  After a basic education in “grammar” as well as studies in classical Greek language and literature, John Philoponus, who was probably born into a Christian family, embarked on this curriculum (ca. 510). As a pupil of Ammonius (ca. 440–520) he assumed responsibility for writing down the lectures of the school’s by then ailing head: Philoponus’ commentaries on Aristotle’s On Generation and Corruption, On the Soul, Prior Analytics and Posterior Analytics explicitly state in their titles that they are based on Ammonius’ seminars (ek tôn synousiôn Ammôníou). The commentaries on the Categories, Physics and Meteorology do not make such claims, which suggests, in conjunction with other evidence, that Philoponus was by that time teaching these courses on his own.  He presumably took over as lecturer from Ammonius at some point, although he never held the chair of philosophy but remained in the status of a ‘grammatikós’, i.e. a professor of philology. After the death of Ammonius the school’s leadership seems to have passed into the hands of the mathematician Eutocius and then on to the philosopher Olympiodorus (ca. 495–570), who remained a pagan and, remarkably, still taught in then-Christian Alexandria unperturbed as late as 565.