An unhappy consequence of the conversion of the conversion of the fourth-century Roman emperors to Christianity was that the role of the persecuted was now shifted to the pagans. When the Greek temples were ordered razed, the immense library housed in the Temple of Serapis , consisting of over 300,00 rolls of manuscripts , fell prey to the vandalism of fanatics. With it , a painfully accumulated record of centuries of genius was heedlessly wiped away. Not content with eradicating “pagan science” by the torch , Christian mobs murdered many of the Museum's scholars in the streets of Alexandria. Such was the fate of the first prominent women mathematician , Hypatia , daughter and pupil of Theon of Alexandria.