Sargon of Akkad
Yu
Abacus, Aryan
Iron
Hammurabi
Alphabet
Amenhotep IV
Ramesses II
Trojan Horse
Solomon
Draco
Cyrus II
Herodotus
Gautama Buddha
Aristotle
Qin Shi
Soap and Candle maker
Compass
Julius Caesar
Sargon of Akkad (2334BC-2279BC)
I was commonly known as Sargon the Great. I was born a son of a gardener and I ended up building the great city of Babylon. I was an emperor famous for my conquest of the Sumerian city-states. My mother was poor and I did not know my father. My mother placed me in a basket of reeds and abandoned me to the river which bore me away and brought me to Akki the irrigator. Akki reared me to boyhood and made me a gardener. I later became the king's gardener. I became a prominent member of the royal court. I killed the king and eventually conquered Mesopotamia. I had an army of 5,400 men to administer my empire. The language I spoke became the official language of Mesopotamia. Marduk, the god I worshiped, became the official god. I advanced deep into the heart of Turkey to protect the interests of Akkadian and other Mesopotamian merchants. I mined mountains of their precious stones with axes of bronze. My family ruled Mesopotamia for the next 150 years. I was regarded as a model by Mesopotamian kings for some 2000 years after my death. My daughter was a priestess who composed ritual hymns which continued to be sung for many centuries after her death.
When I died, I saw that there was a life available as a boy who lived as far away from my last life as possible. So I applied and got the life of Yu.
Yu (2200BC-2100BC)
I was commonly known as Yu the Great. I was a ruler in ancient China and was famous for my introduction of flood control. I was a great-grandson of the emperor known as the Yellow Emperor. My father, Gun, was tasked with devising a system to control the flooding. He spent more than 9 years building a series of dikes and dams along the riverbanks, but all of this was ineffective, despite the great number and size of these dikes and the use of a special self-expanding soil. Because of his failure, my father was executed. I had to continue my father's work. I made a very careful study of the river systems in an attempt to learn why my father's great efforts had failed.
The system of flood controls I devised was crucial in establishing the prosperity of the Chinese heartland. Instead of directly damming the rivers' flow like my father did. I made a system of irrigation canals which relieved floodwater into fields. I spent great effort dredging the riverbeds. I ate and slept with the common workers and spent most of my time personally assisting the work of dredging the silty beds of the rivers for the 13 years the projects took to complete. The dredging and irrigation were successful, and allowed people to flourish along the Yellow River, Wei River, and other waterways of the Chinese heartland. The project earned me renown.
King Shun was so impressed by my engineering work and diligence that he passed the throne to me instead of to his own son. I initially declined the throne, but I was so popular with other local lords and chiefs that I agreed to become their new emperor at the age of 53. My flood control work made me very familiar with the area. I later divided the area into 9 administrative provinces. I established a capital and ruled for 45 years till I died from an illness. My family continued to reign after my death for the next 400 years.
Mr. Abacus Counter (2100BC)
I was born to become the chief mathematician for the king of Summer. I had to count everything for him. He wanted to know how many hours everyone worked and how many stones everyone made. For each day, for each place and for each type of work. He told me that the numbers were very important to him so that he could properly plan for the future. With the numbers calculated for the past, he could extrapolate and predict the numbers for the future. Predicting the future gave the king great powers and a very high success rate for his many projects. I developed a counting tool called the "abacus" that allowed very many rows of numbers to be added and subtracted very fast and very accurately. It had rows with colored wooden balls. In the first row, each wooden ball was white. In the next row the wooden balls were red. Then green, then yellow, then blue, violet and the last row had black balls. 10 white balls were replaced with 1 red one. 10 red balls were replaced by 1 green one. 10 green balls were replaced by 1 yellow. 10 yellow by 1 blue and 10 blue by 1 black. 1 black ball counted for 1 million white balls. With this tool, I was able to count up to 10 million.
Mr Aryan (2100BC)
My father and his father before him were pioneers, settling in unsettled lands. My father was a wealthy horse trader.
He had learned about horses from his grandfather who made a very long trip to where the sun sets. He wanted to go to the edge of the world so he kept on following the sun. He wanted to see where it went when it went down below the horizon. He told my father stories that my father passed on to me, stories of a very ingenious people he called Mongolians. They tamed wild horses so that they could ride them. Some people even built boxes with wheels called "wagons" that they attached to a horse and rode in. Others attached digging sticks to horses to plough their gardens.
