In the city of Alexandria in 415 CE, the bishop and the governor were in a fight.

It started with a disagreement over the behavior of a militia of monks, and ended with an accusation of witchcraft leveled against one of the most powerful figures in the city.

Hypatia of Alexandria was a prominent mathematician,philosopher,and advisor to the city's leaders.

In the centuries since she lived, the details of her life have been the subject of much dispute and have taken on an almost mythical status.

But while none of Hypatia's own writings survive, her contemporaries' and students' accounts of her work and life paint a picture of the qualities that made her renowned as a scholar,beloved as a teacher,and ultimately led to her downfall.

Hypatia was born around 355 in Alexandria, then part of the Egyptian province of the Eastern Roman Empire,and an intellectual center.

Her father Theon was an accomplished Greek mathematician and astronomer;her mother is unknown.

Hypatia was likely an only child,and Theon educated her himself.

By adulthood,she had surpassed her father in both mathematics and philosophy, becoming the city's foremost scholar and taking over his position at the head of the Platonic school,similar to a modern university.

She refined scientific instruments,wrote math textbooks, and developed a more efficient method of long division.