Hypatia of Alexandria changed my life. I sat down a couple of years ago to start researching what is now The Sibylline Chronicles. She found me. I had no clue where I’d end up.
In fact, if you can believe it, the only thing I knew for sure was:
- The genre
Gulp!
I had a few other ideas. I wanted the story to be anchored in the Middle East and North Africa. It needed to be set some time in the roughly thousand years between Alexander the Great and the end of Roman Empire. The protagonist had to be a woman.
That left a lot of room for the story to evolve. And, if you ask anyone who has been around listening to me talk about it all since that light bulb moment, each person would be able to tell you about 100 rough-draft versions.
Then, one day, a friend who knew I read endlessly and wanted someone to talk to about the Arabic literature she loved passed along a book that featured Hypatia of Alexandria. Azazeel – an incredible novel written by Egyptian professor Youssef Ziedan.
The book jacket summary:
“Set in the fifth century AD in Upper Egypt, Alexandria and northern Syria, Azazeel presents two parallel fights of the new religion (Christianity) and its believers on the one side and the old pagan religions and their believers on the other side. The other parallel fight takes place inside the monk Hypa whose life is a permanent fight between the two elements of his personality: the heavenly and the earthly elements, the pagan and the Christian.”
I pored through it, finishing in two days, wowed by Ziedan, that world and particularly the mysterious life and death of Hypatia of Alexandria. Her murder, for all intents and purposes, marks the end of the ancient era.
Hypatia and I, Our Fateful Meeting
I became obsessed with this woman. People know almost nothing of her life. Yet, she was able to rise to the highest of ranks at a time when women were nothing more than property. She garnered a huge following of high-born from across the Roman Empire and beyond who came to learn math, science and philosophy from her in Alexandria.
Ziedan’s book became the entry point for every part of her world with which I spent years researching, reading and learning about. He led me to Syria, Tunisia, Libya and even Rome – now all significant settings in The Sibylline Chronicles.
But, most of all, he led me to the Sibyls. The questions left unanswered in history books about this elite group of women stunned me. They were all-powerful, even in death. Michelangelo painted into the frescos of the Sistine Chapel. Men memorialized them beside Christian saints. Yet, we know so little about them.
The Infamous Death of Hypatia of Alexandria
Then, there’s the matter of Hypatia’s brutal murder – really the only thing history tells us of her. She was idnapped and killed in 415 AD by a Christian mob. Her body torn to shreds and burned in the streets of Alexandria. Hypatia’s pagan beliefs apparently caused her death.
So many mysteries, so many holes in our own written history. They made for SO much room to create a rich fictionalized world seen through the eyes of these ancient women.
So, there it started. The Sibylline came to life. A fictional version of Hypatia’s life emerged. Relics of an ancient culture surfaced. A story bubbled up. I needed to tell it.
All it took was one book.
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