11.5.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome. This is Marcia for Radio I and today I
will be reading National Geographic History Magazine. As reminder, RADIOI
is a reading service intendient for people who are blind
or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
printed material. Please join me now for the first article,
titled The Tragic End of Hypatia of Alexandria by Clelia

(00:22):
Martinez Maza. In eight fourteen four fifty one, a mob
of Christian fanatics attacked and murdered the philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria.
That at least is the traditional story. But taking a
closer look, does a strictly religious motive hold up. Hypatia
reigned as not only the greatest philosopher of her native

(00:43):
Alexandria in the late fourth and early fifth centuries a d.
But also as one of late Antiquity's greatest thinkers. These
feats alone would merit sufficient preservation of her name through
the ages, yet this is not history's account. Instead, Hypatia
is remembered mostly for her earth murder in eighty four
fifteen at the hands of a fanatical Christian mob. Contemporaneous

(01:05):
sources recount the murder and detail the Christian authors Socrates, Scholasticus,
and John of Nikiu, as well as pagan authors including
the Greek neoplatonist philosopher Damascius, agree in their descriptions of
her death. She was forcibly dragged from her chariot in
Alexandria and brought to a church called Caesareum. There she

(01:28):
was stripped, naked, flayed, and brutally murdered. After dismembering her body,
the mob burned her remains. Other accounts state she was
giving a lecture when the mob found her, and after
taking her to the church, she was dragged through the streets. Cyril, Patriarch,
archbishop of Alexandria, plotted her murder and ordered it carried out.
Whichever version is more accurate, it has long been believed

(01:51):
she was assassinated by the rabble of Christian fanatics for
her philosophical beliefs, that is, she didn't support Christianity in
a world in world which Christians and Pagans were at odds.
But there's more to the story. Ancient Alexandria at the
time of Hypatia's birth around eighty three sixty, the important
cultural intellectual center of her native Alexandria was Waning, founded

(02:15):
by Alexander the Great in three thirty one BC. This
great city was the site of the Pharaoh's Lighthouse, one
of the ancient world's Seven Wonders, and the Musayan, which
included the famous Library of Alexandria, said to have served
as a training ground for the ancient world's best writers, doctors, scientists,
and philosophers. After Julius Caesar conquered Alexandria in forty eight

(02:39):
BC and burned part of the city's great library, Alexandria
began a slow decline. In AD three sixty four, the
Roman Empires split into and Alexandria remained in the eastern portion,
controlled by Constantinople modern Istanbul. Around this time, disputes erupted
between the cities. Christian Denys, one ancient writer, noted that

(03:02):
there were no people who loved to fight more than
those of Alexandria. Then, in AD three eighty, Emperor Theodosius
the First declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire,
including Alexandria, mandating punishment to non believers. Tensions rose between
Christians and non Christians. Against this backdrop of religious and

(03:25):
political strife, Hypatia received an excellent education under the guidance
of her father, the renowned mathematician and astronomer Theon, who
taught at the Mousayon. He introduced her to a wide
range of subjects, including mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and literature. Early on,
Hypatia demonstrated exceptional intellectual abilities and a passion for learning.

(03:48):
She delivered detailed commentaries on the great works of mathematics
and astronomy that had been produced in the Alexandria centuries
earlier in the times of the Ptolemies three o five
PC to eighty thirty. However, it wasn't Hypatia's talent for
mathematics and astronomy, or even her inventions that had the
greatest impact. She would earn renown. Primarily as a philosopher,

(04:12):
Hypatia espoused a school of thought known as Neoplatonism, re
interpreting the ideas of ancient Greek philosopher Plato. This teaching
emerged in the third century a d combining spirituality in science.
It applied mathematics and astronomy to philosophy as a way
to understand the universe and the individual's place in it.

