ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a few selected examples of surviving inscriptions relevant to the study of ancient philosophy. The period under discussion runs from the fourth century BCE to the third century CE: all of the inscriptions mentioned are written in ancient Greek. The chapter begins with the most famous of ancient wise men, the so-called Seven Sages of Greece. These men, to whom Diogenes Laertius dedicated his first book, were politicians and lawgivers, public figures living in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. In 1966, in the easternmost reaches of Alexander's kingdom, on the River Oxus, archaeologists investigated an ancient Greek settlement near the Afghan village of Ai-Khanoum. The French scholar Louis Robert has demonstrated that the Clearchus in question in all likelihood is Aristotle's pupil of the same name, originally from Soli on Cyprus. The chapter considers a theme that has been subject to detailed philosophical discussion: Heracles' choice at the crossroads and its relationship with the living.
