Hypatia the martyr of the Pagans and feminist movement

Υπατία

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all
Hypatia (c. 350-370? – 415) AD

So then once it happened that Cyril who was bishop of the opposing faction, passing by the house of Hypatia, saw that there was a great pushing and shoving against the doors, "of men and horses together, some approaching, some departing, and some standing by. When he asked what crowd this was and what the tumult at the house was, he heard from those who followed that the philosopher Hypatia was now speaking and that it was her house. When he learned this, his soul was bitten with envy, so that he immediately plotted her death, a most unholy of all deaths. For as she came out as usual many close-packed ferocious men, truly despicable, fearing neither the eye of the gods nor the vengeance of men, killed the philosopher, inflicting this very great pollution and shame on their homeland. Suda


Of the more than 300 listed mathematicians of ancient Greece [1], about 12% were women. Most of them were connected with the Pythagorean School and of Ionian origin. This number is not larger in our modern times and shows that the situation of women in ancient Greece was not worse or better than in our times. The first "known" mathematician Aithra, leads the list of both men and women. The last important mathematician in the Greek line was Hypatia of Alexandria (Υπατία η Αλεξανδρινή ) .


From Euphrosyne Doxiadis (1995): submitted a draft of his School of Athens fresco to a Bishop he was asked who is the woman depicted between Heraclitus and Diogenes. Raphael replied: “Hypatia, the most famous student of the School of Athens.” The response of the Bishop: “Remove her. Knowledge of her runs counter to the belief of the faithful! Otherwise, the work is acceptable.”



Hypatia in Raphael's