The Shelves · Mathematics (incl. astronomy)

Commentaries on Diophantus, on Apollonius' Conics, and the Astronomical Canon; revision of Theon's Almagest commentary

Known · Attestedin Alexandria?Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placementLegend · Told storya told story on its tag

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I · The entry, in his form

In the table of Mathematics (incl. astronomy)

Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placement

Hypatia of Alexandria

c. 355–415 CE. Theon's daughter, who taught Platonism and mathematics to the city's elite and wrote commentaries on Diophantus, on Apollonius's Conics and on the astronomical canon. In March 415 she was murdered by a Christian mob in the struggle between the prefect Orestes and Bishop Cyril.

Commentaries on Diophantus, on Apollonius' Conics, and the Astronomical Canon; revision of Theon's Almagest commentary

Opening words not preserved.

Length: not counted

Above, his entry form, filled from what we know. Below, ours.

II · Does it survive? Where to read it

Lost

The Suda lists three works, all lost. The heading of Theon's commentary on Almagest Book 3 says the text was revised by 'my daughter Hypatia, the philosopher'. Traces in the surviving Diophantus have been proposed but are unproven.

Was it in Alexandria?

Known · Attested

Written in Alexandria.

On the table: written in Alexandria; no evidence it was in the Library.

Read it today

III · In the show

IV · Sources and the living entry

Ancient references (5)
  • Suda υ 166
  • Socrates Scholasticus, Church History 7.15
  • Synesius, Letters 10, 15, 16, 46, 81, 124, 154
  • Damascius, Philosophical History (fragments on Hypatia)
  • John of Nikiu, Chronicle 84.87-103
Modern scholarship (4)
  • E. J. Watts, Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)
  • M. Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995)
  • A. Cameron, 'Isidore of Miletus and Hypatia: On the Editing of Mathematical Texts', Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 31 (1990): 103-127.
  • C. Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997)

Entry checked 31 Oct 2026 · no corrections · Suggest a correction ›

COMMENTARIES ON DIOPHANTUS, ON APOLLONIUS' CONICS, AND THE ASTRONOMICAL CANON; REVISION OF THEON'S ALMAGEST COMMENTARY

Read what is told

The back of the tag: a story told of this work, in its teller's voice.

Legend: told story

Hypatia, the last librarian

Modern writers, from John Toland's Hypatia (1720) and Voltaire on, made her a martyr of reason; later tellers made her the Library's last librarian, who died with it, and by Carl Sagan's Cosmos (1980) the link was explicit.

Told by Modern writers, 1720–1980, thirteen centuries and more later

What the evidence supports

No ancient source connects Hypatia with any library. She taught mathematics and Plato in Alexandria and was killed by a Christian mob in March 415, in a feud between the prefect and the bishop; the Serapeum had been destroyed a generation before.

Sources (3)
  • Socrates Scholasticus, Church History 7.15
  • Suda υ 166
  • E. J. Watts, Hypatia (2017)
The Hall of Told Stories

Beside it on the table