Peter, rush out
from the alley, seize the horses, tear the helpless woman from her seat,
and drag her into a neighboring church. Here, more like savage beasts
than men, Peter's frenzied followers remove from her every shred of
clothing, and at the foot of the bleeding image of the Saviour of
mankind do to death the virgin martyr in the most horrible manner with
fragments of tiles and mussel shells. The limbs are torn from the still
quivering body, and, when life is extinct, the howling mob gather up and
burn the fragments of the mutilated corpse.

It was a horrible deed. The life of a beautiful and talented maiden was
sacrificed for the cause which she professed, and, like many a Christian
maiden, she attained by her death the sanctity of martyrdom. The purity
and nobility of her character invested her with an enduring fame, and,
though her end marks the doom of the old gods, Hypatia herself will
never be forgotten. Judged by the abiding results of her activity,
Hypatia was, like Shelley, "a beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in
the void her luminous wings in vain," but as the embodiment of the
highest and best elements of Greek culture she deserves to rank as one
of the most typical of Greek women.

* * * * *

A peculiar and deep-rooted trait in woman's nature is tender compassion
and sympathetic devotion to suffering humanity. Hence from heroic times
onward through the various epochs of Greek history we find women at the
bedside of the sick and the wounded, acting as attendant, nurse, or
physician. Thus it is not surprising that we should find Greek women
preeminent in the art of medicine.

In the Heroic Age, Homeric heroines were gifted with a knowledge of
plants and their virtues. Hecate, wife of King AEetes of Colchis, her
daughter Medea, and Circe were so celebrated in this respect that they
passed for enchantresses. One has but to recall the transformation of
Odysseus's companions into swine as an evidence of Circe's peculiar
power. All the daughters of Asclepius the physician--Hygiea, Panacea,
Iaso, and AEgle--were specialists in medicine. Helen of Troy knew how to
compound her celebrated potion, Nepenthe, which made men forget all care
and enjoy sound slumbers; and OEnone, the forsaken wife of Paris, and
Agamede, daughter of a king of Elis, were skilled in the use of simples.

In historical times, the Thessalian women were noted for their knowledge
of the virtues of pla