← 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
Julius Caesar22 decades - 2
Augustus22 decades - 3
Cicero22 decades - 4
Hannibalnot measured- - 5
Tiberiusnot measured- - 6
Mark Antony22 decades - 7
Pompeynot measured- - 8
Xerxes I2 decades - 9
Chanakya13 decades - 10
Pericles22 decades - 11
Scipio Africanus22 decades - 12
Cato the Elder19 decades - 13
Sulla22 decades - 14
Marcus Licinius Crassus0 decades - 15
Demosthenes22 decades - 16
Alcibiades22 decades - 17
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa0 decades - 18
Themistocles22 decades - 19
Gaius Marius4 decades - 20
Croesus22 decades - 21
Cato the Younger4 decades - 22
Hamilcar Barca10 decades - 23
Livianot measured- - 24
Numa Pompilius22 decades - 25Li Si7 decades
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.