The Other Lady Philosophers

Hypatia from the “The School of Athens” by Raphael

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It’s Women’s History Month and I’m back with the latest installment on my favorite Lady Philosopher, Hypatia of Alexandria. This year I’m tackling Hypatia’s sister philosophers. Hypatia didn’t spring from her father’s forehead fully girded and ready for combat in the primarily male world of Late Antiquity. There is a long history of women philosophers—”lovers of wisdom”— down through the ages, and Hypatia is just one link in that chain. More than thirty-five women are attested to in the records leading up to, and contemporary with, Hypatia—and those are just the women whose heads (and intellect) rose above the crowd enough to be noticed by the decidedly biased ancient historians. One, ARETE of Cyrene (c 400/300 BCE )  ran a school of philosophy seven hundred years before Hypatia. Nine of those women studied (what early nineteenth century scholars later called) Neoplatonism. Two (that we know of) taught both men and women.

Since thirty-five is far too many women to profile, I’ll concentrate on the Neoplatonists and leave the rest for another post. (Please go to Women-philosophers.com, maintained by Kate Lindemann Ph.D., professor emerita at Mount Saint Mary College – Newburgh, New York, for overviews on more than 110 remarkable women philosophers.) When telling the stories of women scholars in history, it is impossible to separate them from their male relatives and teachers. A little context: the vast majority of people—men and women—until recent times, were illiterate, uneducated, and labored in agriculture and resource extraction. Only a small elite could afford education and that generally was reserved for the sons.

But not always.

History is filled with fathers who educated their daughters (including Theon and Hypatia). Because of genuine affection, they had no sons, or the girls were too brilliant to ignore—it didn’t matter. It happened. (Even today, research shows that a father’s encouragement distinctly improves the chances a girl will do well, and chose a career, in the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering and math.) Because the educated elite was such a small circle, these women tended to marry inside it (if they married) and have children that followed in their footsteps. If they didn’t teach directly, they educated their children, who did teach. So let’s take a look at the Neoplatonists and the extraordinary women who contributed to this philosophy’s development and dissemination.

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“Hypatia: Her Life and Times” Radio Interview

My writing is drawing some attention. This time it’s my non-fiction collection of essays about Hypatia. A couple of months ago I received an intriguing email from a science radio show. Someone there had heard about my book and thought Hypatia would be a good subject for an interview. Ever eager to promote greater knowledge about this neglected woman scholar, I said yes and sent off a copy of my book. They loved it! Last month I had a lovely conversation with the producer and interviewer. This month the interview is up for your listening pleasure at Science for the People as “Hypatia and Women in STEM” (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Enjoy!

I had no idea when I pulled these essays and articles together a year and half ago, Hypatia: Her Life and Times would become so popular. I’ve sold copies around the world and it ranks in the top twenty of books on ancient history sold on iTunes (right after Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). Hypatia has quite a fan club in cyber space. If you want more information about the book, check out the this page on my web site. Thanks to everyone to who has supported indie publishing by buying and reviewing this book!

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“Selene” Is a Featured Read at The Fussy Librarian!

Normally, I restrict this blog to historical notes and book reviews, but this is a special occasion. My book Selene of Alexandria is a featured read this Saturday, October 26, at The Fussy Librarian, a website that offers personalized ebook recommendations. You choose from thirty genres and indicate preferences about content and the computer works its magic. I’ve signed up for the service and get a personalized list of ebook recommendations every day. All the recommended books cost $5.99 or less and have rankings of 4 stars or better. Check it out at TheFussyLibrarian.com

For those not familiar with my novel, here’s the back cover blurb:

“…readers will be captivated” – Historical Novel Society

“…an entertaining and enlightening novel….a fine read through and through.” – Midwest Book Reviews

“… does what historical fiction does best—weave historical fact, real-life historical figures, and attention to detail with page-turning, plot-driven fiction.” – The Copperfield Review

This story of ambition, love and political intrigue brings to life colorful characters and an exotic time and place. In A.D. 412 Alexandria, against the backdrop of a city torn by religious and political strife, Selene struggles to achieve her dream of becoming a physician–an unlikely goal for an upper class Christian girl. Hypatia, the famed Lady Philosopher of Alexandria and the Augustal Prefect Orestes offer their patronage and protection. But will it be enough to save Selene from murderous riots, the machinations of a charismatic Bishop and–most dangerous of all–her own impulsive nature?

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Where Are All the Strong Women?

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Readers of this blog know I like to highlight fiction and non-fiction that present capable women with strong personalities. I read a post in a forum recently that intrigued me. The person was looking for historical fiction recommendations, but “none of those anachronistic modern women dressed up in historical costumes crap.” I don’t think he was disparaging time travel fiction and, yes, I’ve read a few stories where the women seem to have more modern sensibilities than might be warranted. But not all strong females in historical fiction are anachronistic. I’ve read other blog posts by historical fiction writers also deploring recent criticism about strong women described by readers as “too modern” in spite of ample historical evidence that women did and thought as the writers wrote them. Where does the dissonance come from? Why would a reader think a woman couldn’t be a doctor in Late Antiquity, captain a whaling ship, or teach men to fly planes during WWII — all documented events?