(04:33):
These scientific disciplines were all roots to knowledge of the One,
the supreme being from which all things emanate. While Hypatia's
philosophy was seen as pagan, Christians identified the One with
their God, and as such both Pagans and Christians could
abide this philosophical framework. Hypatia taught at the Neoplatonist's School

(04:55):
of Philosophy and drew large crowds of Pagans and Christians
to her lectures. She didn't appear to have been a
devout pagan ann didn't practice theogy, the use of magic
and oracles that many Neoplatonists saw as another path to
the One. While all around here Christians and Pagans were
involved in clashes that were tearing the city of Alexandria part,

(05:17):
she seemingly maintained a neutral position. Hypatia certainly remained distance
from the events that in AD three ninety one culminated
in the ancient Serapium Temple of Alexandria being destroyed by Christians.
Other pagan intellectuals, meanwhile, were active in defending the great
Temple dedicated to the god Serapis, and even boasted of

(05:39):
murdering Christians. So the traditional view that Hypatia's violent death
was the result of ideological conflict between Pagans and Christians,
doesn't tell the whole story. Instead, there's another angle that
makes more sense. One clear thing stands out in regard
to Hypatia's murder. The act was highly ritualized, a feature

(06:00):
it has in common with the violent deaths of two
Alexandrian patriarchs, the extreme Arion George of Cappadocia, who was
killed in AD three sixty one, and Protarius, who was
killed in A D four five seven. Although the circumstances
surrounding each of the deaths of these bishops differ from Hypatius,
all three murders do fit similar patterns. The patriarch's corpses were,

(06:25):
like Hypatias, paraded by their murderers along the Canopic Way,
Alexandria's main thoroughfare. The victim's bodies were dismembered in portions
of their remains transferred to each of the city's districts
for subsequent cremation. It's interesting to note that in AD
three ninety one, after the assault on the ancient Serapium Temple,

(06:45):
the statue of the Greco Egyptian deity Serrapus itself was
subjected to the same ritualized violence seen in this context,
hypatius death could be interpreted as a premeditated assassination rather
than a spontaneous act by a bloodthirsty mob. It's possible
she was used as a pawn in the political maneuvering
of the moment, and there is one very clear political

(07:07):
standoff that fits. Hypatia became involved in the showdown between
two men who were both Christians, Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria,
and Orestes, Alexandrius, Roman governor. Their motives at the time,
Cyril engaged in ruthless power politics to stamp out pagan
influences in Alexandria. He wasn't afraid to use violence to

(07:29):
achieve his goals. Hilso was involved in the expulsion of
the Jews from Alexandria following their attacks on Christians. Entered
the Roman prefect Orestes, who, in the Imperial administration's efforts
to preserve Alexandria's stability, had to count on support from
the municipal aristocracy, who mostly worshiped pagan gods. Orestes also

(07:52):
needed to avoid sparking opposition from the Jews, while garnering
support from the Christians who opposed Cyril and his violent
lias methods Arrestes, Unlike Cyril, needed to appeal to a
diverse group of people, Orestes turned to his friend Hypatia.
She was a suitable intermediary because of her status as
a philosopher and because she had stayed at arm's length

(08:14):
from actively defending Holytheism. She was well regarded by those
across the Alexandrian elite, who were neither agitators for one
side or the other, nor favored violence. Another aspect that
made Hypatia stand out was that over many years, she
had cultivated a network. Her contacts included former students within

(08:34):
powerful Christian circles, both in Constantinople, seat of the Roman Empire,
and in Alexandria. Cyril thus viewed Hypatia as a possible
threat to his hold over the city's Christians. The plot
to neutralize Hypatia, it seems that Cyril mounted a smear campaign,
accusing Hypatia of black magic and describing her as a

(08:55):
dangerous witch using spells to lure people to her lectures.
It was claimed she had enstared arrestees into skipping masts
and allowing non Christians into his house. Socrates Scolasticus notes
that as she Hypatia had frequent interviews with Orestes, it
was calominously reported among the Christian populace that it was

(09:18):
by her influence he was prevented from being reconciled to Cyril.
All these cliches, which have been used through the ages
to discredit women who occupy positions other than the traditional
ones of wife and mother, were intended to frame Hypatia
as a dangerous public enemy. Cyril couldn't commit the murder himself,

