Greek Texts & Translations

This is what Heraclides of Pontus tells us he used to say about himself : that he had once been Aethalides and was accounted to be Hermes' son, and Hermes told him he might choose any gift he liked except immortality ; so he asked to retain through life and through death a memory of his experiences. Hence in life he could recall everything, and when he died he still kept the same memories. Afterwards in course of time his soul entered into Euphorbus and he was wounded by Menelaus. Now Euphorbus used to say that he had once been Aethalides and obtained this gift from Hermes, and then he told of the wanderings of his soul, how it migrated hither and thither, into how many plants and animals it had come, and all that it underwent in Hades, and all that the other souls there have to endure. 8.1.5 When Euphorbus died, his soul passed into Hermotimus, and he also, wishing to authenticate the story, went up to the temple of Apollo at Branchidae, where he identified the shield which Menelaus, on his voyage home from Troy, had dedicated to Apollo, so he said : the shield being now so rotten through and through that the ivory facing only was left. When Hermotimus died, he became Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos, and again he remembered everything, how he was first Aethalides, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, and then Pyrrhus. But when Pyrrhus died, he became Pythagoras, and still remembered all the facts mentioned.

There are some who insist, absurdly enough, that Pythagoras left no writings whatever. At all events Heraclitus, the physicist, ^note almost shouts in our ear, "Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, practised inquiry beyond all other men, and in this selection of his writings made himself a wisdom of his own, showing much learning but poor workmanship." The occasion of this remark was the opening words of Pythagoras's treatise On Nature, namely, "Nay, I swear by the air I breathe, I swear by the water I drink, I will never suffer censure on account of this work." Pythagoras in fact wrote three books. On Education, On Statesmanship, and On Nature. 8.1.7 But the book which passes as the work of Pythagoras is by Lysis of Tarentum, a Pythagorean, who fled to Thebes and taught Epaminondas. ^note Heraclides, the son of Serapion, in his Epitome of Sotion, says that he also wrote a poem On the Universe, and secondly the Sacred Poem which begins :

Young men, come reverence in quietude

All these my words ;

thirdly On the Soul, fourthly Of Piety, fifthly Helothales the Father of Epicharmus of Cos, sixthly Croton, and other works as well. The same authority says that the poem On the Mysteries was written by Hippasus to defame Pythagoras, and that many others written by Aston of Croton were ascribed to Pythagoras. 8.1.8 Aristoxenus says that Pythagoras got most of his moral doctrines from the Delphic priestess Themistoclea. According to Ion of Chios in his Triagmi he ascribed some poems of his own making to Orpheus. ^note They further attribute to him the Scopiads which begins thus :

Be not shameless, before any man.

Sosicrates in his Successions of Philosophers says that, when Leon the tyrant of Phlius asked him who he was, he said, "A philosopher," ^note and that he compared life to the Great Games, where some went to compete for the prize and others went with wares to sell, but the best as spectators ; for similarly, in life, some grow up with servile natures, greedy for fame and gain, but the philosopher seeks for truth. Thus much for this part of the subject.

The contents in general of the aforesaid three treatises of Pythagoras are as follows. He forbids us to pray for ourselves, because we do not know what will help us. Drinking he calls, in a word, a snare, and he discountenances all excess, saying that no one should go beyond due proportion either in drinking or in eating. Of sexual indulgence, too, he says, "Keep to the winter for sexual pleasures, in summer abstain ; they are less harmful in autumn and spring, but they are always harmful and not conducive to health." Asked once when a man should consort with a woman, he replied, "When you want to lose what strength you have."