Unburning Alexandria (Sierra Waters)
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Callimachus of Cyrene, 310/305?-240 BC. Compiled the Pinakes – "Tables of Persons Eminent in Every Branch of Learning Together With a List of Their Writings" – or card-catalog-like listing every author with works in the Library of Alexandria. Entries were alphabetized according to the genre and author's name, and contained biographical information about the author, the first few words of the text, its total number of lines, and where in the Library the text was located. May well be the first comprehensive card catalog of its kind. The 120 scrolls of the Pinakes have not survived in their entirety, but extensive pieces remain. (See Heather Phillips, "The Great Library of Alexandria?" 2010, for more.)
Heron (or Hero) of Alexandria, 150 BC??-250 AD?? The years of his birth and death are debatable -- Heron pops up throughout a 400-year span of ancient history. He was a prolific inventor of devices that embodied principles and techniques that were 2,000 years ahead of their mass application in the Industrial Age. These included a toy that ran on steam power (the aeolipile) and an automated theater that utilized "phantom mirror" and persistence-of-vision effects that are the basis of our motion pictures. Many of his treatises on other inventions, and mathematics, exist just in fragments, or are known only via reference to them by later Greek, Roman, and Arabic writers. His Metrica, considered his most important mathematic work, was discovered in Istanbul in 1896.
Hypatia, 355-370?-415 AD. Daughter of Theon, who was an astronomer, mathematician, and one of the last members of the Museum in Alexandria. Hypatia likely assisted her father in his new edition of Euclid's Elements and his commentaries on Ptolemy's Almagest, but she was considered a brilliant philosopher and mathematician in her own right, and led the Neoplatonist school in Alexandria. Renowned not only for her intellect, but her beauty and eloquence, Hypatia attracted many students and admirers. Hypatia was pagan, however, and her charm and accomplishments infuriated certain Christian fanatics, who brutally murdered and mutilated her. The death is thought to mark the end of Alexandria as an intellectual center of the ancient world; it was followed by an exodus of scholars. Charles Kingley's 1853 novel Hypatia made her a heroine of the Victorian era, and she is today regarded as the first woman to have made a significant contribution in mathematics. (Kingsley is today better known for his 1863 urban fantasy, The Water-Babies.)
Jowett, Benjamin, 1817-1893. Translator of The Dialogues of Plato, in four volumes, with extensive analyses and introductions, first edition, 1871 -- still the standard English translation -- as well as translations of Thucydides, and Aristotle's Politics. Declining health prevented him from completing a series of essays about the Politics. He was for 28 years a tutor, and then for 23 years Master, at Balliol College, Oxford.
Marcellinus, ?-413 AD. Secretary of State of the (Western) Roman Empire – Emperor Honorius's representative – and friend of Augustine. Marcellinus ruled the Donatist Christian sect "heretic," after granting them the right to public worship. Augustine opposed the harshness with which the Donatists were removed from their churches, but pleaded on behalf of Marcellinus when he and his brother Apringius were arrested by General Maricus, a Donatist sympathizer, put on trial, and put to death. Marcellinus later was sainted, and is considered a Christian martyr.
Plato, 427?-347 BC. Socrates's student, Aristotle's teacher, considered by many to be the greatest philosopher in history, the father of philosophy, or along with Aristotle one of the two great sources of Western thought. Among Plato's most influential ideas is that truth exists in some ideal realm, separate from humanity, and which humans can only imperfectly understand (theory of forms); and the best kind of government is an absolute dictatorship of the wisest (philosopher-king). Our entire knowledge of Socrates is based on what he says in Plato's dialogues, along with lesser works by Xenophon (also Socrates's student), and his appearance as a character in contemporary plays, such as Aristophanes' The Clouds. Debates continue as to what parts of what Socrates says in Plato's dialogues are expressions of the original ideas and words of Socrates or Plato.
Ptolemy, Claudius, 90-168 AD. His Almagest and related astronomical studies provided an intricate and mathematically detailed, geocentric (Earth at the center of universe) mapping of the "epicycles" of the Sun, the Moon, and the five known planets at the time (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn – Earth was not considered a planet). Ptolemy's model held sway until the Copernican heliocentric (Sun at the center) model developed by Copernicus (1473-1543 AD) and supported by Galileo (1564-1642) and his telescopic observations. The Church strongly opposed this model, found Galileo "suspect of heresy" for promoting it and sentenced him to house arrest, and continued its opposition until the 20th century (Pope John Paul II declared in 1992 that the Church had been in error in its judgment of Galileo). The accuracy of Ptolemy's lunar work, notwithstanding its incorrect geocentric premise, has been noted, though flaws in his lunar model were corrected by Copernicus.
Regnault, Jean-Baptiste, 1754-1829. French allegorical and historical painter, best known for his L'Éducation d'Achille (1782), Déscente de Croix (1789), and Socrate arrachant Alcibiade des bras de la Volupté (1791). The title of the last is frequently rendered in English as Socrates dragging Alcibiades from the Embrace of Sin, or Socrates dragging Alcibiades from the Embrace of S., and currently hangs in the Louvre.
Socrates, 470?-399 BC. No texts written by Socrates have survived or are alluded to by ancient authors; all that we know of him are from the writings of his students, mainly Plato (see above), and a few contemporaries. Socrates taught that the pursuit of knowledge was the highest virtue, and knowledge was best obtained through continuing questioning and dialog. He was no fan of democracy -- in the Phaedrus (where Socrates also condemns the written word as conveying only the "pretense of wisdom"), Socrates asks why, if we would not trust a man ignorant of horses to give us advice about horses, should we have confidence in a government composed of everyday people with no philosophic training in understanding good and evil -- yet Socrates, condemned by the Athenian democracy on charges of corrupting the youth of the city with his ideas, accepted its death sentence. Indeed, waiting in prison for thirty days for the return of the priest of Apollo from Delos (no death sentences could be carried out in his absence), Socrates refused an offer of escape and refuge made by his old friend Crito. Socrates explains in the Platonic dialog of that name that to evade the death sentence would be to put himself above the state, which as a critic of the state he had no desire to do. I. F. Stone in The Trial of Socrates (1988) argues that Socrates may also have wanted his death penalty carried out as a way of permanently shaming the democracy he hated. In any case, that was certainly the result: the death of Socrates by prescribed hemlock in 399 BC redounds as one of the worst cases in history of a dissident destroyed by government, all the worse because that government was the world's first known democracy.
Stone, I. F., 1907-1989. American gadfly journalist, and publisher of I. F. Stone's Weekly, 1953-1971. In semi-retirement, he taught himself to read ancient Greek, claimed that many extant translations of classical work were slightly off, and in 1988 published The Trial of Socrates.
Synesius of Cyrene, 370-414 AD. Student of Hypatia (see above) and her devoted disciple. Christian Bishop of Ptolemais, 410-414. Synesius was earlier in Athens and Constantinople. His letters to Hypatia show a deep interest in science and invention, and a profound affection for Hypatia. One of this last letters to Hypatia, written in 413, reproaches her for not writing to him, and avers that, if she had, he would be “rejoicing at your happiness”. Whether or not his feelings for Hypatia were carnal, and whether or not they were consummated, is unknown.
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