page_title: Clearchus of Soli
section_title: Travels
hierarchical_section_title: Clearchus of Soli / Travels
caption_attribution_description: Inscription of Kineas. Ai Khanoum 2nd century BCE. Musée Guimet. Personal photograph 2006. Also see File:AiKhanoumMaxim.jpg
context_page_description: Clearchus of Soli was a Greek philosopher of the 4th–3rd century BCE, belonging to Aristotle's Peripatetic school. He was born in Soli in Cyprus.
  He wrote extensively on eastern cultures, and is thought to have traveled to the Bactrian city of Ai-Khanoum in modern Afghanistan.
context_section_description: In the Bactrian city of Ai-Khanoum, near the border with India, Greek verses, brought to city by Clearchus from Delphi, were dedicated to the founder of the city named Kineas. On a Herôon (funerary monument), identified in Greek as the tomb of Kineas (also described as the oikistes (founder) of the Greek settlement) and dated to 300-250 BC, the inscription says:
  "As children, learn good manners.
  As young men, learn to control the passions.
  In middle age, be just.
  In old age, give good advice.
  Then die, without regret."
  (Ai Khanoum inscription)
  The precepts were placed by a Greek named Clearchus, thought to be Clearchus of Soli, who had copied them from Delphi:
  "Whence Klearchos, having copied them carefully, set them up, shining from afar, in the sanctuary of Kineas"
  (Ai Khanoum inscription)
  Clearchus of Soli was a contemporary and compatriot of Stasanor (born in the same city of Soli, in Cyprus), who was a general of Alexander the Great and later satrap of Bactria and Sogdiana.
caption: Stone block with the inscriptions of Clearchus of Soli. Ai-Khanoum, 2nd century BC.
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