Michelle Taylor

What we mostly learn from looking at 2,000-2,500 year old figures is that it is important to have literate disciples if you want to be considered to have existed despite having written nothing yourself (or even if you theoretically did write things yourself despite not actually having existed, Homer). Pythagoras and Christ both might have done, but nothing about their lives was written down until long after they were dead, which makes people suspicious. Socrates, on the other hand, had the good sense to instruct Plato and Xenophon, who busily wrote things down, so nobody doubts the existence of Socrates.