Hypatia

“To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing.”

One of the foremost mathematicians and teachers of philosophy in Roman Egypt, Hypatia became the head of the Platonist school in Alexandria. Though widely admired, she was also considered a dangerous and seditious figure, since “Hypatia came to symbolize learning and science, which the early Christians identified with paganism.” Afraid of her popularity, erudition, and pagan ways, a mob of religious zealots murdered her in 415 CE.