Pythagorica

P.F.M. FONTAINE THE LIGHT AND THE DARK A CULTURAL HISTORY OF DUALISM VOLUME 1 DUALISM IN THE ARCHAIC AND EARLY CLASSICAL PERIODS OF GREEK HISTORY AMSTERDAM 1986 J.C. GIEBEN, PUBLISHER

CONTENTS PYTHAGORICA l. An unavoidable anachronism ia CA B D bo pel € Preface The kernel of the historical problem The reliability of the literary tradition An outline of Pythagoras’ life The Pythagorean fraternity Pythagorean signs Pythagoras shaman or scholar The philosophical cosmology of Pythagoras The harmonv of the spheres The Pythagorean theory of numbers The problem of the One and the Many The dualistic basic principles The role of music The Pythagorean philosophy of life 14. 15. Was Pythagoreanism dualistic? 16. Pythagoreanism between Pythagoras and Plato Notes to chapter | IF IONICA ET ELEATICA aR N XL we Pherecydes, a link with Pythagoras? Ionia, the birthplace Thales, the father of philosophy Anaximander, the first great philosopher The monism of Anaximenes Heraclitus and the obscurity of the prophet Xenophanes, the stormy petrel of the Enlightenment? Parmenides and his two worlds Empedocles on the meadow of Doom App endix | ba a 65 App endix Il Notes to chapter I

The home of a god The Olympian religion Homer and the Olympian religion The defects of the Olympian religion Atheism as an alternative? Criticism and interpretations of Homer The Olympian religion as the religion of the polis IV MYSTICA 7. The mystery of Eleusis The wild feast About the Orphic poem On body and soul l. 2. 3. 4, S. 6. 8. 9, 10. 11. Notes to chapter IV Afterword: On detinitions Bibliography General index 105 105 107 108 110 118 f ss mt pet et ps nt pe — ee wa We GI WwW bo BO DD to DJ ND à Ja CD cM BR DJ to © HI EPICA AND LYRICA . Aristeas the shaman Archilochus the restless . Mimnermus the melancholy Semonides the misogynist 13. ‘To be or not to be’: Theognis 14. Bacchylides the fatalist 15. Pindarand the power of de stiny Notes to chapter Hl Lyric poetry Homer and his work 1. 2. Homer creator of myths Homer’s pessimism 3. Homerasa tragic poet 4. Hesiod and his work Hesiod a philosopher? Earth and sea full of evils a. A summary of Hesiod’s works b. The origination of heaven and earth c. The saga of Prometheus d. The saga of Pandora ©. The myth of the five ages of the world > an CA D) DC . mot met mu BI ory 2 Peopie try to comprehend tre worid. They do thi compelled to summarize it, or they want to interpret it and they want Peel they use ideas and c and events together whet zreference for worid or cosmos or universe. Sut however much they ‚ produce an es, there never is a complete unity: the in clear | and ed te each- S athers too, in order to understand One and saddlec with a ama.gam would, never be included in some final that we need this opposi primordial opposition, tret of of groupings & is to to prove enters an and woman. : day andnight, ich we tend to oppose, often very we want everyone employs eacı distance between health and old ana young are shifting n formerly, only goes © y everybody may be said to be the victim of some nce out of such summer and winter, love a 4 y become harsh, bitter and irreconcildisease. It may happen, however, that oppositions such as these grow more virulent; in tnat case

KONINKLIJKE BIBLIOTHEEK RN A KEEN DO A on af P.F.M. FONTAINE THE LIGHT AND THE DARK A CULTURAL HISTORY OF DUALISM VOLUME I PERIODS OF GREEK HISTORY DUALISM IN THE ARCHAIC AND EARLY CLASSICAL J.C. GIEBEN, PUBLISHER AMSTERDAM 1986

Preface I PYTHAGORICA CONTENTS An unavoidable anachronism The kernel of the historical problem The reliability of the literary tradition IX 11 18 20 23 24 26 28 29 30 36 37 38 9 The harmony of the spheres 10. The Pythagorean theory of numbers Lis The problem of the One and the Many 12, The dualistic basic principles 13 The role of music 14. The Pythagorean philosophy of life 15; Was Pythagoreanism dualistic? 16. Pythagoreanism between Pythagoras and Plato Notes to chapter I 45 50 53 57 63 64 73 78 86 25 95 96 45 An outline of Pythagoras’ life The Pythagorean fraternity Pythagorean signs Pythagoras shaman or scholar The philosophical cosmology of Pythagoras W D = II IONICA ET ELEATICA Pherecydes, a link with Pythagoras? Ionia, the birthplace Thales, the father of philosophy Anaximander, the first great philosopher The monism of Anaximenes Heraclitus and the obscurity of the prophet Xenophanes, the stormy petrel of the Enlightenment? Empedocles on the meadow of Doom Parmenides and his two worlds Notes to chapter II Appendix II Appendix I vonaurunn-

Lyric poetry Aristeas the shaman 10. Archilochus the restless li, Mimnermus the melancholy 12 Semonides the misogynist 13. ‘To be or not to be’: Theognis 14. Bacchylides the fatalist 13 Pindar and the power of destiny Notes to chapter III Homer and his work III EPICA AND LYRICA 170 105 107 108 110 118 120 122 122 124 125 128 130 133 134 137 142 144 146 149 150 162 105 11. On body and soul Notes to chapter IV 260 265 281 170 172 178 187 189 194 198 205 216 225 237 251 10. About the Orphic poem The wild feast The home of a god The mystery of Eleusis The Olympian religion as the religion of the polis Atheism as an alternative? Criticism and interpretations of Homer The defects of the Olympian religion Homer and the Olympian religion Afterword: On definitions Bibliography General index The Olympian religion The origination of heaven and earth The saga of Prometheus The saga of Pandora The myth of the five ages of the world A summary of Hesiod’s works Earth and sea full of evils Homer as a tragic poet Hesiod and his work Hesiod a philosopher? Homer’s pessimism Homer creator of myths IV MYSTICA cao oP Saupwnn- PINT \O PREFACE IX People try to comprehend the world. They do this in a double sense, for they want to interpret it and they want to summarize it. They multitude of phenomena and events which are often confused feel compelled to summarize it, since the world presents itself to them as a With the help of these they bring together what is scattered and and obscure. To create some order they use ideas and concepts, and multitudinous. Often they have a preference for some all-embracing there never is a complete unity; the multifarious concept, like world or cosmos or universe. But however much they exert themselves, amalgate harmoniously. Such an amalgam would, indeed, produce an elements can never be included in some final whole in which they that of the One and the Many. It is clear illusion. Thus we find ourselves saddled with a fundamental and primordial opposition, that we need this opposition, and others too, in order to understand the world since we want many kinds of groupings and sets like series and categories which we tend to oppose, often very strongly, to eachthat everyone employs each day innumerable times : day and night, other. It is of very common things that I am speaking, of concepts summer and winter, love and hate, life and death, man and woman. A great number of such oppositions are only relative; the value of the direct opposite depends on the point of view of the observer. À man who, coming out of the polar cold of a winter night, enters an people become old at a later age than formerly, only goes to prove unheated room, may find it comfortable. The fact that we say that that the frontiers between old and young are shifting. According to modern medical science the distance between health and sickness is so narrow that nearly everybody may be said to be the victim of some disease. It may happen, however, that oppositions such as these grow more virulent; in that case they become harsh, bitter and irreconcil-

