 Damascius, in his Philosophical History (aka Life of Isidore) describes Syrianus as a strikingly handsome and tall man with impressive intellectual powers. The son of an otherwise unknown Philoxenus, he grew up in Alexandria, where he must have received an education in rhetoric and perhaps some philosophy. In the second half of the 4th century, Alexandria had become increasingly burdened by strife between her pagan elite and a notoriously quarrelsome Christian populace. The mathematician Theon of Alexandria (c. 335–405) and his daughter Hypatia, who was killed by agitating Christians in 415, were the most prominent pagan intellectuals in Alexandria during Syrianus’ life. We do not know when exactly Syrianus decided to go to Athens to study with Plutarch and to dedicate himself to philosophy; it appears, however, that Syrianus spent the rest of his active life in Athens as a close associate of Plutarch and, eventually, as his successor. If the attribution of the commentary on Hermogenes is correct (see section 3b below), we may infer that Syrianus was married, since that commentary is dedicated to its author’s son Alexander. Archeological evidence suggests that Plutarch and Syrianus, and later Proclus, lived and taught in a complex of houses near the theater of Dionysus at the south slope of the Acropolis, not at the site now known as the original location of Plato’s Academy outside the ancient city’s walls. According to Marinus (in his Life of Proclus, 36), Syrianus was buried on the slopes of Mount Lycabettus in Athens.