Who was Hypatia?

Hypatia of Alexandria was a Hellenized Egyptian philospher of the Platonic school, teacher, mathematician, astrologer and pagan. The exact date of her birth is not known but speculations range from350-370 CE. She was the daughter of Theon, the last fellow of the Museum of Alexandria, of which the Great Library founded by the Ptolemies was a part. Hypatia received students in her home, many of whom were prominent christians who extolled her virtues. She is believed to be the sole woman represented (lower left, dressed in white and looking at the viewer) in Raphael's 1510 "The School of Athens" (pictured above). Her contemporary, the christian historiographer Socrates Scholasticus in his Ecclesiastical History portrays her as follows:
There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more. In 391 CE Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, destroyed several Roman pagan temples at the same time that Emperor Theodosius I published an edict prohibiting various aspects of pagan worship. Hypatia's death in 415 CE was at the hands of a violent mob. Just who was responsible for the riot is not known but theories include: a spontaneous christian uprising that was allowed to occur, a conspiracy by the Emperor or a peasant mob made up of both christians and pagans. Hypatia has been said to be the first "famous witch" to be punished under christian authority.