Hypatia was a philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer who, though female and pagan, achieved the honor of being named by the Christian Roman government to the position of philosopher at the museum of Alexandria. Students reading philosophy at the Alexandrian School would also study mathematics and astronomy as technical, applied disciplines of the more traditional studies of metaphysics and cosmology. Hypatia's father, Theon of Alexandria, was the museum's most famous mathematician-astronomer, and it is largely through Theon that we have a reliable source of Ptolemy's Syntaxis Mathematica (Almagest).

Hypatia likely assumed the directorship of the school of philosophy in about 400. The recently converted Christian, Synesius of Cyrene, later the bishop of Ptolemais, became her student in 393. From Synesius's works we surmise that Hypatia's early philosophical teachings concentrated on Plato's metaphysical works, especially the Timeaus. Her mathematical and astronomical writings can be understood primarily as applications...