despite me never having an affinity for Shakespeare, either literary or screen adaptations in particular, one cannot conceivably argue with his monumental, everlasting influence. On the other hand, I am equally enamored, as you are, with Themistokles of Athens and Siddhartha Gautama. Buddhistic teachings were the only 'organized teachings' I ever felt compelled with, and philosophy in general has always been my favorite subject aside of physics. In philosophy at least, I have always excelled, but in physics, other than pure theory, I could have never made any progress on my own due to my thoroughly average knowledge of math! Who would have thought I'd turn out a bad mathematician having an engineer father and math-obsessed, physician mother.... DNA is funny that way .... Anyway, two brilliant all-encompassing philosophy volumes are The Dream of Reason, and The Dream of Enlightenment, both written by British author Anthony John Gottlieb; soon to be followed by a third and final volume beginning at the time Immanuel Kant was born (early 18th Century) and continuing through the present day.... Have a look into these if you haven't already.... Cheers, Filip