Bias of Priene is read about 87 times a day, in 35 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 17 September 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 60 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?A lawyer in sixth-century-BC Greece who never charged a fee and died mid-argument in court. One of the Seven Sages, remembered for a bleak view of human nature and a tripod he refused to keep.
Also in Deutsch
Photos 8
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In their own words 10
, You should look into a mirror: if you look fine, do fine things; if you look ugly, correct by nobility the defect of your nature.
Great riches come to many men by chance.
Choose the course which you adopt with deliberation; but when you have adopted it, then persevere in it with firmness.
About this person
Bias spent his life in Priene as a legal advocate, taking no payment from clients he believed had been wronged. He served as an envoy during a dispute with Samos, though the mediation failed. His philosophy was austere: most men are bad, misfortune must be borne, the gods deserve credit for good deeds, and wealth means nothing. Stories attached themselves to him - he turned down a tripod meant for the wisest man alive, ransomed kidnapped girls from Messenia, and once tricked the Lydian king Alyattes into abandoning a siege by making Priene look overstocked. He died arguing a case in old age, and even Heraclitus, who despised most figures from the past, praised him.
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