2 The passage occurs De Adst. p. 58, 25 Nauck: ἱστοροῦσι δέ τινες καὶ αὐτοὺς ἅπτεσθαι τῶν ἐμψύχων τοὺς ἸΤυθαγορείους, ὅτε θύοιεν θεοῖς. The part of the work from which this is taken comes from one Clodius, on whom see Bernay, Zheophr. Schr. p. 11. He was probably the rhetorician Sextus Clodius, and a contemporary of Cicero. Bernays has shown that he made use of the work of Herakleides of Pontos (24. n. 19). On ‘* mystic sacrifice” generally, see Robertson Smith, Re/. Sem. i. p. 276.
Science and Religion 105
sacramentally by its kinsmen on certain solemn
occasions, though in ordinary circumstances this would
be the greatest of all impieties. Here, again, we have
to do with a very primitive belief; and we need not
therefore attach any weight to the denials of
Aristoxenos.!
44. We shall now know what to think of the various Afousmata. Pythagorean rules and precepts which have come down to us. These are of two kinds, and have very different sources. Some of them, derived from the collection of Aristoxenos, and for the most part preserved by _~ Iamblichos, are mere precepts of morality. They do not pretend to go back to Pythagoras himself; they are only the sayings which the last generation of “ Mathematicians” heard from their predecessors.2 The second class is of a very different nature, and the sayings which belong to it are called Akousmata’ which points” to their being the property of that sect of Pythagoreans which had faithfully preserved the old customs. Later writers interpret them as “symbols” of moral truth ; but their interpretations are extremely far-fetched, and it does not require a very practised eye to see that they are genuine taboos of a thoroughly primitive type.
1 Porphyry (V. Pyth. c 15) has preserved a tradition to the effect that Pythagoras recommended a flesh diet for athletes (Milo?). This story must have originated at the same time as those related by Aristoxenos, and in a similar way. In fact, Bernays has shown that it comes from Herakleides of Pontos (7heophr. Schr. n. 8). Iamblichos (V. Pyth. 5. 25) and others (Diog. viii. 13, 47) got out of this by supposing it referred to a gymnast of the same name. We see here very distinctly how the Neoplatonists for their own ends endeavoured to go back to the original form of the Pythagorean legend, and to explain away the fourth century reconstruction.
2 For these see Diels, Vors. pp. 282 sqq.
3 There is an excellent collection of ᾿Ακούσματα καὶ σύμβολα in Diels, Vors. pp. 279 sqq., where the authorities will be found. It is impossible to discuss these in detail here, but students of folklore will see at once to what order of ideas they belong.
I give a few examples in order that the reader may
judge what the famous Pythagorean rule of life was really like.
ow AN RY ν τ
To abstain from beans.
Not to pick up what has fallen. Not to touch a white cock. Not to break bread.
Not to step over a crossbar. Not to stir the fire with iron. Not to eat from a whole loaf. Not to pluck a garland.
Not to sit on a quart measure. Not to eat the heart.
. Not to walk on highways. . Not to let swallows share one’s roof.
When the pot is taken off the fire, not to leave the
mark of it in the ashes, but to stir them together.
Do not look in a mirror beside a light. When you rise from the bedclothes, roll them together
and smooth out the impress of the body.
It would be easy to multiply proofs of the close
connexion between’ Pythagoreanism and _ primitive
modes of thought, but what has been said is really
sufficient for our purpose. The kinship of men and
beasts, the abstinence from flesh, and the doctrine of
transmigration all hang together and form a perfectly
intelligible whole from the point of view which has been
Pythagoras as a man of
eer 45. Were this all, we should be tempted to delete
AT ON the name of Pythagoras from the history of philosophy
altogether, and relegate him to the class of “ medicine-
men ”
(γόητες) along with Epimenides and Onomakritos.
This, however, would be quite wrong. As we shall see,
the Pythagorean Society became one of the chief scientific schools of Hellas, and it is certain that Pythagorean
Science and Religion 107
science as well as Pythagorean religion originated with
the master himself. Herakleitos, who is not partial to
him, says that Pythagoras had pursued scientific
investigation further than other men, though he also
says that he turned his much learning into an art of
mischief! Herodotos called Pythagoras “by no
means the weakest: sophist of the Hellenes,” a title
which at this date does not imply the slightest
disparagement.” Aristotle even said that Pythagoras
first busied himself with mathematics and numbers, and
that it was later on he attached himself to the miracle-
mongering of Pherekydes.? Is it possible for us to
trace any connexion between these two sides of his
activity ?