(09:38):
nor did he have to. He instead relied on his prabalani. Originally,
this group of lay Christians acted as a charitable organization
caring for the city's neediest people, but by the time
Cyril was in charge, the pirabalani had become more like
an armed militia in the patriarch's service. Although there is
no proof that Cyril ordered Hypatia's murder, everything suggests that

(10:01):
Cyril had much to gain from her death, and that
the peribalani did the deed on his behalf. Her assassination
ended the threat she posed to Cyril through her support
for orestes policy of tolerance. Her death served as the
breaking point between religious authority embedded by Patriarch Cyril and
civil authority embodied by Prefect Orestes. It was Cyril who

(10:24):
run the day. Hypatia's death, however, was not a defeat
for the Pagans. Christians and Pagans continued to coexist in
Alexandria for more than a century. Eoplatonism thrived until the
Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh century, encountered both
Christians and Pagans among its adherents. In the sixth century,

(10:45):
the director of the school was a Pagan Ammonius Hermi Hermia,
while his deputy and the editor of his works was
a Christian John Philipponos. After Hypatia's killing, no more was
heard of Orestes. Though the Christian leaders didn't eradicate pagan
philosophy from the city, they did crack down on secular authorities.

(11:08):
Hypacious story lived on. Her character and intellect were noted
even by hostile Christian writers. In the eighteenth century. Voltaire
wrote about her to condemn an over zealous church. The
Christian clergyman Charles Kingsley and of Victorian romance about her.
She is the heroine of the two thousand nine Spanish
movie Agoras, whose fictitious plot has her saving the Alexandria

(11:31):
Library from Christian fanatics. Her endurance in a patriarchal society
makes her a feminist hero up to the present day,
and she merits more recognition in history beyond the sensation
of her horrific murder hiding in plain sight. When Raphael
showed a draft drawing of his school of Athens Fresco
to the Church fathers in the sixteenth century, the bishop

(11:53):
allegedly asked him to remove Hypatia in the front and center.
Knowledge of her runs counter to the belief of the faithful,
he said. Rafael obliged, but in an act of unflinching deception,
he covertly moved her to the left, disguising her face
to resemble that of the ruling pope's nephew. But there
she sits, the only figure among fifty of the greatest minds,

(12:14):
staring straight out at the viewer, as if beseeching you
not to forget that she too belongs in this venerable
gathering of scholars, Or does she. Rafael never admitted he
did this. Others claimed the figure as actually Marguerita Luti
Rafael's mistress, Francesco Maria de la Rovert, Duke of Urbino,
or even Rafael himself. Death of a God. The chain

(12:37):
of attacks that culminated in the Serapium's destruction in AD
three ninety one started when Christians began erecting a church
on an abandoned sight. According to theologian and monk Tyranius Rufinus,
workers unearthed the remains of Grotto's and ritual objects linked
to the Mithras cult. When they treated the artifacts disrespectfully,

(12:58):
Pagans became infuriating infuriated, sparking a clash that killed several people.
The Polytheius sought refuge in the Serapium and to prevent
an escalation of violence. The authorities showed clemency to both sides,
but the Christians launched an assault on the temple, beheading,
smashing and burning the statue Cyril of Alexandria. The appointment

(13:21):
of Cyril as patriarch of Alexandria in eighteen for a d.
Four twelve was controversial. He had not been expected to
succeed his uncle, so he made a show of his
authority in an attempt to gain the loyalty of the
city's Christian community. Despite the opposition of some Christians, he
attacked Polytheius and Jews in the city, expelling or massacring

(13:43):
the latter in a d four fourteen Cyril was initially
backed by a band of monks from the Nirian desert,
where he had trained in an isolated monastic community. He
then used the Carabalani, who originally cared for the sick,
to carry out his acts of violence. He was declared
a doctor of the Church in eighteen eighty three. Alexandria's

