Hypatia of Alexandria

Hypatia - mathematician, Neoplatonist, and a woman renowned for her beauty - was brutally murdered by a mob of Christians in Alexandria in 415.

In this book, Maria Dzielska searches behind the legend to bring us the real story of Hypatia's life and death, and insight into her world.

Historians and poets, Victorian novelists and contemporary feminists have seen Hypatia as a symbol - of the waning of classical culture and freedom of inquiry, of the rise of fanatical Christianity, or of sexual freedom.

Dzielska takes us back to the Alexandria of Hypatia's day, constructing a picture of the young philosopher's disciples and teaching, and clarifying what Hypatia's murder tells us about the tensions of this era.