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Category
Era
Countries (85)
8 figures
Plutarch
46 – 119The biographer who invented the idea that character makes history.
Epictetus
50 – 135Enslaved teacher whose Discourses fixed the dichotomy of control at the heart of Stoic practice.
Marcus Aurelius
121 – 180Emperor whose private Meditations founded modern Stoic self-help.
Galen of Pergamon
129 – 216Physician to gladiators and emperors whose anatomy ruled medicine for 1,400 years.
Nagarjuna
150 – 250Founded Madhyamaka Buddhism and its logic of emptiness.
Augustine of Hippo
354 – 430Wrote Confessions, the first true autobiography, and shaped Western theology.
Hypatia of Alexandria
360 – 415Mathematician and astronomer murdered by a mob; symbol of learning against zealotry.
Boethius
477 – 524Wrote Consolation of Philosophy awaiting execution; medieval Europe's bridge to antiquity.