Thursdays According to a French Fry: Epic History People

Hello! I must apologize. I have neglected my blogging duties for the past couple weeks. I can only offer the excuse of a history exam one week, and being distracted by my newfound love for the pairing Naomi/Emily from Skins the next. I shall now attempt to make up for it. I humbly present my post.

So, this week, we're going to talk about an epic historical person you may not have heard about. A woman named Hypatia.

Actually, there was a movie made about her:

(Rachel Weisz as a really smart woman in Egypt. Well, that's a new one.)

Now, despite what the IMDB page would have you believe, the main character of the movie is Hypatia. The story follows her life from when she taught science (the movements of the stars) to men in Alexandria, to the burning of the library of Alexandria, through the rise of Christianity, and finally to her death. It also shows her discovering the idea of a heliocentric model of the solar system (for those of you who don't know, "heliocentric" means that the planets orbit the sun). Now, it would be really, exceptionally cool if that were true. But it probably isn't. However, the real things Hypatia did were still pretty amazing.

(We don't really know what Hypatia actually looked like. This is a photograph of an actress who played her in a theatre production.)

For one thing, she was a scientist. Her father, Theon, taught her mathematics, science, astronomy, literature and the arts. In itself, that is amazing. Women didn't exactly have the same opportunities in Roman Egypt as woman do today. They had some freedom, but were generally expected to be wives. Not only was Hypatia educated, but she taught men about all she learned. She wrote on mathematics and astronomy, and may have invented a couple awesome things (like the plane astrolabe). In essence, Hypatia was a really amazing woman, born before her time.

Unfortunately, her scientific abilities were her downfall.

Hypatia had a fair amount of political influence, particularly over the Prefect of Alexandria, Orestes. Orestes was a pagan (although it's possible he was Christian), like Hypatia, and was in conflict with a man named Cyril, who was the Bishop of St. Mark. Cyril's mission was to rid Alexandria of non-Christians. Orestes and Cyril butted heads, and Hypatia was caught in the middle. A rumour was spread that she was the one obstacle preventing Orestes and Cyril from reconciling.

And one day, while riding her chariot through the streets of Alexandria, an angry mob pulled her out, stripped her naked, beat her and scraped the skin from her bones with shells (or shards of pottery). She died, and her body was torn to pieces, then burned.

It is thought that with Hypatia's death, so too came the end of science in antiquity. She was an incredible woman, who loved science and knowledge, and ultimately died for it.

If you want to find out some more details about Hypatia's life, you can google her, or go to the sites I used to make this post:

http://www.womanastronomer.com/hypatia.htm
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/hypati1/a/hypatia.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia

I would also really recommend the movie, Agora. It is currently one of my favourite movies, and it's a great story.