Seven Sages of Greece

Mosaïc of the Seven Sages, Baalbeck, 3rd century A.D.,
National Museum of Beirut. Calliope
at the center, and clockwise from top: Socrates, Chilon, Pittacus, Periander, Cleobulus (damaged section), Bias, Thales,

According to Diogenes, a Greek philosopher who lived during 412 BC to 323 BC also known as Diogenes the cynic, the seven "were neither wise men nor philosophers, but merely shrewd men, who had studied legislation." And according to at least one modern scholar, the claim is correct: "With the exception of Thales, no one whose life is contained in [Diogenes'] Book I [i.e. none of the above] has any claim to be styled a philosopher." 

The Seven Sages

The list of seven sages includes:

Cleobulus of Lindos. a Greek poet and a native of Lindos. 6th century BC, Cleobulus was the son of Evagoras and a citizen of Lindus in Rhodes. Cleobulus is said to have studied philosophy in Egypt. He had a daughter, Cleobulina, who found fame as a poet, composing riddles in hexameter verse. Cleobulus is said to have lived to the age of seventy, and to have been greatly distinguished, for strength and beauty of person. 

Bust of Solon from the National Museum,
 Naples

Solon of Athens. 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 with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy. He wrote poetry for pleasure, as patriotic propaganda and in defence of his constitutional reforms.

Chilon of Sparta. Chilon was the son of Damagetus, and lived towards the beginning of the 6th century BC.

Chilon was the son of Damagetus, and lived towards the beginning of the 6th century BC. Herodotus speaks of him as contemporary with Hippocrates, the father of Peisistratus. Diogenes Laertius states that he was an old man in the 52nd Olympiad (572 BC), and that he was elected an ephor (overseer) in Sparta in the 56th Olympiad (556/5 BC). Alcidamas states that he was a member of the Spartan assembly. Diogenes Laertius even goes so far as to claim that Chilon was also the first person who introduced the custom of joining the ephors to the kings as their counselors. 

Chilon is said to have helped to overthrow the tyranny at Sicyon, which became a Spartan ally. He is also credited with the change in Spartan policy leading to the development of the Peloponnesian League in the sixth century BC. Another legend claims that he died of joy when his son gained the prize for boxing at the Olympic games, and that his funeral was attended by all the Greeks assembled at the festival. 

Bust of Bias bearing the inscription “Bias of Priene”.
In Greek: ΒΙΑΣ ΠΡΗΝΕΥΣ (BIAS PRĒNEUS), Βίας Πρηνεύς.
Marble, Roman copy after a Greek original.
From the villa of Cassius near Tivoli, 1774.

Bias of Priene. a Greek sage 6th century BC. Bias was born at Priene and was the son of Teutamus. He is said to have been distinguished for his skill as an advocate, and for his use of it in defense of the right. In reference to which Demodicus of Alerius uttered the following saying – "If you are a judge, give a Prienian decision," and Hipponax said, "More powerful in pleading causes than Bias of Priene." 

He was always reckoned among the Seven Sages, and was mentioned by Dicaearchus as one of the Four to whom alone that title was universally given — the remaining three being Thales, Pittacus, and Solon. Satyrus placed him at the head of the Seven Sages, and even Heraclitus, who poured scorn on figures such as Hesiod and Pythagoras, referred to Bias as "a man of more consideration than any." One of the examples of his great goodness is the legend that says that Bias paid a ransom for some women who had been taken prisoner. After educating them as his own daughters, he sent them back to Messina, their homeland, and to their fathers. 