speak sometimes of a >>love-hate-relationship<<. War and peace do able. Love and hate are solid oppositions but, nevertheless, we >>gnosis<< is a special kind of knowledge that a person needs, them >>Gnostics<<, because they adhered to the >>gnosis<<. This gether. Despite their considerable differences we use to call all of XI not belong together but for more than forty years we have been according to the Gnostics, in order to ascend from this bad and un- X living in a situation that is neither a real peace nor a state of satisfactory world into one that is perfect and absolutely good. It extremely short summary of what the terms >>dualism, gnosis, is this knowledge that redeems man. Of course, this is only an Gnosticism<< signify and contain; in this volume they will be death. The person who is dead does not live anymore, and yet there exists the common human desire to conquer death with life. Such deep war either. Still more inexorable is the opposition between life and oppositions could be termed polarities. finally unbridgeable. Or must we say that people, or rather certain treated in depth. The reader who is anxious for more precise exto gnosis and gnosticism, the phenomen of dualism has never been on >>dualism<<, since although much attention already has been paid elaborated and amplified. Our intention is to place the main emphasis people, feel the need to push an opposition to extremes? If this is planations is referred to the afterword >>on definitions<<. If re- But the gap may become still deeper and broader till it is the case then we must speak of >>dualism<<. It is then no longer Often a direct relationship is thought to exist between possible to reduce the terms of the opposition more or less to each any relationship or connection at all. In that case the terms of the (dualistic) Gnosticism and the famous Iranian dualism. What I mean quired one could read it immediately after this preface. opposition easily acquire the character of principles, and they tend is, naturally, the doctrine of Zoroaster (Zarathustra), that cf Orother; there are no longer intermediate terms; there is no longer logies may stand organized groups or sects. Dualistic oppositions to grow into systems with a complete ideology; behind these ideothan not every kind of dualism is traced back to Iranian dualism as muzd and Ahriman, of light and dark, of good and evil. More often of this kind may be those between body and soul, between the One and most productive -, is that between good and evil. In dualistic ideodualism is a general human phenomenon; it occurs in every age and cradle from which all dualisms have originated. The tendency towards though it were the source and mother of all dualisms in world-hislogies the world always becomes divided into two opposite halves, with every people, even in our European and American civilisations. the Many, between seeming and being, and many others. The most into two Systems that are absolutely opposed and often are not even The oppositions in this life are given, they are normal and indispenstory. But it would be fatal to consider Persia as the universal dependent on one another. The two systems always differ from each able, and it is in them that dualistic inclinations have their forceful dualistic opposition, however - the one that has been the other in quality. For one of them is always seen as much better and origin. tions till they become inexorable and unbridgeable. This is not Certain men and certain groups of people force up the opposimore valuable than the other; it is preferable to the other in the most primary and absolute way. The lesser system exists only to be rejected. Augustine in his youth belonged to this sect - , and, during the dualistic systems and groups, that of the Manichees, for instance - I do not think that at this moment a generic answer to this question source is the human mind. But why? Why do people think in this way? imagination of men in all walks of life and it is far from rare. Its peculiar to thinkers, philosophers and scholars; it strikes the Middle Ages, the Cathars and the Albigenses. The strongest and most is possible; only a thorough investigation of the historical History teaches us that there have been quite a number of extensive manifestation of dualism, nevertheless, was Gnosticism in the second century A.D. Under this name many sects are grouped to-

manifestations of dualism may provide it. It is possible that for that it may be read entirely for its own sake. I must confess, howvolume may be considered the first instalment - with the proviso XII some people this world becomes more clearly structured if they can professional work, and therefore I had to prepare and to write this ever, that study of dualism has been no part of my normal book in my spare time. This means,. of course, that I was occupied between life as it is and life as it might be or should be, between with it for a long time. My first notes are dated May 27, 1977, and divide it sharply into two halves. Quite apart from this the contrast light and darkness, between the real and the ideal, exerts an almost the Dutch typescript had made its way to several experts whose 1981, Chapter III in 1982 and Chapter IV in 1983. In January 1984 now it is July 18, 1986. I wrote Chapter I in 1980, Chapter II in compulsive fascination on the minds of men. point of the history of religions, as if it were a purely religious evaluation was of great importance to me, and then I began to look It would be wrong too to consider dualism solely from the viewphenomen, although it is frequently viewed in this way. It is much that he was not ready to take my book. This, he said, had nothing to more general, with far wider ramifications; it is not restricted to do with its scholarly quality but with the fact that the Dutch bookfirst one, a well-known Dutch publisher of scholarly works, told me treated as an historical and cultural phenomenon, in the widest market, especially for books of this kind, is so small. Since then for a publisher. How bitter was my disappointment when the very sense. I attempt to describe it in its context of social and hisreligion and the religious. Hence in the sub-title of this book, I torical circumstances and to study it in its connection with histhis book later on with the help of the >>Historical Centre<< at I have heard this economic argument over and over again. I presented speak of >>a cultural history of dualism<<; this means that it is torical events, with culture and civilisation, with philosophy and result, or rather, with no result. And then, after twenty-two Haarlem to a great number of publishers, and always with the same literature, with religion and society. Moreover, I want to show how in its turn dualism influences the social and cultural matrix from J.C: Gieben, publisher in Amsterdam, who declared himself ready to over all of a sudden. In December 1985 I came into contact with Mr. months, when the prospect was bleaker than ever, my troubles were which it arises. There exist a number of symptoms which in themselves are not dualistic and which, taken together, do not produce dualism, although they are clearly related to the phenomenon of dualism. In an and I had to offer it >>camera ready<< (otherwise it would become far to expensive). I started immediately with the translation, and publish this volume, on two conditions : it had to be in English, since then everything rolled on smoothly. elaborated dualistic or Gnostic system all or nearly all of them of fate, the significance of a special knowledge, the preference for occur, for instance, the significance of the number three, the role closed or secret societies, elitism, the denigration of women, a call them >>parameters<<. I use them as a heuristic apparatus, a many others in this volume, especially in Chapter III. One might gesture of gratitude to the grammar-school I attended so many years preference to begin with Greece, and I offer this volume as a for this study. As a former grammar-school pupil, I had a natural I could have chosen various historical eras as a starting point kind of divining rod, to detect dualism. For when they occur - and ago. Volume II will deal with the classical period of Greece, bepessimistic or tragic view of life. The reader will meet these and especially in combination with one another .- we are perfectly tween ca. 500 and 338 B.C. But this book addresses itself not only a classical education but to everyone who is interested in tne to those readers who attended such a school with its emphasis on entitled to the supposition that dualism is near at hand. Since from the oldest times to our own day, dualism constitutes a world-wide phenomen, it merits a comprehensive history. This

