Claim profile
1000–1 BC

The 1st millennium BC

Whose working lives fell in the 1st millennium BC. Books are measured from 1800 and readers from 2015, so for this period we can say who lived then, not who was talked about then.

Lived then

The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 1st millennium BC, ranked where Wikipedia coverage and readership agree.

CountryAll🇮🇹 Italy🇹🇷 Turkey🇨🇳 China🇮🇳 India🇪🇬 Egypt🇫🇷 France🇮🇱 Israel🇩🇪 Germany🇯🇵 Japan🇪🇸 Spain
FieldAllPoliticiansHistorical FiguresWritersAcademicsModelsArtistsScientistsReligious FiguresDoctorsArchitects
  1. 1ParmenidesParmenides515 BC–470 BC · 🇮🇹 Italy · Academics22 decades
  2. 2EmpedoclesEmpedocles494 BC–434 BC · 🇮🇹 Italy · Academics22 decades
  3. 3Zeno of EleaZeno of Elea490 BC–425 BC · 🇮🇹 Italy · Academics11 decades
  4. 4GorgiasGorgias483 BC–375 BC · 🇮🇹 Italy · Academics22 decades
  5. 5Marcus Terentius VarroMarcus Terentius Varro116 BC–27 BC · 🇮🇹 Italy · Academics0 decades
  6. 6ArchytasArchytas430 BC–345 BC · 🇮🇹 Italy · Academics22 decades
  7. 7PhilolausPhilolaus470 BC–390 BC · 🇮🇹 Italy · Academics22 decades
  8. 8HippasusHippasus600 BC–500 BC · 🇮🇹 Italy · Academics12 decades

How this is measured

  • Placing people in time. Each person belongs to the century in which they were most active — around age 35, and never after their death.
  • Who ranks highest. Within a century, people are ranked where two independent signals agree: how many of the world’s Wikipedia language editions cover them, and how many people actually read about them. Article counts alone can be lifted by a person’s own circle; readers cannot.
  • Fame in print. The curves count how often a name appears in Google Books from 1800 to 2019, as a share of all the words printed each year, in the person’s own language wherever that corpus exists. Those decades are over, so each measurement is made once and kept.
  • What is left out. A lifetime is measured only from 1820, when there is enough print to judge; the five years after a death are skipped as obituaries; and a name shared with someone equally notable is credited to neither.