Thales of Miletus Credited as the first philosopher of Ancient Greece, and therefore the founder of Western philosopher, Thales hailed from the Ionian seaport of Miletus, now in modern Turkey. Miletus was a major centre of development for both science and philosophy in Ancient Greece. Thales, probably born somewhere around 620 BC is mainly remembered as the pre-Socratic philosopher who claimed that the fundamental nature of the world is water. Aristotle mentions him, as does Herodotus, and these are really our only accounts of Thales’ background. However, his significance as a philosopher is not so much what he said, but his method. Thales was the first thinker to try to account for the nature of the world without appealing to the wills and whims of anthropomorphic, Homerian gods. Rather, he sought to explain the many diverse phenomena he observed by appealing to a common, underlying principle, an idea that is still germane to modern scientific method. He is also credited by Herodotus with correctly predicting that there would be a solar eclipse in 585 BC during a battle between the Medes and the Lydians. As such, Thales can with some justification be thought of as the first natural scientist and analytical philosopher in Western intellectual history.

Thales had other modern traits, for it also seems that he was something of an entrepreneur. According to one story, Thales made a fortune investing in oil-presses before a heavy olive crop – certainly he would have had to be wealthy in order to devote time and thought to philosophy and science in seventh century BC Ancient Greece.

According to his metaphysics, water was the first principle of life and the material world. seeing that water could turn into both vapour by evaporation and a solid by freezing, that all life required and was supported by moisture, he postulated that it was the single causal principle behind the natural world. In a crude anticipation of modern plate tectonics, Thales professed that the flat earth floated on water. Aristotle tells us that Thales thought the earth had a buoyancy much like wood, and that the earth floated on water much like a log or a ship. Indeed, many floating islands were said to be known to the sea-farers of Miletus, which may have served as either models or evidence for Thales’ theory. He even accounted for earthquakes as being due to rocking of the earth by subterranean waves, just as ship may be rocked at sea. From the port of Miletus he would have been familiar with the phenomenon of sedimentation, possibly believing it to be the spontaneous generation of earth from water, an idea held as recently as the 18th century.

Having sought to give a naturalistic explanation of observable phenomena, rather than appealing to the wills of gods, Thales claimed that god is in all things. According to Aetius, Thales said the mind of the world is god, that god is intermingled in all things, a view what would shortly appear contemporaneously in a number of world religions, most notably Buddhism in India. Despite his metaphysical speculations beingclearly mistaken, it seems that Thales was a modern thinker in more ways than one, pre-empting many ideas in religion, philosophy and science.

[Summarized from Philosophy 100 Essential Thinkers by Philip Stokes, 2012.]

Also watch Thales of Miletus in 5 Minutes

Bust of Pittacus, Roman copy of a Greek original of the second classicism,
 Louvre Museum 

Pittacus of Mytilene. 650bc - 570bc, an ancient Mytilenaen military general. He collaborated with the brothers of the poet Alcaeus in the overthrow of the tyrant Melanchrus (612/611?) and distinguished himself as a commander in the war against Athens for Sigium, killing the Athenian commander, Phrynon, single-handedly. He was elected aisymnetes (dictator appointed during times of internal strife) by the Mytileneans (c. 590 BC) and served in that post for 10 years. Diogenes Laërtius quotes a number of sayings ascribed to him (mostly moral or political maxims) and five lines of lyric verse, as well as a spurious letter to Croesus.

Periander, Roman copy after a Greek original of the 4th century BC,
Vatican Museums.

Periander of Corinth. was the Second Tyrant of the Cypselid dynasty that ruled over Corinth. Periander’s rule brought about a prosperous time in Corinth’s history, as his administrative skill made Corinth one of the wealthiest city states in Greece. Several accounts state that Periander was a cruel and harsh ruler, but others claim that he was a fair and just king who worked to ensure that the distribution of wealth in Corinth was more or less even.

(Myson of Chenae) According to Sosicrates, who quoted Hermippus, Myson was the son of Strymon, a tyrant of his country. All sources agree that Myson was a plain farmer, though they differ as to his place of birth and residence. He is said to have lived in the village of Chen, though this is variously located in Laconia or Crete. He is also said to be "of Oeta", which seems to be a reference to Mount Oeta; but the reference is sometimes read as "Etea" instead, which again may have been in Laconia or else in Crete. He died at the age of 97.

