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The background to the  philosophers’ careers as public sages was slavery, war, astounding mythology, hunting, bullying and a body of economics that nobody could understand.
 
Stoicism, scepticism, sophism, nihilism,  cynicism, hedonism, heroism, altruism, totemism, reductionism and humanism all collided as obsessional sects and could rarely be regulated by any government.
 
Scepticism was as then formulated closest to modern existentialism. Altruism, sarcastically interpreted, was teamed with heroism (Apollo’s sect of militarists and wrestlers).
 
Cynicism, even then lending itself to statecraft, tried hard to keep an admass of gullible fools out of power yet in the labour market. 
 
Sophism was for the city states’ wranglers, lawyers, advocates, salesmen and judges. 
 
Totemism was a belief in sacred venerated objects such as temples or altars.           
 
Reductionism, for illiterate slaves or other bumpkins, taught them five or six “big factors” such as sex, combat, God-Zeus, work, money and hygiene.
 
The humanists were magicians and the stoics would perversely put up with nothing.
 
Athens during the reign of the thirty tyrants (who were Spartan soldiers) had four main philosophy schools: the Academy, the Garden, the Porch and the Lyceum. Both Plato and Socrates taught there, and would often spurn money or talk only to tramps such as Diogenes or Xenophon, snubbing statesmen or making them feel uneasy by probing questions. Aristophanes, the satirical playwright, in “The Clouds” used Socrates as a butt of ridicule. Soon Socrates committed suicide. Such even then was the power of showbiz over the body politick.

The spectacle of language, of thought itself, was a matter of concern to the great tragical philosopher Aristotle, who managed to mystify the subject even further – he taught Alexander the Great peace as love.

Pericles, banker and admiral, had insisted that all Athenians should learn philosophy and revere sages and idols.

Phidion, Greece‘s greatest sculptor, said that he was a stoic but could often be seen fighting the envious brutally and frantically. Muggers were thousands strong and all nobles carried blades to defend themselves adequately. Muggers, because of their peculiar "successes" were just as well dressed as the aristocracy‘s dandies.

Nihilism was the favourite of the aristocracy.