Our sources suggest that in Greek antiquity there were women practising philosophy alongside men. The surviving evidence, nevertheless, is scarce and contested. There are no writings undisputedly attributed to female philosophers. We are primarily left with lists of names and limited and often incomplete biographical and doxographical accounts of these women's lives written by male authors. Of all female intellectuals in ancient Greece, Hypatia of Alexandria is among the best known. Hypatia was a Neoplatonist thinker, a scientist, mathematician and astronomer. She lived in Alexandria in the fifth century ce in a time characterised by increasing hostility between Christianity, Judaism and Paganism. Like her father Theon, she was the head of a philosophical school. Hypatia is credited with making substantial contributions to Greek mathematics and astronomy. She was a public figure actively engaged in Alexandrian politics, and she became one of the most prominent exponents of the Platonic tradition. Once again, however, the main issue scholars face when studying Hypatia and assessing her intellectual achievements is the lack and overall fragmentary nature of the evidence. According to the Suda, Hypatia left written works, primarily in the field of mathematics (Y166, I.4 644–5). Only the titles of these writings survive. Thus, we merely have indirect access to Hypatia, her life and thought, primarily via the genre of late antique biography.

R. proposes to counter this challenging situation by giving a comprehensive account of the available evidence for Hypatia of Alexandria as well as by reviewing the multifaceted reception of this figure in the subsequent stages of the history of philosophy. R. is a leading figure in the scholarship on Hypatia. This book is the English translation of her 2010 monograph Ipazia: La vera storia and expands on the paper ‘Hypatia the Intellectual’ (in: A. Fraschetti [ed.], Roman Women [2001], pp. 160–89; English translation of ‘Ipazia, l'intelletuale’, in: Fraschetti, Roma al femminile [1994], pp. 213–58). Its purpose is twofold: first, and foremost, R. ‘reconstructs Hypatia's life, intellectual works, and modern Nachleben through a sustained philological and literary analysis’ (p. ix). Second, this method enables R. to show how, both in her own time and throughout history, Hypatia became a political symbol, reinterpreted and mythicised by different traditions for various purposes. A paradigmatic example of this comes early on in the twofold accounts of her death: the Christian one preserved in the Chronicle by John of Nikiu and in a more moderate version in the Ecclesiastical History by Socrates Scholasticus, and the Pagan one preserved in the Suda, on the evidence of Hesychius of Miletus and Damascius (pp. ix–x, 201–3).

The overall goal of R.'s book, then, is to unpack such processes and analyse the various stages of the life and afterlife of Hypatia so as to highlight her direct and indirect contributions to the history of philosophy. In the evidence Hypatia is identified as a philosopher, a teacher, a scientist, a sacerdotal figure as well as a martyr and a proto-feminist. She was killed as a witch and heretic. R. helps researchers and non-specialist readers navigate this complex material. For this purpose, the book is organised into three parts. The first section, ‘Setting out the Facts’, analyses and assesses the sources for Hypatia's life and, most importantly, the historical and cultural context of fifth-century Alexandria, with special attention to political events and religious controversies. The second section, ‘Betraying the Facts’, examines the reception, misinterpretation and mystification of Hypatia in later philosophical traditions. Finally, in ‘Interpreting the Facts’ R. attempts to reconstruct the testimonies and thus the story of Hypatia. Each chapter is in turn divided into two subsections: the analysis of the evidence and an appendix with a detailed list of references to primary and secondary sources, each accompanied with brief descriptions of their content and reliability.

The evaluation of this book, I believe, should be based on its aims and intended audience. R. writes that the study is targeted at ‘learned and yet non-academic readers’ (p. xi). As such, the book gives a full and nuanced examination of the evidence, which may not be easily accessible to the layperson, but will be a fruitful starting point for interested students and scholars. This is especially valuable on two counts. First, it is extensive. The book covers most of what has been written about Hypatia from the fifth century to today. As such, it helpfully sets out the status quaestionis. The second, and in my view most important, contribution of R.'s monograph lays in the way in which she approaches the evidence. The book makes thought-provoking methodological considerations, which provide significant aid to scholars working on women philosophers and, more generally, ancient thinkers. To the question of how to gain access to Hypatia despite the fragmented and controversial source materials, R. answers that one should assess each piece of evidence by analysing its content and, most importantly, contextualising it in the historical, cultural and political milieu in which it was written. Inspecting the reception is a possible way towards the recovery of this figure and her ideas.

A possible limit of this method and structure is that it is at times difficult to get a clear grasp of the bigger picture. The book goes into thorough detail. Since each chapter is followed by a long appendix about the sources, and since chapters about Hypatia are interspersed with sections about Alexandrian politics, readers may risk losing the thread of the overall story. An extended and more in-depth introduction, I believe, would have enriched the presentation of the material. For example, since R. introduces Hypatia as a philosopher, it would have been helpful to read more about what she might have taught and what novel theories she contributed to the Neoplatonic tradition (pp. 162–70, 186–90). Overall, R.'s monograph is a nuanced and comprehensive study of Hypatia, and will be of interest to various scholars, working on late antiquity, Neoplatonism and ancient women philosophers.