In his Protagoras, Plato lists Myson of Chen as one of the Seven Sages of Greece, instead of Periander, who was claimed as one by Stobaeus, citing Demetrius of Phaleron as his authority. Eudoxus also lists Myson, but omits Cleobulus instead.

The Oracle of Delphi proclaimed Myson the wisest of all men when Anacharsis consulted it:

"Myson of Chen in Oeta; this is heWho for wiseheartedness surpasses thee;"

Sources and legends

The oldest explicit mention on record of a standard list of seven sages is in Plato's Protagoras, where Socrates says:

...There some, both at present and of old, who recognized that Spartanizing is much more a love of wisdom than a love of physical exercise, knowing that the ability to utter such [brief and terse] remarks belongs to a perfectly educated man. Among these were Thales of Miletus, and Pittacus of Mytilene, and Bias of Priene, and our own Solon, and Cleobulus of Lindus, and Myson of Chenae, and the seventh of them was said to be Chilon of Sparta. They all emulated and admired and were students of Spartan education, could tell their wisdom was of this sort by the brief but memorable remarks they each uttered when they met and jointly the first fruits of their wisdom to Apollo in his shrine at Delphi, writing what is on every man's lips: Know thyself, and Nothing too much. Why do I say this? Because this was the manner of philosophy among the ancients, a kind of laconic brevity. 

The section of the Protagoras in which appears this passage is "elaborately ironical", making it unclear which of its parts may be taken seriously, although Diogenes Laertius later confirms that there were indeed seven such individuals who were held in high esteem for their wisdom well before Plato's time. 

According to Demetrius Phalereus, it was during the archonship of Damasias (582/1 BC) that the seven first become known as "the wise men", Thales being the first so acknowledged. 

Calliope, surrounded by Socrates and seven wise men, (Baalbeck, 3rd century A.D.) exposed in the National Museum of Beirut. Clockwise from top: Socrates, Chilon, Pittacus, Periander, Cleobulus (damaged section), Bias, Thales, and Solon.

Diogenes points out, however, that there was among his sources great disagreement over which figures should be counted among the seven. Perhaps the two most common substitutions were to exchange Periander or Anacharsis for Myson.

 On Diogenes' first list of seven, which he introduces with the words "These men are acknowledged wise," Periander appears instead of Myson; the same substitution appears in The Masque of the Seven Sages by Ausonius. Both Ephorus and Plutarch (in his Banquet of the Seven Sages) substituted Anacharsis for Myson. 

Diogenes Laertius further states that Dicaearchus gave ten possible names, Hippobotus suggested twelve names, and Hermippus enumerated seventeen possible sages from which different people made different selections of seven.

 Leslie Kurke contends that "Aesop was a popular contender for inclusion in the group"; an epigram of the 6th century AD poet Agathias(Palatine Anthology 16.332) refers to a statue of the Seven Sages, with Aesop standing before them. 

Later tradition ascribed to each sage a pithy saying of his own, but ancient as well as modern scholars have doubted the legitimacy of such ascriptions. 

A compilation of 147 maxims, inscribed at Delphi, was preserved by the fifth century AD scholar Stobaeus as "Sayings of the Seven Sages," but "the actual authorship of the...maxims set up on the Delphian temple may be left uncertain. Most likely they were popular proverbs, which tended later to be attributed to particular sages."

In addition to being credited for pithy sayings, the wise men were also apparently famed for practical inventions; in Plato's Republic (600a), it is said that it "befits a wise man" to have "many inventions and useful devices in the crafts or sciences" attributed to him, citing Thales and Anacharsis the Scythian as examples.

According to a number of moralistic stories, there was a golden tripod (or, in some versions of the story, a bowl or cup) which was to be given to the wisest. 

Allegedly, it passed in turn from one of the seven sages to another, beginning with Thales, until one of them (either Thales or Solon, depending on the story) finally dedicated it to Apollo who was held to be wisest of all.