Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources (11 page)

Friends equal with the gods he did respect,

All others (as of no account) neglect.

And that Pythagoras chiefly praised Homer for saving
(“the shepherd of the people”†), he tacitly implied that the rest of mankind were but beasts. That he affected oligarchy, and was an enemy to unmarried persons, as those who had been chief in election of magistrates by lot. That he affected tyranny, inasmuch as he says, “It is better to be a bull though but one day, than an ox all our lifetime.” That he praised the laws and customs of other people, and commanded that whatsoever was decreed by them should be used.

In fine, Nino declared that their philosophy was a conspiracy against the people, and advised them that they should not hearken to the voice of their consultations—but rather think of forbidding them to meet in counsel at all, if they alleged that they had a settled assembly consisting of a thousand voices. Wherefore it was not fit that they should, as far as in them lay, give ear to prohibited persons and permit them to speak; but to esteem their right hand, which they held from them hostile, when they should offer to put in a stone for
voting. He conceived it an unworthy thing that 300,000 men who all lived about the river Tetrais, should be oppressed by seditions and overcome by the thousand part of them in that city. This calumny so much exasperated the hearers, that some few days after, as the Pythagoreans were sacrificing in the Temple of Pythian Apollo, the people ran in tumultuously to do violence to them. But the Pythagoreans, being informed beforehand thereof, fled to the public hall.

Democedes, with the young men, went to Platea. But they, dissolving the laws, used decrees—whereby accusing Democedes of stirring up the young men to tyranny, they proclaimed, that whosoever did kill him should have in recompence three talents. And there being a fight, wherein he by the means of Theages was overcome, they gave him three talents out of the public treasury. But there arising many misfortunes in the city and country, the banished persons were called to judgment, and the examination thereof was committed to three cities (Tarentum, Metapontum, and Caulonia). Those who were put in commission thought good, as appears by the Crotonian records, to banish them. So they banished the whole generation, saying that the children ought not to be separated from their parents, and seized their estates.

But after many years, Dimachus and his friends being slain in another fight, and Litago also who was head of this faction, they took compassion on them, and resolved to call home those who were left. Wherefore sending for their ambassadors from Achaea, they made an agreement with the banished men, and hung up the copies of their oaths in the Temple of Delphi. The Pythagoreans who returned, were about threescore, besides those who were very aged, of whom some addicted themselves to medicine and cured the sick, and so became masters of that which is called “method.” Those who were restored grew into great favor with the people at that time, in which it was proverbially said in opposition to those who violate the laws, “These are not under the government of Nino.”

CHAPTER 20

H
IS
P
ERSON AND
V
IRTUES

H
is person, Iamblichus describes, to have been in his youth extraordinary beautiful.
¹⁹⁷
He was, as mentioned, called “The fair haired Samian.”
¹⁹⁸
And at fifty-six years of age, of a more comely and divine presence. Laertius says he is reported to have been of a most awful aspect, insomuch as his disciples thought him Hyperborean Apollo.
¹⁹⁹
He adds that Timon takes notice of the awfulness of his presence in his
Silli
, though he alleged it in disparagement of him.
²⁰⁰

Pythagoras skilled in the Goetic Laws,

Who courts by grave discourse human applause.

So great an impression he made upon those with whom he conversed, that a young man being sharply reprehended by him, immediately went and hanged himself. Whereupon Pythagoras ever after forbore to reprove any person.

Lycon, in the
Life of Pythagoras
, says that he used a spare diet.
²⁰¹
Athenaeus says that he drank very little, and lived so moderately that he was often content only with honey.
²⁰²
By his moderate diet he preserved his body in the same constant state, not sometimes sick, sometimes well, sometimes fat, sometimes lean. It appeared by his countenance that the same constancy was in his soul also. He was not subject to joy (as Cicero likewise observes) or grief, no man ever saw him rejoice or mourn. Neither did any ever see him
alvum exonerantem, coeuntem
[purging his stomach, having sexual intercourse], or drunk. He refrained wholly from derision, obsequiousness or servilility, scoffs, and detractive speeches. He never punished any in anger, neither servant nor free person.
²⁰³