(14:05):
greatest mind, Hypatia, lived at a time when women were
not given status equal to men, no matter how brilliant
they were. Yet this largely unsung scholar is considered one
of Antiquity's last great philosophers before the Middle Ages. She
is the first known woman to study and teach mathematics, astronomy,
and philosophy, and she drew students from far and wide
across the Roman Empire. Many scholars believe she edited the

(14:28):
surviving text of Ptolemy's Armaguest, based on the title of
her father's commentary on Book three of the Armaguest. She
even donned the robes of the academic elite, even though
men only were allowed this honor at the time. Michael Dieton,
in his two thousand seven book Hypatia of Alexandria, wrote,
almost alone, virtually the last academic she stood for intellectual values,

(14:52):
for rigorous mathematics, ascetic neoplatonism, the crucial role of the
mind and the voice of temperance and moderation, and in
civic life. Next, the poisonous price of beauty. Blonde hair,
of pale complexion and outrageously red cheeks made the fashionable
look that Spanish women saw it in the sixteen hundreds,
despite the dangers hidden in their cosmetics. Writing her travels

(15:16):
into Spain in sixteen seventy nine, French author Marie Catharine
de Humein de Barneville, known as Madame d'Al noi, recorded
her less than flattering impressions of the complexions of Spanish women.
I've never seen boiled crayfish of a more beautiful color.
The effect of redness that startled Madame d'l noi was

(15:37):
produced by rouge blush, applied in staggering quantities elsewhere. Madame
d'l noi requotes how a Spanish lady took a cupful
of rouge, and with a big paintbrush. She put it
on not only her cheeks, her chin, under her nose,
under her eyebrows, and under ears, but she also re
daubed the inside of her hands, her fingers, and her shoulders.

(15:59):
But Madame del Nois was looking back on her experiences
of living in Spain. In the sixteen seventies, the final
years of what historians traditionally called Spain's dad do Oral
or Golden Age, beginning with Spain's rise as a European
superpower and its colonization of swaths of Central and South
America from fourteen ninety two, the Golden Age waned as

(16:22):
Spain's economic problems worsened in the late sixteen hundreds, While
the last in many aspects of Spanish culture, including literature
and theater, were lavishly celebrated. Traveler's accounts note how the
country's great wealth and power were reflected in women's appearances.
Richard Wynn, a politician who accompanied Prince Charles the First
of England on a trip to Spain in sixteen twenty three,

(16:44):
wrote that of all these women, I dare take my oath,
there was not one unpainted so visibly that you would
think they rather wore wizard's masks than their own faces
extreme makeopers. According to ural historian Amanda Vunder, author of
the book Spanish Fashion in the Age of Lusca's Yale

(17:07):
University Press, in terms of fashion and beauty, Spain was
going in a different direction than the rest of the
European continent. Whereas the French and English leaned toward natural complexions,
Spanish beauty was all about being the fanciest and most
elaborately made up. She explained, the Spanish court set the
standard for the rest of society. By then, the wealthy
were much more visible in public than they had been

(17:29):
in the Middle Ages. Nobility and royalty appeared regularly at
the theater or hung their likenesses in portraits in public
spaces during festivals. The ideas of beauty they projected spread
down through the different levels of society. Everyone was putting
on layers of make up, from the queen downward. This
was a cross class phenomenon, explained Wunder. To achieve the

(17:52):
sought after appearance in Spain's Golden Age, ladies would put
themselves through a long and complex grooming process. They even
had special room set aside for this purpose. A kind
of boudoir known in Spanish as a togador. The term
was originally used to designate the cap that men and
women wore to bed, but it later came to refer

(18:12):
to the room itself. The togador was where ladies would
dress and take care of their hair and make up.
It was here that ladies kept their skin and hair treatments,
make up, and beauty paraphernalia. The box used to store
this beauty kit was also called a togador. Some of
these boxes were beautifully crafted. Inside, cosmetics were kept in

(18:33):
pots and bottles, and in the center was a small mirror.
Depending on a lady's wealth, the mirrors might come in
lavish frames of Indian ebony, stained wood, or even silver.
Beyond the pale In seventeenth century Spain and beyond the
ideal of feminine beauty was blonde hair and a deathly paler.
In Spain, it was a relatively common practice for women

