Hypatia, one of the great thinkers of ancient Alexandria
One of the most enduring legacies of Alexander the Great is the legendary Egyptian seaport of Alexandria. The city was established for all of its proximities to east and west. It was also founded as a centre of thought and reason, and thus it remained for a very long.
Philosophy during the early fifth century was very much a male preserve, and very sporadic was the input of women. One of the great thinkers of the Alexandrian period, however, was Hypatia, incidentally credited with devising the earth-centric model of the universe that would not be overturned for almost a millennia, causing a great deal of risk and trouble to none other than Galileo and Copernicus.
Born sometime between 250 and 370 CE, she was the daughter of the Alexandrian philosopher Theon, and as such, she grew up in the rarefied atmosphere of scholarship and learning. Theon produced the first working astrolabe, among other advances in the field of astronomy. His daughter no doubt absorbed all of this, and perhaps her greatest contribution was made in the field of astronomy, and moreover, it has been suggested as likely that she was in part responsible for the development of the astrolabe. She also made a great, individual contribution to the field of modern mathematics.
The times, however, were turbulent, and with the advance of Christianity throughout the civilized world, and as avowed pagan, and a female teacher, mathematician and philosopher, Hypatia was positioned for an uncomfortable ride towards the end of her life. She emerged somewhat as the poster child for for the surviving creed of organized paganism, and this made her a specific target as Christianity’s takeover became increasingly more violent, and less tolerant. In the year 415 CE, she was murdered by radical Christian monks who tortured her, stoned her with slate, stripped her bones of flesh and burned the mutilated remains.
It was a messy business, and this was more or less the end of the free-thinking age of scholarship and philosophy, commencing the slow, intellectual decline of the Middle Ages.