The young student could hardly have chosen two more different
"authorities" on Hypatia than Michael Deakin and Elbert Hubbard! Deakin is
a respected, current scholar who has done much to promote accurate
information about Hypatia. Hubbard was an eccentric author of fanciful
legend who, thanks to deplorable "research" by Lynn Osen in "Women in
Mathematics" has had his invented stories about Hypatia accepted as fact by
many who cite and repeat Osen's work. The student's many sources are mostly
tertiary or further removed from scholarly work. The book by Dzielska,
"Hypatia of Alexandria" (1995), has much to recommend it, but her
discussion of Hypatia's birth is garbled--and her lack of knowledge about
mathematics, to say nothing of Hypatia's mathematics, is appalling!
Of course, there is no way to know when Hypatia was born; her birth
was not as well documented as her death in 415! [Deakin has seen some
rationale for 416, but having checked the dates in "Consuls of the Later
Roman Empire" by Bagnall, Cameron, Schwartz, and Worp at his request, I
believe 415 is correct.] According to Penella "When was Hypatia Born" in
"Historia" XXXIII (1984) pp. 126-128, the date of 370 for Hypatia's birth
came from an 1860 article by R. Hoch, pp. 439-40 in "Philologus" 15.
Penella refutes this date, but does not settle on another. One can work
from definitive dates on Hypatia's father Theon, based on eclipses that he
observed and reported in 364. There are references to dates in our
available primary sources:
The tenth century "Suda Lexicon" with fragments from the sixth
century by Damascius and Hesychius the Illustrious states that Hypatia
flourished in the time of the emperor Arcadius, which (according to
Penella) could be considered from either 383 or 395 to 408. Another excerpt
from the "Suda" describes Hypatia as "very beautiful" presumably during the
time of her teaching, which has caused some to extrapolate this as youthful
as well. In contrast, the sixth century John Malalas states "At that time
[sc. the reign of Emperor Theodosius] the Alexandrians, given free reign by
their bishop, seized and burnt on a pyre of brushwood Hypatia the
philosopher, who had a great reputation and who was an old woman" ["The
Chronicle of John Malalas" trans Jeffreys, Jeffreys, and Scott, 1986, p.
196.] So what is old and when is beautiful?!
A primary contemporary source on Hypatia comes from the letters to
and about her by her student, Synesius of Cyrene, Bishop of Ptolmais. His
date of birth is given as 365 by one biographer [Bregman, "Synesius of
Cyrene", 1982] and 370 by another [Lacombrade, "Synesios de Cyrene: Hellene
et Cretien", 1951] and it seems reasonable, but not conclusive, to expect
that Hypatia was older than her student.
My own opinion is that any birthdate remains only a hypothesis, but
that 355 is a better choice than 370.
My research began while I studied with Wilbur Knorr, and he was my
mentor until his untimely death. I would urge the interested student to
investigate Hypatia's mathematics and I would be glad to send her my paper
[as yet unpublished] on this topic. I urge her to see the chapter by Wilbur
Knorr in his "Textual Studies in Ancient and Mediaeval Geometry" and to
read the work of Michael Deakin, such as his article "Hypatia and Her
Mathematics" in "The American Mathematical Monthly" 101, 1994, pp. 234-243.
Edith Mendez
Edith Prentice Mendez
Assistant Professor
Mathematics Department
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Avenue
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
edith.mendez@sonoma.edu
(707) 664-3914