University of Amsterdam, and Ch. IV to Dr. H.Versnel, professor of III to Dr. J.-M.Bremer, professor of Greek literature at the ancient literature and history at Leyden State University. Although, professor of ancient philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, Ch. to assist somewhat those readers who do not remember every scrap of with the exception of Prof. Bremer, they did not know me personally, cultural history of ideas - to everyone, therefore, who takes the information about ancient history they heard at school I have development and the destiny of our civilisation to heart. In order described connections and contexts sometimes extensively. Scholars and in spite of the fact that they have certainly no lack of work, they readily complied with my request. Not only have they provided who are experts in a special field must forgive me for it. However, it is and it will remain a history of dualism; it is kind and indispensable help I feel an immense gratitude. Prof. Veron with this work because they thought it is valuable. For all their (and saved me from some errors!) but they also encouraged me to carry In disregard cf strict chronology, the first chapter is dedicated to hoeven and still more Prof. Bremer went out of their way to make a me with a great number of corrections, emendations and suggestions Pythagoras and the societies that bear his name for the simple reason not a history of Greece, of Hellenic culture, literature or religion. that these fraternities are the first great manifestation of dualistic that it was in vain. The same applies to Mr. A.Meijer, director of publication (in Dutch) possible. It was certainly not their fault Therefore many things, important things too, will not be found in it. conceptions. This may give the reader an idea not only of what since I first entered the office of Mr. J.C. Gieben. He is the last alone. Finally, I am still amazed how smoothly things are going the contents of this volume but also for its wording, rests with me too. This means, of course, that the sole responsibility not only for of working, the final result has remained my own text, in English him, and I am extremely grateful for the fact that, with his manner out saying that I took over all of them. I feel deeply indebted to ing me with a number of what he calls >>suggestions<<. It goes withtactfully and sensibly he corrected my first English version, supply- Oulu in Finland. Very conscientiously but at the same time very Dove, associate-professor of English literature at the University of luck to find exactly the man I wanted in the person of Dr. John R. Through the kind offices of a former colleague I had the extreme course, the assistance of, if possible, a native English speaker. the very high costs of a professional translation. But I needed, of ready I did it myself - for the simple reason that I cannot afford Next, there was the problem of the translation. As I said alforgotten by this author. the other, in vain too, but nevertheless, his efforts will not be the >>Historical Centre<<; he too thought up one possibility after dualism is but also how it influences a way of life. There are many people without whose help this volume would not have appeared. First of all I have to thank my dear wife Anneke. She corrected painstakingly all the versions of this book, that is to say the typewritten Dutch version, then the typewritten first English version, and, finally, the definitive >>camera ready<< English version. The last was the most difficult to do since the corrections, typed on little slips of paper, had to be stuck into the text carefully. Born with two left hands as I am I could only look on gratefully. Thus my wife has read my book thrice - a feat of arms that, I fear, will be repeated by no one else. The second one to read the whole text (in the Dutch version) was my eldest daughter, Dr.Th. Smidt van Gelder-Fontaine. In spite of the fact that she is a housewife and a mother of children and although she was preparing her doctoral thesis she provided me with valuable comment. I am grateful to her too, as I am grateful to my friend and former colleague, Dr. A.Budé, a classical scholar, who read all the four chapters and supplied many notes on them. Each of the four chapters has been sent to an expert in that State University, Ch. II to Dr. C.Verhoeven, special field - Ch. I to Dr. J.Mansfeld, professor of ancient philosophy at Utrecht

one to express my thanks to but certainly not the least since he made this publication into a reality. Piet F.M. Fontaine Amsterdam NL CHAPTER I PY T H À G O KR I C A 1. An unavoidable anachronism Every study of Greek dualism must begin with the description of Early Pythagoreanism. This movement may not perhaps be the oldest one with dualistic characteristics; in this period of Greek history it is, however, the one that is most easily recognizable. In the following pages we will try to determine what older or contemporary influences helped to shape this movement. Then we will turn our attention to the question of how Early Pythagoreanism, in its turn, influenced later Greek society. Pythagoreanism takes its name from a certain Pythagoras, who is supposed to have lived in the sixth century B.C. The problem is that this Pythagoras did not leave behind a single written word 1). There is not one utterance that can be ascribed to him witn absolute certainty; there is no biography from his own days; finally, the very few contemporaneous sources are, with some exceptions, silent about him. Therefore it is nearby impossible to indicate with any certainty what elements of the Pythagorean patrimony are the authentic creation of the Master himself. It was on this account that Guthrie could say that the history of Pythagoreanism is perhaps the most controversial subject in all Greek philosophy 2). And Burnet added that is not easy to give any account of Pythagoras that can claim to be regarded as historical; a few pages further he says that of the opinions of Pythagoras we know even less than of his life 3). Should we, then, state categorically with Erwin Rohde that we know next to nothing of Pythagoras 4)? Is Burkert correct in assuming that Pythagoras, the scholar and philosopher, is, in the last resort,

