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Like Laozi, Confucius (551-479 BC), belonged to the generation of Pythagoras' followers; had he been Greek, he would have lived to see the momentous battle of Marathon of 490 BC.
He was born in Shandong, the son of a high-ranking soldier who died when he was three; he was educated in a school for upper-class commoners where he learnt the Six Arts that formed the Chinese school curricula at the time: rites (respect for the ancients), music (artistic discrimination), archery and charioteering (essentially, how to fight and how to rise horses and chariots), calligraphy (writing) and mathematics.
This kind of curricula would have been easily recognized by any free Greek of a city-state of the time, but few from other countries. Not even the wealthiest Persians were taught mathematics, writing or artistic taste. According to Herodotus, elite boys at the Achaemenid court learned only to shoot the bow, ride, and tell the truth.[1]
As he hailed from the educated class just below the aristocracy, Confucius had to rely on minor bureaucratic posts and odd jobs for years, to make ends meet. He probably became a tutor for wealthy kids, which is how he secured a reputation for wisdom and scholarship.
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