I helped my father with the horses and as I was racing with my friends, I fell off my horse and died.
Mr Iron (2000BC)
My father was a copper pot maker and he experimented with melting various rocks. He took red rocks and found that they did not melt as easily as the green rocks used to make copper and bronze. He had to build a special covered fire place he called an oven and had to blow air inside it to make it hot enough for the red rock to melt. He found that the melted rock had a distinct advantage over bronze. It was much harder and more durable. My father found out that if he burned the wood slowly to form charcoal and used only the charcoal to fuel his fires, then his red rocks melted to form a much harder and stronger material then if he just used wood for his fire. The more charcoal he used, the harder the material became. At times it got too hard and brittle and tended to crack and shatter. It took several centuries before iron replaced bronze. The spread of iron-working in Central and Western Europe was associated with Celtic expansion.
Hammurabi (1810BC-1750BC)
I was the founder of the first Babylonian Empire. I was king of Babylon, one of the many ancient city-states that dotted the Mesopotamian plain and waged war on its neighbors for control of fertile agricultural land. The first few decades of my reign were quite peaceful. I used my power to undertake a series of public works, including heightening the city walls for defensive purposes, and expanding the temples. I made one of the first codes of laws, which I claimed came from god. The priests were upset claiming that it was their job to talk with gods.
I had great respect for all gods, as well as the gods of the enemies I conquered. When people asked me who my favorite god was, I replied that I treated all the gods as equals. I was not a high priest of any one god, but a king of all the people. The gods would no longer decide what is allowed and what is not allowed and they would no longer set the punishment for disobedience. I would set the laws and the punishment for breaking them. No longer would judgment of right and wrong be made by gods and set by priests. They would be made by courts and the courts would be appointed by me.
One of my 282 laws known as the “Code of Hammurabi” prescribed death for anyone who helped a slave to escape or who sheltered a fugitive. Another of my laws dealt with retribution that was very similar with those of the Hebrews that practiced an “eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” type of justice.
The Code of Hammurabi was one of the first written codes of law in recorded history. These laws were inscribed on 12 stone tablets over 2.4m tall and were placed in a public place so that all could see them, even though most people were illiterate.
The structure of the code was very specific, with each offense receiving a specified punishment. The punishments tended to be very harsh with many offenses resulting in death, disfigurement, or the use of the "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" law of retaliation once proven guilty. The code was also one of the earliest examples of the idea of presumption of innocence, and it also gave the accused and accuser the opportunity to provide evidence to prove their innocence or guilt. I claimed that I received the laws from god and that I was chosen by god to bring the laws to them. More than 300 years later, the Jewish god Jehovah gave laws to Moses in a very similar way in 10 commandments on stone tablets. However my 10 commandments and the punishment for breaking them were not as harsh.
- If someone cuts down a tree on someone else's land, he will pay for it.
- If someone is careless when watering his fields, and he floods someone else's field by accident, he will pay for the grain he has ruined.
- If a man wants to throw his son out of the house, he has to go before a judge and say, "I don't want my son to live in my house anymore." The judge will find out the reasons.
- If the reasons are not good, the man can't throw his son out.
- If the son has done some great evil to his father, his father must forgive him the first time.
- But if he has done something evil twice, his father can throw him out.
- If a thief steals a cow, a sheep, a donkey, a pig, or a goat, he will pay ten times what it is worth.
- If he doesn't have any money to pay with, he will be put to death.
- If a man puts out the eye of another man, then put his eye out.
- If he knocks out another man's tooth, then knock out his tooth.
- If he breaks another man's bone, then break his bone.
- If a doctor operates a patient and the patient dies, the doctor's hand will be cut off.
- If a builder builds a house, and that house collapses and kills the owner's son, the builder's son will be put to death.
- If a robber is caught breaking a hole into the house so that he can get in and steal, he will be put to death in front of that hole.
- If a son strikes his own father, his hands shall be cut off.
Mr. Alphabet (1500BC)
With Copper and its harder brother Bronze and even harder cousin Iron, many things changed. Small gardens became large farms. Many things became easier to carry and store. Wells became deeper and buildings became taller and weapons became deadlier and cities became bigger with more people in them who had more time in the protected environment of cities to think and invent. One of the first things they invented was writing.
I was born as the son of a great king of Phoenicia. My father and mother always argued a lot. My mother accused my father of saying things that he claimed he never said. My father had the same problem with his administrators. He needed a reliable means for storing information that he dictated, for maintaining financial accounts and for keeping historical records. He also needed to put agreements, laws and commandments on record. He asked me if there was any way we could record the things he and other people said. I thought about that and suggested that he should do something similar to what he did to record information about hunting and fighting... by drawing it out in a picture. But how can you draw out the phrase "I already told you that 2 times 3 days ago"?
