Tannaim תנאים
The sages of the mishnaic era — from Hillel and Shammai to Rabbi Yehuda haNasi, some two hundred and twenty years.
Tanna means «one who repeats» in Aramaic: the teaching passed by oral repetition, and a man who held thousands of traditions in memory was a living library. The era begins where the zugot end — the last pair being Hillel and Shammai — and runs five or six generations.
It was a time of unprecedented pressure: the Temple's destruction, Yavne, the Bar Kochba revolt, Hadrian's persecutions, the Ten Martyrs. It was also the time when the whole structure of Jewish life without a Temple took shape.
Among them: Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, who saved Yavne; Rabbi Akiva, who began learning at forty; Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Rabbi Yishmael. The era closes with Rabbi Yehuda haNasi and the Mishna, around 3948. Tannaitic material outside the Mishna is called baraita.