‘ number, and the same is called even because it is
female.
All numbers, then, taken by classes are fours (for
number is undefined in reference to class), of which is
composed the perfect number, the decad. For the —
series, one two three and four, becomes ten, if its own
name is kept in its essence by each of the numbers.
Pythagoras said that this sacred tetraktys is ‘the spring
having the roots of ever-flowing nature’ in itself, and
from this numbers have their first principle. For the
eleven and the twelve and the rest derive from the
ten the first principle of their being. The four parts of
the decad, this perfect number, are called number,
monad, power, and cube. And the interweavings and
Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans 193
minglings of these in the origin of growth are what
naturally completes nascent number ; for when a power
is multiplied upon itself, it is the power of a power;
and when a power is multiplied on a cube, it is the
power of a cube; and when 4 cube is multiplied on a
cube, the cube of a cube; thus all numbers, from which
arises the genesis of what arises, are seven :—number,
monad, power, cube, power of a power, power of a cube,
cubé of a cube.
He said that the soul is immortal, and that it changes from one body to another ;! so he was wont to say that he himself had been born before the Trojan war as Aethalides, and at the time of the Trojan war as Kuphorbos, and after that as Hermotimos of Samos, then as Pyrrhos of Delos, fifth as Pythagoras. And Diodoros of Eretria and Aristoxenos the musician say that Pythagoras had come into Zaratas of Chaldaea ; and he set forth that in his view there were from the beginning two causes of things, father and mother ; and the father is light and the mother darkness; and the parts of light are warm, dry, light, swift; and of darkness are. cold, moist, heavy, slow; and of these all the universe is composed, of male and female. And he says that the universe exists in accordance with musical harmony, so the sun algo makes an harmonious period. And concerning the things that arise from the earth .and the universe they say that Zaratas spoke as follows: There are two divinities, one of the heavens and the other of the earth; the one of the earth produces things from the earth, and it is water; and the divinity of the heavens is fire with a portion of air, warm, and cold ; wherefore he says that none of these things will destroy or even pollute the soul, for these are the essence of all things. And it is said that Zaratas forbade men
1 Cf. Epiph. Haer. 1.7; Doz. 589.
154 the First Philosophers of Greece
to eat beans because he said that at the beginning and composition of all things when the earth was still a whole, the bean arose. And he says that the proof of this is that if one chews a bean to a pulp and exposes it to the sun for a certain time (for the sun will affect it quickly), it gives out the odour of human seed. And he says that there is another and clearer proof: if when a bean is in flower we were to take the bean and its flower, and putting it into a pitcher moisten it and then bury it in the earth, and after a few days dig it up again, we should see in the first place that it had the form of a womb, and examining it closely we should find the head of a child growing with it.
He perished in a conflagration with his disciples in
Kroton in Italy. And it was the custom when one
became a disciple for him to burn his property and to
leave his money under a seal with Pythagoras, and he
remained in silence sometimes three years, sometimes
five years, and studied. And immediately on being
released from this he mingled with the others and con-
tinued a disciple and made his home with them; other-
wise he took his money and was sent off. The esoteric
| class were called Pythagoreans, and the others Pytha- ‘goristae. And those of the disciples who escaped the conflagration were Lysis and Archippos and Zalmoxis the slave of Pythagoras, who is said to have taught the ~~~ Pythagorean philosophy to the Druids among the Celts.! ο Itis said that Pythagoras learned numbers and measures from the Egyptians; astonished at the wisdom of the priests, which was deserving of belief and full of fancies and difficult to buy, he imitated it and himself also taught his disciples to be silent, and obliged the student to remain quietly in rooms underneath the earth. Epiph. Pro. i.; Dox. 587. Pythagoras laid down ' Of. 25; Doz. 574.
(epee eee ee eee sk
Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans 10δι
the doctrine of the monad and of foreknowledge and the interdict on sacrificing to the gods then believed on, and he bade men not to partake of beings that had life, and to refrain from wine. And he drew a line between the things from the moon upwards, calling these immortal, ς) and those below, which he called mortal; and he taught the transmigration of souls from bodies into bodies even as far as animals and beasts. And he used to teach his followers to observe silence for a period of five years, Finally he named himself a god.
Epiph. Haer. 1. 8; Dox. 390. Pythagoras the
Samian, son of Mnesarchos, said that the monad is god,
and that nothing has been brought into being apart
from this. He was wont to say that wise men ought
not to sacrifice animals to the gods, nor yet to eat
what had life, or beans, nor to drink wine. And he was
wont to say that all things from the moon downward
were subject to change, while from the moon upward
they were not. And he said that the soul goes at death
' into other animals. And he bade his disciples to keep
silence for a period of five years, and finally he named
himself a god.
