topics: |  philosophy | biography

Aristotle (384-322 BC) came from the very edge of the Greek world. -p.1

[Born in Stagira in Thrace (in Macedonia), an Ionian colony in N. Greece;
nearly all the major Gk philosophers, except for Socrates and Plato, had
been Ionians [from Turkey] p.11-12]

     As a young man, we are told, he [Aristotle] squandered his patrimony in
riotous living; he joined the army, and was thrown out of it; for a while he
sold drugs and nostrums to make a living. Finally, at the age of thirty, he
ended up in college -- in Plato's Academy.  - p.10

[After Plato dies in 384 BC, Aristotle travels for three years across the
middle east (Asia Minor).]

If you are a believer in the proposition that all men are created equal, then
Aristotle is not your man. Aristotle considered slavery to be entirely
natural, -- simply because "some men are adapted by nature to be the physical
instruments of others." Further, and more generally, Aristotle had "an
intense conviction of the natural inferiority of the 'barbarian.'"
- http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Philosophy/Aristotle.htm#rfn1
  (interestingly written bio of aristotle)