can presuppose any substratum of historical fact in the fantasies. miracle worker, a founder of a religion, and to see in him a man who was equal to the gods. But then the question arises whether we nothing more than a projection of the Pythagorean tradition 5)? the start, however, that there will always be an element of conare agreed that Pythagoras lived The fact remains that between the three late authors there exists a 3. The reliability of the literary tradition Questions such as these will concern us here. One must concede from jecture, even of anachronism, in dealing with persons, events and opinions in a period as remote as the one we are considering, lying as it does between the sixth and fourth century B.C. 6). fair amount of consensus 12). They From antiquity we have inherited three biographies of Pythagoras, show that they cannot simply have copied each other. The obvious of Croton in Southern-Italy. The differences between their works a great age and spent the last part of his life mainly in the city in the sixth century B.C., was born in the island of Samos, reached all three in Greek. One is by Diogenes Laertius 7);one by Porphyrius, 2. The kernel of the historical problem whose >>vita<< actually is the last remaining fragment of his conclusion is that their works are based on common older sources, at them, but by others also. Apart from biographical works, philoleast for those facts on which they agree. Furthermore, there sophical books also allude to Pythagoras. It is bad luck, of course, History of Philosophy 8); and one by Iamblichus 9). The first two subject of their studies. This may already cause us to doubt the that nearly all these older works have reached us only in a certainly existed older sources, because they are not only cited by historical reliability of their writings. These doubts do not fragmentary state; most of them have disappeared without leaving any that they wrote at a distance of at least eight centuries from the diminish, if we realize that of these three, Porphyrius and Iamblitrace behind them. of these authors lived in the second century A.D. 10). This means they are writing hagiography rather than history 11). They perceived chus, neoplatonists as they were, were late admirers of Pythagoras; of Pythagorean and Neopythagorean tradition and legend, with its This is extremely important, because Polybius is generally considered in his >>Histories<< he mentions the Pythagorean movement in Croton. back the literary tradition to Polybius, in the second century B.C.; From Pythagoras' biographer Diogenes Laertius we can trace endless adjustments and reinterpretations, and they have imparted a very reliable historian. Polybius' source was the >>Histories<< their hero as at the far end of a long tunnel, through thick layers later ages. him not a few of the traits of the invented Pythagoras-figures of disappeared nearly completely, but we know that he had something to of Timaeus, a Sicilian historiographer (ca. 356-260). His work has Say about Pythagoras and his school 13). He was, moreover, a con- They had yet another reason to give their predecessor an living in the centuries of the irresistible rise of Christianity, Aristoxenus, have written >>vitae<< of Pythagoras; these again are almost superhuman dimension. Iamblichus and Porphyrius were thinkers not extant, we have only a number of quotations in other works 14). temporary of the Pythagoreans of the fourth century B.C. We know reckon with the fact that for the Christians Jesus of Nazaret was These quotations are, however, important. According to Von Fritz, also that two members of the school of Aristotle, Dicaearchus and the Messiah, the predicted bringer of eternal salvation, the God- Aristoxenus is very reliable with regard to the fortunes of the paganism. And in their struggle they saw themselves compelled to man in whom time and eternity, heaven and earth were united. It is Pythagoreans in the period after 450 B.C. 15). In that time the and they wanted to stand their ground manfully on the barricades of some of these supernatural gifts, to make a prophet of him, a no wonder then that a late Pythagorean wanted to give his hero also

is very possible that Aristoxenus had known some of them personally last of the Pythagoreans had taken refuge in Greece proper, and it an outpost of modern Greece, at not more than 900 yards from the republic, but situated as it is in the group of the Sporades, it is Greek island of Samos. This is now an integral part of the Greek mn - for instance, Echecrates, who is mentioned by Plato in his gorean doctrine has been lost, but nevertheless he is our most imcoming from the Balkans, had penetrated Greece proper, in successive had already come to a stop by then. Since 1900 B.C. the Greek tribes, far more central in the Greek world. The great Greek colonization Turkish coastline. In Pythagoras' days, however, its position was portant witness, because he mentions Pythagorean ideas in several waves, as a part of the migration of the Indo-European tribes in It is irreparable bad luck that Aristotle's book on the Pytha- >>Phaedo<< and who must have been born shortly after 400 16). of his works 17). This is equally the case with Plato, who regarded search of more fertile territories. They had continued their ad- Cyprus and had settled ina broad strip, from north to south, along vance over the archipelagos in the Aegean Sea, had conquered the Eastern coast of that sea, making it thus into a Greek inland portant respects Platonism and Pythagoreanism resemble each other closely 18). Plato and Aristotle both take the existence not only sea. Pythagoras as a great and inspiring example; indeed, in some imhistorical. But who was their source? Probably Philolaus who, about of the Pythagorean movement, but also of Pythagoras himself as earliest philosophers does not amount to much 23); but the salient flourished. It is true, says De Vogel, that the testimony of these part of his life in the island of Sicily where Pythagoreanism cause ne was a contemporary of Pythagoras and lived the greatest portance is the testimony of Xenophanes (born ca. 570 B.C.), bethe fragments of some early philosophical works 22). Of extreme im- Mnesarchus<< 21). We find his name and some of his doctrines too in 420), mentions >>Pythagoreans<< and >>Pythagoras, the son of want to accept 20). The oldest Greek historian, Herodotus (ca. 484- points out, there is much more evidence than sceptical authors authentic 19). But there are still older witnesses. As De Vogel hot debates. Raven, for instance, does not consider one of them have twenty fragments, but the authenticity of these is a subject of go foreign influences still more easily, and one of the pertinent roundings, But then, in the sixth century, Greek culture could underand knew themselves to be better than their >>barbarian<< surof these wars, when the Greeks had acquired a new self-assurance That would only be the case after the Persian wars and as a result world which had not yet found its final, its >>classical<< form. influence the inquisitive, trading and adventurous Greeks. It was a on and stood open to many other empires and cultures, which were to Greek world he had travelled from one end to the other. It bordered stood Croton too, Pythagoras' second fatherland. In this immense to be called >>Greater Greece<< or >>Magna Graecia<<. And there Italy (with Sicily), so densely populated with Greeks that it used Sea. Their most important territory of colonization was Southern out, to nearly all the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Black In the eighth and seventh centuries the Greeks again swarmed point is that they see Pythagoras as a historical person, often a questions about Pythagoras is whether he is not more an exponent of 400 B.C., was the leader of a late Pythagorean school. From him we contemporary, who raised matters of spiritual importance. And it is, Eastern ideas than an original Greek thinker. The political situation in the sixth century was roughly as and knights had had to abandon much ground to the new class of temporaries and by scholars of the next generation after them. of course, not safe to neglect the evidence furnished by con- 4, An outline of Pythagoras' life industrious commoners whose wealth could not be summed up in landed follows. The archaic Greek world had long since disintegrated. Kings Pythagoras lived in the sixth century B.C. and saw the light in the

