Xunzi
c. 310 BC – 235 BC · 75 years · Linzi (Jixia Academy) · Asia
Confucian who held that human nature is originally bad and that virtue must be cultivated through learning and ritual. Teacher of Han Fei and Li Si.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 3rd century BC
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Archimedes — mathematician, physicist and engineer, 23 years younger
- Epicurus — ancient Greek philosopher, 31 years older
- Zeno of Citium — ancient Greek philosopher, founder of Stoicism, 24 years older
- Pytheas — Greek navigator and geographer, 40 years older
Africa
- Hannibal — Carthaginian general, 63 years younger
- Eratosthenes — scholar, head of the Library of Alexandria, 34 years younger
- Euclid — ancient Greek mathematician, 15 years older
- Arsinoe II — queen of Ptolemaic Egypt, 6 years older
- Ptolemy I Soter — founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, 57 years older
Asia
- Qin Shi Huang — first emperor of China, 51 years younger
- Ashoka — Maurya emperor, 6 years younger
- Mencius — Chinese Confucian philosopher, 62 years older
- Liu Bang (Emperor Gaozu of Han) — founder of the Han dynasty, 54 years younger
- Chandragupta Maurya — founder of the Maurya Empire, 30 years older
- Han Fei — Chinese Legalist philosopher, 30 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- c. 300 BC Maya script — aged 10, Americas
- c. 300 BC–150 El Mirador, capital of the Preclassic Maya — aged 10, Americas
- c. 285 BC Library of Alexandria — aged 25, Africa
- c. 280 BC–247 BC Lighthouse of Alexandria — aged 30, Africa
- c. 261 BC Kalinga War — aged 49, Asia
- c. 250 BC The rise of Djenné-Djenno — aged 60, Africa