Fascinating! EDIT:And also rather wrong, apparently.

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

There's something about Monotheism

Via Dave Bath, I’ve learnt that leading Spanish director (he won Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2005 for Mar adentro) Alejandro Amenábar has made a film about classical scientist Hypatia. It’s to be called Agora and stars Rachel Weisz. For those unfamiliar with the background, Hypatia (an astronomer) was killed in appalling circumstances by a Christian mob shortly after Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius’ ‘Edict of Intolerance’ in 391AD.
That’s my moniker, of course, but it sums up pretty accurately what Theodosius did: made all non-Christian religions (bar the very limited exception of Judaism, although the stinging slur ‘Christ Killer’ was beginning to make its presence felt) illegal, confiscating their property and giving it over to Christian churches, breaking up community associations and desecrating public structures associated with paganism. The most dramatic of these acts was the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, which although a public building for the citizens of the city, was maintained and paid for by worshippers of the Hellenized Egyptian God Serapis. Theodosius did other nasty things at the same time, like banning same-sex marriage and generally taking what had always been a matter of private contract in the Roman world into the hands of the State. He’s the reason why churches in Italy with names like ‘Maria Maggiore’ will have a Temple of Cybele underneath, or why the crypt is so often a mithraeum.
Here’s a rather bitty outtake from the film; the panicked reaction of library staff once they realise what’s coming is well done.

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This viajsl32 is the actual history...

The Hypatia of History

The real Hypatia was the daughter of Theon, who was famous for his edition of Euclid's Elements and his commentaries on Ptolemy, Euclid and Aratus. Her birth year is often given as AD 370, but Maria Dzielska argues this is 15-20 years too late and suggests AD 350 to be more accurate. That would make her 65 when she was killed and therefore someone who should perhaps be played by Helen Mirren rather than Rachel Weisz. But that would make the movie much harder to sell at the box office.

She grew up to become a renowned scholar in her own right. She seems to have assisted her father in his edition of Euclid and an edition of Ptolemy's Almagest, as well writing commentaries on the Arithmetica of Diophantus and the Conics of Apollonius. Like most natural philosophers of her time, she embraced the neo-Platonic ideas of Plotinus and so her teaching and ideas appealed to a broad range of people - pagans, Christians and Jews. There is some suggestion that Amenabar's film depicts her as an atheist, or at least as wholly irreligious, which is highly unlikely. Neo-Platonism embraced the idea of a perfect, ultimate source called "the One" or "the Good", which was, by Hypatia's time, fully identified with a monotheistic God in most respects.Fanatical Christians still killed her, but the reason was... Also, the Great Library of Alexandria was not burned down by a Christian mob. It was probably done in by a fire started by Julius Cesar's soldiers...Oh. lesbiassparrow comments that thats not accurate either. The library went to its doom in a different manner And the director of the film is Chilean, not Spanish.helenadaxclarifies the identity issue re: the director This entire post is amusing me no end...

Comments

[claws-n-stripes.livejournal.com]

Borked blockquote tag is borked. :P

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

unborked! thanks!

[claws-n-stripes.livejournal.com]

No problem. As it happens, it made me go read the original article that much quicker.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

Apparently, the article has some significant flaws. Update coming...

[claws-n-stripes.livejournal.com]

I just saw the link below. . .

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

Update up!:)

a link from a classics nerd.

[jsl32.livejournal.com]

http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html

Re: a link from a classics nerd.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the correction! Do you have any idea whether the rest of his entry is accurate?

Re: a link from a classics nerd.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Though they're wrong about one thing: the building burned by Caesar's troops was outside Alexandria - at the most it had to be an overflow facility, not the main library. Canfora suggests it was books for export.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know too much about Hypatia, but the Great Library wasn't burned by Caesar's troops - they destroyed a warehouse containing books unaffiliated with the library (it was outside the walls of Alexandria and hence not part of the library). It was probably destroyed in parts, with the final blow apparently coming in the 7th century CE probably by Amrou Ibn el-Ass, who used the books to fuel the baths. It supposedly took 6 months to use them all up. (See Canfora's brilliant The Vanished Library for more.)

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

thanks!

[helenadax.livejournal.com]

Amenabar was born in Chile, but his mother is Spanish and he and his family came to Spain when he was one year old. He's lived here since then and he's considered Spanish.

And maybe "Agora" isn't historically accurate, but that's never been a problem in Hollywood. I mean, it would be better if they didn't alterate the History or the reality, but the fact is that everyone does it. In Mission Impossible III they showed Spanish people burning statues of saints!

I think Agora will be a great film, anyway.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

Amenabar was born in Chile, but his mother is Spanish and he and his family came to Spain when he was one year old. He's lived here since then and he's considered Spanish. Thank you for the correction on this.


And maybe "Agora" isn't historically accurate, but that's never been a problem in Hollywood. I mean, it would be better if they didn't alterate the History or the reality, but the fact is that everyone does it. In Mission Impossible III they showed Spanish people burning statues of saints!

I think Agora will be a great film, anyway.

With all due respect, this is a bullshit argument. Fucked up history and mythmaking has been leading to stereotypes and nonsense for a good long while. See avatar,300 for off the cuff examples. I, for instance, when I saw that first article, smugly thought "Here the Christians go again!" And seriously? Whether or not we like to admit it, film does a lot to shape the cultural zeitgeist. And this one will be seen by way more people than the blogpost that debunks it, to say nothing of the books on which the blog post is based on.

Also, I don't care that everybody does it. That doesn't make it right. Tell the history the way it happened or go write a fiction story. In addition to which, the film is appropriating her and erasing and fictionalizing her life in the name of entertainment. Its not a tribute. Its bloody insulting.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Also, I don't care that everybody does it. That doesn't make it right. Tell the history the way it happened or go write a fiction story.

While I agree with you, with antiquity the sources are so messed up and often so contradictory that one can create several conceivable narratives about what happened. Via google Socrates Scholasticus has one version and John, Bishop of Nikiu another and The Suda yet another. I am not an expert on Late Antiquity so I have no idea how reliable either author is, nor even of their dates - though The Suda is notoriously unreliable and I wouldn't trust it to reflect anything except the belief of the particular moment an entry was written in. If I were less lazy I would wander over to the library and check out the books on Hypatia I saw there recently to see what the scholarly consensus is.

[helenadax.livejournal.com]

I understand your point, but we're talking about something that happened centuries ago, so probably there are different theories about it.

And I guess movies are not always made to show history as it really happened. Authors who write historical novels do want to be as realistic as they can, but it's not an essential thing for most of the cinema directors.