era list
The 1st–5th century
Lives born between 1 and 500, read in order of birth — the arc of one long age.
Plutarch
46 – 119The biographer who invented the idea that character makes history.
Cai Lun
50 – 121Standardised papermaking, the substrate of recorded civilisation.
Epictetus
50 – 135Enslaved teacher whose Discourses fixed the dichotomy of control at the heart of Stoic practice.
Zhang Heng
78 – 139Built the first seismoscope and mapped 2,500 stars.
Ptolemy
100 – 170The Almagest ruled astronomy for 1,400 years; his Geography guided Columbus.
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.
Zhang Zhongjing
150 – 219Treatise on Cold Damage remains a foundation of Chinese medicine.
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.
Kalidasa
400 – 460Sanskrit's supreme dramatist; Shakuntala reached Goethe.
Aryabhata
476 – 550Gave place-value, an accurate π, and a rotating Earth in 499 CE.
Boethius
477 – 524Wrote Consolation of Philosophy awaiting execution; medieval Europe's bridge to antiquity.