The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
native of one of the islands which the Athenians occupied after they
had driven out the Tyrrhenians. But some authors say that he was the
son of Marmacus, the son of Hippasus, the son of Euthyphron, the son of
Cleonymus, who was an exile from Phlias; and that Marmacus settled in
Samos, and that from this circumstance Pythagoras was called a Samian.
After that he migrated to Lesbos, having come to Pherecydes with letters
of recommendation from Zoilus, his uncle. And having made three silver
goblets, he carried them to Egypt as a present for each of the three
priests. He had brothers, the eldest of whom was named Eunomus, the
middle one Tyrrhenus, and a slave named Zamolxis, to whom the Getæ
sacrifice, believing him to be the same as Saturn, according to the
account of Herodotus.[107]
II. He was a pupil, as I have already mentioned, of Pherecydes, the
Syrian; and after his death he came to Samos, and became a pupil of
Hermodamas, the descendant of Creophylus, who was by this time an old man.
III. And as he was a young man, and devoted to learning, he quitted his
country, and got initiated into all the Grecian and barbarian sacred
mysteries. Accordingly, he went to Egypt, on which occasion Polycrates
gave him a letter of introduction to Amasis; and he learnt the Egyptian
language, as Antipho tells us, in his treatise on those men who have been
conspicuous for virtue, and he associated with the Chaldæans and with the
Magi.
Afterwards he went to Crete, and in company with Epimenides, he descended
into the Idæan cave, (and in Egypt too, he entered into the holiest
parts of their temples,) and learned all the most secret mysteries that
relate to their Gods. Then he returned back again to Samos, and finding
his country reduced under the absolute dominion of Polycrates, he set
sail, and fled to Crotona in Italy. And there, having given laws to the
Italians, he gained a very high reputation, together with his scholars,
who were about three hundred in number, and governed the republic in
a most excellent manner; so that the constitution was very nearly an
aristocracy.
IV. Heraclides Ponticus says, that he was accustomed to speak of himself
in this manner; that he had formerly been Æthalides, and had been
accounted the son of Mercury; and that Mercury had desired him to select
any gift he pleased except immortality. And that he accordingly had
requested that, whether living or dead, he might preserve the memory of
what had happened to him. While, therefore, he was alive, he recollected
everything; and when he was dead, he retained the same memory. And at a
subsequent period he passed into Euphorbus, and was wounded by Menelaus.
And while he was Euphorbus, he used to say that he had formerly been
Æthalides; and that he had received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual
transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating
and passing into whatever plants or animals it pleased; and he had also
received the gift of knowing and recollecting all that his soul had
suffered in hell, and what sufferings too are endured by the rest of the
souls.
But after Euphorbus died, he said that his soul had passed into
Hermotimus; and when he wished to convince people of this, he went into
the territory of the Branchidæ, and going into the temple of Apollo, he
showed his shield which Menelaus had dedicated there as an offering.
For he said that he, when he sailed from Troy, had offered up his
shield[108] which was already getting worn out, to Apollo, and that
nothing remained but the ivory face which was on it. And when Hermotimus
died, then he said that he had become Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos; and
that he still recollected everything, how he had been formerly Æthalides,
then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, and then Pyrrhus. And when Pyrrhus died,
he became Pythagoras, and still recollected all the circumstances that I
have been mentioning.
V. Now, some people say that Pythagoras did not leave behind him a single
book; but they talk foolishly; for Heraclitus, the natural philosopher,
speaks plainly enough of him, saying, “Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus,
was the most learned of all men in history; and having selected from
these writings, he thus formed his own wisdom and extensive learning,
and mischievous art.” And he speaks thus, because Pythagoras, in the
beginning of his treatise on Natural Philosophy, writes in the following
manner: “By the air which I breathe, and by the water which I drink, I
will not endure to be blamed on account of this discourse.”
And there are three volumes extant written by Pythagoras. One on
Education; one on Politics; and one on Natural Philosophy. But the
treatise which is now extant under the name of Pythagoras is the work of
Lysis, of Tarentum, a philosopher of the Pythagorean School, who fled to
Thebes, and became the master of Epaminondas. And Heraclides, the son of
Sarapion, in his Abridgment of Sotion, says that he wrote a poem in epic
verse on the Universe; and besides that a sacred poem, which begins thus;—
Dear youths, I warn you cherish peace divine,
And in your hearts lay deep these words of mine.
A third about the Soul; a fourth on Piety; a fifth entitled Helothales,
which was the name of the father of Epicharmus, of Cos; a sixth called
Crotona, and other poems too. But the mystic discourse which is extant
under his name, they say is really the work of Hippasus, having been
composed with a view to bring Pythagoras into disrepute. There were
also many other books composed by Aston, of Crotona, and attributed to
Pythagoras.
Aristoxenus asserts that Pythagoras derived the greater part of his
ethical doctrines from Themistoclea, the priestess at Delphi. And Ion,
of Chios, in his Victories, says that he wrote some poems and attributed
them to Orpheus. They also say that the poem called the Scopiadæ is by
him, which begins thus:—
Behave not shamelessly to any one.
