<Li> Aeschylus (525--456 BC) </Li> <P> The Golden Age featured some of the most renowned Western philosophers of all time . Chief among these were Socrates, whose ideas exist primarily in a series of dialogues by his student Plato, who mixed them with his own; Plato; and Plato's student, Aristotle . </P> <P> Other notable philosophers of the Golden Age included Anaxagoras; Democritus (who first inquired as to what substance lies within all matter, the earliest known proposal of what is now called the atom or its sub-units); Empedocles; Hippias; Isocrates; Parmenides; Heraclitus; and Protagoras . </P> <P> In the second half of the 5th century BC the name of sophist (from the Greek sophistês, expert, teacher, man of wisdom) was given to the teachers that gave instruction on diverse branches of science and knowledge in exchange for a fee . </P>

Who became athens leading philosopher during its golden age