We have seen that the aim of the Orphic and other
Orgia was to obtain release from the “ wheel of birth”
by means of “ purifications,’ which were generally of
a very primitive type. The new thing in the Society
founded by Pythagoras seems to have been that, while
it admitted all these half-savage customs, it at the
same time suggested a more exalted idea of what
“purification” really was. Aristoxenos tells us that
the Pythagoreans employed music to purge the soul
as they used medicine to purge the body, and it is
abundantly clear that Aristotle’s famous theory of
κάθαρσις is derived from Pythagorean sources. Such
1 Herakl. fr. 17 (R. P. 31a). The word ἱστορίη is in itself quite general. What it chiefly means here we see from a valuable notice preserved by Iamblichos, V. Pyth. 89, ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ ἡ γεωμετρία πρὸς Πυθαγόρου ἱστορία. Tannery’s interpretation of this statement is based on a misunderstanding, and need not be discussed here.
3 Herod. iv. 95.
* Arist. Περὶ τῶν Πυθαγορείων, fr. 186, 1510 a 39, Πυθαγόρας Μνησάρχου vids τὸ μὲν πρῶτον dierovetro περὶ τὰ μαθήματα καὶ τοὺς ἀριθμούς, ὕστερον δέ ποτε καὶ τῆς Φερεκύδου τερατοποιΐας οὐκ ἀπέστη.
4 Its immediate source is to be found in Plato, Zaws, 790 ἃ 2 sqq.,
108 Early Greek Philosophy
methods of purifying the soul were familiar in the Orgia of the Korybantes, and will serve to explain the Pythagorean interest in Harmonics. But there is more than this. If we can trust Herakleides so far, it was Pythagoras who first distinguished the “three lives,” the Theoretic, the Practical, and the Apolaustic, which Aristotle made use of in the ζω. The general theory of these lives is clear, and it is impossible to doubt that in substance it belongs to the very beginning of the school. It is to this effect. We are strangers in this world, and the body is the tomb of the soul, and yet we must not seek to escape by self-murder ; for we are the chattels of God who is our herdsman, and without his command we have no right to make our escape. In this life, there are three kinds of men, just as there are three sorts of people who come to the Olympic , Games. The lowest class is made up of those whe come to buy and sell, and next above them are those who come to compete. Best of all, however, are those Mea who come Aimply to look on (θεωρεῖν). The greatest 7 purification of all is, therefore, disinterested science, and ‘~~ it is the man who devotes himself to that, the true philosopher, who has most effectually released himself from the “wheel of birth.” It would be rash to say that Pythagoras expressed himself exactly in this manner ; but all these ideas are genuinely Pythagorean, and it is only in some such way that we can bridge the gulf which separates Pythagoras the man of science
where the Korybantic rites are adduced as an instance. For a full account see Rohde, Psyche, p. 336, n. 2.
1 Plato gives this as the Pythagorean view in Phd. 62 Ὁ, for the interpretation of which cf. Espinas in Arch. viii. pp. 449 sqq. Plato distinctly implies that it was not merely the theory of Philolaos, but something older.
Science and Religion 109
from Pythagoras the religious teacher... We must now
endeavour to discover how much of the later Pythagorean
science may reasonably be ascribed to Pythagoras
himself.
