tes complained; but his just complaints were
too quickly forgotten by the ministers of Theodosius, and too deeply
remembered by a priest who affected to pardon, and continued to hate,
the praefect of Egypt. As he passed through the streets, his chariot was
assaulted by a band of five hundred of the Nitrian monks his guards
fled from the wild beasts of the desert; his protestations that he was
a Christian and a Catholic were answered by a volley of stones, and the
face of Orestes was covered with blood. The loyal citizens of Alexandria
hastened to his rescue; he instantly satisfied his justice and revenge
against the monk by whose hand he had been wounded, and Ammonius expired
under the rod of the lictor. At the command of Cyril his body was
raised from the ground, and transported, in solemn procession, to the
cathedral; the name of Ammonius was changed to that of Thaumasius the
_wonderful_; his tomb was decorated with the trophies of martyrdom, and
the patriarch ascended the pulpit to celebrate the magnanimity of an
assassin and a rebel. Such honors might incite the faithful to combat
and die under the banners of the saint; and he soon prompted, or
accepted, the sacrifice of a virgin, who professed the religion of the
Greeks, and cultivated the friendship of Orestes. Hypatia, the daughter
of Theon the mathematician, was initiated in her father's studies;
her learned comments have elucidated the geometry of Apollonius and
Diophantus, and she publicly taught, both at Athens and Alexandria, the
philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. In the bloom of beauty, and in the
maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused her lovers and instructed
her disciples; the persons most illustrious for their rank or merit
were impatient to visit the female philosopher; and Cyril beheld, with
a jealous eye, the gorgeous train of horses and slaves who crowded the
door of her academy. A rumor was spread among the Christians, that the
daughter of Theon was the only obstacle to the reconciliation of the
praefect and the archbishop; and that obstacle was speedily removed. On
a fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was torn from her
chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered
by the hands of Peter the reader, and a troop of savage and merciless
fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her bones with sharp oyster shells,
and her quivering limbs were delivered to the flames. The just progress
of inquiry and punishment was st