Life of Pythagoras — Iamblichus, trans. Thomas Taylor (1818)

Conformably likewise to the precepts of their master, the Pythagoreans always rose from bed before the rising of the sun; and never wore a ring in which thep. 132 image of God was engraved. They also carefully observed to adore the rising sun, and avoided wearing a ring of the above mentioned description, lest they should have it about them at funerals, or in some impure place. In a similar manner, they were attentive to the mandate of Pythagoras, not to do any thing without previous deliberation and disquisition; but to form a plan in the morning of what ought to be done [in the course of the day,] and at night to call to mind the actions of the day, by this means at one and the same time exploring their conduct, and exercising their memory. ‘Thus too, they observed the precept, that if any one of their associates appointed to meet them at a certain place, they should stay there till he came, through the day and the night; in this again, the Pythagoreans being accustomed to remember what was said, and not tospeak casually. In short Pythagoras ordered them to be attentive to order and method as long as they lived, and not to blaspheme at the time of death, but to die with propitious words, such as are used by those who are sailing out of port into the Adriatic sea.1

The kindred of the Pythagoreans however, were indignant that the Pythagoreans gave their right hand to those of their own sect alone, their parents excepted; and that they shared their possessions with each other in common, but excluded their relations from this fellowship, as if they were strangers. These, therefore, becoming the sources of the dissension, the rest readily fell into hostility against the Pythagoreans. Hippasus, also, Diodorus and Theages said at the same time, that every citizen ought to be a partaker of the magistracy and the assembly, and that the rulers should give an account of their conduct, to those who were elected by lot for this purpose from the multitude. But the

1 The whole of this paragraph, the greater part of which is a repetition of what has been said elsewhere, does not certainly belong to this place.

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Pythagoreans, Alcimachus, Dimachus, Meton and Democedes opposed this, and persevered in prohibiting the dissolution of the polity derived from their ancestors. Those however, who patronized the multitude, subdued the other party. The multitude therefore, being assembled together, Cylon and Ninon who were thetoricians accused the Pythagoreans. And of these, one belonged to the class of the rich, but the other was a plebeian. They also divided their harangues between themselves. But of these harangues, the longer being delivered by Cylon, Ninon concluded, pretending that he had explored the arcana of the Pythagoreans, and that he had connected and committed to writing such particulars as were especially calculated to criminate the Pythagoreans, and giving a book to ascribe, he ordered him to read it. But the book was inscribed the Sacred Discourse. And the following is a specimen of what it contained: Friends are to be venerated in the same manner as the Gods; but others are to be treated as brutes. ‘This very sentence also is ascribed to Pythagoras by his disciples, and is by them expressed in verse as follows:

He like the blessed Gods his friends rever’d, But reckon’d other men of no account.