• Historian Hecataeus of Miletus (Εκαταίος ο Μιλήσιος), 550 B.C.
• Philosopher and Cartographer Dicaearchus of Messana (Δικαίαρχος ο Μεσσήνιος), 350 B.C.

Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 550 BC – c. 476 BC) (Greek Ἑκαταῖος), named after the Greek goddess Hecate, was an early Greek historian of a wealthy family. He flourished during the time of the Persian invasion. After having traveled extensively, he settled in his native city, where he occupied a high position, and devoted his time to the composition of geographical and historical works. When Aristagoras held a council of the leading Ionians at Miletus to organize a revolt against the Persian rule, Hecataeus in vain tried to dissuade his countrymen from the undertaking. In 494 BC, when the defeated Ionians were obliged to sue for terms, he was one of the ambassadors to the Persian satrap Artaphernes, whom he persuaded to restore the constitution of the Ionic cities. Hecataeus is the first known Greek historian, and was one of the first classical writers to mention the Celtic people.

Some have credited Hecataeus with a work entitled Περίοδος γῆς ("Travels round the Earth" or "World Survey'), written in two books. Each book is organized in the manner of a periplus, a point - to - point coastal survey. One, on Europe, is essentially a periplus of the Mediterranean, describing each region in turn, reaching as far north as Scythia. The other book, on Asia, is arranged similarly to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea of which a version of the 1st century AD survives. Hecataeus described the countries and inhabitants of the known world, the account of Egypt being particularly comprehensive; the descriptive matter was accompanied by a map, based upon Anaximander’s map of the earth, which he corrected and enlarged. The work only survives in some 374 fragments, by far the majority being quoted in the geographical lexicon Ethnika compiled by Stephanus of Byzantium.

The other known work of Hecataeus was the Genealogiai, a rationally systematized account of the traditions and the myths of the Greeks, a break with the epic myth making tradition, which survives in a few fragments, just enough to show what we are missing.

Hecataeus' work, especially the Genealogiai, shows a marked skepticism of oral history, opening with "Hecataeus of Miletus thus speaks: I write what I deem true; for the stories of the Greeks are manifold and seem to me ridiculous."

Herodotus (II, 143) tells a story of a visit by Hecataeus to an Egyptian temple at Thebes. It recounts how the priests showed Herodotus a series of statues in the temple's inner sanctum, each one supposedly set up by the high priest of each generation. Hecataeus, says Herodotus, had seen the same spectacle, after mentioning that he traced his descent, through sixteen generations, from a god. The Egyptians compared his genealogy to their own, as recorded by the statues; since the generations of their high priests had numbered three hundred and forty - five, all mortal men, they refused to believe Hecataeus's claim of descent from a god. Historian James Shotwell has called this encounter with the antiquity of Egypt an influence on Hecataeus's skepticism: He recognized that oral history is untrustworthy.

He was probably the first of the logographers to attempt a serious prose history and to employ critical method to distinguish myth from historical fact, though he accepts Homer and other poets as trustworthy authorities. Herodotus, though he once at least contradicts his statements, is indebted to Hecataeus for the concept of a prose history.

Dicaearchus of Messana (Greek: Δικαίαρχος, Dikaiarkhos; also written Dicearchus, Dicearch, Diceärchus, or Diceärch) (c. 350 – c. 285 BC) was a Greek philosopher, cartographer, geographer, mathematician and author. Dicaearchus was Aristotle's student in the Lyceum. Very little of his work remains extant. He wrote on the history and geography of Greece, of which his most important work was his Life of Greece. He made important contributions to the field of cartography, where he was among the first to use geographical coordinates. He also wrote books on philosophy and politics.

He was the son of one Pheidias, and born at Messana in Sicily, though he passed the greater part of his life in Greece, and especially in Peloponnesus. He was a disciple of Aristotle, and a friend of Theophrastus, to whom he dedicated some of his writings. He died about 285 BC.

Dicaearchus was highly esteemed by the ancients as a philosopher and as a man of most extensive information upon a great variety of things. His work is known only from the many fragmentary quotations of later writers. His works were geographical, political or historical, philosophical, and mathematical; but it is difficult to draw up an accurate list of them, since many which are quoted as distinct works appear to have been only sections of greater ones. The fragments extant, moreover, do not always enable us to form a clear notion of the works to which they once belonged. The geographical works of Dicaearchus were, according to Strabo, criticized in many respects by Polybius; and Strabo himself is dissatisfied with his descriptions of western and northern Europe, where Dicaearchus had never visited.