He wore a white and clean stole (or gown), and used white woolen blankets (for as yet linen was not known in those parts),
²⁰⁴
and a gold crown and breeches.
²⁰⁵

Diogenes, discoursing of his daily conversation, says he had morning exercises at his own house, composing his soul to the lyre, and singing some old paeans of Thales.
²⁰⁶
He likewise sung some
verses of Homer and Hesiod, whereby he rendered his mind more sedate. Moreover, he used some dances, which he conceived to conduce to agility and bodily health. His walks he used not with many promiscuously, but with two or three in the temples or groves, making choice of such places as were most pleasant and remote from noise.

Having purchased the estate of Alcaeus, who after his embassy to Lacedaemon died, he was no less admired for his economy than philosophy.
²⁰⁷

Besides this Pythagoras the philosopher, there were many others of the same name, the most ancient a Laconian, contemporary with King Numa.
²⁰⁸

Laertius reckons four, all about the same time, or at least not long distant from one another. For (besides the philosopher) there was one a Crotonian, a tyrannical person. Another was a Phliasian
[“One that practices bodily exercises”],
(“Exercitator”† as Pliny renders it
²⁰⁹
), one who professed to teach corporeal exercises, and to diet and order the body with them. This seems to be the same Pythagoras, son of Eratocles, who wrote
Aleiptic Commentaries
, and advised the wrestlers instead of figs to eat flesh, both of which are ascribed by some to Pythagoras the philosopher.
²¹⁰
The third, a Lacynthian, to whom are ascribed the doctrines of philosophy which it was lawful to divulge, and the proverbial
[“He said it himself”]†; both of which were proper to Pythagoras the philosopher. Some reckon another Pythagoras of Rhegium, a statuary, who invented rhythm and symmetry; and another of Samos, a statuary also (perhaps the same whom Pliny places in the sixty-seventh Olympiad [ca. 508-505
B.C.
]
²¹¹
); and another an orator of no reputation; another a physician who wrote of
the sea onion† (ascribed by Pliny to the philosopher
²¹²
) and concerning Homer; and another who wrote of the history of the Doreans, as Dioysius relates. Hitherto Laertius. To these add Pythagoras the Ephesian,
²¹³
who lived before Cyrus; another of the same name, Praefect under Ptolemy;
²¹⁴
a third, a painter.
²¹⁵

CHAPTER 21

H
IS
W
IFE
, C
HILDREN, AND
S
ERVANTS

H
e took to wife Theano. Some affirm, she was a Crotonian;
²¹⁶
but Porphyry, a Cretan, daughter of Pythanax, or Pythonax.
²¹⁷
After the death of Pythagoras, she took upon her the tuition of their children and the government of the school,
²¹⁸
marrying Aristaeus, who succeeded him in that dignity.
²¹⁹
Laertius says there were some writings extant under her name; whereof Suidas instances philosophical commentaries, apothegms, and a poem in hexameter verse. Of her apothegms are remembered these:

Being demanded how soon after coition a woman is pure, she answered, “If with her own Husband, at the same instant; if with a strange person, never.” She advised every woman, when she goes to bed to her husband to put off her modesty with her clothes, and when she rises to put it on again with them. Being asked—upon occasion perhaps of some ambiguous word,
[“what?”]†—which of the two she meant, she answered, “That for which I am called a woman.”
²²⁰
To one, admiring her beauty and saying, “How white an arm!” she answered, “But not common.”
²²¹

Laertius, who affirms she was daughter to Brontinus, a Crotonian, adds that according to some, Theano was wife to Brontinus and disciple to Pythagoras. And with this second, it seems the former was frequently confounded. This is so particularly in the first of the precedent apothegms, which Iamblichus affirms to have been spoken by Theano, the wife of Brontinus; though attributed by some (of whom Laertius is one) to Theano the wife of Pythagoras.