(18:53):
to bleach their faces. Suleiman, a cosmetic made from mercury preparations,
was used for this purpose. Its chemical composition could do
lasting damage to the skin. Meanwhile, bleaches diluted to varying
strengths were used to lighten hair, as Madame Delnois had
so memorably observed. The staple in the Spanish tuggador at

(19:15):
the time was rouge, known in Spanish as color de
granada pomegranate color. It was sold wrapped in sheets of
paper that were kept in small cuffs called sarsaias. Having
made their faces very pale, women then painted their lips
and cheeks with this rouge and darkened their eyebrows with
a mix of alcohol and black minerals. To keep their

(19:38):
hands white and soft, they would apply a paste made
from almonds, mustard, and honey, Among other chemicals used in products,
Sulfur was perhaps the most widespread. Some of these components
were harmful. Women occasionally whitened their faces with bismuth oxychloride,
sometimes known as Spanish white, a skin and eye irritant,

(19:59):
or they used lead precipitates, which are toxic. The composition
of ruse rouge has changed over the centuries, but in
Spain's Golden Age it was often made from charred sulfur, mercury, lead, minium,
a lead compound, and other substances. These preparations could cause headaches,
permanently alter the skin and damage eyesight because of their toxicity,

(20:22):
dangerous effects that were noted at the time. Commentators saw
that saw other toxic effects in beauty products. To the
mainly male writers of the period, make up was tantamount
to deceit. A literary trope of the time was to
reproach a women who artificially embellished herself. When the time
came for her to be seen without a doormance, her
lover would be disappointed. The moralist Juan de Zabaleta, in

(20:47):
his book Eldea de fes fiesta purromagnana ipuracarde, published in
sixteen fifty four, attack these of cosmetics on religious grounds.
He said, the action in the Tugadore of a lady
getting ready on the morning of a holiday, she places
at her right hand side the box of beauty medicines
and begins to improve her face with them. This woman

(21:09):
does not consider that if God wanted her to be
as she paints herself, he would have painted her first.
God gave her the face that suited her, and she
takes on the face that does not suit her. Saboletta's
work is part of the history of misogynous literature that
condemns women's beauty rituals as tampering with God's creation. Some
women agreed that such rituals were fatuous, but for very

(21:32):
different reasons. Maria Desiaus, a golden aged Spanish writer today
considered a proto feminist, viewed the social pressures on women
to apply make up as a means to prevent them
from emancipating themselves. In a novel from the sixteen thirties,
she has one of her characters say that if women
applied themselves to training with weapons and studying the sciences

(21:54):
instead of growing their hair and shading their faces, they
could already have surpassed men in menay things. As Spain's
imperial fortunes waned in the late sixteen hundreds in the
Golden Age ended, the heavy use of make up in
Spain also diminished. With the French Revolution in seventeen eighty nine,
a more natural look swept through Europe, and elaborate wings

(22:15):
and make up were shunned. Attitudes towards make up, however,
are often cyclical. Safer zinc oxide based powders later replaced
toxic lead based recipes, and make up's usage rebounded in Europe.
Then in the mid eighteen hundreds, heavy make up fell
out of fashion, associated with actresses and prostitutes facial artifice.

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Artifice came back to the forefront with the advance of
theatrical cosmetics and became widely commercialized in Europe and North
America in the nineteen twenties. Since then, its use in
the context of femininity and feminism has been as heatedly
discussed as it was in the Golden Age of Spain.
This article by Barbara Roussillo. The Spanish Infanta, the eldest

(23:01):
princess of King Philip four Maria Theresa, is depicted in
Diego Velasquez's sixteen fifty one to fifty four portrait. She
is in her early teens. The viewer's gaze is arrested
both by her elaborate headdress, as adorned with butterflies, and
the heavy amounts of rouge applied to her whitened face.

