The title that Myson, the Chenian, ought.
One of the chapters in Plutarch’s Moralia is entitled, “The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men,” in which Periander is made to give an account of a contest at Chalcis between Homer and Hesiod. The latter won the prize, and caused this inscription to be engraved on the tripod presented to him:
This Hesiod vows to the Heliconian nine,
In Chalcis won from Homer the divine.
Wise Men of the East. Klopstock, in The Messiah, v., says there were six “Wise Men of the East,” who, guided by the star, brought their gifts to Jesus, “the heavenly babe,” viz., Ha´dad, Selima, Zimri, Mirja, Be´led and Sun´ith. (See Cologne, Three Kings of.)
Wisest Man. So the Delphic oracle pronounced Soc´ratês to be. Socratês modestly made answer, ’Twas because he alone had learnt this first element of truth, that he knew nothing.
Not those seven sages might him parallel;
For he whom Pythian maid did whilome tell
To be the wisest man that then on earth did dwell.
Phin. Fletcher, The Purple Island, vi. (1633).