Pythagoras

Circa 580-Circa 500 b.c.e

Philosopher and mathematician

Sources

Croton . The details of Pythagoras’s life are lost in a blur of legends invented by his disciples. Pythagoras was born sometime around 580 b.c.e. in the eastern Aegean, and after travels in Egypt and Babylonia reportedly settled in the Greek city of Croton in southern Italy. There he lived as the head of a religious and philosophical community rumored to be nearly three hundred in number. It eventually gained wide political influence in Croton, but after twenty years of virtual rule the group devolved into factions. In the ensuing violence many members were killed while others fled into exile. Pythagoras sought refuge in a temple in the neighboring city of Metapontum, and there he starved to death.

Contributions. Although none of his writings have survived, Pythagoras is credited with the theory of the functional significance of numbers. Nonetheless other discoveries attributed to him such as the incommensurability of the side and diagonal of a square and the theorem for right triangles were probably developed by some of his later followers. Overall, his contribution to Greek intellectual tradition has more to do with mystical wisdom than it does with scientific scholarship.

Listeners and Learners . Upon his death, the cult split into two groups: the Akousmatikoi (Listeners), who cultivated his religious, mystical, and ethical teachings, and the Mathêmatikoi (Learners), who continued his work in mathematics, astronomy, and music. The former were all sworn to observe strict rules of purity and abstinence, along with rigid dietary prohibitions that seem to have included vegetarianism, based on a belief in the reincarnation of the soul after death (the meat a person eats might once have been a man). According to a roughly contemporary anecdote, Pythagoras once stopped someone from beating a small dog because he recognized in its barking the voice of a dead friend, who had obviously been reborn as the puppy.

Beliefs. Some of the rules of behavior of the Akousmatikoi cult reportedly included never stir a fire with something made of iron and always put your right shoe on first, but always wash your left foot before you wash the right one. Meanwhile, the Mathêmatikoi believed that the fundamental principles of the universe were arranged in ten contrary pairs: limit and unlimited; odd and even; one and many; right and left; male and female; rest and motion; straight and curved; light and dark; good and bad; and square and oblong.

Sources

Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972).

Peter Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).