I blame school history books. The protagonist in my novel, Selene of Alexandria is a young woman who wants to become a physician in fifth century Alexandria — not a “healer” or midwife — a trained and apprenticed physician. There is ample written and archaeological evidence of women physicians through the ages, including this period. But if you don’t look outside the traditional history texts, you wouldn’t know that.

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“Hypatia: Her Life and Times” by Faith L. Justice

Hypatia of Alexandria. Who was she? A brilliant young mathematician and scientist, murdered by a religious mob? An aging academic taken out by a rival political party? A sorceress who kept the Prefect and people of Alexandria in thrall through satanic wiles? Did she discover that the earth circled the sun 1000 years before Copernicus or was she merely a gifted geometry teacher?

Hypatia has been the subject of much mythmaking through the centuries. She’s featured in poetry, plays, novels and movies. Many people “quote” her, including one of my favorites: “Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies.” I’ve studied Hypatia and her times since 1980. No writing by her has survived. This oft-quoted statement and many others are fabrications—fables—created by modern authors. Ironically, many who champion truth perpetuate a mythical version of Hypatia’s life and words. This collection of essays pulls back the curtain and lets the reader see the real Hypatia, a remarkable woman in her own right. I’m sure, like me, you’ll find Hypatia needs no embellishment to be a heroine.

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Hypatia of Alexandria: The Primary Sources

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It’s Women’s History Month, so here’s another Hypatia article! I’ve posted several in the past two years and put this one off, because it’s such a tricky one. As anyone who has studied Hypatia knows, there is little out there in the way of primary sources. Only a few pages come down to us from those times and almost none can be attributed to Hypatia, except a couple of technical works on mathematics and astronomy. (See my earlier post “Hypatia: Great Mathematician or Geometry Teacher?”) We don’t have much to go on; no diaries, no letters from her, nothing to tell us in her own words what her life was like. We have to rely on the witness of others. So who are these people and what ax did they have to grind (if any) in writing about Hypatia? For all those Hypatia fans out there, I’ve reviewed the four most extensive, and most quoted, primary sources and summarized what historians have generally come to believe about the motives of the authors. For organization’s sake, I’ll go chronologically, starting with one of my favorite characters from Hypatia’s story: Synesius of Cyrene.

The letters of Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais

(c. 394 – 413)

Synesius (b. 370, d. 413) was the son of a wealthy family from the province of Cyrene (modern day Libya), who studied with Hypatia in the early 390’s. He remained devoted to her and corresponded regularly after he moved back to his family estate. In 409, the people of Ptolemais asked him to be their bishop. As a Neo-Platonist, he didn’t believe in the Christian dogma, including the resurrection, which he considered “nothing for me but a sacred and mysterious allegory, and I am far from sharing the views of the vulgar crowd thereon.” He dithered for over six months, before agreeing to take on the Bishopric, but only with several conditions, including keeping his beloved wife. Because he made that decision, his writing has come down to us through the voluminous Patrologiae Graecae (PG), a compendium of Greek writings important to the early Christian church. We have access to several of his speeches, essays, hymns, homilies, and 159 letters. Six of those letters and a fragment of a seventh are addressed to Hypatia, including the final one dictated from his deathbed. Another four letters mention her. In one she is described as “the most holy philosopher” and, in another, Synesius received “the fruitful wisdom of Hypatia.” (English translations can be found here.)

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Hypatia: Great Mathematician or Geometry Teacher?

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Hypatia, the Lady Philosopher of Alexandria, is best known for her gruesome murder at the hands of a mob in AD 415. Her martyrdom takes pride of place in the historical narrative of many groups including mathematicians and scientists. I’ve written extensively about my search for the “real” Hypatia and the politics surrounding her death. I’m still fascinated and set up a Google Alert on her name, so I can participate in online discussions. Mostly I get hits on her namesake philosophy magazine (they’re looking for a new editor), the digital archival materials software (recently released version 0.8.0) and the woman who blogs about her cat (Hypatia doesn’t like the new kittens.) About once or twice a month there will be a post from a student at some public Q&A site, “So I’m doing a paper on Hypatia. I heard she invented the hydroscope and helped her dad with his math book. What else did she do?”

I realized many people (not just students) are puzzled over Hypatia’s contributions to math and science. There’s a lot of magical thinking about her life and work. The movie Agora used a mythical search for heliocentrism (the sun as the center of the solar system vs. the Ptolemaic earth-centered view, held by most people at the time) as a metaphor for Hypatia’s scientific thinking. So what did she do? Did she discover any important scientific or mathematical principles? Was she merely a glorified teacher who would be lost to history except for her extraordinarily brutal death? Here’s my best take on Hypatia’s contributions…and students remember this is copyrighted material; no cutting and pasting for your papers, but feel free to check out the reference at the end, quote and attribute!

