Narmer was an Egyptian Pharaoh who ruled in the 31st century BC. Thought to be the successor to the predynastic Scorpion and/or Ka, he is considered by some to be the founder of the First dynasty, and therefore the first king of all Egypt....

The Yellow Emperor or Huang Di is a legendary Chinese sovereign and cultural hero who is said to be the ancestor of all Han Chinese. One of the Five Emperors, the Yellow Emperor is said by tradition to have reigned from 2698 BCE to 2599...

Netjerikhet or Djoser is the best-known pharaoh of the Third dynasty of Egypt. He commissioned his official, Imhotep (ca. 2650-2600 BC), to build the first of the pyramids, a step pyramid for him at Saqqara. Though there is significant cont...

Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a religious leader, lawgiver, and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed. Also called Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew "Moses our Teacher/Rabbi", is the most important proph...

Aeneas was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy. The journey of Aeneas from Troy (with help from Aphrodite), which led to the founding of the city Ro...

Dido was, according to ancient Greek and Roman sources, the founder and first Queen of Carthage (in modern-day Tunisia). She is best known from the account given by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid. In some sources she is also known as E...

Saul was the first king of the united Kingdom of Israel (reigned 1047 - 1007) according to the Hebrew Bible. He was anointed by the prophet Samuel and reigned from Gibeah. He committed suicide during a battle with the Philistines at Mount G...

In the Western classical tradition, Homer is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest of Greek epic poets. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influenc...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Cleisthenes was an ancient Athenian lawgiver credited with reforming the constitution of ancient Athens and setting it on a democratic footing in 508 BC. For these accomplishments, historians refer to him as "the father of Athenian democrac...

Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhartha Gautama or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was an ascetic and sage, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the eastern part of ancien...