Seventeen centuries ago, men crossed the Mediterranean to study under a woman.
Hypatia of Alexandria (~360–415): mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, head of the Neoplatonic school of Alexandria. She edited and taught the great mathematical texts (Ptolemy, Diophantus, the conics) in an age when hand copies were the only way knowledge survived.
A Christian mob murdered her in 415.
Which made her a permanent symbol, twice over: of reason against fanaticism, and of how dangerous it has always been to be a brilliant woman in public.