Read Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria for Free Online

Gardens between the Street of the Soma and the deep water canal cut from the Port of the Lake to the Royal Harbor, sits the house that has been ours for close on two hundred years.   We cannot lose it now, not while Father lives.
    Chin propped in my hands, I watch Ife offer Jone a third sweet bun.   So much older, yet as small as Jone, Ife openly favors Father’s youngest child, a thing which delights my heart.   But it is Ife who makes me ask: who will keep us fed?   From outside comes the sound of stable lads bedding down our horses for the night.   These sounds should comfort, but who will pay them?   Who will buy grain for the horses?   And what of the scribes we hire?   Who will copy our books?
    Lais lifts one perfect hand, opening its soft white palm; how empty it is, how languid, how useless for practical effort.   The sight of her tender palm puts seal to my fate.   If destiny I have, it is to care for Lais.   “Could I sell my poems?   Would anyone buy?”   For pity, I could open my veins.
    Though Lais is first to speak of such things, I have already considered them.   As well as having become “perfect,” among us I am also the most practical.   Not for a moment do I imagine, as Father cleaves close to his bed waiting for the gods to explain themselves, such thoughts have entered his head.   “If Father does not get up, I shall take over all of his classes.”
    At this, Jone, slowly chewing, actually raises her head from her book.   “You?   But you are barely twenty and one.   Who would listen to you?”
    “Ah, Panya, at seventeen, Cleopatra ruled Egypt and Origen was head of the Catechetical school Didymus heads now.   At sixteen, Alexander was regent of Macedonia, and by scarcely twenty-three king of Egypt.   Didymus teaches that his Jesus argued with scholars when he was but twelve.   They will listen.   And they will pay to listen.”
    I sound convincing.   Had I not already from time to time taken Father’s place at lectures when he was ill or otherwise occupied, and published three mathematical commentaries which have been taken seriously as well as a book about the geology of Theophrastus?   Alexandria calls me “sage.”   Surely all this puffery counts for something?
    Lais lowers her hand and smiles.   Lais, smiling, can cause the heart to swoon.   Jone lowers her head to finish her bun and her book.   They are content.   Hypatia will pay the bills if Father refuses to rise again.
    If only I could smile with such ease.   The fact remains that I am female.   I have taught males to great effect.   But would these same males be taught by me if they must pay?
    ~
    From behind the walls of our house, I watch Alexandria driven to her knees.
    Emperor Theodosius, tiring of Alexandria’s “unrest,” has ordered Alexandria’s Prefect to have Alexandria’s Military Commander step between Christian and heretic.   Imperial troops immediately surrounded the Serapeum, demanding all defenders leave or be crucified.   The “pagans” left and the Christians flooded in.   These have torn the temple to pieces.
    The battle is over.   Old women scrub blood from the streets.   Bodies are fished from the canals.   We have lost.
    And just as the gods have kept their silence, Father has kept to his bed.   He will have nothing further to do with human passions, concluding that the human state is unjust, immoral, and unworthy.   It is also insane.   If, says he, he must live in one room to escape it, then he shall live in one room.   One room can be, he hopes, controlled by the shutting of a door and the barring of a window.
    What this means is that no money comes into our house, but a great deal flows out.
    He no longer covers his head, but as for the rest of him, all that stays firmly under his bedding.   For a week or so, he even taught from this bed, surrounded by a small class of uncomfortable students as he lectured on the geometry of Euclid or the astronomy of Ptolemy