Diophantus

Now, as I said, we don't have Hypatia's writings, but we do have some later outlines of her life that mention her writings.

So the Suda, a Byzantine encyclopedia that was compiled in the 10th century AD says this, quote, "'The daughter of Theon the Geometer, the Alexandrian philosopher, she was herself a philosopher and well-known to many.'" She wrote a commentary on Diophantus, the astronomical canon, and a commentary on the conics of Apollonius.

Now there are errors in other parts of that literary source, the Suda, but the specificity here fits with what we read in other sources about Hypatia.

So I think we can at least trust this part of the Suda.

And also, sometimes the text changed because somebody was paying for a different version that they wanted published.

So if historians wanted to know what Euclid, Archimedes, or Diophantus had actually written, they first had to determine which manuscripts were the most trustworthy.

And this was particularly effective when he recognized the possible tracings of Hypatia's mathematics in Ptolemy's Almagest and in the works of Diophantus.

This painstaking work became one of Tannery's greatest strengths.

He approached manuscripts with the same discipline that an engineer brings to examining a bridge.

Parma, if you ever get a chance to go, don't just go for the food.

It's amazing.

So Diophantus of Alexandria, often called the father of algebra, had written Arithmetica, which was one of antiquity's most sophisticated mathematical works.

how i who hurried to death without any one's summons but while we are chatting is that not some cry i hear as if of people shouting from earth

Yes, Menippus, not from one region only, but those who have met together in conclave, with pleased looks, are all laughing at the death of Lampicus, while his wife is seized hold of by the women, and her infants likewise, young and tender as they are, are being assailed by the boys with quantities of stones, and others are applauding Diophantus.

the orator at sicyon who is declaiming funeral eulogies over craton there and by heaven the mother of domitius with wailing is now weeding off the dirge for him with the women but as for you friend menippus no one sheds a tear over you and you lie all alone in perfect peace

by no means so you will shortly hear the dogs howling most piteously over me and the crows flapping with their wings when they collect together to bury me