Names of the ancient Greek world who today give goosebumps with their glory were ordinary people in their time.
Leaders in their field brought knowledge and triumphs and led the developments of their time. Not everyone was ready to recognize their intellectual or military achievements.
The next millennia would naturally bow to their heroism and famous contributions to the mind, knowledge, arts, or war. But their real greatness would come centuries later.
For in their lifetime they experienced questioning, envy, banishment, or even death, from their own homelands and at the hands of their fellow citizens. People that offered a lot with their actions, might expect different treatment.
Sometimes tragic and sometimes simply ignominious, this was the natural end of many great figures of ancient Greece.
Socrates
The rock of the ancient Greek mind who influenced the thought of his time like no other went to meet the tragic fate his contemporaries had in mind for him. He was accused of disrespecting the gods, but also of corrupting the youth, and was finally condemned to death, this prominent figure in Athenian society.
As we know, Socrates greeted his end with courage. During the 30 days he waited to be executed, he even refused to escape from his prison because he was first and foremost a law-abiding citizen and did not want to violate the morality with which he had lived his life. Eventually, he drank the hemp, obeying the laws of his city, and passed into immortality with the colossal effect of his thoughts.
As some of his contemporaries and historical research tell us, some of his fellow citizens did not like the subversiveness of his theoretical outlook and its effect on the young. And so they set out to put him out of the way, for it was not only jealousy that motivated them, but also the question of how Socrates would help a state that wanted to become modern.
However, he was careful to conclude his famous apology as follows: "But now is the time to go, I am to die, and you to live. Which of the two is better, we do not know. Only God knows that. "
Aristotle
The omniscient of the ancient world came to life to decisively change both thinking and writing and scientific methodology. After his walk through the world, nothing remained the same. The Stagirian philosopher made logic the basis of his philosophical contemplation and dealt with virtually everything that could be explained - as a scientist, as a philosopher, as a top educator, and as undoubtedly the most systematic and methodical mind of antiquity.
Despite the unimaginable synthesizing power of his intellect, however, Aristotle did not escape controversy in the political world. He had also educated Alexander the Great, and so he was to be the scapegoat for the Athenians when the Macedonian king died in 323 BC.
The entire anti-Macedonian wing of Athenian society turned against him, seeking revenge against the Macedonians on him and accusing him of disrespect. With such strong enemies against him, and obviously knowing better what Socrates had suffered, Aristotle did not wait to be tried, but took refuge in Chalkida and awaited news.
There he would die the following year, in mourning and melancholy, away from his school and embittered by the way things had turned out.
Pythagoras
This great - utterly enigmatic - figure of the ancient Greece world spoke of philosophy, mathematics and music, and influenced minds and science more than anyone else in his time. Indeed, such was the impact of his thought that a movement, a political-religious community, was soon formed that would eventually take hold in many colonies.
Both he and his disciples were surrounded by sectarian prestige and were urged by the inhabitants of the cities to apply their theories to the ruling of their states. Something that would, of course, would lead to his ending. Although the city-states handed over their administration to him without a fight, this led to strife, hatred and conspiracies against him.
And nowhere was this more the case than in the Achaean colony in lower Italy, in Croton, where a section of the citizens turned against the Pythagoreans and spread the slander that they were preparing a tyrant. They took the people on their side and attacked the disciples, killing most of them.
Pythagoras was on a journey, so he escaped the slaughter. He then had nowhere to go, for all were afraid of the rage of the Crotonians. Lokros closed the gates, and the disgraced philosopher, after hardships and sufferings, arrived at the Metaponto of Greater Greece (below Taranto), where he probably committed suicide.
It is reported that he retired to the Sanctuary of the Muses and remained confined there for 40 days without food. Of course, his Pythagorean destiny was to survive and greatly develop the sciences, arts and knowledge of ancient Greece.
