http://www.gnxp.com/new/2009/08/25/lives-of-the-ancients/ Genetics Tue, 03 Apr 2018 05:20:42 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.27 http://www.gnxp.com/new/2009/08/25/lives-of-the-ancients/#comment-23835 Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:36:32 +0000 #comment-23835 two thoughts 
 
1) i named roman emperors of aristocratic pedigree because their ages are probably easiest to establish, since they are harder to make up post facto (e.g., the birth of a son to a roman consul would be noted by contemporaries). i suspect that some famous philosophers have had age-padding since we know so little of their original background to make them seem more extraordinary (there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that the ancients tended to be a lot more imprecise about age than we are today, again, excluding the births of notable people by virtue of their pedigree). 
 
2) it might be that only the aged could have acquired the encyclopediac level of knowledge via the small number of other philosophers & as well as books (scrolls) to impress. what’s the record of ancient prodigies?

]]> http://www.gnxp.com/new/2009/08/25/lives-of-the-ancients/#comment-23836 Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:49:34 +0000 #comment-23836 A lot (probably the majority) of ancient philosophers seem to have died at extremely advanced ages. While many of their birthdates are not known, records and depictions do depict them at advanced ages.

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