Greek Texts & Translations

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."

He divides man's life into four quarters thus : "Twenty years a boy, twenty years a youth, twenty years a young man, twenty years an old man ; and these four periods correspond to the four seasons, the boy to spring, the youth to summer, the young man to autumn, and the old man to winter," meaning by youth one not yet grown up and by a young man a man of mature age. According to Timaeus, he was the first to say, "Friends have all things in common" and "Friendship is equality" ; indeed, his disciples did put all their possessions into one common stock. For five whole years they had to keep silence, merely listening to his discourses without seeing him, ^note until they passed an examination, and thenceforward they were admitted to his house and allowed to see him. They would never use coffins of cypress, because the sceptre of Zeus was made from it, so we are informed by Hermippus in his second book On Pythagoras.

Indeed, his bearing is said to have been most dignified, and his disciples held the opinion about him that he was Apollo come down from the far north. There is a story that once, when he was disrobed, his thigh was seen to be of gold ; and when he crossed the river Nessus, quite a number of people said they heard it welcome him. According to Timaeus in the tenth book of his History, he remarked that the consorts of men bore divine names, being called first Virgins, then Brides, and then Mothers. ^note He it was who brought geometry to perfection, while it was Moeris who first discovered the beginnings of the elements of geometry : Anticlides in his second book On Alexander ^note affirms this,