Numbers were easy to record. Words however were not so easy to record. I gathered the best thinkers I could find and set up a contest to solve this problem and promised the winner a great prize. There were many suggestions for recording the thousands of words we had.
One suggestion was to draw "pictures" of basic words that represented basic things. When more complex words were formed from variations of basic words, then the “pictures” were modified appropriately. This form of writing was very easy to learn to read, but because of the large numbers of words represented by the large number of pictures, it was very cumbersome to write.
Another suggestion was to draw what were called "symbols" for the syllables that formed the rhythm of spoken words. This form of writing was easier to read and write because there were fewer syllables than words. Many different words were made up by the same syllables ordered differently. It was also easier to draw symbols than it was to draw pictures. Many of the syllables were actually words in their own right. I realized that different syllables were made up of a relative small number of the same sounds I called "phonemes". There were only 4 types of sounds - those made by the throat, those formed by shaping the mouth, those formed by the lips, and those formed by the tongue.
- Throat sounds I assigned the symbols "G" and "K”.
- Mouth sounds I assigned the symbols "A", "E", "I", "O", "U", "H" and "Y".
- Lip sounds I assigned the symbols "M", "B", "P","F", and "V" and
- Sounds made by the tongue I assigned the symbols "C","D", “L”, “N”, “R”, “S”, “T”, and "Z".
With around 20 symbols, I was able to record the sounds of the thousands of words in whatever language they were spoken.
The collection of symbols that I assigned to the sound of words became to be known as the "letters of the alphabet", named after me. All the words that could be recorded using the alphabet were listed. This collection of written words became to be known as the "dictionary". The recording of spoken words was called "writing". Writing was done by scratching or drawing the letters on any suitable material such as stone, clay, wood or leather. Writing made whatever priests and kings said go far beyond their voice and to be available long after they died.
I was a king of Egypt and ruled for 17 years. During my reign, there was a serious outbreak of a plague that killed very many people and spread very wide. It was believed to have been caused by water fowl, pigs and humans living all very close together.
I was married and loved my wife Nefertiti very much. I struggled with the priests and their gods. My mother and I had a fanatical hatred of Ammon Ra, their chief god. I closed down all his temples and refused to claim myself a god. I changed my name from Amenhotep which meant "Ammon is Satisfied", to Akhenaten which means "living spirit of Aton". I changed my many gods to one single one called Aton, the mother and father of all humankind, and forbade any images to be made of him. I declared that he was not merely the supreme god, but the only god, and that I was the only intermediary between him and his people. Some people regarded me as being the son of Aton.
When I died, my son-in-law succeeded me and he reopened the temples I closed down and brought Ammon back to the people. In order to ensure that Ammon Ra was not going to be hijacked another time, the priests set up a new temple and an image of Ammon Ra. The statue was able to move its head and speak and was able to tell the future. They called it the "Oracle" and it was still functioning when Alexander visited and conquered Egypt 1,000 years later.
Ramesses II (1303BC-1213BC)
I was commonly known as Ramesses the Great. I was regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire. I led several military expeditions into foreign lands north and south of Egypt. In my late teens I became pharaoh. The early part of my reign was focused on building cities, temples and monuments. Early in my life, I embarked on numerous successful campaigns to conquer lands and secure Egypt's borders. My army totaled about 100,000 men and with them I strengthened and reestablished Egypt's former sphere of influence. I built factories to manufacture about 125 chariots and 750 shields per week. I had brought peace, maintained Egyptian borders and built great and numerous monuments across the empire. My country was more prosperous and powerful than it had been in nearly a century. I claimed to be god.
I was obsessed with building, building on a scale unlike almost anything before. In the third year of my reign I started the most ambitious building project after the pyramids that were built more than 1,300 years earlier. The population was put to work on changing the face of Egypt. The ancient temples were transformed, so that each one of them reflected honor to me as a symbol of my divine nature and power. I decided to externalize myself in stone, and so I ordered changes to the methods used by my masons. The elegant but shallow reliefs of previous pharaohs were easily transformed, and so their images and words could easily be obliterated by their successors. I insisted that my carvings be deeply engraved in the stone, which made them not only less susceptible to later alteration, but also made them more prominent in the Egyptian sun, reflecting my relationship with the sun god, Ra.
