Until modern times, people expected death to be early and painful.
For instance, Heraclitus (pronounced HERA CLYTUS), a famous sixth-century B.C. philosopher, allegedly tried to cure his dropsy by burying himself neck-deep in dung, whereupon local dogs found him irresistible and ate him.
It’s hard to top such a spectacular getaway.
However, a fabled queen of the North African coast did come close. And she lived during the same era asHeraclitus.
Her name: Pheretima (probably pronounced FERA TIMA). The first lady of Cyrene, a fertile and scenic stretch along the North African coast, lay siege to the ancient city of Barca for nine dreary months following the murder of her son Arcesilaus (AR SES A LUS).With a little help from the Persians, as I understand it, the queen was victorious.
Afterwards she decided to redecorate, adorning the city walls with stakes that held the impaled heads of the murderers of her son and the breasts of their wives.
But wait. There’s more to the tale.
After the Barca bloodbath, Pheretima made an unpublicized exit to Egypt, where she came down with an ailment so ghastly the Greeks didn’t even have a name for it (neither do we).
Her body began to seethe with worms, which consumed her while she was still alive, right down to the last bite.
Some historians report that King Herod of Biblical times suffered the same fate. Probably some form of syphilis. Nobody knows for sure, though.
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And let’s not forget Hypatia (HY PAY SHUH), the world’s first martyr to mathematics. Although she was amath whiz, she was no match for the monk mob in A.D. 415.
Hypatia, a woman of influence in intellectual and political circles, mingled easily with philosophers, students, magistrates, and royalty.
The only bad luck she had was her timing.
Bishop Cyril (SERE AL), the religious head of Alexandria, where the greatest library and museum of the ancient world was located, set out to destroy pagans and their monuments alike.
His instrument: a Hell’s Angels band of uncultured Egyptian monks whose anger was racial as well as religious.
When Hypatia’s name moved to the top of the mob’s enemy list, her number came up.
One evening in A.D. 415, Hypatia crossed paths with a gang of frenzied monks, who ripped her from her chariot, dragged her into the church (I guess a sanctuary didn’t count for pagans), and tore her to bits the hard way, using oyster shells.
Still raging, they quartered her body and burned it in the plaza.
With her murder, Bishop Cyril’s message to the pagans of the shocked ancient city was clear.
And his message to women was even more transparent: the kingdom of heaven might have an equal opportunity policy, but here on earth, women better learn their place.
Unlike the early days of Christianity, when women and their work, faith and financial resources mattered, the Church had itself become an oyster shell.
Nevertheless, Hypatia believed that we live in an imperfect copy of the ideal world.
She believed in the presence of evil, but not in its eternal existence—a belief that was sorely tested by her senseless and vile death.
Throughout her life, Hypatia had been hit on by suitors pressing love and marriage. To let them down gently, she always said, “As a philosopher, I’m wedded to truth.”
She may have said the same thing to her murderers.
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Top of the morning!
