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Our focus is fame’s ancient precursor: kleos! And I’d like to explore it in some depth so I can set the tone of this article. Kleos is an ancient Greek term often translated as “glory” or “renown.” It originates from the Greek word κλέος (kléos) and holds deep significance in ancient Greek culture—think of the heroes from epic Greek poetry like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
In its broader sense, kleos refers to the fame or honour that a hero earns through great deeds, particularly in battle or other acts of bravery tied to the oral traditions of storytelling, like Homer’s epic poetry. Back then, a hero’s kleos was perpetuated through songs and tales shared among people, ensuring their legacy lived on after death—right to our impressionable ears since childhood.
Kleos is not just personal glory but also carries social importance. It is linked to one’s status in society and often seen as a form of immortality, as achieving kleos means being remembered for generations. In many cases, the pursuit of kleos involves risking one’s life, reflecting the ancient Greek ideal that a meaningful life is one marked by extraordinary achievement and recognition, even if it comes at great personal cost.
For example, Achilles in the Iliad faces the choice between a long, unremarkable life or a short life filled with glory (kleos) that ensures his eternal remembrance. His decision to pursue kleos epitomises the hero’s dedication to this ideal. But there’s someone from antiquity who surpassed the fictional Achilles, and that was Alexander the Great. Alexander is the real-world example of someone attaining major kleos. He lived a short life, dying at the young age of 32, but left world history changed with his legacy of extraordinary deeds. Alexander’s kleos lies not only in his military conquests but also in the lasting impact of his achievements. He transformed the ancient world politically, culturally, and economically, creating a legacy that persisted long after his death and cementing his place in history as one of the greatest figures of all time!
Having established a clear understanding of kleos, we now turn to the raison d’être of our article—information. Like its ancient precursor, kleos, the fame of modernity is information that shares the characteristic of being socially transmitted narratives that rely on recognition and dissemination through the minds of other human beings.
What is the Kleos of Our Age?
If kleos was once built upon honour, virtue, and heroic deeds, then what defines fame today? The three pillars of modernity—wealth, social status, and pleasure—have replaced the ancient Greek ideals of honour and virtue. Where kleos was once immortalised through oral storytelling and the scroll, today’s fame is preserved through the media, film, the internet, and radio. In a world saturated with instant communication, fame is no longer the reward of heroism or noble deeds but the result of visibility and influence in the information economy.
We will not bang on about this longer—after all, the transformation is self-evident. Fame today is less about being remembered for noble deeds and more about presence, reach, and virality. The internet has democratised fame, allowing nearly anyone to achieve it, often without the substance that once defined kleos.
Fame as Information: What Do We Leave Behind?
What remains after we have won the fleeting battle for fame? If kleos was once a form of everlasting remembrance, has modern fame been reduced to a commercialised and watered-down version? At its core, kleos was what others heard about you, carried forward by generations. Today, fame is similarly reliant on media, yet so long as there exists a device or platform capable of replaying data, one’s fame never truly vanishes.
We crave to be remembered, to have our information exchanged back and forth, to persist in conversation long after we are gone. The term information is complex and varies in meaning depending on context. But at its bottom line, information is data imbued with meaning—something that reduces uncertainty and shapes understanding. Unlike the genetic information encoded in DNA, we are concerned with inter-subjective information, the kind that is meaningful to human beings. The kind that preserves identity.
Astronomers look at the shape and movement of galaxies to decode the history of the universe. To them, the cosmos itself is a form of recorded information, a snapshot of celestial events that unfolded over billions of years. In the same way, our fame is a record of our existence, a ripple in the vast ocean of human memory, destined to either persist or fade.
The Fragility of Memory: The Candle Flame of Kleos
“People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remember them will soon die too. And those after them in turn. Until their memory, passed from one to another like a candle flame, gutters and goes out.” — Marcus Aurelius
This metaphor of fame as a candle flame captures the impermanence of human memory. Kleos may have once promised immortality, but even it was subject to the shifting sands of time. No story, no legend, no name lasts forever. The question is, how long can the flame be passed before it finally dies?
Memory itself is a fragile form of information. Unlike material records, which can persist in books, inscriptions, or digital archives, memory exists only within the minds of the living. It is fleeting, dependent on language, and limited by the lifespan of those who carry it. Without language, memory would have no means of transmission, no way to be encoded and shared across generations. The very essence of what it means to be remembered hinges on the ability of others to articulate and pass down our stories.
But herein lies the tragedy: only other human beings shall remember us. Unlike the stars that leave behind light that travels across millennia, our legacies are bound to the fragile consciousness of others. When the last person who speaks our name is gone, when the final whisper of our deeds fades into silence, our existence—at least as something personally known—vanishes.
Reputation: The Link Between Kleos and Modern Fame
And to the pedantic lot out there—yes, kleos does differ from modern fame. Honour, virtue, and historical impact may not play as significant a role in today’s world as social status, commercial success, and visibility. But what ties these two concepts together is reputation. Whether in the form of a warrior’s deeds sung by poets or a celebrity’s influence amplified through digital media, both kleos and modern fame hinge on the same fundamental reality:
We are remembered by the information we leave behind which is itself as fragile as human life.