I constructed many large monuments. I built on a monumental scale to ensure that my legacy would survive the ravages of time. I used art as a means of propaganda for my victories over foreigners, which were depicted on numerous temple reliefs. I also erected more colossal statues of myself than any other pharaoh and usurped many existing statues by inscribing my own name on them. My residential palace even had its own zoo. I had made Egypt rich from all the supplies and riches I collected from other empires. We became rich enough to afford to free our Jewish slaves and let them leave with their leader Moses. I ruled for 66 years, had over 100 sons and countless daughters and was 90 when I died.
Builder of the Trojan Horse (1190BC-1115BC)
The war originated from a quarrel between the Greek goddesses Athena, the goddess of wisdom and justice, Hera, the goddess of marriage and family, Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sexuality and Eris, the goddess of strife and discord. Eris gave Athena, Hera and Aphrodite an apple marked "for the fairest". Zeus sent the goddesses to Paris, a prince of Troy, who judged that Aphrodite was the "fairest" and should receive the apple. In exchange, Aphrodite made Helen, the daughter of Zeus, fall in love with Paris, who kidnapped Helen and took her to Troy. The Greeks, in an attempt to recapture Helen, besieged the city for 10 years. After the deaths of many Greek heroes, including Achilles and Ajax, and the Trojan heroes Hector and Paris, the end of the war came and Troy fell with one final plan.
Odysseus, the Greek general devised a plan. The plan was to build a giant hollow wooden horse, an animal that was sacred to the Trojans, with 7 Greek soldiers hidden inside it. It was built by me. The rest of the Greek army burned their camp and pretended to sail home but instead stayed hiding nearby. When the Trojans discovered that the Greeks were gone, believing the war was over; they joyfully dragged the horse inside the city. They debated what to do with it. Some thought they ought to hurl it down from the rocks, others thought they should burn it, while others said they ought to keep it as a war trophy. The Trojans decided to keep the horse and turned to a night of mad revelry and celebration. When everyone was drunk and asleep, the 7 Greek soldiers hiding inside the horse emerged and killed the guards. They opened the city gates allowing the Greek army in to massacre the sleeping population. The Greeks slaughtered the Trojans except for some of the women and children whom they kept and sold as slaves and desecrated the temples. The Greeks then burned the city and divided the spoils. Few of the Greeks returned safely to their homes and many founded colonies in distant shores. The Romans later traced their origin to the surviving Trojans who fled to Italy.
The war has been described by the Greek poet Homer in his poems "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey", and by Roman poets Virgil and Ovid. Odysseus' 10 year journey home is described in "The Odyssey". Odysseus and his men were blown far off course to lands unknown to the Greeks. There Odysseus had many adventures, including the famous encounter with the Cyclops, a race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads. Odysseus' ships were destroyed, and all his men perished. Odysseus was washed ashore and lived there with the nymph Calypso, the daughter of the Titan Atlas. After 7 years, the gods decided to send Odysseus home on a small raft. Once back home, Odysseus traveled disguised as an old beggar. He eventually reunited with his wife, Penelope.
Solomon (1000BC-900BC)
I was a king of Israel and the youngest son of David. I had a bloody start when I was made king. Just as bloody as my father's. I even killed my brother when I suspected that he was after my throne. I lived on the high road leading to the Red Sea, and beyond. Many daughters of kings and other influential families proposed marriage with me and I accepted all of them. They were so beautiful and so wealthy and influential. How could I refuse them? They all brought their own gods which I had to accept as my own. My wives were all so very convincing. They told me that before they would let me inside into their hearts, I would have to accept their gods into my heart. With a deal like that, how could I refuse? Many of my many priests accused me of flirting with religions.
People accused me of being too extravagant, but without extravagance, I could not have attracted one marriage proposal. After all I could afford to be extravagant. During my long reign of 40 years, my kingdom gained its highest splendor and wealth. But I suppose I was too extravagant. I eventually bankrupted my country and forced it to split apart into Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Israel and Judah became so weak that we were conquered and enslaved and deported into faraway lands 300 years later.
I built a very big palace, as big as some cities and inside I built a temple dedicated to my father's god Jehovah. It was considered as a wonder. I don't really know why as it was very small. My bedroom was bigger. People 3,000 years after I died imagined it to be much bigger. It only lasted 400 years. Just before it was destroyed, it got on the "list of the 7 wonders of the world" compiled by the tourist offices of all lands. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it and removed all traces of it.
