heritage: A History of women in Science from Antiquity Through the Nineteenth Century. Boston: Beacon and London: Women’s Press, 1986. Examines biographical and scientific evidence to reveal the lives and accomplishments of women in natural and physical sciences and mathematics. The material dealing with Hypatia claims for her the roles of the last important pagan scientist in the western world, and the representative of end [sic] of ancient science.’, Frank Northen Magill and Christina J. Moose, Dictionary of World Biography: The Ancient World, vol. 1 (Taylor & Francis, 2003), 583.

[3] ‘Little known for centuries, Hypatia emerged in the nineteenth century as a symbol for feminists of the historical suppression of women’s accomplishments.’, Olivia H. McIntyre, “Hypatia,” in From Polis to Empire, the Ancient World, c. 800 B.C.-A.D. 500: A Biographical Dictionary, ed. Andrew G. Traver (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), 205.

[4] ‘Synesius refers to two mechanical devices, a hydrometer and a silver astrolabe, that he and Hypatia invented’, Sue Vilhauer Rosser, Women, Science, and Myth: Gender Beliefs from Antiquity to the Present (ABC-CLIO, 2008), 13; ‘Synesius of Cyrene (North Africa) a student of Hypatia, credited her with the invention of apparatus for distilling water and measuring the level of liquids.’, Beatrice Lumpkin, “Hypatia and Women’s Rights in Ancient Egypt,” in Black Women in Antiquity, ed. Ivan Van Sertima (Transaction Publishers, 1984), 155.

[5] ‘Usually interpreted as an illustration of barbaric religious fanaticism and intolerance for humanistic inquiry,’, Phillip Chiviges Naylor, North Africa: A History from Antiquity to the Present (University of Texas Press, 2009), 51; ‘Her death presents the perfect symbol of the end of the classical world, the end for a long time of the possibility of disinterested scientific inquiry.’, Leigh Ann Whaley, Women’s History as Scientists: A Guide to the Debates, Controversies In Science (ABC-CLIO, 2003), 19, ‘Van der Waerden reiterates the theme that Alexandrian science ceased with her death:’, María Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandría (Harvard University Press, 1995), 25.

[6] ‘They were from wealthy and influential families; in time they attained posts of state and ecclesiastical eminence. Around their teacher these students formed a community based on the Platonic system of thought and interpersonal ties. They called the knowledge passed on to them by their ‘divine guide’ mysteries. They held it secret, refusing to share it with people of lower social rank, whom they regarded as incapable of comprehending divine and cosmic matters.’, María Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandría (Harvard University Press, 1995), 105.

[7] ‘At the time of the request for a hydrometer, Synesius was unwell and depressed following the death of his children, and the loss of his job and reputation, meaning such horoscopes may have been intended to lift him from the slump he found himself in.’, Charlotte Booth, Hypatia: Mathematician, Philosopher, Myth (Fonthill Media, 2017).

[8] ‘She [Dzielska] also unearths a number of references to women in the late Greek philosophical world, which show Hypatia’s example to be not so unusual as had been thought.’, Luke Howard Hodgkin, A History of Mathematics: From Mesopotamia to Modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 72; ‘(Incidentally, Hypatia is not the earliest known woman mathematician; Pappus had directed a polemic against a female teacher of mathematics named Pandrosion, and a certain Ptolemais is quoted in Porphyry’s commentary on Ptolemy’s Harmonics.)’, Ivor Grattan-Guiness, ed., “Later Greek and Byzantine Mathematics,” in Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical Sciences: Volume One., by Alexander Jones (Florence: Routledge, 2016), 65; ‘Hypatia, after all, wasn’t the first woman philosopher. The Project on the History of Women in Philosophy amply documented that there were many women philosophers before Hypatia; she didn’t come along until after the fourth century A.D. Among those who preceded her were numbers of Pythagorean women philosophers from the sixth to the third or second century B.C. and others -’, Linda L McAlister, Hypatia’s Daughters: Fifteen Hundred Years of Women Philosophers, A Hypatia Book (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), x.

[9] ‘The highly public nature of Hypatia’s career was consistent with the African tradition of Egyptian women,’, Beatrice Lumpkin, “Hypatia and Women’s Rights in Ancient Egypt,” in Black Women in Antiquity, ed. Ivan Van Sertima (New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Books, 2007), 155–156.

[10] ‘The invention of the astrolabe is usually attributed to Hipparchus of the second century BC. But there is no firm evidence to support this view. It is however certain that the instrument was well known to the Greeks before the beginning of the Christian era.’, Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma, The Archaic and the Exotic Studies in the History of Indian Astronomical Instruments (New Delhi: Manohar, 2008), 241; ‘It is generally accepted that Greek astrologers, in either the 1st or 2nd centuries BCE, invented the astrolabe’, “Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions, and Discoveries of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Book, 2004), 196.

[1!] ‘I am in such evil fortune that I need a hydroscope. See that one is cast in brass for me and put together. The instrument in question is a cylindrical tube, which has the shape of a flute and is about the same size. It has notches in a perpendicular line, by means of which we are able to test the weight of the waters. A cone forms a lid at one of the extremities, closely fitted to the tube. The cone and the tube have one base only. This is called the baryllium. Whenever you place the tube in water, it remains erect. You can then count the notches at your ease, and in this way ascertain the weight of the water.’ Synesius and Augustine Fitzgerald, The Letters of Synesius of Cyrene (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia, 1994), 99.

