Top Ten Most Influential Figures of the Ancient World

We go back prior to the 500s to find the most influential historical figures.  Confucius, Cyrus and Jesus all make the list.   

Transcript

The 10 Most Influential Figures of the Ancient World

December 2024

Time Magazine astonishingly got it right. The magazine, which was once named Wallis Simpson, peacemakers, women, and a computer alongside Churchill and Stalin as “Persons of the Year,” was named Donald Trump for 2024.  By naming Trump, the Magazine acknowledged that his hold on American politics and policy, despite his election loss in 2020, has been dominant for the past ten years.  Even the Biden Administration often seemed more in reaction mode to Trump.  Yet Time has erred in their selection many times in the past.  They once named child climate change activist Greta Thunberg to the list.  In 1983, in a particular fit of inanity, the computer was named “Machine of the Year.” Even that, in context (the award had always been a Man of the Year), was just dumb.

The problem was and needs to be more criteria.  The obvious determinant of selection is influence.  How many people are affected, over what period of time, by the actions of the figure?  If that is the hard and fast criterion that Time is limited, then American presidents, leaders of bad actor nations like China, Russia, and Iran, or a few popes thrown in would be the mainstays.  Thunberg was a tool of the climate change movement, not its progenitor or driver.  She was a famous face at the time.  Where is the climate change movement today, just six years after her naming?  The true criteria of the list are whatever the sensitives or feelings of Time’s editors are at the moment, or even what will sell subscriptions. Once that is understood, the value of such an award is diminished, which is why they rarely explain their decision.

For my 10 figures of the Ancient World, I will explain my criteria: which figures most influenced human history. This is not a ranking of nebulous “greatness” as a criterion but rather whose actions most changed the course of human history.  Which figure touched most human lives?  That is why my list, reflecting the first of these pieces by Michael Hart back in 1978, includes several successful religious leaders as these shaped many people’s lives quite strongly in their day and over a long period of time.  I am also keeping my time period in what Western history determines as ancient times or the period between the inception of written history around 3,000 BCE to around 500 CE with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the lack of powerful dynasties in India and China.  

These figures are all men.  As much as I would like to have included a woman, there was no woman such as Hatshepsut of Egypt with as much influence as the 10 on this list.  And several famous names are not evident.  Julius Caesar is missing; if he did not make the cut, there would be no Cleopatra.  My list is different from the original Hart list in several ways.  One of his surprising choices was Cai Lun, the inventor of paper.  On the surface, I can see how this name would be included, but the actual invention is rather obscure, and I think Cai Lun may have had a lot of help.  We know that Plato wrote the Republic, but records show Cai Lun’s apprentice had an important role.  I also left Asoka and Constantine the Great off the list.  Both were notable for legalizing a world religion into their empires, but they did so under extreme pressure.  It was more of giving into something inevitable than changing the course of history.  

First, honorable mentions:         

Cai Lun

Narmer

Mani

Chandragupta Maurya and Asoka 

Liu Bang

Plato

Lao Tsu

1. Jesus Christ (0 – 33 CE) 

As the founder of the world’s largest religion, Jesus would have to be near the top of this list.  If this were an all-history survey, Mohammad would be placed above because, unlike Jesus, Mohammad was responsible for the content and the spread of Islam.  But even with those caveats, during the time of Christianity, several other religions, such as Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, and even Judaism, were all larger upon his death in terms of followers.  Even during the early years of Christianity, religions such as Manicheism arose.  But through it all, Christianity grew and grew.  Though we can cite figures from St. Paul, part of this list, or Augustin or even later, Luther, Jesus of Nazareth was the unquestioned founder who set concepts of the religion and symbolically fulfilled its ethos with his martyr’s death.   Today, there are over 2.3 billion Christians.

But there was, and is, something unique about the nature of the religion he founded.  Before the rise of Christianity, the world was a very mighty right kind of place. Alexander of Macedon was the archetype of ancient greatness—a king and conqueror who personally reveled in battle.  Jesus was none of those things.  His portrayal of a humble carpenter is part of the point.   Prior to Christianity, the warrior was the apotheosis of what a human could be.  After Jesus, it became a person of love, sacrifice, and compassion.  He did not just alter religious, political, and social history; he was one of the few figures in all of humanity who changed the concept of how we see ourselves.  