One day 2 women came before me to resolve a quarrel over which was the true mother of a baby. When I suggested they should divide the living child in two with a sword, one woman said she would rather give up the child than see it killed. I then declared the woman who showed compassion to be the true mother, and gave the baby to her. I became a favorite author and contributor of different kinds of wisdom literature, including not only the collections of Proverbs, but also of Ecclesiastes and the Songs of Solomon that was included in the Bible. I had 700 wives and 300 concubines. My wives, including the pharaoh's daughter, were a collection of foreign princesses who succeeded to lead me away from my god by turning my heart after other gods – the gods of my wives.
Draco (650BC-601BC)
I was born in Greece in 650 BC and lived to be 49 years old. I was the first legislator of Athens in Ancient Greece. I belonged to the Greek nobility of Attica. I established my legal code during the 39th Olympiad, in 622 BC. It served as the first written constitution of Athens. My laws replaced the prevailing system of oral laws and blood feuds by a written code to be enforced only by a court. So that no one would be unaware of them, they were posted on wooden tablets where they were preserved for almost 2 centuries. They were written on steles shaped as 3-sided pyramids which could be pivoted along the pyramid's axis so that any side could be read.
My written laws became known for their harshness. For example, any debtor whose status was lower than that of his creditor was forced into slavery. The punishment was more lenient for those owing debt to a member of a lower class. The death penalty was the punishment for even minor offenses. For many thousands of years, laws that were severely harsh and unforgiving were referred to as "draconian" in honor of me.
I died in a theater when in a traditional show of approval, my supporters threw so many hats and shirts and cloaks on my head that I suffocated. I was buried in that same theater.
Shortly after I died, many philosophers, statesmen and law-givers who were renowned for their wisdom were greatly influenced by me. In particular were 7 sages each of whom represented an aspect of worldly wisdom. They in turn were very influential during their lives. Each of them were known and remembered for their sayings, which greatly influenced Greek philosophers many hundreds of years later. Each of the 7 sages represented an aspect of worldly wisdom which was summarized by the following aphorisms which embodied a general truth.
- "Moderation is the best thing",
- "Keep everything with moderation",
- "You should not desire the impossible",
- "Most men are bad"
- "Know thyself,"
- "You should know which opportunities to choose",
- "Be farsighted with everything"
My draconian laws were repealed a hundred years after I died.
Cyrus II (600BC-530BC)
I was commonly known as Cyrus the Great. From the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Indus River in the east, I created the largest empire the world had yet seen. I was known as the king of the four corners of the world. I was the first ruler in history to give my subjects freedom of opinion and other basic rights. I was the first to have written a charter declaring basic human rights. I wrote the charter on a barrel-shaped cylinder of baked clay measuring 22.5cm by 10cm. The text allowed exiled peoples, such as the Jews, to return to their original homelands. The text referred to the restoration of cult sanctuaries and repatriation of deported peoples.
I respected the customs and religions of the lands I conquered. I headed a centralized administration with a hierarchy. My empire was divided into manageable provinces that were governed by appointed governors. The provinces were further divided into smaller districts each governed by local popular politicians. This system allowed local subjects to be properly represented and worked to the advantage and profit of all.
I was direct descendant of Achaemenes who ruled Persia, later known as Iran, a hundred years before. After my birth, my grandfather had a dream that I would eventually overthrow him. He then ordered his steward to kill me. Instead of killing me himself, the steward gave me to a herdsman and his wife and ordered them to leave me to die in the mountains. Luckily, the herdsman and his wife had a child my age who had recently died and they took pity on me and raised me as their own. I later returned and was able to claim my royal position.
I died in a fierce battle with a tribe from the southern deserts who fought on horseback and on foot. I first sent an offer of marriage to their queen which was rejected. She instead challenged me to meet her forces in honorable warfare, inviting me to a location in her country a day's march from the river, where the 2 armies would formally engage each other. I accepted her offer, but, learning that her soldiers were unfamiliar with wine and its intoxicating effects, I took my best soldiers with me leaving the least capable ones with lots of wine. Her troops killed the group I left behind and finding the camp well stocked with food and the wine, feasted and drank until they were too drunk to stand up straight. I then returned and slaughtered them. Thinking that it was all over we laughed and drank until we could not stand up straight. When the queen learned what happened, she led a second wave of troops into battle herself and killed most of my soldiers. I was captured and she cut my head off. My methods of fighting and ruling were widely adopted many centuries after I died.