back the political influence of the landed gentry and advanced trade crates got into power for many ‘years. He was a man who had checked had ceded his place to the nobility and where, about 540 B.C., Polypattern in Samos, at that time an independent state, where the king not by the people, but by tyrants (autocrats) 24). We find the same property, but in goods, ships and money. The kings had been replaced, wife a born Samian, so that their son was only partly a Greek 32)? >>Mnesarchos<< was a Phoenician, an immigrant from Tyrus, but his upper middle class of Samos. Is there any truth in the report that then Pythagoras sprang from the upward striving and enterprising and able to give his son a good education 31). If this is right, perhaps he was called >>Mnesarchos<< 30). Probably he was a merchant no lack of legends 29). We have no certainty about his father's name; been continual attempts to connect Pythagoras with the Middle East. All one can say is that from antiquity till our own days there have and shipping powerfully and with success. The unremitting social struggle, the sense of living in a time of transition, of experiencing radical changes which were not under- Homeric heroes had not been worried by feelings of guilt, but now now it became the target of critical reflections, even of mockery. Homeric poems of the eighth century, the >>Bible<< of Hellas, but at the top, had been the world of the Greek gods since the famous of insecurity, fear and guilt. The great Olympic pantheon, with Zeus to the theory of numbers and the doctrine of the migration of souls exercised a great influence on the gifted young man, especially as teacher of Pythagoras. Because it is possible that Pherecydes has died. This remarkable man is cited by early authors as the first native of the island of Syros, who lived mostly in Samos, where he one-of these trips he met the ascetic philospoher Pherecydes, a pelago, perhaps on a ship of his father or with his father. During The young Pythagoras made a few voyages through the Greek archithere arose other religious needs. The official gods were sometimes stood very well and not always appreciated, all this led to feelings seen as too frivolous; some people wanted a deeper, a more earnest we shall return to this subject in Chapter II. a way out, for a Pythagoras especially. Polycrates and Pythagoras haps, even more demand for religious leaders who showed a new way, and not the least of the many tyrants of this age. There was, perpersonalities, for a Polycrates for instance, a builder and ruler, great Ionian metropolis, Milete, its commercial and industrial of Ionia); from the hills of the island one could almost see the Asia Minor, lay just opposite Samos (which island is indeed a part central part of the Greek settlements along the Western coast of stayed for a time in Ionia. This is only to be expected. Ionia, the Even the most critical modern biographers accept that Pythagoras religiosity; they were in need of a >>katharsis<<, of >>purification<. together in the same town on the same island! No wonder that they centre (28 miles a the crow flies, in the direction of the South- And in all this unrest and doubt there was room for strong got into conflict 25). intellectual centre of the Greek world; in this town the first East). In the sixth century B.C. Milete was also the most important duration of his life. He may have been born in 589 B.C. and have scientists, the oldest philosophers of the history of the Occident, There is no agreement on Pythagoras' date of birth and the died in 490 26), in which case he would have reached the extreme old young men who thirsted after knowledge and truth. In this region the Greeks had left their feudal past further behind them than who formed the >>Milesian school<<, were the teachers of studious chronology. He would then have been born in 570/569 B.C. and, having in any other Greek community, and it was here in Ionia, according to reasons too, not probable 27), and therefore some prefer a shorter become eighty years old, have died in 490 or still earlier 28). The Philip 33), that Pythagoras matured. In Milete he followed the age of a century less a year. This is possible, but, for other fixed date in this changing picture is the arrival of Pythagoras in lessons of Anaximander (ca. 611-547) 34), and made the acquaintance Of Pythagoras' youth we know next to nothing, although there is Croton, generally agreed as 530/529 B.C.

of the most famous of all these scholars, Thales, the father of all Sparta in the same period. In Sparta he came to know private interest in it 37). It is possible that Pythagoras visited Crete and 9 philosophy (ca. 624-ca. 545), an old man already and no longer fully communities of men, governed by rigid rules, with an ascetic life- 8 active; the young visitor from Samos, then about 23 years old, was style; something of this we may find back later in his own fraternity. we do not know with certainty. question how these Milesian scholars influenced the development of Pythagoras' own ideas; later in this work we shall examine whether crates, or was he, on the contrary, drawn too much into public life, much impressed by this celebrity. It is far from easy to answer the the Milesians had some influence on the mathematical, cosmological as Iamblichus tells us 38), or are these two sides of the same coin? Did he collide with the tyrant Polyand philosophical notions of their pupil, and if so, how strong it Anyhow, his departure was a decisive event, a turning point in his Why he left his native island again after some years, in 529 B.C., was. chronology of his life they cover a period of 22 years, and in the fog; it is that of his travels to Egypt and Babylonia. In the long chronology, but only forty and therefore in the prime of his life 529 B.C., he was already sixty years old, according to the long of Europe. When Pythagoras arrived in Croton in Southern Italy, in own life, and one of the most important dates in the cultural history short one of nine. It is true that educated Greeks used to travel according to the shorter and more probable chronology. The next period in the life of Pythagoras is shrouded by a thick extensively; we know for instance that Solon and Herodotus stayed frequently associated with the fabulous, and it is possible that myth originates in Egypt. In ancient biographies travel is only too of ancient Egypt; Plato, for instance, claims that his Atlantis- East. On the other hand, it was fashionable to refer to the wisdom Croton, the Crotone of today, an Achaean colony founded in 710 B.C. meet native Greek speakers who are Italian citizens. The town of where the Greek language was spoken, and where even nowadays one may followed suit, and >>Magna Graecia<< had come into being, where everythe first Greek colony in Southern-Italy, scores of others had Since Cyme (Cumae) had been founded near Naples, ca. 750 B.C., late Greek authors wanted to fit the life of Pythagoras in a and situated in the South of the heel of the boot, was certainly not many years in foreign parts and visited the countries of the Middle generally accepted biographical pattern. The problem is not without her inhabitants has remained proverbial!) - the existence of a importance, because according to some sources Pythagoras picked up modern scholars see this as extremely doubtful), a magician of the >>Crotonian empire<< in this period, as conjectured by some scholars, for it was surpassed by the town of Sybaris (the luxurious life of Zoroastrian religion who taught him the notion of ritual purification, is quite out of the question. Shortly before Pythagoras arrived there the least of the Great-Grecian cities. But it was not the biggest, and especially the fundamental idea of cosmic dualism - 'the essence some of his central ideas in Mesopotamia. It was, they say (but many of all things' 35) - that there exist two deities, a good one and a seemed to be somewhat in decline 39). De Vogel supposes that Pythagoras choose Croton as his new abode, because under the circumstances the town had suffered a heavy defeat in its war against Sybaris, and creator of the >>psyche<<, the cosmic principle of life 36). If this the town seemed ripe for a new leadership 40). In a very short time bad; the bad being the generator of all life on earth, the good the is true, then Pythagoras would have come into contact with Persian the first of the so-called >>Pytha- Pythagoras succeeded in bringing all classes of the population under his influence. He founded here dualism. What is certain is that Pythagoras with his youth and his years gorean fraternities<<. Although he never became a member of the city council, he nevertheless exercised a real power in the town. For 533 B.C. Our sources say that he founded there a school for mathematics and philosophy, as the unchallenged and venerated leader of the >>homonoia<<, that of study behind him, returned to Samos around although the hard-working and bustling Samians did not show much