Aesop
The leading mythographer of ancient Greece taught his contemporaries and all succeeding generations great things with his myths. For example, that gratitude is a characteristic of noble souls, that lack of confidence is a harbinger of misfortune, that misfortune recognizes no laws, that misfortune tests the sincerity of friends, and that revenge ultimately hurts the avenger. "Clothes may disguise a fool, but his words will betray him," said the storyteller himself.
It would be that big mouth and the uncomfortable truths that came out of him that would be his doom. Especially when he turned on the sacred institution of the ancient Greeks, the Oracle of Delphi itself! The former slave was, therefore, sent on a diplomatic mission to Delphi by his patron, the king of Lydia Croesus, around 564-560 BC.
He carried gold with him to offer to the Oracle and get his prophecy, but the royal envoy was disgusted by the greed of the priests of the Temple of Apollo, and not only refused to hand over the gold but quickly sent it back to Croesus! Not, of course, before accusing the members of the Oracle, in his familiar sarcastic manner, of fraud and of deceiving the faithful people.
Outraged, the priests of Delphi accuse him of theft and blasphemy and plot against him: they hide a sacred vessel of Delphi into his luggage and condemn him to death as a common criminal by striking him down through the so-called Phaedrus Rocks of Parnassos Mountain. And they did so despite the almost sacred nature of his office, for he was an envoy of the Lydian king.
The story of his unjust death at Delphi was widely known in ancient Greece (even Aristophanes hints at it in his comedy "Wasps" in 422 BC), as it was a much-maligned case of executing a man for simply being offended by his words.
However, the Athenians, years later, erected a statue of him to show that every man of worth must be honored.
Anaxagoras
The great presocratic philosopher and astronomer came to Athens from Ionia at a young age to study philosophy and eventually become the top of the theoretical and empirical thought. His scientific method, which he brought to Athens, renewed astronomy and he was one of the most respected natural philosophers of his time.
But he also taught new ideas, and at one point he was also charged with disrespect. His enemies were strong, and so his student Pericles fled the city-state to save his life. For, as Plutarch reports, the Athenians now held him responsible for everything, including Peloponnesian War!
Although he returned to Athens to be judged, and Pericles defended himself, he had to retire to Lampsako of Troy to prevent the worst. There he died in obscurity, far from the spiritual center of Athens that he had helped so much to shape.
Protagoras
The leading sophist, great teacher and even greater thinker taught rhetoric and eloquence to the young while introducing relativism and subjectiveness into philosophical thought. The Abderite sophist was in and out of Athens, was a good friend of Pericles, and famous for his lifelong philosophical rivalries with Socrates, which Plato described in his work "Protagoras".
However, Protagoras was also a true agnostic who was critical of the existence of a higher being ("On Gods"). But such views, even in the realm of philosophical inquiry, bothered Athenian society and it was not long before he was accused of atheism.
Whereas shortly before Pericles himself had asked him to write the laws for the Athenian colony of the Thurians (Lower Italy). At the time when the enraged Athenians consigned his books to the fire, he was actually condemned to death.
Protagoras, however, managed to board a ship for Sicily to escape the worst that he knew was coming but the ship sank and the great sophist drowned.
Thucydides
The father of "scientific history" who told us in a documented, impartial, objective way and with sources, about the Peloponnesian War and showed the universe how history should be written. H went through many difficulties in his life to narrate the famous war between Athens and Sparta.
He escaped the plague of Athens during the siege of the city by the Spartans, who wiped out 1/4 of the population, and had many other adventures, although the most tragic for him was to come in 424 BC, when the Athenians made him their general and entrusted him with the command of the flotilla anchored in Thassos.
Despite the fact that it was in no way his fault that the Athenian Alliance lost the strategically located Amphipolis, which voluntarily fell to the Spartan Brasidas, the news of its loss enraged his countrymen.
As the historian himself says, "I happened to be exiled from my city for twenty years after my strategy in Amphipolis, and, being in touch with the both sides, and especially, because of my exile, with the politics of the Peloponnesians, I had the opportunity to approach them unhindered and to understand them better".