My reign lasted 29 years. I was succeeded by my son, Cambyses II, who managed to add to my empire by conquering Egypt, Nubia, and Cyrenaica during his short rule.
Herodotus (485BC-425BC)
I was an ancient Greek historian who lived in the fifth century. I have been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative.
I was born to a wealthy and influential family. The town I was born in was within the Persian Empire and I heard local eye-witness accounts of events within the empire and of Persian preparations for the invasion of Greece. My family was involved in an uprising when I was young and we were exiled on the island of Samos for a while. It was an international port within the Persian Empire and my family had contacts in countries under Persian rule. Later in my life when I reached adulthood, these contacts greatly facilitated my travels and my researches. I was granted a financial reward by the Athenian assembly in recognition of my work.
Ever since I was a boy, my favorite subject was history and geography. I read all about them that there was to read. As soon as I was old enough to travel, I traveled. I visited all the best known tourist places like Egypt and Babylon. There I came to know not just leading citizens, but also the local topography. The 2,000 year old pyramids in Egypt for me were the very best vacations I ever had. I learned a lot about the pyramids when I was there. Much more than what I learned about them by reading about them. So I decided to travel the world and write about it as I saw it with my own eyes and sketch it with my own hands. I became an investigating reporter searching out the truth and writing it all down accurately for others to read about. I tried to make it all funny and simple and like a story that even children could appreciate and understand. I was a man of leisure, of independent ways that had the time to travel, to think and to read and write.
I went from church to church and talked to the priests who were the keepers of all knowledge. I asked questions, and got answers. I believed that we could learn from the past. I felt that I was free and privileged. I was free to travel and never had to worry about ever being without a roof and without food or drink. I was thankful for my wealth that gave me everything, and felt very sorry for the slaves whose only freedom was their freedom to think.
Just as Homer drew extensively on a tradition of oral poetry, sung by wandering minstrels, I have drawn on story-telling, collecting and interpreting the oral histories I found on my travels. These oral histories often contained folk-tale motifs and demonstrated a moral, yet they also contained substantial facts relating to geography, anthropology and history, all compiled in an entertaining style and format. It is on account of the many strange stories and the folk-tales I reported that my critics branded me 'The Father of Lies'. I returned to Athens and I took my finished work straight to the Olympic Games and read them to the assembled spectators in one sitting, receiving rapturous applause at the end of it.
I provided much intriguing information about the nature of the world and the status of science during my lifetime. I was told that the annual flooding of the Nile was said to be the result of melting snows far to the south. I could not understand how there could be snow in Africa, the hottest part of the known world. Phoenician sailors told me that they circumnavigated Africa and described a continent with a magnificent civilization that was later called India. I also reported on a species of fox-sized, furry "ants" that lived in India in the desert covered by a layer of fine gold dust when digging their mounds and tunnels. The people collected the precious dust by capturing these ants. Thousands of years later it was confirmed that in an isolated region of northern Pakistan, there exists a species of marmot that are covered by gold dust when they dig their underground burrows.
I died when I was 60 years old during an outbreak of a plague.
Gautama Buddha (600BC)
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared“.
My father was the king of Nepal. My mother died giving me birth under a tree on her way home. It was considered a miracle by most that I survived. I was a very sensitive child. My father warned that I should not venture outside the palace because I would be devastated by all the suffering I would see. All my life I was shielded from human misery. At age 30 I saw suffering for the first time. It gave me nightmares, and I could not find inner peace. I tried everything to ease my deep sufferings. I went to wise men who claimed that the mind must be purified by fasting, self-denial, and self-torture. They claimed that suffering is punishment for sins. So I left my family and went far away to live a solitary life trying to cleans my soul of my sins.
But despite following this cleansing ritual I felt worse than before. I came to believe that suffering was caused by people confusing their wants with their needs. I had everything and wanted nothing but inner peace. And there were poor sick men who had nothing and needed everything. Thru meditation I saw that we would all suffer less if we accepted what we were given by god and not to want anything else, believing what we are given is what we really need.
I came to see suffering as the inevitable consequence of greed, and the best way to ease inner suffering was to live a lifestyle of not wanting what you don't need. It was easy for me as I had everything I needed.
I spent a life time trying to find means of achieving inner peace on demand. I found a very simple technique. I called it meditation. It was like sleep without sleeping where afterwards your mind is clear and fresh and could deal with all daily sufferings - physical and mental. I found a lotus position that helped me empty my mind of all desires and reach meditative states so peaceful that people thought I was dead. My muscles hardened like ice and my heart softened like water and my mind evaporated like steam and I felt no hunger thirst or pain. I was invincible to temptation. This behavior greatly impressed all those who witnessed my meditations. Soon I had a group of followers who regarded me as a god.