Of the sons of Pythagoras by Theano are remembered Telauges and Mnesarchus.
²²²
Mnesarchus seems to be the same whom Plutarch calls Mamercus;
²²³
for both these names are given to the father of Pythagoras, from whom that of his son doubtless was derived. (By some, he seems to be called Damo, if there be no mistake occasioned by Pythagoras having a daughter of the same name.
²²⁴
) These two, Telauges and Mnesarchus, were, upon their father's death, bred up under their mother Theano. Afterwards they governed the school, as Iamblichus attests of Mnesarchus, Laertius of Telauges, who adds
that he taught Empedocles as some conceive. Hippobotus cites out of Empedocles himself, this:

Noble Telauges
²²⁵
from Theano sprung.

And great Pythagoras—

But of Telauges there is no writing extant. Thus says Laertius, who yet elsewhere cites an epistle of Telauges to Philolaus. And Iamblichus affirms that some ascribed to Telauges the sacred discourse, which went under the name of Pythagoras.

To these two sons, add (upon the authority of Duris the Samian, in his second
Book of Hours
²²⁶
) Arimnestus, master to Democritus. Returning from banishment, he suspended a brazen tablet in the Temple of Juno, the diameter whereof was nigh two cubits, bearing this inscription.

Me Arimnestus, who learning traced,

Pythagoras beloved son here placed.

His daughters were Sara, Maya, Arignota (whose Pythagorean writings Porphyry mentioned as extant in his time), and Damo. With her, Pythagoras left his writings at his death, charging her not to communicate them to any that were not within the family. Whereupon she, though she might have had much money from the books, would not accept it, preferring poverty with obedience to her father's command before riches.
²²⁷
One of his daughters Pythagoras gave in marriage to Meno of Crotona, whom he had educated so well that, when a virgin, she went foremost in the company of the virgins; and when a wife, foremost among the married women. The Crotonians made of her house a temple to Ceres. The street on which she lived, they called
Museum.

Of his servants are particularly remembered two, Astraeus and Zamolxis. Of the first, thus says Diogenes in his treatise of
Incredible Things Beyond
Thule:
²²⁸
Mnesarchus, the father of Pythagoras, being a Tyrrhenian by extract of those Tyrrhenians who inhabited Lemnus, Imber, and Scyrus, went from thence and traveled to many countries and cities. He found an infant lying under a large tall poplar, and
coming to it, he perceived that it lay with his face towards the sky, looking steadfastly upon the Sun without winking. In its mouth was put a little slender reed like a pipe. And seeing to his great wonder that the child was nourished with the drops that distilled from the tree, he took the child away, believing it to be of a divine race.

This child when he grew up was entertained by Androcles, a native of that country, who adopted him into his own family and committed the management of his affairs to his trust. Mnesarchus afterwards growing very rich, brought up the child, naming him Astraeus, together with his own three sons, Eunostus, Tyrrhenus, and Pythagoras. Androcles put Astraeus under the tutelage of Lutenilt, a wrestler and a painter; but as soon as he was grown up, he sent him to Miletus to Anaximander, to learn geometry and astronomy. Mnesarchus gave Astraeus to Pythagoras—who receiving him, and considering his physiognomy, and examining the motions and restings of his body, instructed him. For he first found out the way of discerning the nature of every man; neither did he entertain any as his friend or disciple, before he had examined by physiognomy his disposition.

He had likewise another servant whom he entertained in Thrace named Zamolxis—for that as soon as he was born, they wrapped him in a bear's skin which the Thracians call Zalmus. Pythagoras felt friendship toward him and instructed him in sublime speculations, and concerning sacred rites, and the worship of the gods. Some affirm he was called Thales. The Barbarians worshipped him instead of Hercules. Dionysiphanes says he was servant to Pythagoras, and falling into the hands of thieves, and being branded by them, when Pythagoras was disturbed by seditious factions and banished, he bound his forehead about because of the scars. Some say, that the name Zamolxis signifies a strange person. Hitherto Diogenes. To this Zamolxis (says Laertius) the Getes sacrifice, as Herodotus relates, conceiving him to be Saturn. But Herodotus, having delivered the tradition of the Grecians (that he served Pythagoras at Samos, bought out his freedom at a great rate, and returning to his country, reformed their manners), concludes with his own opinion that Zamolxis lived many years before Pythagoras.
²²⁹