On Hypatia of Alexandria

Abstract

Through an examination of the considerable ancient and medieval witness to Archimedes’ Dimension of the Circle we have been able in the preceding chapters to distinguish two closely related forms of its text—the extant Greek version DC and the lost Greek prototype DC* of the medieval translations. We have assigned priority to DC* whose adaptation as DC has been placed within the school of Isidore of Miletus around the middle of the 6th century. But the provenance of DC* itself has proved elusive. It is known to Eutocius and to the author of the isoperimetric tract transmitted in the Introduction, so that its composition may be placed in the 5th century, and most likely in the first half of that century. Furthermore, its author’s use of Theon’s commentary on Ptolemy (specifically, the text we have denoted T in chaps. 1–2) as a textual model would appear to signal a close affiliation with Theon’s school, hence a placement early in the 5th century at Alexandria.