I preached that suffering is an inherent part of existence and that the origin of suffering is desire and greed.
Aristotle (384BC-322BC)
"All men by nature desire knowledge".
There was a call to reincarnate into a wealthy family with close contacts to the best philosophers in the land. I applied and got accepted.
The quest for knowledge reached a peak. A new breed of men called philosophers evolved. They were usually from rich families who had time to contemplate about anything they wanted to. Morals of what is good and bad, true or false, right or wrong, were discussed in length. It was held that morals are knowable by inquiry and intuition. It was observed that our senses can and do deceive us. It was believed that we use reason to understand the world around us that we do not directly sense. The quest was to collect, analyze, and interpret information, with the aim to understand it.
My father was the doctor of the king of Macedonia. He was also doctor to many of the king's family and friends. They were all very influential and learned men and women from all walks of life. Among the group were men that made their livelihood advising the king on all matters. They called themselves philosophers, or lovers of knowledge. They would spend most of their time talking, discussing, debating, and arguing about all the different things they could think of. My father was invited to attend, and he would spend many hours listening to them. I was with him from the time I was 3 years old. I was the only child at these meetings, and the philosophers cherished me being there. Whenever I was absent, they reminded my father to take me with him the next time.
I got to know the philosophers like my family. When I was 10 years old, both my parents suddenly died and I was left an orphan. The king and his group of philosophers adopted me. The more I listened, the more I learned. I asked a lot of questions and some of my questions caused very long discussions and debates. I impressed all of the philosophers so much that they started asking me questions. And they would listen to my explanations. With time I started to discuss and debate with them.
When I turned 18 I was sent to Athens to attend university there. I became so well respected that the king asked me to be his son's tutor. I claimed that knowledge must be sought, captured, and accumulated, like it was food for the soul. I taught Alexander, later called Alexander the Great, that knowledge is the ultimate power. I taught him to ride a horse when he was 13 years old. He ended up being a horse lover and had many horses that he was able to ride hands-free. He then taught his soldiers the art of horsemanship and used the horses to seek and conquer faraway lands. Under my tutelage Alexander achieved great things. He found knowledge from far away civilizations and accumulated it in great libraries for all mankind to exploit.
I claimed that money is not a commodity of trade but rather a law of measure. I claimed money should not be equated with wealth but rather considered a human right. While money is only a measurement of the value of products and services, wealth is an accumulation of commodities that money buys. Accumulating money keeps money out of circulation and blocks its flows thru society.
I claimed that we can gain understanding by investigation and extrapolation of our observation by reason and logic. As an example I concluded that the sun revolved around the earth by observing it during the day and extrapolating its movement during the night. By observing an apple and a leaf fall I concluded that heavy objects fall faster than light objects.
I was very curious and would try everything. I died at the age of 62 from eating berries that unfortunately tasted very good but proved to be very poisonous.
Qin Shi (259BC-210BC)
I was born to become king of a very small kingdom called Qin when I was 13 years old. Setting out to conquer the remaining independent kingdoms, one by one, I succeeded and became the first emperor of a unified China. I survived various assassination attempts and ruled until I died when I was 49. I undertook gigantic projects. I built various sections of the Great Wall of China and developed an extensive network of roads and canals connecting the provinces to improve trade between them.
I unified China by standardizing Chinese script which differed from place to place. In order to remove examples of obsolete scripts, I ordered most existing books to be burned. It was a purge on what I considered wasteful and useless literature. Most were classics of Confucius. I had some 460 scholars buried alive for owning the forbidden books although I myself had them in my own library which was burned down a few years after I died. Books on astrology, agriculture, medicine, divination, and history of my home state were exempt from being burned.
I unified China economically by standardizing the Chinese units of measurements. I abolished all forms of local currency and introduced a uniform copper coin. All measurements such as weights, distances, and currency were based on the number 16 and 12. Even the lengths of the axles of carts were standardized to facilitate transport on the road system.
I feared death and desperately sought the fabled elixir of life, which would supposedly allow me to live forever. I sent Taoist alchemist Xu Fu with 500 young men and 500 young women to the eastern seas to find the elixir, but they never came back.
