WOMEN IN MATHEMATICS 139 



Hypatia, ideal of eloquence and wisdom's immaculate 

 star." 1 



But it was as a mathematician that Hypatia most ex- 

 celled. She taught not only geometry and astronomy, but 

 also the new science of algebra, which had but a short time 

 before been introduced by Diophantus. And, singular to 

 relate, no further progress was made in the mathematical 

 sciences, as taught by Hypatia, until the time of Newton, 

 Leibnitz and Descartes, more than twelve centuries later. 



Hypatia was the author of three works on mathematics, 

 all of which have been lost, or destroyed by the ravages of 

 time. One of these was a commentary on the Arithmetica 

 of Diophantus. The original treatise or rather the part 

 which has come down to us was found about the middle 

 of the fifteenth century in the Vatican Library, whither it 

 had probably been brought after Constantinople had fallen 

 into the possession of the Turks. This valuable work, as 

 annotated by the great French mathematicians Bachet and 

 Fermat, gives us a good idea of the extent of Hypatia 's 

 attainments as a mathematician. 



Another of Hypatia 's works was a treatise on the Conic 

 Sections by Apollonius of Perga surnamed "The Great 

 Geometer. " Next to Archimedes, he was the most distin- 

 guished of the Greek geometricians ; and the last four books 

 of his conies constitute the chief portions of the higher 

 geometry of the ancients. Moreover, they offer some ele- 

 gant geometrical solutions of problems which, with all the 

 resources of our modern analytical method, are not with- 

 out difficulty. The greater part of this precious work has 



1 The sentiment of the Greek epigram is well expressed in the 

 following Latin verses: 



"Quando intueor te, adoro, et sermones, 

 Virginis domum sideream intuens. 

 E coelis enim tua sunt opera, 

 Hypatia easta, sermonum venustas, 

 Impollutum astrum sapientis doctrinse." 