Herm. J.G.P. 16; Dox. 655. Others then from the ancient tribe, Pythagoras and his fellow-tribesmen, revered and taciturn, transmitted other dogmas to me as mysteries, and this is the great and unspeakable ipse- dizit: the monad is the first principle of all things. From its forms and from numbers the elements arose. And he declared that the number and form and measure of each of these is somehow as follows :—Fire is com- posed of twenty-four right-angled triangles, surrounded by four equilaterals. And each equilaieral consists of six right-angled triangles, whence they compare it to the pyramid. Air is composed of forty-eight triangles, sur- ‘younded by eight equilaterals. And it is compared to
156 the First Philosophers of Greece
the octahedron, which is surrounded by eight equilateral triangles, each of which is separated into six right-angled triangles so as to become forty-eight in all. And water is composed of one hundred and twenty triangles, sur- rounded by twenty equilaterals, and it is compared to the icosahedron, which is composed of one hundred and twenty equilateral triangles. And aether is composed of twelve equilateral pentagons, and is like a dodeca- hedron. And earth is composed of forty-eight tri- angles, and is surrounded by six equilateral pentagons, and it is like a cube. For the cube is surrounded by six tetragons, each of which is separated into eight triangles, so that they become in all forty-eight.
pe EMPEDOKLES.
ἘΝΡΕΡΟΚΙΙΕΒ, son of Meton, grandson of an Empedokles
who was a victor at Olympia, made his home at Akragas
in Sicily. He was born about 494 B.c., and lived to the
age of sixty. The only sure date in his life is his visit
to Thourioi soon after its foundation (444). Various
stories are told of his political activity, which may
be genuine traditions ; these illustrate a democratic
tendency. At the same time he claimed almost the
homage due to a god, and many miracles are attributed
to him. His writings in some parts are said to imitate
Orphic verses, and apparently his religious activity was
in line with this sect. His death occurred away from
Sicily—probably in the Peloponnesos.
Literature :—Sturz, Hmped. vita et phil. carm. rell. Lips. 1805; Karsten, Emped. carm. rell. Amst. 1888 ; Bergk, Kleine Schriften, Berl. 18389; Pan- zerbieter, Beitr. 2. Krittk u. Erkl. ᾱ. Emped. Meining. 1844 ; Stein, Hmped. Frag. Bonn 1882 ; Schneidewin, Philol. xv.; H. Diels; Hermes xv. pp. 161-179 ; Gorgias und Empedocles, Acad. Berol. 1884; Unger, Philol. Suppl. 1883, pp. 511-550; O. Kern, Archiv f. d. Gesch. d. Philos. i. 498 ff.; Knatz, ‘Empedoclea’ in Schedae Phil. H. Usener oblatae, Bonn 1891; A. Platt, Journal of Philology, xxiv. p. 246; Bidez, Archiv, ix. 190; Gomperz, Hermes, xxxi. p. 469.
Norz.—I print Stein’s numbers at the left of the Greek text, Karsten’s numbers at the right.
158 the First Philosophers οε Greece
FRAGMENTS OF EXMPEDOKLES.
ΠΕΡΙ ΦΥΣΕΩΣ ΠΡΩΤΟΣ.
Παυσανία, σὺ δὲ κλῦθι, Saippovos ᾽Αγχίτου vid. 54
στεινωποὶ μὲν γὰρ παλάμαι κατὰ γυῖα κέχυνται' 92
πολλὸ δὲ Ser’ ἔμπαια, τά 7 ἀμβλύνουσι
μερίμνα».
παῦρον δὲ ζωῆς ἀβίου µέρος ἀθρήσαντες
5 ὠκύμοροι καπνοῖο δίκην ἀρθέντες ἀπέπταν, 96
αὐτὸ µόνον πεισθέντες, ὅτῳ προσέκυρσεν ἕκαστος
πάντοσ᾽ ἐλαυνόμενος, τὸ δ᾽ ὅλον μὰψ εὔχεται
εὑρεῖν
οὕτως οὔτ᾽ ἐπιδερκτὰ τάδ ἀνδράσιν οὐδ éra-
κουστὰ
οὔτε vow περιληπτάἀ. σὺ δ᾽ οὖν, ἐπεὶ OO ἑλιά-
σθη»,
10 πεύσεαι ov πλέον ἠὲ βροτείη μῆτις ὅπωπεν. 40
πηγήν.
καὶ σέ, πολυµνήστη λευκώλενε παρθένε Μοῦσα,
ἄντομαι, ὧν θέµις ἐστὶν ἐφημερίοισιν ἀκούειν,
15 πέµπε wap’ εὐσεβίῆς, ἑλάουσ᾽ εὐήνιον appa 45
Sources and Critical Notes. 1. Diog. Laer. viii. 60. 2-10. Sext. Emp. Math. vii. 123-124. 8. Prokl. on Tim. p. 175. 5. Plut. Mor. 360c. 6. Diog. Laer. ix. 73; 8-9a. Plut. Mor. 17 £.