able to put his stamp on the way of life of the citizens of Croton, fraternity of influential and often ambitious personalities, he was in 490 B.C., the year of the battle of Marathon. years ago, had been founded in Southern-Italy. He died in Metapontum gorean fraternities that since his coming to Croton, now twenty Possibly he busied himself, from Metapontum, with the many Pytha- 11 on their religious orientation, and also on the politics of the city. 10 We shall never be able to state exactly how great a part Pythagoras Gorman says that it never was his principal aim to possess political The life and doctrines of Pythagoras contain many elements that are 5. The Pythagorean fraternity had in the national recovery of his new fatherland 41); although influence 42), his words and deeds must, nevertheless, have had character. At all points along the lifeline of dualism (and of political repercussions. It is probably no accident that just in this rival Sybaris in 510 B.C., and that after this a South-Italian gnosticism its bloodbrother) we find such societies with religious foundation of a fraternity with a private and more or less secret federation was formed, under the hegemony of Croton. We have evidence and mystical features, elitist clubs which admitted new members only of the utmost importance for our subject. The first of these is the of this federation which existed till 450 B.C. from the so-called after the most strict balloting, full membership becoming possible period the city rose to a new prestige, that she defeated her old >>alliance coins<< 43). the adherence of all Crotonians; for a good many of them his doctrine not initiated). The proof of their strictly private character was gradations of the more and the less initiated (and outside them the after a long probationary period; they were associations that knew and his way of life must have been too severe and exacting. Not a few that they kept their teaching It is, of course, implausible that Pythagoras would have enlisted have reacted to the influence of the fraternity with growing disanachronism is unavoidable in the description of the oldest Pytha- My earlier warning becomes again valid at this point. A certain to themselves and did not divulge pleasure, while the political standpoint of Pythagoras and his adit to outsiders. In a word, they were >>esoteric<< associations. herents would not have been to the taste of many citizens. The best conservative character and that it supported the existing order of authorities are of the opinion that the fraternity had a strongly original and what was a later development. But it is not rash to later Pythagorean authors could no longer distinguish what was gorean fraternities, because there are no contemporaneous sources; flavour 44). But the rising democratic and populistic forces began to assume that Pythagoras' own fraternity in Croton served as a model things which in that region still had an evidently aristocratic rebel against the Pythagorean rule. The immediate cause seems to have for later ones; Let us start with the contention of Philip that there never conservative-minded associations stuck carefully to their traditions underlies all the fraternities. It is to be exptected that these we may safely say that a common fundamental pattern been that after the victory on Sybaris the nobility of Croton refused to parcel out the conquered land proportionally (i.e., with the notnoble citizens). We have no clear picture of what happened then. The biographers have perhaps left this series of events somewhat in 45). existed a >>fraternity<< or >>school<< or >>order<< whatsoever 46). the dark, because it has not exactly been the culmination-point of certain Cylon the democratic elements revolted and killed many Pytha- Pythagoras' life. What we do know is that under the leadership of a declaring that there may have existed Pythagorean leagues with But almost without noticing it himself he retraces his steps by political tendencies in the fifth century. Next the so-called who just at this moment was probably not at Croton, established himself at Metapontum (Metaponto), a city >>symbola<< cause him difficulties, the >>signs<<, many of which are goreans. Pythagoras himself, far to the north of Croton in the bay of Tarente. He never returned, although the Pythagoreans succeeded in coming to power there again.

elearly so old that they may easily have Pythagoras himself as their and still less to be admitted to the highest grade. High demands members too 55). But it was not at all easy to earn the membership, 13 originator; these >>symbola<< were evidently part of a set of life 12 rules. Philip's conclusion is that, if a Pythagorean fraternity imposed upon them for a period of five years, but it may be doubted had to show a great self-control and be taciturn 56). Silence was that these rules must have been devised by Pythagoras himself 47). and the behaviour of the neophytes, they were made upon the character This is a nice specimen of the scepticism of the sceptics 48). Why the injunction laid upon all members, to remain silent about the whether this was an absolute rule. This duty was the preparation for existed, these >>symbola<< must have been part of the rules, and should it have been impossible that a strong personality like Pythagoras assembled disciples and adherents around him and organized profanation 57). mysteries the Master had taught them in order to protect them against This duty to remain silent about their secrets is part and parcel them in one way or another? The Greek world has never been short of But now a problem arises. Was the Pythagorean fraternity of associations and of political clubs 49). outside Croton, thinks that there never existed a >>direct rule<< of as a tightly organized and centralized whole, with an influence far and economic aspects 50). Von Fritz, who looks upon the >>order<< is only a primitive religion; they pay no attention to its social the rules as well as they could, but they kept their own possessions and the >>mathematikoi<< 58). The acousmatici had to live according to became full members there existed two degrees, the >>akousmatikoi<< destined for the eyes and ears of the not initiated. For those who sacred and the profane, for the sacred words and rituals were not is drawn to the separation that is indicated in this way between the of all esoteric societies. But now for the first time our attention Pythagoreans; never, he says, did Pythagoreans come to power as these early days a political club? For some scholars Pythagoreanism Pythagoreans. At this point he makes a comparison with Freemasonry shows that they were considered as being of a somewhat lesser order 59). They had to come often to the >>homakeion<<, the main building and lived in their own houses; their title which means >>hearers<< of >>Opus Dei<< in Spain. But why then, as Minar of the influence in the eighteenth century 51), and I myself feel inclined to think points out, did Aristotle speak about >>so-called<< Pythagoreans 52)? the intercourse with the really initiated, but most of all by the lessons of Pythagoras himself. According to a report by one of the of the fraternity, in order to be fortified in their intentions by was not describing a normal philosophical school or a religious con- He must have used this singular expression, because he knew that he gregation! Of course the order was not a political club of the spoke to them. Even if this were not true, the meaning is clear : he did not belong to the sphere of the profane. The >>mathematici<< old biographers 60) the Master sat hidden behind a curtain while he direct political power, many of her members did, and as good Pythawere admitted behind the curtain, because they were in full possession common run, yet although the fraternity as such did not exercise goreans they exercised the power they had according to their special of the >>mathesis<<, the doctrine. They renounced all their personal Most of the members of the fraternity came from what is called They were in duty bound to an extremely frugal existence; their possessions and lived in common ownership in the main building. views 53). >>high society<<. Croton was a town where the old landed gentry had held its own fairly well; the new Pythagorean movement associated vegetables 61). It must be pointed out here that a predilection for partook perhaps of meat - and consisted of bread, honey and parties elsewhere in Southern-Italy 54). To become a member one did food different from that of other people and especially for a diet was presumably vegetarian - but during sacrifical meals they not need to be a nobleman, and, indeed, the word >>fraternity<< is vegetarian way of life is likewise common to esoteric, dualistic and itself with this social class which felt itself menaced by democratic also somewhat misleading, because it seems that women could be

