Aedesia was a female
philosopher of the
Neoplatonic school who lived in
Alexandria in the fifth century. She was a relation of
Syrianus and the wife of
Hermias, and was equally celebrated for her beauty and her virtues. After the death of her husband, she devoted herself to relieving the wants of the distressed and the education of her children,
Ammonius and
Heliodorus. She accompanied the latter to
Athens, where they went to study philosophy, and was received with great distinction by all the philosophers there, and especially by
Proclus, to whom she had been betrothed by Syrianus, when she was quite young. She lived to a considerable age, and her funeral oration was pronounced by
Damascius, who was then a young man, in
hexameter verses.