- Lived:
- c. 350/370–March 415 CE · Alexandria, Egypt (her birth year is genuinely uncertain; scholars argue for anywhere between about 350 and 370)
- Tradition:
- Alexandrian Neoplatonism — the sober, mathematical strand of Plato's late-ancient revival
- The Big Idea:
- Philosophy can live in a person rather than a book: mathematics and reasoned contemplation as a way of forming souls — taught to pagans and Christians alike, in a city tearing itself apart.
- In their words:
- Not one sentence survives that we can be sure she wrote. So let her student speak instead — Synesius, a Christian bishop, addressing his pagan teacher: "mother, sister, teacher, and benefactor in all things."
- If you remember one thing:
- Everything she wrote is lost, and yet we know her influence was real — which makes her both a great philosopher and a great lesson in how carefully we must handle the past.