The best I could do to achieve immortality was to build for myself a city-sized mausoleum that was buried underground. It was guarded by the life-sized Terracotta Army made of ceramic pieces of over 8,000 soldiers with 40,000 real bronze weapons, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses to protect me in the afterlife from evil spirits. It took 700,000 men and 38 years to construct my mausoleum. Construction started when I was 13 and finished 2 years after I died. Most of the workmen who built the tomb were killed to keep the details of it secret.
One year before I died, a large meteor fell nearby. An unknown person inscribed the words "The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided" on that meteor. When I heard of this, I sent an imperial secretary to investigate this prophecy. No one would confess to the deed, so all the people living nearby were put to death. The stone was then burned and pulverized. I died due to ingesting mercury pills, made by my alchemists and court physicians to make me immortal. My son who succeeded me was not very capable. Revolts quickly erupted. His reign was a time of extreme civil unrest. Everything built by me except my mausoleum with its Terracotta army crumbled away within a short period.
2,200 years later when Mao Zedong was compared to me, he said. "Qin Shi buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried 46,000. You intellectuals revile us for being Qin Shi. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi a hundredfold."
Soap and Candle maker (209BC-170BC)
I was born to a family of soap makers in China. My father made soaps and so did his father. In fact the family soap making business went back as far as my father's great great grandfather who learned the soap making trade from a man who claimed to come from a faraway land called Babylon.
To make my soaps, I cooked liquid oils and solid fats in a special water ash mixture I called "lye" which was concentrated by repeatedly soaking, filtering and cooking it in ashes from burned hard wood until the lye was very corrosive and a raw egg was able to float in it. I then cooked the melted fats and oils in the lye until it curdled like cheese in milk. I called these curdles in my soup, "soap". It was as if salts crystallized out of my soup. My soaps were much in demand as they removed otherwise impossible to remove greases and oils from dirty hands, clothes and pots.
We also used to make candles by collecting bees wax emptied of their honey. We rolled the bees wax into a cylinder around a cotton string we called a “wick”. When the wick was lit with a fire, it burned slowly with a flame that gave off a beautiful light. Our candles were so much in demand that I could not find enough bees nests for all of the wax that I needed. I experimented with fats that we used to make our soaps. I took the very hard fats found around the kidneys of sheep or cows that we called "suet" that were not so suitable for soap making. I repeatedly melted, simmered, strained and cooled the suet until it turned into a much harder material resembling melted bees wax. I called this fat "tallow". I then repeatedly dipped my wicks into melted tallow and let it harden until the wick was dressed in layers of hardened tallow. I was able to make candles that were so exactly the same and burned so consistently with the same speed that they were used as devices to measure time. Markings were marked down the sides of my candles and as the candles burned down, elapsed time could be clearly displayed. This way, the speed of certain activities could be accurately measured.
Thousands of years after I died, oils and fats buried deep in the earth called petroleum were discovered. Men learned to pressure cook these earth oils so that they curdled like cheese in milk. They called these curdles "paraffin wax" from which they made candles that burned with less smoke than the candles made with tallow.
Mr. North (169BC-105BC)
I was born to a family of iron workers. My father made iron bars. The bars were straight and longer than the height of our cave. My job as a young boy was to help my older brother hang the red hot iron bars up by their middle points so they would cool. We used a thin iron rope we called a "cable" that was attached to the low ceiling in the cave. We found to our amazement that once the bars were suspended and free to turn, they would eventually always all ended up pointing in the same direction. We then made very thin miniature iron bars that were shaped like boats and floated in water. They were small and light enough to carry around and enabled people to navigate on cloudy days and nights without having to rely on the sun and the stars.
Julius Caesar (100BC-44BC)
In my next life I was born to become a Roman general, statesman, Consul and notable author of Latin prose and a dictator. I was deemed to be one of the greatest military commanders who ever lived. I played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. Crassus, one of the richest men who ever lived, Pompey and I formed a political alliance that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Our attempts to amass power through populist tactics were opposed by the conservative elite within the Roman Senate. My conquest of France extended Rome's territory to the English Channel and the Rhine. I became the first Roman general to cross both when I built a bridge across the Rhine and sailed across the channel to invade Britain.
I got to know Cleopatra the queen of Egypt who was considered a goddess. Soon after that, I also started to consider myself a god. One year later I was made dictator for life, I was assassinated by a group of my friends, my strongest supporters, who found my divine aspirations intolerable. Public opinion was so strongly against them for having assassinated me that they had to flee for their lives and their houses were burned down. After I was killed, I was officially deified, the first Roman to be considered a god.
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