By Christopher Barr │POSTED ON JANUARY 24, 2015

- Hypatia of Alexandria
AGORA, a word that means 'gathering place' or 'assembly', is a period piece film set back in the 4th century AD, Roman Egypt, that tells the story of a brilliant Greek philosopher and astronomer named Hypatia. She was a free thinking woman that was a teacher and mentor; she was an inventor, mathematician and authority on the philosophy of Plato. She lived in Alexandria, in northern Egypt off the coast of the Mediterranean, with her father Theon who was the director of the Musaeum of Alexandria, which was an institution for music, poetry, philosophy and science. It also housed the vast number of texts in the great Library of Alexandria. Hypatia would teach future leaders and scholars in assembly rooms.



While taking
refuge behind the walls of the Serapeum, Hypatia continued thinking about the
widely believed astronomical, geocentric Ptolemaic system that the Earth was
the center of the Solar System, a theory that philosopher Aristotle believed to
be true as well. This model she felt was widely
flawed but she was still baffled by the possibility that the Earth was in fact
moving. She considered the 3rd
century astronomer Aristarchus of Samos’ Heliocentric hypothesis that the Earth
and the planets, which Hypatia at the time called ‘wanderers’, actually circled
the Sun.
Soon an envoy of the Roman Emperor declared that the Pagans would all be pardoned, however the Christians would be allowed access to the library to do with it as they wish. Hypatia and a number of others furiously scramble to gather as many important scrolls and texts from the Library as possible before fleeing. Christians ended up overtaking the library, destroying statues and burning all the remaining works of philosophy, science, literature, poetry and mathematics scrolls that were unavoidably left behind. A body of knowledge that one could only imagine about the possibilities of even furthering an understanding of our species, how we live our lives and the elements that form the world and space around it. Civilization itself stood still that day as all that knowledge was destroyed out of fear of difference, fear of oneself, fear of loneliness, fear of abandonment and fear of change. Paganism became outlawed and the Ancient World ended giving birth to what we now call - Modern History.
“Reserve
your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at
all.”
– Hypatia of Alexandria

“All formal
dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting
persons as final.”
- Hypatia
While all
the men fight in the streets over piety, Hypatia continued work on her theory that
the Earth not only revolves around the Sun but it doesn’t do so in a perfect symmetrical
circle. She also was trying to prove the
Earth was in fact moving even though everyone on it wouldn’t necessarily feel
it moving. Clearly here she wasn’t
considering what we know now about gravity, but her insight into the physics of
the planet was ambitious. The Christians
figured that the world must be flat because if it was a sphere which was being
suggested, then why aren’t people and animals falling from the top of the earth
down the side and then sliding off it?
It seems a bit silly these days, to even consider such a thing, but we
were all born into a planet where all these questions had answers. To
Christians, the Book of Genesis is their scientific text that explains how the
Earth came to be. All Christians and
certainly many Christians to this day believe that God created the Earth and
the Stars. They believe the geocentric
model is the center where God placed his blessed children, and thinking otherwise
is an act of heresy.

While being subjugated by the Christians, Hypatia still focusing on her work, discovered an astrodynamic theory that the Earth orbits the Sun in an elliptical motion, not a circular one. This explains why the Sun sometimes appears closer to the Earth than other times. This oval orbit placed the Earth in various distances from the Sun and thus explained why the seasons changed.


Alexander the
Great would have been profoundly disappointed to what eventually happened to
his great city. This city was to be a
place of enlightenment yet that act of barbarism blew out the candle of
Alexander’s dream of a more knowledgeable, informed future. Instead of human growth, understanding, respect
to all the living, silly superstitions manifested into real world consequences was
how these men chose to solve what they perceived as a problem, a problem that
we all know too well today. Thankfully Christianity has matured to the point that in the developed countries this type of thing doesn't regularly happen. All Hypatia wanted was to learn and teach
what she had learned to a group of open-minded people in a city that welcomed
difference and thrived on change.
Hypatia’s achievements
are even more exceptional because she was able to study the stars in a very
male dominated ancient world. She was a
humanist, a person that looked beyond gender, allowing her mind, equal
neurologically to anyone else’s, to expand without the weight of everyday
banality and religious dogmatism truncating it.
“Life is an
unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door
is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.”
It's not a good idea to get your grasp of history from movies, especially ones that distort their depiction of the past as Agora does:
ReplyDeletehttp://armariummagnus.blogspot.com.au/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html
http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com.au/2010/05/hypatia-and-agora-redux.html
And that "quote" at the begining of your post is fake. We have none of Hypatia's writings - that "quote" was made up by the American writer, soap-salesman and eccentric Elbert Hubbard in a 1908 book entitled Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Teachers.
I actually don't get my grasp of history from movies. The history of most all past figures will be distorted from those that depict them one way or another. My attempt here was to capture some of the legacy that this unsung philosopher and astronomer was trying to convey. If that quote from the beginning of my post did not capture the spirit of this woman this my apologizes. I realize the film is a depiction of the woman but their is actually very little known about her in terms of narrative. My philosophy like with all of my articles is to enlighten and to pass on knowledge that might further the growth of another person. It also represents my own personal growth as I learn and navigate the terrain of so-called misinformation. My aim here is to spread the name of this amazing woman and hopefully those that read it further their understanding of what she said far beyond this article.
DeleteIf you intention is to spread the name of this amazing woman then it would help if you propogated information about her that is actually correct. Beginning your article with a fake quote isn't exactly a great start. And no, that "quote" actually doesn't embody any sentiment the historical Hypatia is likely to have expressed. She was a Neo-Platonist of the school of Plotinus. That means she was a monotheist who believed in many things we would find both mystical and highly superstitious today. That's why "Agora"'s depiction of her as some kind of atheist rationalist is so utterly absurd.
ReplyDeleteContinue to spread this interesting story Mr. Barr! It's really appreciated. Many people will criticize over details but the spirit of what you are writing is well accepted. Thank you and continue to do what you do even in the face of rude criticism!
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