OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 109 Cyril ex})osed him to the penalties of the Julian law ; but in a feeble government and a superstitious age he was secure of im- punity, and even of praise. Orestes complained; but his just complaints were too quickly forgotten by the ministers of Theo- dosius, and too deeply remembered by a priest who affected to pardon, and continued to hate, the praefect of Egypt. As he passed through the streets, his chariot was assaulted by a band of five hundred of the Nitrian monks ; his guards fled from the wild beasts of the desert ; his protestations that he was a Chris- tian and a Catholic were answered by a volley of stones, and the face of Orestes was covered with blood. The loyal citizens of Alexandria hastened to his rescue ; he instantly satisfied his justice and revenge against the inonk by whose hand he had been wounded, and Ammonius expired under the rod of the lictor. At the command of Cyril, his body was raised from the ground and transported in solemn procession to the cathedral ; the name of Ammonius was changed to that of Thaumasius the wuuderful ; his tomb was decorated with the trophies of martyr- dom ; and the patriarch ascended the pulpit to celebrate the magnanimity of an assassin and a rebel. Such honours might incite the faithful to combat and die under the banners of the saint ; and he soon prompted, or accepted, the sacrifice of a virgin, who professed the religion of the Greeks, and cultivated the friendship of Orestes. Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the mathematician,-^ was initiated in her father's studies ; her learned comments have elucidated the geometry of Apollonius and Dio- phantus, and she publicly taught, both at Athens and Alexan- dria, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. In the bloom of beauty and in the maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused her lovers and instructed her disciples ; the persons most illus- trious for their rank or merit were impatient to visit the female philosopher ; and Cyril beheld, with a jealous eye, the gorgeous train of horses and slaves who crowded the door of her academy. A rumour was spread among the Christians that the daughter of Theon was the only obstacle to the reconciliation of the praefect and the archbishop ; and that obstacle was speedily removed. On a fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia [a.d. 415] '■^For Theon, and his daughter Hypatia, see Fabricius, Bibliothec. torn. viii. p. 210, 211. Her article in the Lexicon of Suidas is curious and original. Hesychius (Meursii Opera, torn. vii. p. 295, 296) observes that she was prosecuted ^'a tJji' iiTTtp^oAAouo-ai' cro<|)i<ii' ; and an epigram in the Greek Anthology (1. i. c. 76, p. 159, edit. Brodaei) celebrates her knowledge and eloquence. She is honourably mentioned (Epist. 10, 15, 16, 33-80, 124, 135, 153) by her friend and disciple the philosophic bishop Synesius. [V. A. Meyer, Hypatia von Alexandria, i886.]
