Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources (7 page)

CHAPTER 8

H
OW
H
E
W
ENT TO
O
LYMPIA AND
P
HLIUS

A
fter he had made enquiry into the laws and customs of Crete and Lacedaemon, he went down to the Olympic Games.
¹⁰⁶
Having given a proof of his multiplicious knowledge to the admiration of all Greece, being demanded what his appellation was, he answered that he was not
Sophos
, wise (for excellent men had already possessed that name), but
Philosophos
, a lover of wisdom.

But some relate this as done at Sicyon in discourse with Leon, tyrant of that place; others at Phlius, distant from Sicyon a hundred furlongs.
¹⁰⁷
Of the latter are Heraclides in his book of the breathless woman;
¹⁰⁸
and Sosicrates in his successions.
¹⁰⁹
The testimony of Heraclides is thus delivered by Cicero.
¹¹⁰

He went, as is reported, to Phlius and discoursed upon some things learnedly and copiously with Leo prince of the Phliasians. Leo, admiring his wit and eloquence, demanded in what art he did most confide. Pythagoras answered, that he knew no art, but was a philosopher. Leo wondering at the novelty of the name, asked who were philosophers, and what difference there is between them and others? Pythagoras answered that human life seemed to resemble that public convention which is celebrated with the pomp and games of all Greece. For as some by bodily exercises aim at the glory and nobility of a crown; other are led away by gain in buying or selling. But there is a certain kind of person, and those of the better quality, who seek neither applause nor gain, but come to behold and curiously observe what is done, and how. So we, coming out of another life and nature into this life, as out of some city into the full throng of a public meeting—some serve glory, other riches. Only some few there are, who despising all things else, studiously enquire into the nature of things. These he called Enquirers after wisdom, that is,
Philosophers.

Thus, whereas learning before was called “Sophia,” Wisdom, and the prosessors thereof,
Sophoi
, wisemen (as Thales and the rest of whom we treated in the first book), Pythagoras, by a more modest appellation, named it “Philosophy,” or Love of Wisdom. He called
its prosessors “Philosophers,” conceiving the attribute of wise not to belong to men but to God only—that which is properly termed Wisdom, being far above human capacity.
¹¹¹
For though the frame of the whole heaven, and the stars which are carried about in it, if we consider their order, is fair; yet is it such but by participation of the primary intelligible, who is a nature of numbers and proportions, diffusing itself through the universe, according to which, all these things are ordered together and adorned decently. Wisdom therefore is a true knowledge, conversant about those fair things which are first, and divine, and unmingled, and always the same; by participation whereof, we may call other things fair. But philosophy is an imitation of that science, which likewise is an excellent knowledge, and did assist towards the reformation of mankind.

CHAPTER 9

H
OW
H
E
L
IVED AT
S
AMOS

H
aving been a diligent auditor and disciple of all these, he returned home and earnestly addicted himself to enquiry after such things as he had omitted.
¹¹²
First, as soon as he returned to Ionia (says Antiphon, cited by Porphyry, repeated and enlarged by Iamblicus), he built in his country within the city a school which even yet is called the Semicircle of Pythagoras.
¹¹³
Here the Samians, when they would consult about public affairs, would assemble, choosing to enquire after things honest, just, and advantageous in that place which he, who took care of them all, had erected. Without the city he made a cave proper for his study of philosophy, in which he lived for the most part day and night, and discoursed with his friends, and made enquiry into the most useful part of Mathematics, taking the same course as Minos son of Jupiter. And so far did he surpass all whom he taught, that they, for the smallest theorem, were reputed great persons.

Pythagoras now perfected the science of the celestial bodies and covered it with all demonstrations Arithmetical and Geometrical. Nor this only, but he became much more admired for the things he performed afterwards. For philosophy had now received a great increase, and all Greece began to admire him; and the best and most studious persons, for his sake, reported to Samos desiring to participate of his institutions.

CHAPTER 10

H
IS
V
OYAGE TO
I
TALY

B
ut Pythagoras, being engaged by his countrymen in all embassies, and constrained to be interested in their public negotiations, perceived that if he should comply with the laws of his country and continue there, it would he hard for him to study Philosophy. For which reason all former philosophers ended their lives in foreign countries.
¹¹⁴
Weighing all these consideration, and to avoid civil employments—or as others say, declining the negligence of learning which at that time possessed the Samians—he departed into Italy, preferring that place before his country, which contained most persons fervently desirous of learning.