2.       Augustus Caesar – 63 BCE to 14 CE

Putting Augustus this high requires two queries: was the Roman Empire of paramount importance to history, and would there have been an Empire without Augustus?  The first one is self-evident.  Rome was the most important state in ancient times, even eclipsing the contemporary Chinese Han Empire.  The united Roman Empire lasted nearly 500 years, and its offshoot state, the Byzantine Empire, lasted another millennium.  Our law codes, languages, architecture, and even naming our months are all traced back to the Romans. And given the prevalence of the West, which sat upon Roman foundations (Xi wears a suit and calls himself President; US presidents do not wear silk robes and call themselves Emperor), Rome’s importance is obvious.  I would add finally that without Rome, Christianity might have died a quick death as just another Jewish cult.   Even with the later persecutions, the ability of a proselytizer like Saul of Tarsus, his job, and subsequent Christians’s abilities to spread the religion was infinitely more manageable by the ability to travel from Judea to Britain, from the Black Sea to the Atlantic Ocean without ever leaving the Roman territory.   

The second question is more difficult. It is always dangerous with one of these lists to play the “what if” game, and to say that without Augustus, Rome would have splintered into several smaller states, and thus its massive influence curtailed is speculative.  However, my speculations are based on the 80-year history prior to Augustus’ final triumph in 30 BCE.  Marius vs. Sulla, Sulla vs. Carbo, Pompey vs. the Senate, Caesar vs. Pompey, Augustus (Octavian), Marc Antony vs. Brutus and Cassius, and finally, Antony vs. Octavian were all civil wars that ended the Roman world.  There was no inevitability that one leader would finally vanquish all of the rivals.  Instead, history typically sees such situations devolving into chaos. 

After reuniting the Roman Empire, Augustus’s” long rule and support of endeavors ranging from architecture to literature and, of course, history” made him a towering figure within the Roman world and throughout history. 

3.       St. Paul – 4 BCE – 64 CE

I have made the case for the importance of Christianity above. However, the reality was that upon the death of Jesus, Christianity (even that name came later) was a minor Jewish sect.  Saul of Tarsus, later St. Paul, a Roman citizen, spread the religion throughout the Empire.  Paul added some critical aspects as well.  Whereas we receive Jesus’ teachings 2nd hand by four writers, all writing well after his death (John could not have even met him), incredible works such as Paul’s letters to the Romans, the Galatians, and the Corinthians were first-hand accounts that enhanced and added to the religion.  And Paul should rank on any list if for nothing else, this:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

Jesus inspired a man who once persecuted Christians, but Paul personally brought Jesus’s concepts to fruition. 

4.       Qin Shi Huang Di – 259 – 201 BCE

When the Western Roman Empire fell in the late 400s, Europe was never reunited; the concept of a single Europe was lost.  There were later blips, such as Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire, Charles V Habsburg, or Napoleon. But there is only that—echoes of a state once the most powerful on the planet.  However, one of the shortest-lived of all Chinese dynasties, the Qin dynasties, set the template for a unified China.  Though the Qin only lasted two generations, Qin Shi Huang Di, or Ying Zheng as he was born, created a template followed by subsequent Chinese dynasties that even outlasted Augustus’ state.  Until 1911, a unified China was ruled as an imperialist state that began 2200 years ago.  

Qin Shi Huang was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of China. Rather than maintain the title of “king” borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he assumed the invented title of “emperor,” which would see continuous use by monarchs in China for the next two millennia.

5.       Siddartha Gautama – 563 – 483 BCE

Siddhartha Gautama (better known as the Buddha, was, according to legend, a Hindu prince who renounced his position and wealth to seek enlightenment as a spiritual ascetic, attained his goal, and, in preaching his path to others, founded Buddhism in India in the 6th-5th centuries BCE.  Buddha’s message was received so well that Buddhism became more popular in countries like Sri Lanka, China, Thailand, and Korea than in India - a situation which is ongoing – and Buddhist thought developed further after that. 

