HYPATIA
Hypatia was a mathematician, astronomer and Platonic philosopher. Her father was the last head of the Museum of Alexandria where dazzlinng advances in science were made. That library was an unrivalled centre of learning. She was prominent because she was both female and pagan in an increasingly Christian environment. She was an important political figure and not very popular with the narrow minded Christian zealots. She was blamed for a conflict between Christian bishop of Alexandria Cyril and prefect Orestes. A band of Christian monks, probably on the orders of St. Cyril, seized Hypatia on the strreet, dragged from her chariot, beat her and dragged her body to a church where they stripped her naked, cut up alive with sharpened shells and finally burned. Her murder represented the end of scientific free thinking, rise of the Christian dogma and the end of Greek - Rome civilizations. Her works include: - A commentary on the Aritmetica of Diophantus - A commentary on the Conics of Apollonius Life of Hypatia by Socrates Scholasticus tells the story of her murder.