(23:22):
Participating in the royal delegation to Spain in sixteen twenty three,
English courtier Richard Wynne commented on very young women at
the Spanish court being made up. They were painted more
than the ordinary women, though some of them were not
thirteen years old. The purpose of Velaska's famous portrait was
to attract a future husband. In sixteen sixteen sixteen sixty,

(23:46):
at age twenty two, Maria Theresa married Louis the fourteenth
of France. The dressing table gets a makeover. The room
where Spanish ladies beautified themselves was called the tocador, as
was the box in which they kept their products and accessory.
Another key piece of furniture was the table where ladies
sat for their toilette, the act of getting ready for
the day. In the seventeenth century Dutch interior, the woman

(24:10):
is being dressed and beautified at a normal table. Soon
after this piece of furniture became a status symbol in Europe,
the wealthy began to commission luxurious, specialized furniture, and dressing
tables started looking like the more vertical units familiar today.
New features included folding tops, basins to wash off makeup,

(24:30):
and of course, a built in mirror. In the twentieth century,
the dressing tables, glamour and luxury were often reflected in
the movies of the nineteen twenties and thirties. Later, the
use of dressing tables waned as beautifying shifted to the bathroom. Today,
social influencers have brought the dressing table back, albeit in
a compact form. Next, Percy fawcett tragic search for the

(24:54):
Lost City of Z. Convinced by old documents that a
lost civilization lay in the Amazon Rainfall, Percy Fawcet set
out to find it in nineteen twenty five. His disappearance
sparked a century of speculation as to his fate. When
the Spanish first ventured into the Amazon Basin in the
fifteen forties, they recorded indigenous accounts of a lost city

(25:15):
of fantastic wealth that they called El Dorado, the Golden
Over the centuries, many vain attempts were made to locate
a lost civilization in the Amazon forest. The last significant
attempt to find such a culture was undertaken by British
explorer Percy Fawcet. Between nineteen o six and nineteen twenty four,
Fawcet made seven expeditions across the Amazon Basin, concluding with

(25:39):
this doomed quest to find the city he called Z.
Fawcet was inspired by his extensive reading of historical sources,
including a mysterious document known as Manuscript five twelve. A
man of extraordinary mental and physical stamina. Fawcett was working
at a time when the Amazon region was still largely
undocumented by Europeans who sought to explore its jungles and waterways,

(26:03):
seeking ancient cities and riches. His disappearance during his search
for z in nineteen twenty five in the Matto Grosso
region of Brazil continues to intrigue writers and filmmakers. Perzy
Harrison Fawcett was born in eighteen sixty seven in Torquay, Devon,
the English county that had produced many famous explorers and mariners,

(26:25):
including Francis Drake and Walter Rawleigh. The son of an
aristocrat who had lost his fortune, Fawcett described his childhood
as lacking in affection. At age nineteen, he was commissioned
as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and sent to
outposts of the British Empire. In nineteen oh one, Fawcett
joined the Royal Geographical Society of London and traveled to

(26:46):
Africa as a surveyor in the service of the British State,
tasked with gathering military intelligence. In nineteen o six, he
was commissioned by the Society to lead an expedition to
the Amazon. Arriving in South America was the moment to
ina whole life changed. Setting out from LAPAs to map
the vast territory on the borderlands of Bolivia and Brazil,

(27:07):
Faucet often faced hostility from indigenous peoples angered by rubber
Bereans who had invaded their lands to extract rubber free
use in car and train manufacturing. For nearly a decade
he roamed the Amazon Basin, often the first European to
record geographical features such as waterfalls. His writing gives a

(27:29):
sense of the awe he experienced above us wrote the
Ricardo Franco Hills flat topped and mysterious, their flanks scarred
by deep quibrads ravines, they stood like a lost world,
forested to their tops, and the imagination could picture the
last vessiges of an age long vanquished. The outbreak of
World War One interrupted this rich period of exploration, forcing

(27:51):
him to return to Europe. Although in his fifties, Fawcet
was in peak physical condition and he proved to be
an outstanding soldier. This concludes readings from National Geographic History
Magazine for to day. Your reader has been Marshall. Thank
you for listening. Keep on listening and have a great day.