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Alexandria: The Early Years

Pharos Lighthouse

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Alexandria has always fired my imagination. It’s the setting for my novel Selene of Alexandria. I’ve written about its Great Library and Cleopatra’s Needle, an obelisk from the Caesarian that sits in New York’s Central Park. Alexandria is fascinating and complicated, with a reputation for learning and a history of violence. Recently, it was in the news as Muslims attacked Christians, harking back to the bad old days of the fourth and fifth centuries. The next month, I wrote about young people of all faiths forming a human chain around its museums and library, protecting those vulnerable institutions during the Egyptian uprising. In ancient times, as today, it was a major port and the gateway to the rest of Egypt. A diverse city of many religions, where people from all over the world come to work, trade, study and enjoy the culture. You could think of it as the Manhattan of the East, but maybe Manhattan should be known as the Alexandria of the West. After all, Alexandria did come first.

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Hypatia of Alexandria: Two Books

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It’s March—Women’s History Month and the anniversary of a remarkable woman’s death. In AD 415, a Christian mob murdered Hypatia, the renowned Lady Philosopher of Alexandria. The vicious act shocked the city and shamed the early Church. Socrates Scholasticus tells the story in his Historia Ecclesiastica:

Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time…For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more. Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. This affair brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort. This happened in the month of March during Lent, in the fourth year of Cyril’s episcopate, under the tenth consulate of Honorius, and the sixth of Theodosius.”

Hypatia, painted by Charles William Mitchell in 1885.

Since that time, only fragments about Hypatia’s  life have come down to us; allowing poets, novelists, playwrights, scientists, feminists and religionists (both pro and anti) to appropriate her story for themselves. Her story has resonated down through the years, touching many people. She’s a major character in my novel Selene of Alexandria, the subject of the recent movie Agora directed by Alejandro Amenabar, and she rated a plate in Judy Chicago’s massive art piece The Dinner Party. She’s the subject of plays, poetry, propaganda and new age pagan polemics. Her life is represented in art and music. But what do we really know about her? Not much.

In researching my book, I waded through a literary swamp, with no guide, trying to get at some coherent view of Hypatia and her story.  She was young/middle aged/older when she died. She was single/married/promiscuous/virginal. She was a pagan/witch/Christian. She was a brilliant mathematician/scientist to some and, according to others, contributed nothing worthwhile in either discipline. I read the few primary sources, but didn’t have the academic background to evaluate their usefulness. Socrates was a contemporary, but a church historian. Damascius was a pagan who wrote a full generation later. John of Nikiu wrote 200 years later. Who had an agenda and what was it?

Two scholars have attempted to pull the pieces together in book form in the last two decades: Maria Dzielska, a Polish classics scholar, with Hypatia of Alexandria; and mathematics professor Michael A. B. Deakin with Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr. I’ve read both, several times, in my research and want to share my thoughts.

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Closed — One Year Anniversary: “Selene of Alexandria” Giveaway!

It’s been a year since Selene of Alexandria came out. What a roller coaster ride!  Before Christmas 2009, the first review came in from Bookpleasures.com saying “buy this now!” A handful of sales later, Story Circle Book Reviews (fiction for, about and by women) said “pure fiction magic.” The jewel in the crown, the Historical Novel Society said “a promising new historical novelist with  a gift for wonderfully researched, vividly evoked, good old-fashioned storytelling.” More reviews, more raves. I could sit back and let the money roll in…NOT! Now I had to renovate my website, develop a blog, put together a press kit, create a book trailer, provide guest blog spots on other sites, leave useful information on historical and reading boards, conduct giveaways on reader sites, do public readings…and on and on. It was fun and exhilarating, exhausting and frustrating, but it was a journey that most writers would give their right hand for. I published a book. It’s out there and well received. Before I move on to publishing my second book Twilight Empress, I want to thank all the people who believed in me, bought and/or reviewed the book and recommended it to their friends.

As a celebration, I’m giving away five copies of Selene. This is an international giveaway. For US and Canada winners, I’ll send either a paper book or ebook–your choice. For all others, I’ll send an ebook in your choice of formats. Entry is easy: leave a comment (make sure to give your email when asked, but not necessary in the post). If you want a second entry, sign up to follow the blog. For a another chance, repost this giveaway on your Facebook, blog, Twitter, website, etc. and post the link in your comment. Don’t worry if your comment doesn’t appear immediately. I moderate comments, so it may take little while! I’ll announce the winners on Monday, December 20.  Again, thank you all and good luck!

And the winners are:

mene

Love History

Mary K of L.A.

Camille

Heather

I’ve sent you each  emails asking about shipping. Congratulations!

Thanks to everyone for participating!

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