But before we speak of his actions in Italy, it will be requisite as well to settle the time of his coming and the state of that country as it was at that time. It was a received opinion amongst the more ancient but less learned Romans that Pythagoras was contemporary with King Numa. The occasion of that tradition might perhaps arise from those books which were found in the sepulcher of Numa, 805 years after his death. Antius Valerius, cited by Livy,
¹¹⁵
and Cassius Hemina, by Pliny,
¹¹⁶
relate these were supposed to contain Pythagorean philosophy. But that opinion is long since refuted by the more learned Romans and Grecians: Cicero, Titus Livius, Dionysius Halicarnassaeus, Plutarch, and others.

They who have looked more strictly into the time of Pythagoras seem to follow two different accounts. Iamblichus says that he lived in Egypt twenty-two years; that he was carried from thence by Cambyses; that he lived in Babylon twelve years; that from thence he returned to Samos being fifty-six years old; that from Samos he went into Italy in the sixty-second Olympiad [ca. 528
B.C.
]—Eryxidas, a Chalcidean, being victor at the Olympic Games. From whence it follows that he went into Egypt about the third year of the fifty-third Olympiad [ca. 562
B.C.
]; and that he was born in the second year of the forty-eighth Olympiad [ca. 583
B.C.
]; and that it was the fifty-second Olympiad [ca. 568-565
B.C.
], when he, in the eighteeenth year of his age, heard Thales, Pherecydes and Anaximander.

This account seems to be followed by Laertius, Porphyry, Themistius, Suidas (from Laertius), and others, who affirm he went from Samos into Italy at the time Polycrates was tyrant of Samos, conceiving it unfit for a philosopher to live under such a government. For by Diodorus,
¹¹⁷
Pythagoras is acknowledged in the sixty-first Olympiad [ca. 532
B.C.
], Thericles being Archon; by Clement of Alexandria, about the sixty-second Olympiad [ca. 528
B.C.
], under Polycrates;
¹¹⁸
and in the second year of the sixty-fourth Olympiad [ca. 519
B.C.
], Polycrates was betrayed and put to death by Oroetas. This account Antilochus also seems to follow, who reckons from the time of Pythagoras to the death of Epicurus, 312 years. Epicuras died in the second year of the 127th Olympiad [ca. 267
B.C.
]; the 312th year upwards is the first of the forty-ninth Olympiad [ca. 580
B.C
]. Neither is Livy much different from this computation, who makes him to come into Italy, Servio Tullio regnante, who died about a year or two before. And this account might be the occasion of making him live to ninety years, as Laertius says many do; and to 104 years, as the nameless author of his life in Photius, the year of his death being according to Eusebius the fourth of the seventieth Olympiad [ca. 493
B.C
].

But this account may, with good reason, be questioned. For if it be granted (as by Iamblichus himself, and other good authorities it is affirmed) that Pythagoras was in Egypt when Cambyses subdued it, and that he was carried away captive by him into Babylon, the time of his going into Italy must of necessity be much later. For Cambyses invaded Egypt in the fifth year of his reign, which is the third year of the sixty-third Olympiad [ca. 522
B.C
], and the 223rd year of Nobonassar, of which there is no question in chronology. This is so because the seventh year of Cambyses is known to be the 225th year of Nabonassar. Ptolemy in his
Almegest
relates an astronomical observation of a Lunar eclipse at Babylon on the seventeenth day of the month Phamenoth, according to the Egyptians, which is with us the sixteenth of July, one hour before midnight.
¹¹⁹

From whence now it follows that he if lived twenty-two years in Egypt, that then he went thither in the third year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad [ca. 542
B.C
]; and that if he stayed in Babylon twelve years; he went into Italy about the end of the sixty-sixth Olympiad
[ca. 509
B.C
]; and that if he were then fifty-six years old, he was not born before the first year of the fifty-third Olympiad [ca. 564
B.C
]. And according to this account, they who make him live but seventy or eighty years, do not much differ in the time of his death from them, who according to the other account, make him live so much longer. For they who give him most years do not make him to die later, but to be born sooner.

