September 8, 2018 Comments Off on Hypatia’s death and the end of ancient Alexandria Views: 1396 Ancient Stories, Nostalgia

Over two millennia ago, the rulers of Alexandria went on to fulfill a project larger than life, and perhaps larger than civilization itself: to collect all the knowledge of the world under one roof. That was done with the creation of the famed Library of Alexandria, where the entire written knowledge of the world was to be collected, copied, compiled and cataloged. It was also in Alexandria where the first translations were created of what later became the most published book of all times–the Bible.

The city, which was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C., had a museum at its heart, as well as a university which accommodated a collection of more than a half-million scrolls at the Library. By the fifth century A.D., this most important scholarship center of the ancient days–diminished. Many believe the library just vanished in a fire, however, its demise was much more complex than that.

The city struggled as it changed rulers from Greek to Roman, and from Christian to Muslim. Each new set of rulers took less and less pride in the books, eventually to the point that reading and researching the scrolls in the library started being considered a blasphemy.

The decline started in 46 A.D., when Roman emperor Julius Caesar led a siege on Alexandria, setting the ships at the city’s harbor on fire. According to scholars, only a part of the library would have suffered during this incident, given the blaze spread from the harbor to part of the library. But we know from numerous accounts that scholars in Alexandria continued their research and use of scrolls from the library in the centuries afterward.

Another turning point was the year 364 A.D. when the Roman Empire was split into two halves and Alexandria remained in the eastern half. At this point, the city life was plagued by fighting among Christians, Jews, and pagans. Civil wars and clashes destroyed much of the library’s contents. The last remnants probably vanished in 391 A.D., when the archbishop Theophilus acted on the orders of the Roman emperor to destroy all pagan temples, as noted also by the Smithsonian.

The violence that took place in Alexandria also resulted with the demolition of the museum, its last known member being the mathematician and astronomer Theon, and father of Hypatia, which brings us to the last key-episode on the fall of Alexandria.

Not much is known about Theon or Hypatia’s family lives. Even Hypatia’s date of birth is debated, if it’s around 350 A.D. or 370 A.D. Nothing is known of her mother, and scholars are also uncertain if she ever had a brother, one by the name of Epiphanius, or if this person was merely Theon’s favorite student.

Hypatia gained much of her knowledge from her father, learning maths and astronomy. Some credit Hypatia for writing Book III of Theon’s version of Ptolemy’s Almagest (this is a treatise which helped to establish the Earth-centric model for the universe that remained accepted until Copernicus and Galileo). Hypatia also grew to become a teacher herself. Accounts say some of her lessons included how to design an astrolabe, a type of portable astronomical calculator that was used in the field until the 19th century.

In the violent world of fourth-century Alexandria, Hypatia would have been rare, if not last-standing reminder that someone still cared about the knowledge and ultimate purpose why Alexandria was founded as a city in the first place.

Hypatia had established herself as part of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy. She also dressed in robes of an academic elite, something only men were allowed to do back then. She would head towards the city center and share her knowledge and thoughts on Plato with anyone willing to listen. It seems, there were many people attuned to her, enchanted by what she had to say.

Sadly enough, this came at the cost of her own life. She was brutally murdered because of what she did: research, reading, studying, passing the knowledge, sharing new perspectives with people. In the eyes of someone else, she was nothing but detested for being a pagan.

Justin Pollard and Howard Reid describe Hypatia’s death as follows in The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: “…they surrounded her and they dragged her from her chariot. In the street, this most modest of women had her tribon torn from her and was stripped naked, but even her Parabolan attackers did not have the nerve to execute the next part of their plan in full public view.”

“Dragging her inside the church, they threw her on the floor of the nave and, in the sort of rage that only blind zealotry brings, set upon her with broken pieces of roof tile, flaying her alive. Her torn and mutilated body was then carried beyond the walls to a place called Kinaron, where her remains were burned on a bonfire–a witch’s death. No one is recorded as having come to her aid.”

Her early “witch’s death” arranged by the Christian church at the time took place in 415 A.D. It is said, with the death of Hypatia, her city–Alexandria–also began to die. Cyril of Alexandria, the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 until 444 (later proclaimed a saint), the man behind the abhorrent act of Hypatia’s murder–he carefully portrayed the her death as a fight between Christians and pagans.

People wrote far more about the Alexandria woman following her death, and many of those writings describe her qualities of being a captivating person you want to be close to. According to one ancient encyclopedia, she was “exceedingly beautiful,” more than that “…in speech articulate and logical, in her actions prudent and public-spirited.” It further says: “the rest of the city gave her suitable welcome and accorded her special respect.”

The death of the Hypatia also had a lasting effect on culture and society. Her figure was further seen as “martyr for philosophy,” and she inspired legends and books alike (the legend of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Charles Kingsley’s 1853 novel Hypatia).

The demise of Alexandria as a city had significantly contributed to the expanse of the Dark Ages in Europe, or as Pollard and Reid further write: “Alexandria had been a city of ideas where the greatest freedom was the freedom to think, but Roman emperors, Christian patriarchs, and Muslim caliphs had all, in attempting to control those thoughts, whittled away at the library, the city, and the idea that lay behind them.”

We also thought to remind you of Benin City, Africa’s Lost Utopia

Tags: Alexandria, Ancient Egypt, Egypt