3. MSS. δειλεµπέα, corr. Emperius. Prokl. dew’ ἔπεα. 4. MSS. ζωῇσι βίου, corr. Scaliger. CFR ἀθροίσαντος. 7. MSS. ἐλαυνόμενοι, τὸ 8° ὅλον εὔχεται, corr. Stein. 9. Bergk adds 38 after σὺ. 10. MSS. πλεῖόν ye, Karsten πλέον 42, Stein πλέον: MSS. ὄρωρε», corr. Panzerbieter.
11-23. Sext. Emp. Math. vii. 125. 16-17. Clem. Al. Strom. p. 682% . 18. Prokl. Tim. 106; Plut. Mor. 98 8. 12. MSS. ὀχεύσατε, corr. Steph. 16. MSS. σέ, Stein µέ. 17. Sexts
Empedokles 159
Book I.
1. And do thou hear me, Pausanias, son of wise Anchites.
2. For scant means of acquiring knowledge are scattered among the members of the body; and many are the evils that break in to blunt the edge of studious thought. And gazing on a little portion of life that is not life, swift to meet their fate, they rise and are borne away like smoke, persuaded only of that on which each’ one chances as he is driven this way and that, but the whole he vainly boasts he has found. Thus these things - are neither seen nor heard distinctly by men, nor com- prehended by the mind. And thou, now that thou hast
“withdrawn hither, shalt learn no more than what mortal mind has seen.
11. But, ye gods, avert the madness of those men
from my tongue, and from lips that are holy cause a pure
stream to flow. And thee I pray, much-wooed white-
armed maiden Muse, in what things it is right for beings
of a day to hear, do thou, and Piety, driving obedient
car, conduct meon. Nor yet shall the flowers of honour
160 the First Philosophers of Greece
μηδὲ µέ y’ εὐδόξοιο βιήσεται ἄνθεα τιμῆς
\ A 3 ο es
πρὸς θνητῶν ἀνελέσθαι, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ ϐ) coins πλέον
εἰπεῖν
θάρσεϊῖ καὶ τότε δὴ σοφίης ἐπ᾽ ἄκροισι θοάζειν.
GAN ary’ ἄθρει πάση παλάμη 7h δῆλον ἕκαστον,
pyre tu’ ὄψιν ἔχων πίστει πλέον ἢ Kat’ ἀκουὴν 50
49 9 4 (δ e XN 4 4
μήτ᾽ ἀκοὴν ἐρίδουπον ὑπὲρ τρανώµατα γλώσσης,
µήτε τι τῶν ἄλλων, ὁπόσων πόρος ἐστὶ νοῆσαι,
γυίων πίστιν ἔρυκε, νόει & ᾗ δῆλον ἕκαστον.
φάρμακα δ ἄσσα γεγᾶσι κακῶν καὶ γήραος ἄλκαρ
/ / 9. AN 4 ,
πεύσῃ, ἐπεὶ μούνῳ col ἐγὼ κρανέω τάδε πάντα. 425
παύσεις 8 ἀκαμάτων ἀνέμων pévos of τ) ἐπὶ
γαΐαν
3 / A / 3 LA
ὀρνύμενοι πνοιαῖσι καταφθινύθουσιν apovpas:
ἐπάξεις'
θήσεις δ᾽ ἐξ ὄμβροιο κελαινοῦ καίριον αὐχμὸν
ἀνθρώποις, θήσεις δὲ καὶ ἐξ αὐχμοῖο θερείου 490
ῥεύματα δενδρεόθρεπτα κατ᾽ αἰθέρος ἀΐἴσσοντα
ἄξεις δ᾽ ἐξ ᾿Αίδαο καταφθιµένου pévos ἀνδρός.
A 4 e / A ” τέσσαρα τῶν πάντων ῥιξώματα πρῶτον ἄκουε 55
Zevs ἀργὴς “Hpn τε φερέσβιος 48 ᾽Αιδωνεὺς
MSS. ἐφωθοείης, corr. Steph. Clem. confirms correction. 18. MSS. θοάζει, Plut. θαµίζειν, corr. Hermann. 19. MSS. ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἄθρει was, corr. Bergk. 20. Bergk τι . . . πιστήν, Gomperz, ὄψει ἔχων πίστιν πλέον’. 22. MSS. ὁπόση, corr. Stein. 23. MSS. 6’, Karsten 3’.
24-32, Diog. Laer. viii. 59 from Satyros; Suidas under ἄπνους; Eudocia, p. 170; Tzetzes, Chil. ii. 906 f.; Iriarte, Catal. Mairit. p.
26-28. Clem. Al. Strom. p. 754.