Just as hostile as had been the clergy to the admission of women to ecclesiastical office, so unwilling were many prejudiced scholars to admit women into the sacred realms of science. By hundreds of arguments they tried to prove the inability of women to do any deeply scientific work. They explained that the hard study would impair their health, their chances of marriage, and their true destination as mothers. Higher education would make women unfit for domestic life, and, besides, they would hardly produce anything of real scientific value.
If these learned gentlemen would have taken the trouble to make themselves somewhat more acquainted with the history of science they would have found the names of numerous women on record, who, at their time, were among the leaders in the most abstruse sciences. Several centuries before Christ Hellas as well as Rome had a number of brilliant female philosophers, among them Damo, the daughter of Pythagoras, who lived about 580–500 B. C. She was one of his favorite disciples, and to her the great savant entrusted all his writings, enjoining her not to make public all the secrets of his philosophy. This command she strictly obeyed, though tempted by large offers while she was struggling with poverty.
Socrates, the great philosopher, declares that he learned of a woman, Diotima, the “divine philosophy,” how to find from corporeal beauty the beauty of the soul, the angelical mind. Diotima lived in Greece, about 468 B. C.
Arete is known as the daughter of Aristippus of Cyrene, the founder of the Cyrenaic system of philosophy, who flourished about 380 B. C. She was carefully instructed by her father, and after his death taught his system with great success. Leontium, living about 350 B. C., was a disciple of Epicure, and wrote in defense of his philosophy. Tymicha, a Lacedaemonian, was the most celebrated female philosopher of the Pythagorean school. When she, in 330 B. C., was brought before Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, as a prisoner, he made her very advantageous offers, if she would reveal the mysteries of Pythagorean science; but she rejected them all with scorn and contempt. And when he threatened her with torture, she instantly bit off her tongue, and spat it in the tyrant’s face, to show him that no pain could make her violate the pledge of secrecy.
Of Hipparchia, a lady of Thrace, who lived about 328 B. C., it is known that her attachment to learning was so great, that having attended several lectures of Crates, the cynic, she resolved to marry him though he was old, ugly, and deformed. She accompanied him everywhere to public entertainments and other places, which was not customary with Greecian women. She also wrote several philosophical theses, and reasonings and questions proposed to Theodorus, the atheist; but none of her writings are extant.
Ancient Rome too had a number of female philosophers, among them Cornelia, “the mother of the Gracchi.” She frequently gave public lectures and was more fortunate with her disciples than with her sons. It was Cicero, who said of her that, had she not been a woman, she would have deserved the first place among philosophers. In what esteem she was held is shown by the fact that a statue was erected to her with the inscription, “Cornelia, Mater Gracchorum.” She died about 230 B. C.
The most renowned female philosopher of the classic times was Hypatia, the lovely daughter of Theon, the head of the famous Alexandrian School in Alexandria, Egypt. Born in 370 A. D., Hypatia was taught by her father and acquired such extensive knowledge and learning, that the Bycantine Church historian Socrates, as well as Nicephorus placed her far above all the philosophers of her time. Several other learned contemporaries praise her in similar terms. Sinesius, bishop of Ptolemais, never mentions her without the profoundest respect, and in terms of affection little short of adoration. In a letter to his brother Euoptius he writes: “Salute the most honored and the most beloved of God, the Philosopher Hypatia, and that happy society, which enjoys the blessing of her divine voice.” And in a long epistle he sends her with the manuscript of a book, he asks her opinion and states his resolution not to publish the book without her approbation.
Hypatia succeeded her father in the government of the Alexandrian School, teaching from the chair where Ammonius, Hieracles, and other celebrated philosophers had taught; and this at a time, when men of immense learning abounded in Alexandria and in other parts of the Roman empire. In fact her renown was so universally acknowledged, that she had always a crowded auditorium. What a subject for an able artist, to present this beautiful woman in her chair, with the flower of all the youth of Africa, Asia and Europe sitting at her feet, eagerly imbibing knowledge from this oracle of wisdom.
Socrates states that she was consulted by the magistrates of Alexandria in all important cases. This frequently brought her among the greatest assemblages of men without causing the least censure of her manners. “Considering the confidence and authority which she had acquired by her learning,” says Socrates, “she sometimes came to the judges with singular modesty. Nor was she anything abashed to appear thus among a crowd of men; for all persons, by reason of her extraordinary discretion, did at the same time both reverence and admire her.”
Unfortunately this wonderful woman was to become a martyr of science. The population of Alexandria was split into three hostile groups—the Pagans, the Jews, and the Christians. The latter, under the leadership of the patriarch Cyril, assailed in violent zeal Jews as well as pagans, and heretics or supposed heretics alike, driving them by thousands from the city, destroying their synagogues and temples, and pillaging their houses. It was during one of these riots, that the illustrious Hypatia was attacked by a mob of vicious monks, torn from her carriage, dragged into a church, stripped naked and clubbed to death. Then the murderers in fanatic frenzy tore the body to pieces, carried the limbs to a public square and burnt them to ashes. This happened in Lent 415.