Thucydides spent the rest of his years far from home, recording what took place in the famous conflict between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians. We are told that they probably allowed him to return immediately after the surrender of Athens and the end of the war in 404 BC, with the general amnesty granted to exiles. And he may have returned, except that if he did, his end was even more tragic, for there are sources that tell us that the great Thucydides was murdered upon his return from his twenty-year exile.
This is probably why he did not finish the history of the Peloponnesian War, a tragic loss to Greek history itself.
Pheidias
The most important sculptor of Greek culture gave mankind one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the statue of Olympian Zeus (Olympia), but also a number of equally important works, such as Athena Parthenon, which stands inside the Parthenon, and the colossal Athena Promachos, which was located between the Erechtheion and the Propylaea.
The Athenians, of course, saw the tons of gold that were brought to Pheidias for the construction of the ivory statue of Athena, and it was not long before they accused him of abuse. Only, listening to the advice of his friend Pericles, he had made his Athena in pieces so that he could be disassembled and weighed.
But despite the fact that he proved his innocence, the Athenians would not stop. He was accused of disrespect and arrogance because he depicted two Athenian warriors (on the shield of the goddess)with the faces of Pericles and himself.
He was arrested, convicted, and left to die in prison. And this is in fact the best version, for Plutarch tells us that he was killed in his cell by Pericles' political opponents. Other sources suggest that he went into exile from Athens to escape life imprisonment, a version that does not change how the Athenians treated the greatest sculptor who sprang from the ancient world.
Miltiades
The general who arrogantly led the Athenians into the heroic battle of Marathon, Miltiades lived in similar circumstances before being appointed one of the ten generals of the city-state. He was accused of tyrannical rule in his semi-independent state in the Thracian Peninsula, although that they were persuaded to entrust him with a key position in the Athenian army.
The triumphant hero of the battle of Marathon now wanted to drive the Persians from Naxos in 489 BC and organized a new campaign. However, he failed in the conquest of the island, as well as the neighboring Paros, and returned to Athens humiliated, but also wounded (by an arrow in the thigh).
Despite his poor condition, the famous general was again accused, only now they spoke of high treason because the siege of Paros had taken place without the city's consent. He even came to the trial on a stretcher, as he could not even walk due to his injuries.
Only his brother defended him, for all the others had joined the accusations of Themistocles' faction. He was sentenced to death, though his sentence was later commuted to a fine. A fine of 50 talants, of course, a devastating financial penalty that even the aristocratic and wealthy Miltiades could not afford. And so he was incarcerated and eventually died from the wound on his thigh, which had become infected in the meantime.
Kimon's son, now the head of the Philaid family house, later paid the fine to clear the name of the great general of the accusations.
Pausanias
The man who led the united Greek army to the strategically important victory at Plataea against the Persians was a politician in his homeland, Sparta, and had both friends and enemies. Moreover, after the death of Leonidas, the power of the city-state had passed to his minor son Pleistarchus, and at one point the aristocrat (and his cousin)Pausanias was appointed his commissioner.
After his victory at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC, the general of the Peloponnesian alliance took some ships and wanted to get the Greek cities on the Hellespont to revolt against the Persians. He occupied some places, such as Byzantium, and continued his mission when they began to accuse him of betraying them in his homeland.
They said that not only did he send the Persian nobles back to Xerxes without disturbing them, but also that he quickly corresponded secretly with the Persian king and betrayed his countrymen. The Ephors of Sparta called him back to account. Pausanias did indeed return, and everyone saw that he was neither wearing oriental clothes nor had he adopted the customs of the Persians.
And despite the slanders of his political opponents, no court could convict him without evidence. So he was officially acquitted, even though the always skeptical Spartans thought that he should be kept out of their way. He was hunted down to be executed, but managed to lock himself in the Temple of Athena, knowing that no one could harm a beggar(Iketis).
The Ephors, however, built the gate of the temple and left him to starve inside. The glorious general actually died of starvation, betrayed by everyone.
