Challenging Gender Roles: Hypatia, Greek Anthology, IX.400

The author links the asexual astronomer and scholar Hypatia with the asexual goddess Astraea / Virgo

Colat necesse est literas, te qui videt

Et virginalem spectat astrigeram domum:

Negotium namque omne cum coelo tibi,

Hypatia prudens, dulce sermonis decus,

Sapientis artis sidus integerrimum.

 

ὅταν βλέπω σε, προσκυνῶ, καὶ τοὺς λόγους,

τῆς παρθένου τὸν οἶκον ἀστρῷον βλέπων

εἰς οὐρανὸν γάρ ἐστί σου τὰ πράγματα,

Ὑπατία σεμνή, τῶν λόγων εὐμορφία,

ἄχραντον ἄστρον τῆς σοφῆς παιδεύσεως.

--Palladas, Greek Anthology, IX.400; Translated by Hugo Grotius (1798)

Holy Hypatia,

Immaculate star of education,

Whenever I see you

I bow down in worship,

Revering you and your wisdom,

As if I were gazing at the starry house of the Maiden,

For all of Heaven is your classroom.

PALLADAS	MAP:
Name:  Palladas Date:  4th c. CE Works:  poems	REGION  4
BIO:	Timeline:
Palladas was a 4th c. poet and scholar who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. Little is known about his life, but several of his poems were preserved in the Greek Anthology.	POST CONSTANTINOPLE GREEK LITERATURE

<Anonymous>	MAP:
Name:  ???? Date:  Works:  Greek Anthology; Anthologia Graeca; Florilegii Graecii	REGION  UNKNOWN
BIO:	Timeline:
The Greek Anthology is a modern collection of Greek lyric poetry compiled from various sources over the course of Greco-Roman literature. The current collection was created from two major sources, one from the 10th century CE and one from the 14th century CE. The anthology contains authors spanning the entirety of Greek literature, from archaic poets to Byzantine Christian poets.	Byzantine Greek