Among his geographical works may be mentioned:

• Life of Greece (Greek: Βίος Ἑλλάδος) - The Bios Hellados, in three books is Dicaearchus’ most famous work. In the mid 1st century BC it inspired Jason of Nysa’s Bios Hellados and Varro's De Vita Populi Romani. It exists in only 24 fragments, but he apparently attempted to write a biography of the Greek nation from earliest times to the reign of Philip II. The most famous passages are those cited by Varro and Porphyry which suggest a dualistic view of progress. For example, the invention of agriculture alleviates hunger through the creation of surplus, but surplus in turn proves to be an incitement to greed which leads to war. Every human advance solves one problem but also engenders another. Passages which detailed human institutions and their history suggest he thought these could arrest decline. For example, his definition of country (Greek: πάτρα), family (Greek: φρατρία), and tribe (Greek: φυλή), is about the right ordering of human relations within the polis. Dicaearchus apparently explained the saying, "sharing stops choking", as a reference to how humans learned to distribute surplus fairly. Many fragments are interested in the origins of the music and culture of Greece. This is in contrast to the debased symposiastic Greek culture of which he complains in some of his other works. His interest in defining Greek culture in its heyday is thus partly polemical: He wishes to attack current fashions in music by reminding his readership of their original forms. The link between political decline and cultural debasement (as they saw it) was also made by his fellow Peripatetic and friend Aristoxenus. In a celebrated passage, he compared the introduction of the ‘New Music’ into Greek theaters to the barbarization of the Poseidoniates in the Bay of Naples.
• Circuit of the Earth (Greek: Γῆς περίοδος) - This work was probably the text written in explanation of the geographical maps which Dicaearchus had constructed and given to Theophrastus, and which seem to have comprised the whole world, as far as it was then known.
• Description of Greece (Greek: Ἀναγραφὴ τῆς Ἑλλάδος) - This is a fragment of a work dedicated to "Theophrastus", and consisting of 150 iambic lines. It was formerly attributed to Dicaearchus, but the initial letters of the first twenty - three lines show that it was really the work of one "Dionysius, son of Calliphon".
• On the heights of mountains - A work which may have been part of his Circuit of the Earth. It was the earliest known attempt to measure the heights of various mountains by triangulation.
• Descent into (the Cave of) Trophonius (Greek: Ἡ εἰς Τροφωνίου κατάϐασις) - A work which consisted of several books, and, as we may infer from the fragments quoted from it, contained an account of the degenerate and licentious proceedings of the priests in the cave of Trophonius.
• Some other works, such as Spartan Constitution (Greek: Πολιτεία Σπαρτιατῶν), Olympic Dialogue (Greek: Ὀλυμπικὸς ἀγών), Panathenaic Dialogue (Greek: Παναθηναικός), and several others, seem to have been merely chapters of the Life of Greece.

Of a political nature was:

• Three - city Dialogue (Tripolitikos - Greek: Τριπολιτικός) - A work which has been the subject of much dispute. It was probably a study of comparative government. Following Aristotle, Dicaearchus divided all governments into three categories: the democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical, He advocated a "mixed" government, echoing the Spartan system, in which elements of all three categories play a part. This may have been an inspiration for Cicero's De Republica.

Among his philosophical works may be mentioned:

• Lesbian Books (Greek: Λεσϐιακοί) - In three books, which derived its name from the fact that the scene of the philosophical dialogue was laid at Mytilene in Lesbos. In it Dicaearchus endeavored to prove that the soul was mortal. Cicero when speaking of a work On the Soul, probably means this work.
• Corinthian Dialogue (Greek: Κορινθιακοί) - In three books, was a sort of supplement to the Lesbiakoi. It is probably the same work as the one which Cicero, in another passage, calls On Human Destruction (Latin: de Interitu Hominum).

A work On the Sacrifice at Illium (Greek: περὶ τῆς ἐν Ἰλίῳ ϑυσίας) seems to have referred to the sacrifice which Alexander the Great performed at Illium.

There are lastly some other works which are of a grammatical nature, and may be the productions of Dicaearchus, viz. On Alcaeus (Greek: Περὶ Ἀλκαίου), and Summaries of the plots of Euripides and Sophocles (Greek: ὑποθέσεις τῶν Εὐριπίδου καὶ Σοφοκλέους μύθων), but may have been the works of Dicaearchus, a grammarian of Lacedaemon, who, according to the Suda, was a disciple of Aristarchus, and seems to be alluded to in Apollonius.