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The Seven Sages (of Greece) or Seven Wise Men (Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: ?? ?pt? s?f??, hoi hepta sophoi; c. 620 BC–550 BC) was the title given by ancient Greek
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
 tradition to seven early 6th century B.C. philosophers, statesmen and law-givers who were renowned in the following centuries for their wisdom.

oldest explicit mention on record of a standard list of seven sages is in Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
's Protagoras
Protagoras (dialogue)

Protagoras is a dialogue of Plato. The main argument is between the elderly Protagoras, a celebrated sophist, and Socrates. The discussion takes place at the home of Callias, who is host to Protagoras while he is in town, and concerns a familiar theme in the dialogues: the teaching of virtue....
, where Socrates says:

The passage in which the above occurs is "elaborately ironical"; so it is tough to know which aspects of it to take seriously, though Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes La?rtius , the biographer of the Greece philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and by others from the Roman Empire family of the La?rtii....
 later confirms that there were indeed seven such individuals who were held in high esteem for their wisdom well before Plato's time.






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The Seven Sages (of Greece) or Seven Wise Men (Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: ?? ?pt? s?f??, hoi hepta sophoi; c. 620 BC–550 BC) was the title given by ancient Greek
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
 tradition to seven early 6th century B.C. philosophers, statesmen and law-givers who were renowned in the following centuries for their wisdom.

Sources and legends

The oldest explicit mention on record of a standard list of seven sages is in Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
's Protagoras
Protagoras (dialogue)

Protagoras is a dialogue of Plato. The main argument is between the elderly Protagoras, a celebrated sophist, and Socrates. The discussion takes place at the home of Callias, who is host to Protagoras while he is in town, and concerns a familiar theme in the dialogues: the teaching of virtue....
, where Socrates says:

The passage in which the above occurs is "elaborately ironical"; so it is tough to know which aspects of it to take seriously, though Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes La?rtius , the biographer of the Greece philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and by others from the Roman Empire family of the La?rtii....
 later confirms that there were indeed seven such individuals who were held in high esteem for their wisdom well before Plato's time. According to Diogenes, citing Demetrius Phalereus
Demetrius Phalereus

Demetrius Phalereus , also known as Demetrius of Phaleron was an Athens orator originally from Phalerum, a student of Theophrastus and one of the first Peripatetics....
, it was during the archonship
Archon of Athens

This is a list of the eponymous archons of Athens ....
 of Damasias (582/1 B.C.) that the seven had first become known as "the wise men", Thales being the first so acknowledged.

Diogenes points out, however, that there was among his sources great disagreement over which figures should be counted among the seven. Perhaps the two most common substitutions were to add Periander
Periander

Periander was the second tyrant of Corinth, Greece in the 7th century BC. He was the son of the first tyrant, Cypselus. Periander succeeded his father in 627 BC....
 and/or Anacharsis
Anacharsis

Anacharsis was a Scythian philosopher who travelled from his homeland on the northern shores of the Black Sea to Athens in the early 6th century BCE and made a great impression as a forthright, outspoken "barbarian," apparently a forerunner of the Cynics, though none of his works have survived....
. On Diogenes' first list of seven, which he introduces with the words "These men are acknowledged wise," Periander appears instead of Myson; and both Ephorus
Ephorus

Ephorus or Ephoros , of Kyme in Aeolis, in Asia Minor, was an Ancient Greece historian. Information on his biography is limited; he was the father of Demophilus, who followed in his footsteps as a historian, and to Plutarch's claim that Ephorus declined Alexander the great's offer to join him on his Alexander the great#Period_of_conque...
 and Plutarch
Plutarch

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 ? 120 ? commonly known in English as Plutarch ? was a Ancient Rome historian , biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonism....
 (in his Banquet of the Seven Sages) substituted Anacharsis for Myson. Diogenes Laertius further states that Dicaearchus
Dicaearchus

Dicaearchus of Messina, Italy was a Greeks philosopher, cartographer, geographer, mathematician and author. Dicaearchus was Aristotle's student in Lyceum....
 gave ten possible names, Hippobotus
Hippobotus

Hippobotus was a Greek historian of philosophers and philosophical schools who probably lived c. 200 BC. His writings are frequently quoted by Diogenes La?rtius....
 suggested twelve names, and Hermippus
Hermippus of Smyrna

Hermippus of Smyrna, a Peripatetic philosopher, surnamed by the ancient writers the Callimachian , from which it may be inferred that he was a disciple of Callimachus about the middle of the 3rd century BC, while the fact of his having written the life of Chrysippus proves that he lived to about the end of the century....
 enumerated seventeen possible sages from which different people made different selections of seven.

Later tradition ascribed to each sage a pithy saying of his own, but ancient as well as modern scholars have doubted the legitimacy of such ascriptions. According to one pair of scholars, "The actual authorship of the...maxims set up on the Delphian temple may be left uncertain. Most likely they were popular proverbs, which tended later to be attributed to particular sages."

In addition to being credited for pithy sayings, the wise men were also apparently famed for practical inventions; in Plato's Republic (600a), it is said that it "befits a wise man" to have "many inventions and useful devices in the crafts or sciences" attributed to him, citing Thales and Anacharsis
Anacharsis

Anacharsis was a Scythian philosopher who travelled from his homeland on the northern shores of the Black Sea to Athens in the early 6th century BCE and made a great impression as a forthright, outspoken "barbarian," apparently a forerunner of the Cynics, though none of his works have survived....
 the Scythian as examples.

According to a number of fictitious stories, there was a golden tripod (or, in some versions of the story, a bowl or cup) which was to be given to the wisest. Allegedly, it passed in turn from one of the seven sages to another, beginning with Thales, until one of them (either Thales or Solon, depending on the story) finally dedicated it to Apollo
Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
 who was held to be wisest of all.

According to Diogenes, Dicaearchus
Dicaearchus

Dicaearchus of Messina, Italy was a Greeks philosopher, cartographer, geographer, mathematician and author. Dicaearchus was Aristotle's student in Lyceum....
 claimed that the Seven "were neither wise men nor philosophers, but merely shrewd men, who had studied legislation." And according to at least one modern scholar, the claim is correct: "With the exception of Thales, no one whose life is contained in [Diogenes'] Book I [i.e. none of the above] has any claim to be styled a philosopher."