Altheides (1193–1262) was a Cypriot philosopher, primarily known from sayings attributed to him in the works of others. Little is known about the wandering philosopher known as Altheides of Cyprus, and little of his work remains available to modern scholars. His parents were Greek merchants living on the island under the rule of

Guy of Lusignan Guy of Lusignan ( 1150 – 18 July 1194) was King of Jerusalem, first as husband and co-ruler of Queen Sibylla from 1186 to 1190 then as disputed ruler from 1190 to 1192. He was also Lord of Cyprus from 1192 to 1194. A French Poitevin kni ...

. He was born a year before Guy's death, in 1193. At some point in his late teens he left the

Kingdom of Cyprus The Kingdom of Cyprus (; ) was a medieval kingdom of the Crusader states that existed between 1192 and 1489. Initially ruled as an independent Christian kingdom, it was established by the French House of Lusignan after the Third Crusade. I ...

as a seaman on a Moorish trading vessel. Altheides again turns up in historical records with the founding of his School of Philosophy in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

in 1226, under the rule of

al-Kamil Al-Malik al-Kamil Nasir ad-Din Muhammad (; – 6 March 1238), titled Abu al-Maali (), was an Egyptian ruler and the fourth Ayyubid sultan of Egypt. During his tenure as sultan, the Ayyubids defeated the Fifth Crusade. He was known to the Franki ...

, the nephew of

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

and ruler of Jerusalem. His school was never particularly successful, and dispersed shortly after al-Kamil's treaty of 1229 signing the city back over to the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

. From this point very little is known. Scattered accounts and writings appear here and there in as varied locations as

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

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Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, and

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. Altheides died near his childhood home in Cyprus in 1262. Altheides never wrote a serious philosophical work or treatise and is primarily known for his many wise sayings, primarily found in other works written in the early thirteenth century.

References

1193 births 1262 deaths 13th-century Greek philosophers Cypriot writers {{philosopher-stub