← Fame through time1000-1 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 coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Herodotus22 decades - 2
Diogenesnot measured- - 3
Heraclitus22 decades - 4
Thales of Miletus22 decades - 5
Hesiod22 decades - 6
Anaximander22 decades - 7
Anaxagoras22 decades - 8
Aspasianot measured- - 9
Chrysippus22 decades - 10
Hipparchus22 decades - 11
Xenophanes22 decades - 12
Mithridates VI of Pontus0 decades - 13
Dionysius of Halicarnassus22 decades - 14
Nabonidus19 decades - 15
Anaximenes of Miletus0 decades - 16
Leucippus22 decades - 17
Apollonius of Perga7 decades - 18
Artemisia I of Carianot measured- - 19
Eudoxus of Cnidus0 decades - 20
Apelles22 decades - 21
Anacreon22 decades - 22Hecataeus of Miletus1 decades
- 23
Mausolus22 decades - 24Publilius Syrus8 decades
- 25
Eumenesnot measured- - 26
Ptolemy Philadelphus22 decades - 27
Xenocrates22 decades - 28
Cleanthes22 decades - 29
Bias of Priene1 decades - 30
Herophilos0 decades - 31
Heraclides Ponticus8 decades - 32
Arcesilausnot measured-
How to read these rankings
- Attention, not reputation. A place on these lists reflects the attention a person still draws in the public record. It is not a judgement on the life.
- Fame in print. The curves show how often a name appeared in the books of each decade from 1800 to 2019, drawn from the Google Books Ngram corpus.
- Gaps are left as gaps. Where the record is too thin to be fair, we would rather show nothing than guess.