Diogenes of Oinoanda

Diogenes of Oinoanda

Diogenes of Oenoanda (or Oinoanda) was an Epicurean Greek from the 2nd century AD who carved a summary of the philosophy of Epicurus onto a portico wall in the ancient city of Oenoanda in Lycia (modern day southwest Turkey). The surviving fragments of the wall, which originally extended about 80 meters, form an important source of Epicurean philosophy.

Diogenes (ca. 400-ca. 325 B.C.), a Greek philosopher, was the most famous exponent of Cynicism, which called for a closer imitation of nature, the repudiation of most human conventions, and complete independence of mind and spirit

Strabo

Strabo
Strabo (Greek: Στράβων; 63/64 BC – ca. AD 24) was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.

Strabo, who was born at Amaseia (now Amasya in Turkey), traveled to Rome in 44 BC and remained there until about 31 BC. He visited Corinth in 29 BC and in about 24 BC sailed up the Nile.

Although the historical writings of Strabo, including his Historical Sketches, in 47 books, have been almost entirely lost, his Geography, in 17 books, has survived virtually intact. This major geographical work is an important source of information on the ancient world. In it Strabo accepted the traditional description of the Earth as divided into five zones with the oikoumene, or inhabited part, represented as a parallelogram spread over eight lines of latitude and seven meridians of longitude. Where he excelled, however, was in the field of historical and cultural geography and he gave a detailed account of the history and culture of the lands and people of the Roman Empire and of such areas as India, which lay beyond the dominion of Augustus. In this he quoted much from the earlier Greeks, including Eratosthenes, and Artemidorus.

Strabo, not content merely to describe the lands of the civilized world, also wished to understand its enormous diversity. He rejected the simple climatic determinism that he attributed to the Stoic Poseidonius, arguing in its place for the role of institutions and education. Despite the value of this work Strabo seemed to exercise little influence until Byzantine times.

Gaius Plinius Secundu

Gaius Plinius Secundu
Born: 23 A.D.
Birthplace: Como, Italy
Died: 24 August 79 A.D. (Got too close to an erupting volcano)
Best Known As: The author of Natural History

Gaius Plinius Secundas (Pliny the Elder) was a Roman official and military officer who also wrote as a naturalist, biographer and historian. He is most known for his only extant work, a 37-volume Natural History that served as the basis for scientific knowledge for centuries. Pliny wrote in Latin, using mostly Greek sources and his own observations (and vivid imagination). In 79 A.D., when Mt. Vesuvius erupted, Pliny was a naval commander at the Bay of Naples. While attempting to get closer to the volcano and possibly effect a rescue, Pliny was overcome with fumes and died.

His nephew Pliny the Younger also was a writer and historian, as well as a Roman senator.
Gaius Plinius Secundus was a famous Roman scientific encyclopedist and historian. He surveyed all the known sciences of his day, astronomy, meteorology, geography, mineralogy, zoology, and botany. Most of his works are lost, but his book Historia naturalis (Natural History) still exists. No single work of Pliny still exists, but many of them were copied, complete or in excerpts, multiple times. So today numerous copies of many of his works exist, which gives some security that they are authentic.

Plinius was born in Como, studied in Rome and then became soldier, which was a typical career for a Roman aristocrat. He became a cavalry commander in Gallia (France) and Germania (Germany) and a friend of Vespasian. During the reign of Nero he was in foreign countries, which kept him out of harm's way. After Nero died, his friend Vespasian was made emperor in AD 69. So he returned to Rome and took up various public offices.

Cicero

Cicero
Born: 6 January 106 B.C.
Birthplace: Arpinum (now Arpino, Italy)
Died: 7 December 43 B.C. (assassination)
Best Known As: Roman statesman who stood up to Marc Antony
Name at birth: Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cicero was the greatest speaker among the many famous statesmen of ancient Rome. He practiced law and studied philosophy in Greece before holding a rising sequence of important jobs in the Roman Empire. In 64 BCE he became Consul, the highest office in Rome. As Consul he won fame for his orations against Cataline, the head of a secret conspiracy to seize the government. Always a staunch supporter of the Republic, Cicero was eventually forced from office by his enemies, and when Julius Caesar consolidated his power in 48 BC, Cicero went into political retirement. During this time he wrote his famous essays on happiness, on old age, and on friendship. Upon Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE, Cicero returned to public life and delivered a series of scathing speeches (the "Phillipics") against Marc Antony. This proved to be Cicero's undoing: when Antony took power in a triumvirate with Octavian and Marcus Lepidus, Cicero was declared an outlaw and killed by Antony's men in 43 BCE.

After Cicero's death, his head and right hand were taken to Antony, who had them placed on public view on the rostrum where Cicero had made many of his famous speeches.

Caesar

Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (ca. 140 BC–85 BC) was a Roman senator, supporter and brother-in-law of Gaius Marius, and father of Julius Caesar, the later dictator of Rome.

Caesar was married to Aurelia Cotta, a member the of Aurelii and Rutilii families, and had two daughters, both named Julia, and a son, Julius Caesar, born in 100 BC.[1] He was the brother of Sextus Julius Caesar, consul in 91 BC[2] and thus the son of Gaius Julius Caesar.

Epicurus

Epicurus (Greek: Έπίκουρος, Epikouros, "upon youth"; Samos, 341 BC – Athens, 270 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works. Much of what we know about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators.

For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by aponia, the absence of pain and fear, and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that death is the end of the body and the soul and should therefore not be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that the universe is infinite and eternal, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space

Lucretius

Lucretius

Titus Lucretius Carus (ca. 99 BC- ca. 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the epic philosophical poem on Epicureanism De Rerum Natura, On the Nature of Things.

Very little is known about Lucretius's life. One source of information is St. Jerome, writing 400 years after Lucretius's death and with a possible desire to discredit him. He mentions Lucretius in the Chronica Eusebii. Here we find the following notice: "Titus Lucretius the poet is born. Later he was driven mad by a love potion, and when, during the intervals of his insanity, he had written a number of books, which were later emended by Cicero, he killed himself by his own hand in the 44th year of his life." In most manuscripts this notice is entered under the year 94 BC, but in others under 93 or 96. This gives us the following alternative dates for Lucretius's life and death: 96-53/52, 94-51/50, and 93-50/49.