gnostic communities. ively 62). Iamblichus has described their order of the day extens At dawn they rose and put on their Snowy white garment s, as white as their bed-clothes 63). White is, of course, the colour of the purity they aspired so much after. Then they made their morning walk, in order to bring their spirit into harmony with nature, while they went about meditating; by choosing lonely paths they sought to avoid unhas a very special meaning. To us who handle number s in a totally 15 born and dies). different way, this may seem a very primitive line of thought; nevertheless, the Pythagorean conception represents a late Stage and is already a rationalization of much older views. It is well-known that three is a very ancient sacred number, perhap s because it reflects the essential human trinity : man-woman-child, but perhaps too because the phases of the moon are three in number, the waxing, waning and full moon (which makes the moon resemble a living being that is wanted encounters with >>common<< people, for that would unsettle their psyche again. How ever much the Pythagoreans may have talked One may safely suppose that such an uncommon, well organized and easily distinguishable fraternity like that of the early Pythagoreans must have had its own special sign. Indeed the sources mention an old Pythagorean symbol, the >>penta gram<<, the fiveof the swastika. But were we delivered from this by the Christian sign of the cross : "Under this sign you shall gain the victory!" 67)? I must add to this something extremely remark able. During World War II the greater part of Europe was domina ted by the pagan sign and it decorates the flags of a great many states 66). a magical symbol it is spread far and wide; it is found in gnostic circles, among the neoplatonists and neopythagore ans, very frequently in the Middle Ages, and among the gipsies today. It is a curious thing that even big concerns like Caltex use it as their trade mark, are found with stars like these, we must not immediately assume the historical existence of a Pythagorean commun ity in that region. As It is to be noted that this symbol does not consis t of two triangles that are worked into each other. There is no doubt that this is a very ancient symbol and that the Pythagoreans used it. But not only the Pythagoreans, says De Vogel. Thus when during excavations utensils pointed star, of this kind : about fraternity and love of mankind, this trait betray s a certain contempt of people and an unmistakable self-e xaltation. After their exercise there followed a spell of study and moral deepening and also of tuition to others, and after this a period for physical exercises. Their lunch consisted of bread and honey, without wine. The afternoon was destined for mundane affairs and was usually spent outside the building and in town. At the end of the afternoon they had their bath, which had also a ritual signifi cance, for it served to wash away the profane affairs of the day. Their common evening meal offered them bread, vegetables and wine, seldom fish, and sometimes some sacrificial meat. The youngest at the table read some edifying pages to the others. They offered a libati on to the gods, they prayed, they went to bed 64). 6. Pythagorean signs The first thing to be made clear is the significance of the number 1. into outsiders (to whom at least three; the role of this number is manifest through out all the history of esoterism and mysticism. In communities of this kind we discover a twofold partition in three : formally also the neophytes may be reckoned), acousma tici and mathematici; 2. into neophytes, acousmatici and mathema tici 65). In the Pythagorean speculations on numbers, 3 is the first real number ; 1 and 2 are the >>roots<< of all other numbers, their father and mother so to say, and the first number that comes into being out of 1 and 2, out of their conjugal alliance, is 3. Therefo re this number

under the sign of the five-pointed star, again exactly the same armies from the West who beat back the German hosts, also marched the Soviet-star, exactly the same star as the pentagram, and the By no means! The armies that marched from the East were adorned by with it during his stay in Babylonia. There it is an extremely had an astrological origin 73). Pythagoras may have become acquainted evil; here too it was used as a symbol of health. It might have Babylonia had the force of a talisman, a symbol that could avert Ir symbol. This sign must therefore have quite another significance than ca. 3000 B.C.; it is not known what this symbol means nere 74). ancient symbol : twice it appears on the neck of a Sumerian ewer of 16 an innoeent recommendation for fuel or beer. this as an explanation of a symbol so ancient. Goettling himself, somewhat artificial or a later construction. We simply cannot accept a worked-out ethical system, and strikes us as being >>literary<<, wisdom, justice, temperance 68). This explanation clearly belongs to said to represent the five cardinal Greek virtues, piety, valour, Now the A is the initial of >>Areté<<, virtue, and the five A's are in the pentagram, five interconnected (Greek) capitals A (alpha). and it is possible that this appealed to the mathematician in Pytha- At the same time we have here the elementary beginnings of geometry, from the human body, like the ell, the span, the hand's breadth, etc. measures have been deduced from the hand or the arm, and, in general, if four, a square; if five a pentagon. As a matter of fact all our tablet, the result is a point; if two, a line; if three, a triangle; a hand. If one finger is pressed into the wet clay of a writing Perhaps, as Stapleton maintains, it is originally the imprint of whose explanation this is, adds indeed that the pentagram is the clay or wet sand, then the result is a pentagon : goras. If the five outpread fingers are placed with their tips on There exists an explanation that wants to see a >>pentalpha<< symbol of >>soul<< or >>health<< (hygieia). Some scholars are therefore of the opinion that it is an old Egyptian sign, a hieroglyphic for >>skeleton<<, the bearer of the human body 69). Indeed the fivepointed star occurs in Western-Europe during and after the Renaissance as a symbol of health, for instance, on the coat of medical guilds 70). A Greek author in the second century A.D. tells pointed star : , and if the lines are lengthened, then the outcome is the fiveus that the Pythagoreans - Pythagoras himself, he says - did not tein!<< (=do well, may you prosper), but with >>hygiainein!<< (=be greet each other with >>chairein!<< (=welcome) or with >> eu prathealthy), and the pentagram they called >>health<< 71). In the Basel museum there is an alabaster disk with a pentagram in it, at every one of its five points is written one of the letters of >>YGIEIA<< 72). It is probable that Pythagoras himself has attached this meaning to the five-pointed star. Preoccupation with (physical and mental) health is one of the characteristics of esoteric and dualistic themselves? The fact that it is or seems to be a star may point in movements. Did Pythagoras or his early adherents invent this symbol this direction, because the starry sky had a great religious thinks it is. She is of the opinion that the five-pointed star in Significance for the Pythagoreans. But is it really a star? De Vogel

