List of People Who Have Been Called A "polymath" - BCE

BCE

• Imhotep (fl. 2650–2611 BCE); Egyptian chancellor, physician, and architect; "Imhotep, circa 2650 BC (who was revered as being at least semi-divine until the Late Period, although some of this reverence may be due to his status as physician and all-round polymath)."

• Pythagoras (c. 580–490 BCE), a Greek mathematician and philosopher of 6th century BC who founded a school in Crotone in south Italy and a philosophical system, Pythagoreanism, named after him. Pythagoras was thought to be a polymath by his contemporaries. He is sometimes credited with coining the term "philosopher", literally a "lover of wisdom," and considered among the first to follow this vocation.

• Archytas (428–347 BCE); an Ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and strategist; famous for being the reputed founder of mathematical mechanics.

• Aristotle (384–322 BCE); a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology. He numbers among the greatest polymaths of all time. "Aristotle was an extraordinary polymath..."

• Archimedes (c.287–c.212 BCE); a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Lived in Sicilian Greek town of Syracuse. Often considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, Archimedes is noted for several advancements in almost every relevant field in his era.

• Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276 – c. 195 BCE); a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, athlete, astronomer, and music theorist. He invented the discipline of geography as we understand it. He was the founder of scientific chronology. He was the first to measure the circumference and tilt of Earth. He invented his eponymous prime number sieve. He invented the leap day. Eratosthenes was the archetype of polymaths.