46. In his treatise on Arithmetic, Aristoxenos said Arithmetic.
that Pythagoras was the first to carry that study eS
beyond the needs of commerce,’ and his statement is
confirmed by everything we otherwise know. By the
end of the fifth century B.C., we find that there is a
widespread interest in such subjects and that these are
studied for their own sake. Now this new interest
cannot have been wholly the work of a school ; it must
have originated with some great man, and there is no
one but Pythagoras to whom we can refer it. As,
however, he wrote. nothing, we have no sure means of
distinguishing his own teaching from that of his
followers in the next generation or two. All we can
safely say is that, the more primitive any Pythagorean
doctrine appears, the more likely it is to be that of
Pythagoras himself, and all the more so if it can be
shown to have points of contact with views which we
1 See Doring in Avch. v. pp. 505sqq. There seems to be a reference to the theory of the ‘‘ three lives” in Herakleitos, fr. 111. It was apparently taught in the Pythagorean Society of Phleious; for Herakleides made Pythagoras expound it in a conversation with the tyrant of Phleious (Cic. Zusc. v. 3; Diog. pr. 12, viii. 8), and it is developed by Plato ina dialogue which is, as it were, dedicated to Echekrates. If it should be thought that this is interpreting Pythagoras too much in the light of Schopenhauer, it may be answered that even the Orphics came very near such a theory. The soul must not drink of Lethe, but go past it and drink of the water of Memory, before it can claim to become one of the heroes. This has obvious points of contact with Plato’s ἀνάμνησις, and the only question is how much of the Phaedo we are to ascribe to Pythagorean sources. A great deal, I suspect. See Prof. Stewart’s MZyhs of Plato, PP. 152 sqq.
2 Stob. i. p. 20, 1, ἐκ τῶν ᾿Αριστοξένου περὶ ἀριθμητικῆς, Thy δὲ περὶ τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς πραγματείαν μάλιστα πάντων τιμῆσαι δοκεῖ Πυθαγόρας καὶ προαγαγεῖν ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσθεν ἀπαγαγὼν ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν ἐμπόρων χρείας.
The figures.
I1o Early Greek Philosophy
know to have been held in his own time or shortly
before it. In particular, when we find the later
Pythagoreans teaching things that were already some-
thing of an anachronism in their own day, we may be
reasonably sure that we are dealing with survivals
which only the authority of the master’s name could
have preserved. Some of these must be mentioned at
once, though the developed system belongs to a later
part of our story. It is only by separating its earliest
form from its later that the true place of Pythagoreanism
in Greek thought can be made clear, though we must
always remember that no one can now pretend to
draw the line between its successive stages with any
certainty.
47. Now one of the most remarkable statements
that we have about Pythagoreanism is what we are told
of Eurytos on the unimpeachable authority of Archytas.
Eurytos was the disciple of Philolaos, and Aristoxenos
expressly mentioned him along with Philolaos as
having taught the last of the Pythagoreans, the men
with whom he himself was personally acquainted. He
therefore belongs to the beginning of the fourth century
B.C., by which time the Pythagorean system was fully
developed, and he was no eccentric enthusiast, but one
of the foremost men in the school.’ We are told
of him, then, that he used to give the number of
all sorts of things, such as horses and men, and
that he demonstrated these by arranging pebbles
in a certain way. It is to be noted further that
Aristotle compares his procedure to that of those
1 Apart from the story in Iamblichos (V. Pyth. 148) that Eurytos heard the voice of Philolaos from the grave after he had been many years dead, it is to be noticed that he is mentioned after him in the statement of Aristoxenos referred to (Diog. viii. 46; R. P. 62).
Science and Religion Iii
who bring numbers into figures like the triangle and the square.’
Now these statements, and especially the remark of
Aristotle last quoted, seem to imply the existence at
this date, and earlier, of a numerical symbolism quite
distinct from the alphabetical notation on the one hand
and from the Euclidean representation of numbers by
lines on the other. The former was inconvenient for
arithmetical purposes, just because the zero was one of
the few things the Greeks did not invent, and they
were therefore unable to develop a really serviceable
numerical symbolism based on position. The latter,
as will appear shortly, is intimately bound up with
that absorption of arithmetic by geometry, which is at
least as old as Plato, but cannot be primitive.2 It
seems rather that numbers were represented by dots
arranged in symmetrical and easily recognised patterns,
of which the marking of dice or dominoes gives us the
best idea. And these markings are, in fact, the best
proof that this is a genuinely primitive method of
indicating numbers ; for they are of unknown antiquity,
and go back to the time when men could only count by
arranging numbers in such patterns, each of which became,
as it were, a fresh unit. This way of counting may well
be as old as reckoning with the fingers, or even older.