Hesiod was a Greek oral poet and is often identified as the first economist. His date is uncertain but leading scholars, favor the the eighth century BC for when Hesiod lived. Since at least Herodotus's time, Hesiod and Homer have generally...

Ashurbanipal, Assurbanipal or Sardanapal, (reigned 669-627 BC), was the last great king of ancient Assyria. He is famous as one of the few kings in antiquity who could himself read and write. Assyrian sculpture reached its apogee under his...

Necho II was a king of the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt (610 BCE – 595 BCE). Necho II is most likely the pharaoh mentioned in several books of the Bible (see Hebrew Bible / Old Testament). The Book of Kings states that Necho met King Josia...

Solon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic, and moral decline in archaic Athens. His reforms failed in the short term, yet he is often credited...

Nebuchadnezzar II was a ruler of Babylon in the Chaldean Dynasty, who reigned c. 605 BC – 562 BC. According to the Bible, he conquered Judah and Jerusalem, and sent the Jews into exile. He is credited with the construction of the Hanging Ga...

Sappho was a Greek lyric poet, born on the island of Lesbos. The Alexandrians included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for c...

Zoroaster, also known as Zarathustra, was an ancient Iranian spiritual leader who founded what is now known as Zoroastrianism. His teachings challenged the existing traditions of the Indo-Iranian religion and inaugurated a movement that eve...

Thales of Miletus was a Greek mathematician, astronomer and pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regarded him as the first philosopher in the Gree...

Aesop was an Ancient Greek fabulist or story teller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop's Fables. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gat...

Anaximander was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia (in modern-day Turkey). He belonged to the Milesian school and learned the teachings of his master Thales. He succeeded Thales and became the second mast...

Laozi (also Lao-Tzu or Lao-Tze, literally "Old Master") was an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He is known as the reputed author of the Tao Te Ching, the founder of philosophical Taoism, and a deity in religious Taoism and tradition...

The yin-yang symbol represents unity and duality, a universal dual monism. It is also inherent in the ancient Chinese system of divination of the I Ching (Book of Changes). It is basic to the teachings of Taoism, as embodied in the classic...

The Tao Te Ching, roughly translatable as The Book of the Way and its Virtue, is a Chinese classic text. According to tradition, it was written around 600 BCE by the Taoist sage Laozi (or Lao Tzu, "Old Master"), a record-keeper at the Zhou...

Epimenides of Knossos was a semi-mythical 6th century BC Greek seer and philosopher-poet, who is said to have fallen asleep for fifty-seven years in a Cretan cave sacred to Zeus, after which he reportedly awoke with the gift of prophecy....

Cyrus II of Persia, commonly known as Cyrus the Great and also called Cyrus the Elder by the Greeks, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, e...