This account they seem to follow who affirm he went from Samos to Italy.
¹²⁰
For he could not brook Syloson, the brother of Polycrates, on whom (being a private person after his brother's death) Darius Hystaspis afterward bestowed the tyranny of Samos in requital of a garment which Syloson had given him before he came to the empire. And thus perhaps is Strabo to be understood. He says Pythagoras, as they reported, in the time of Polycrates, seeing the tyranny begun, forsook the city and went from thence to Egypt and Babylon out of love to learning. And returning home, and seeing that the tyranny continued still, he went into Italy where he ended his days.
¹²¹
By this “continuation of the tyranny,” seems to be meant the reign of Syloson—who ruled so cruelly that many persons forsook the city, insomuch that it became a proverb:

A Region vast

By Syloson laid waste.

With both these accounts agree what Cicero
¹²²
and Aulus Gellius
¹²³
affirm concerning his coming into Italy—that it was in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus. But to neither can that of Pliny be accommodated. Pliny says that Pythagoras observed the nature of the star Venus about the forty-second Olympiad [ca. 608
B.C.
], which was of the city of Rome the 142nd year.
¹²⁴
There must therefore be either an error in both the numbers; or, which I rather believe, in Pliny himself, occasioned, perhaps by mistaking Tarquinius Priseus (under whom they both fall) for Tarquinius Superbus, under whom Pythagoras flourished.

If therefore he came into Italy in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus,
¹²⁵
the opinion of Cicero is to be received. That he was there when Lucius Brutus freed his country; and upon the expulsion of
Tarquinius Superbus, Brutus and Lucius Collatinus were made the first consuls. At which time the dominion of the Romans extended not any way above six miles from their city; and the southern parts of Italy were chiefly inhabited by the Grecians, who at several times had there planted diverse colonies, whereof we shall only mention those which were more particularly concerned in the actions of Pythagoras.

The most ancient of these is Metapontum, seated in the Bay of Tarentum between Heraclea and Tarentum, built by Nestor and the Pylians, a people of Peloponnesus.
¹²⁶
Long after were founded:

Catana, a city on the east side of Sicily, between Messena and Syracuse, built by a colony of Chalcideans, in the eleventh Olympiad [ca. 736
B.C.
].
¹²⁷

Tarentum in Italy, in the eighteenth Olympiad [ca. 708
B.C.
],
¹²⁸
built by the Parthenians.
¹²⁹
These were children of the Lacedaemonian women, born in the absence of their husbands at the Messanian wars. They were therefore called Parthenians in reproach; which not brooking, they conspired against the Lacedaemonian people; but being betrayed and banished, came hither.

Crotona, a city in the Bay of Tarentum,
¹³⁰
built in the nineteenth Olympiad [ca. 704
B.C.
],
¹³¹
by a colony of Achaeans under the conduct of Miscellus. By whom it was named Crotona at the command of Hercules, in memory of Croto, his host, whom he, having unwittingly slain, buried there. This city, for being built by the command of Hercules, engraved his figure in their coins. [See illustration next page.]

Sybaris is a city distant from Crotona 200 furlongs according to Strabo's account—but as others conceive, more than twice so much—built at the same time by a colony of Troezenians, under the conduct of Iseliceus, between the two rivers Crathis and Sybaris.
¹³²

Locri in Italy was built in the twenty-fourth Olympiad [ca. 684
B.C.
], by the Locrians, a people of Achaea.
¹³³

Agrigentum,
¹³⁴
an Ionian colony, built by the Geloans 108 years after their own foundation. Gela
¹³⁵
was built in the forty-fifth year after Syracusa in the eleventh Olympiad [ca. 736
B.C.
, forty-five years later would be 691
B.C.
]: Agrigentum therefore in the forty-ninth [687
B.C.
].
¹³⁶

To these add, of less certain time, Rhegium in Calabria built by the Chalcedeans, and Nimgra and Tauromenium in Sicily, colonies of the Zancleaans. Indeed so generally was the Pythagorean doctrine received in these parts, that Iamblicus affirms, all Italy was filled with philosophical persons; and whereas before it was obscure, afterwards by reason of Pythagoras, it was named
Magna Graecia [“Greater Greece”].
¹³⁷

Crotonian coins with images of Hercules. Antique woodcut showing coins of the ancient city of Croton. The top image is a product of the imagination, whereas the second is a reasonably faithful representation of a known coin type of the 4th century
B.C.

From Thomas Stanley,
The History of Philosophy