Cyrene

A prosperous Greek colony on the North African coast that produced two philosophers with opposite temperaments: Aristippus, who founded a school built on frank pleasure-seeking, and Carneades, who a century later founded his fame on refusing to settle any question at all.

Cyrene stood on a plateau above the Libyan coast, founded by settlers from Thera and rich on grain and on silphium, a plant it exported until the plant went extinct. It produced doctors, mathematicians, and two philosophers who could hardly have agreed on less: Aristippus, who held that the good is the pleasure available now, and Carneades, who a century and a half later made his name arguing both sides of any question until nothing was left standing.