I gave extra attention to the longevity of Christianity, but Buddhism was founded 500 years prior to Jesus’ birth. Buddha’s message was received so well that Buddhism became more popular in countries like Sri Lanka, China, Thailand, and Korea than in India—a situation that is ongoing—and Buddhist thought developed further after that. 

Two thousand five hundred years after his death, there are still over 500 million Buddhists in the world.  

6.       Aristotle – 384-322 BCE

Here, we come to the first non-religious, non-political figure on this list. I noted in honorable mentions that Plato almost made this list. However, Aristotle’s works delve into many more areas than Plato’s. Though many Aristotelian conclusions are outdated today, his methodology and approach formed the basis for how we approach the world.  

Aristotle is considered one of the most influential philosophers in history because he made significant contributions to nearly every field of knowledge, including logic, ethics, politics, metaphysics, biology, and physics, essentially laying the groundwork for Western thought by developing a systematic approach to inquiry and establishing the field of formal logic, which remains relevant today; he is often referred to as the “father of Western logic.”

7.       Alexander of Macedon – 365 – 323 BCE

This was a hard choice because his Empire did not survive his death. There are two reasons for this: His conquests led to the Hellenization period, which extended into many areas outside of Greece or Macedon. Until Medieval times, Alexander was the archetype of greatness for all ancient politicians and military men, and for those of a certain martial bent, he was still the guy.  

8.       Confucius - 551–479 BCE

At different times in Chinese history, Confucius has been portrayed as a teacher, advisor, editor, philosopher, reformer, and prophet. The name Confucius, a Latinized combination of the surname Kong with an honorific suffix “Master,” has also become a global metonym for different aspects of traditional East Asian society. This association of Confucius with many of the foundational concepts and cultural practices in East Asia and his casting as a progenitor of “Eastern” thought in Early Modern Europe make him arguably the most significant thinker in East Asian history. 

And though in recent times, the Chinese Communist Party has tried to stamp out its teachings, Confucianism is still prevalent in Chinese culture, and its ideas have influenced other East Asian countries. 

9.       Cyrus the Great – 600 – 530 BCE 

This was a difficult choice.  Despite the splendor of the 1st Persian, or Achaemenid Empire, and its longevity, its culture or religion was not prevalent through the ages as, let’s say, the Roman or Han Empires.  Yet Cyrus built the world’s 1st genuinely pan-nationalistic Empire and, previous to Rome, the largest the world had ever seen.  Stretching from Egypt in the West to India in the East, it spanned thousands of miles and, at its height, contained 30 million subjects. It also was the precursor to the Parthian and 2nd Persian or Sassanids.  

10.   Euclid – unknown – probably around 270 BCE

Euclid is the only mathematician on this list, but if his founding of geometry and the works emanating from it alone were the reason for his inclusion, he might not have made it. But the study of Euclid and his elements is more than just math. It is a mindset of reason that permeates so much other thinking. 

Euclid (flourished c. 300 bce, Alexandria, Egypt) was the most prominent mathematician of Greco-Roman antiquity, best known for his treatise on geometry, the Elements. Of Euclid’s life, nothing is known except what the Greek philosopher Proclus (c. 410–485 CE) reports in his “summary” of famous Greek mathematicians. According to him, Euclid taught at Alexandria in the time of Ptolemy I Soter, who reigned over Egypt from 323 to 285 bce. 

The Elements, based on the works of earlier mathematicians, is a brilliant synthesis of old and new. It has significantly influenced rational thought and is a model for many philosophical treatises. It has also set a standard for logical thinking and methods of proof in the sciences. The starting point is not just  Euclidean geometry but an approach to reasoning. It is sometimes said to be the most translated, published, and studied work after the Bible.

So, how do you like my list?  Please do not hesitate to comment on my Twitter channel or substack page with your thoughts.