THE SEVEN SAGES OF GREECE

Hoi Hepta Sophoi, The Seven Sages, was the title of greatest distinction in Ancient Greece, bestowed by the old tradition on the seven wisest men of Greece, circa 600 BC. According to Bertrand Russell, the criterion for awarding this title was the particular wisdom of at least one commonly known saying of that individual. Thales was among the seven, purportedly (per Russell) for coming up with the saying: “Water is best.”

Funnily, hoi hepta sophoi, which is supposed to automatically qualify all seven of them as “philo-sophoi,” includes only one of them in the ranks of bona fide philosophers, and that person is, of course, Thales, “the first philosopher,” as he has become known. It beats me, though, why all others, statesmen and lawgivers of the highest esteem, have been cheated of that most naturally expected title. After all, I repeat, if they are not rising to the rank of philosophoi, why have they been called sophoi in the first place?!

As to the proper names of our seven sophoi, it appears that the earliest extant list of them is found in Plato’s Dialogue Protagoras, courtesy of Plato’s Socrates:

There are many, both of our age and of old, who have recognized that the true Spartan character has much more love of philosophy than love of gymnastics, knowing that only a perfectly educated man is capable of uttering [laconic] remarks. Such were Thales of Miletus, and Pittacus of Mytilene, and Bias of Priene, and our own Solon, and Cleobulus of Lindus, and Myson of Chenae, and the seventh of them is said to be Chilo of Sparta. They all emulated and admired and were students of Spartan culture, and anyone could tell their wisdom was of this sort by the brief but memorable remarks they each uttered when they met and dedicated together the first fruits of their wisdom to Apollo in his shrine at Delphi, inscribing what is on every man’s lips: Know thyself and Nothing too much. Why do I say all this? Because this was the manner of philosophy among the ancients, the kind of laconic brevity.

Diogenes Laertius, writing at a much later time, supports the belief that hoi hepta sophoi had indeed existed and were held in the highest esteem, but says that there were differing opinions as to who belonged on that list. Periander and Anacharsis were most commonly added to the list alternately, at the expense of Myson.

Ascribing to each particular sage his own aphoristic dictum, or what we commonly call a proverb, inscribed at Delphi, was very common. There was also a legend about a contest once held among the seven sages, the winner of which was to be awarded a golden tripod as the wisest. The sages proved their “infinite wisdom” by dedicating their contested prize to the god Apollo, as… “the wisest of them all.”

Considering that love of wisdom originally constitutes philosophy, it seems safe to assume that the seven wisest men of Greece were philosophers by definition. However, as so frequently happens to the safest of our surest assumptions, they cannot and ought not to be ever taken for granted. The Seven sages of Ancient Greece present to us a very conspicuous case in point, as I have already pointed out, but still a point worth repeating.

With regard to the philosophical qualities of the Seven, only one of them, namely Thales, was recognized as a bona fide philosopher. Diogenes Laertius quotes Dicaearchus of Messana (a pupil of Aristotle, a friend of Theophrastus, and a philosopher in his own right), as speaking rather disparagingly, and even mockingly, of the seven sages, that they “were neither wise men nor philosophers, but merely shrewd men who had studied legislation.”

A rather disrespectful assessment coming out of the nation that has given us philosophy. But we have already witnessed a certain disrespect toward the presumably brightest minds of the Greek national treasury in the fact that the list of top Seven was never set in stone, but rather was always open to significant differences of opinion.

Before we finally move on to Thales and the other officially recognized pre-Socratic philosophers, we must say a few words about each of the rest of hoi hepta sophoi, and pronounce our judgment regarding the eligibility of each for the promotion from the rank of the sophoi to the rank of philosophoi.