VI. And Sosicrates, in his Successions, relates that he, having being
asked by Leon, the tyrant of the Phliasians, who he was, replied, “A
philosopher.” And adds, that he used to compare life to a festival. “And
as some people came to a festival to contend for the prizes, and others
for the purposes of traffic, and the best as spectators; so also in life,
the men of slavish dispositions,” said he, “are born hunters after glory
and covetousness, but philosophers are seekers after truth.” And thus he
spoke on this subject. But in the three treatises above mentioned, the
following principles are laid down by Pythagoras generally.
He forbids men to pray for anything in particular for themselves,
because they do not know what is good for them. He calls drunkenness an
expression identical with ruin, and rejects all superfluity, saying,
“That no one ought to exceed the proper quantity of meat and drink.”
And on the subject of venereal pleasures, he speaks thus:—“One ought
to sacrifice to Venus in the winter, not in the summer; and in autumn
and spring in a lesser degree. But the practice is pernicious at every
season, and is never good for the health.” And once, when he was asked
when a man might indulge in the pleasures of love, he replied, “Whenever
you wish to be weaker than yourself.”
VII. And he divides the life of man thus. A boy for twenty years; a
young man (νεάνισκος) for twenty years; a middle-aged man (νεανίας) for
twenty years; an old man for twenty years. And these different ages
correspond proportionably to the seasons: boyhood answers to spring;
youth to summer; middle age to autumn; and old age to winter. And he uses
νεάνισκος here as equivalent to μειράκιον, and νεανίας as equivalent to
ἀνὴρ.
VIII. He was the first person, as Timæus says, who asserted that the
property of friends is common, and that friendship is equality. And his
disciples used to put all their possessions together into one store, and
use them in common; and for five years they kept silence, doing nothing
but listen to discourses, and never once seeing Pythagoras, until they
were approved; after that time they were admitted into his house, and
allowed to see him. They also abstained from the use of cypress coffins,
because the sceptre of Jupiter was made of that wood, as Hermippus tells
us in the second book of his account of Pythagoras.
IX. He is said to have been a man of the most dignified appearance, and
his disciples adopted an opinion respecting him, that he was Apollo
who had come from the Hyperboreans; and it is said, that once when he
was stripped naked, he was seen to have a golden thigh. And there were
many people who affirmed, that when he was crossing the river Nessus it
addressed him by his name.
X. Timæus, in the tenth book of his Histories, tells us, that he used to
say that women who were married to men had the names of the Gods, being
successively called virgins, then nymphs, and subsequently mothers.
XI. It was Pythagoras also who carried geometry to perfection, after
Mœris had first found out the principles of the elements of that
science, as Aristiclides tells us in the second book of his History
of Alexander; and the part of the science to which Pythagoras applied
himself above all others was arithmetic. He also discovered the numerical
relation of sounds on a single string: he also studied medicine.
And Apollodorus, the logician, records of him, that he sacrificed a
hecatomb, when he had discovered that the square of the hypothenuse of a
right-angled triangle is equal to the squares of the sides containing the
right angle. And there is an epigram which is couched in the following
terms:—
When the great Samian sage his noble problem found,
A hundred oxen dyed with their life-blood the ground.
XII. He is also said to have been the first man who trained athletes on
meat; and Eurymenes was the first man, according to the statement of
Phavorinus, in the third book of his Commentaries, who ever did submit
to this diet, as before that time men used to train themselves on dry
figs and moist cheese, and wheaten bread; as the same Phavorinus informs
us in the eighth book of his Universal History. But some authors state,
that a trainer of the name of Pythagoras certainly did train his athletes
on this system, but that it was not our philosopher; for that he even
forbade men to kill animals at all, much less would have allowed his
disciples to eat them, as having a right to live in common with mankind.
And this was his pretext; but in reality he prohibited the eating of
animals, because he wished to train and accustom men to simplicity of
life, so that all their food should be easily procurable, as it would be,
if they ate only such things as required no fire to dress them, and if
they drank plain water; for from this diet they would derive health of
body and acuteness of intellect.
The only altar at which he worshipped was that of Apollo the Father, at
Delos, which is at the back of the altar of Ceratinus, because wheat, and
barley, and cheese-cakes are the only offerings laid upon it, being not
dressed by fire; and no victim is ever slain there, as Aristotle tells us
in his Constitution of the Delians. They say, too, that he was the first
person who asserted that the soul went a necessary circle being changed
about and confined at different times in different bodies.
XIII. He was also the first person who introduced measures and weights
among the Greeks; as Aristoxenus the musician informs us.
XIV. Parmenides, too, assures us, that he was the first person who
asserted the identity of Hesperus and Lucifer.
XV. And he was so greatly admired, that they used to say that his friends
looked on all his sayings as the oracles of God.[109] And he himself
says in his writings, that he had come among men after having spent two