[12] ‘As the Czech historian Maria Dzielska documents in a recent biography, Hypatia got caught up in a political struggle between Cyril, an ambitious and ruthless churchman eager to extend his authority, and Hypatia’s friend Orestes, the imperial prefect who represented the Roman Empire.’, Lindberg, ‘Myth 1: That the Rise of Christianity Was Responsible For the Demise of Ancient Science’, in Numbers (ed.), ‘Galileo Goes to Jail: and other myths about science and religion’, p. 9 (2009); ‘her death had everything to do with local politics and virtually nothing to do with science. Cyril’s crusade against pagans came later. Alexandrian science and mathematics prospered for decades to come.’, David C. Lindberg, “Myth 1: That the Rise of Christianity Was Responsible For the Demise of Ancient Science,” in Galileo Goes to Jail: And Other Myths about Science and Religion, ed. Ronald L Numbers (Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press, 2010), 9; ‘That Synesius, a Christian, maintained such close ties with the Greek intellectual traditions and with his teacher Hypatia, suggests that a hybrid amalgam existed between the intellectual pagan and intellectual Christian traditions.’, Susan Wessel, Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: The Making of a Saint and of a Heretic (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 54; ‘Among Christian intellectual elites, this Neoplatonic variety of paganism posed no real threat to their theological views. Such easy coexistence between certain pagan and Christian intellectuals suggests that Hypatia’s paganism per se may not have angered Cyril as much as John of Nikiu claimed.’, Susan Wessel, Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: The Making of a Saint and of a Heretic (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 54 ; ‘Hypatia was a pagan, but she had a lot of students who were Christians and maybe even a few Jewish students.’, Brooke Noel Moore and Kenneth Bruder, Philosophy: The Power of Ideas (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2001), 85.

[13] ‘Pagan religiosity did not expire with Hypatia, and neither did mathematics and Greek philosophy. (Dzielska 1995, p. 105).’, Luke Howard Hodgkin, A History of Mathematics: From Mesopotamia to Modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 72.

[14] Socrates Scholasticus, ‘Historia Ecclesiastica’ (c. 439).

[15] ‘Hypatia was unimpressed with what she called religious superstition. She once described how she felt “truth” was different from religious beliefs: “Men will fight for superstition as quickly as for the living truth — even more so, since superstition is intangible, you can’t get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.”’, Donovan, ‘Hypatia: Mathematician, Inventor, and Philosopher’, p. 43 (2008); ‘Making matters even worse, Hypatia made public statements against organized religion: All formal… religions are delusive [able to easily mislead people] and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.’, Sandra Donovan, Hypatia: Mathematician, Inventor, and Philosopher, Signature Lives (Minneapolis, Minn: Compass Point Books, 2008), 43; ‘As Hypatia explained, “Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.”’, Sandra Donovan, Hypatia: Mathematician, Inventor, and Philosopher, Signature Lives (Minneapolis, Minn: Compass Point Books, 2008), 43; ‘She also warned about the dangers of teaching children myths and fairy tales: Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing. The mind of a child accepts them, and only through great pain, perhaps even tragedy, can the child be relieved of them.’, Sandra Donovan, Hypatia: Mathematician, Inventor, and Philosopher, Signature Lives (Minneapolis, Minn: Compass Point Books, 2008), 43 (this is sometimes understood as advice against teaching religion to children).

[16] ‘“All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final,” he told her. “Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all” (Hubbard 1908, p. 82).’, Lynn M Osen, Women in Mathematics (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), 24.

[17] ‘The most creative is the exciting account of Hypatia’s educational training and life composed by Elbert Hubbard in 1908, who made up most of it to compensate for the lack of historical evidence. He even invented quotations that he attributed to Hypatia, and had a suitably ‘ancient’-looking picture of her in profile drawn to illustrate the piece.’, Martin Cohen and Raúl Gonzáles, Philosophical Tales: Being an Alternative History Revealing the Characters, the Plots, and the Hidden Scenes That Make up the True Story of Philosophy (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2008). 47; ‘“All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final,” said Theon to Hypatia. “Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.”’, Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great. (Cleveland, O.: World Pub. Co., 1928), 82–83; ‘Said Hypatia, “Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child-mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after-years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth — often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you can not get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.”’, Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great. (Cleveland, O.: World Pub. Co., 1928), 82 ; ‘In his ability to see the good in all things Hypatia placed Plotinus ahead of Plato, but then she says, “Had there been no Plato there would have been no Plotinus, and although Plotinus surpassed Plato, yet it is plain that Plato, the inspirer of Plotinus and so many more, is the one man whom philosophy cannot spare. Hail Plato!”’, Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great. (Cleveland, O.: World Pub. Co., 1928), 93; ‘“To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world, is just as base as to use force,” said Hypatia in one of her lectures.’, Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great. (Cleveland, O.: World Pub. Co., 1928), 99.

[17] Charlotte Booth, Hypatia: Mathematician, Philosopher, Myth (Fonthill Media, 2017).

[18] Fabio Acerbi, “Hypatia,” in New Dictionary of Scientific Biography Vol. 3, Vol. 3, ed. Noretta Koertge (Detroit [etc.]: Scribner, 2008), 436.

[19] Fabio Acerbi, “Hypatia,” in New Dictionary of Scientific Biography Vol. 3, Vol. 3, ed. Noretta Koertge (Detroit [etc.]: Scribner, 2008), 437.

[20] Fabio Acerbi, “Hypatia,” in New Dictionary of Scientific Biography Vol. 3, Vol. 3, ed. Noretta Koertge (Detroit [etc.]: Scribner, 2008), 435.