priest, a miracle-worker 79). sufficient to say that a shaman is a soothsayer, a purification- Perhaps this sign that is a hand that becomes a star, was used to 19 Certainly Pythagoras had a great reputation as a miracle-worker obtain the protection of some god. For the gods of Mesopotamia were 80). To cite one example. He was seen on the same day in two far celestial deities. The hand is a well-known symbol of seizure, of distant cities, Metapontum and Croton 81). These legends are presentations, but also of mythical to explain everything, there will always remain something irrational; institutions, like religion. The problem is that logos is not able critical of mythical has always been combated by logos inexorably; logos is not only between appearance and substance. The anti-rational element in myth lack of will to compare myth with reality; it made no distinction since time immemorial the only one, was characterized by the complete analytic and synthetic. The mythical presentation, which had been form from the unconscious; logos, on the other hand, is consciously like this. Myth is something involuntary, it creates and gives book is called >>from mythos to logos<< outlines the development the meaning of >>explanation<< (and of >>proportion<<). Nestle whose difficult phenomena. The Greek word >>logos<< has, among others, that reason (logos) rather than myth was invoked to explain all around its axis 87). This turnabout means, according to Jaspers, the >>Achsenzeit<<, the period in which world history made a turn this is an important part of what has been called by Karl Jaspers this seems incredible. But we are now in the sixth century B.C., and was at the same time a man of science 86)? To people of modern times Could it be possible that such a miracle-worker, such a shaman, Apollo himself 85). mistakable sign that he was a son of Apollo, or even, who knows, sometimes showed to his adherents. This is said to have been an unhaps a large gold-coloured birth-mark on his hip 84) - which he reported to have been in the possession of a >>golden thigh<< - perdict such rumours; on the contrary, he made good use of them. He is Apollo was the father of Pythagoras 83). He himself did not contraeven went further : there were rumours that not >>Mnesarchos<<, but them in the oldest part of the Pythagoras-tradition 82). The legends doubtless very ancient; Burkert thinks it is possible to detect possession, of protection and the exercise of power. We too still that Pythagoras know the meaning of >>the hand of God<< 75). 7. Pythagoras shaman or scholar? All this suggests that it is far from impossible became acquainted, maybe in Babylonia, with a mysterious, a magical sign, to which he gave a significance of his own; he made it part of his personal existence and introduced it into the Greek world and its culture. This may lead us to the important question : who or what was this Pythagoras actually? Burkert wants to see in him only a >>witchdoctor<<, a typical wandering >>shaman<<; the kind was not unknown in ancient Greece. He denies to Pythagoras any share in the origin of rational philosophy and science : of this we have no testimony at all, according to his opinion 76). Burnet too thinks that we have every reason to see in Pythagoras a common witch-doctor, with all the since Pythagoras had important ideas about unfavourable connotations attached to this word - although, as he goes on to say, >>purification<<, >>migration of souls<< and >>rebirth<<, the term >> witch-doctor<< is no longer really relevant 77). We must not neglect the. religious and ethical component in Pythagoras. Then again there is the venerable tradition that ascribed to him the famous theorem, the joy of every schoolboy, Since ancient times, people have wanted to see in him a scholar and a mathematician. At the beginning of his highly critical book Philip laments that we tend to see in Pythagoras everything we want to see in him, A term like >>shaman<<, however, needs some comment. from an old shaman to the first Greek mathematician 78). This is not without truth. It has been borrowed from cultural anthropology and has been attached to Pythagoras in recent days; it comes to us from far northerly civilizations, in the regions of the polar circle. We shall méet shamans in other chapters of this book too. For the moment it is

and this is the reason why myth can exist and flourish in a logical this clear picture : the cosmos is limited, final, it moves or hangs celestial bodies. But here already a first shadow is falling over a purpose, which becomes evident from the regular movements of the 21 period 88). The author concludes that this process, marking the in the unlimited. In addition to this this universe is also a non- 20 transition from the >>medieval<< to the >>modern<<, is intrinsic to thinking 90). In the sixth century B.C. this transition was still in progress, and therefore the religious and the rational elements still Presocratic world picture we shall have to free ourselves from In order to get a clear idea of the Pythagorean and even of the whole to the terms >>limited<< (>>peras<<) and >>unlimited<< (>>äpeiron<<), universe, with quite another aspect. We shall have to return later all higher civilizations 89). Thus Pythagoreanism stands at the crossroads of two ways of form a unity in Pythagoras himself and in his early adherents 91). the cosmos as such is not divine. From the outside it is penetrated Plato's conception that the cosmos is divine. For his predecessors as the framer of a philosophical cosmology 92). He admits that direct evidence is lacking here, but, as he says, one has to accept this as earth; the more it mingles with the (physical) elements, and this descends through the successive >>spheres<<, downwards, i.e. to the whole reality : outside it and round about it there is yet something abundantly clear therefore that the cosmos does not contain the meet here with an essentially dualistic characteristic 96). It is there exists a certain opposition, according to Guthrie, so that we by something divine, but the further this element of divinity the only reasonable explanation for the unique impression his name makes it more and more impure. Between the cosmos and divinity proper because they are an antagonistic pair, not without dualistic traits. Guthrie is in fact ready to acknowledge Pythagoras as an original thought and constitutes the transition from mythical to rational philosopher, as the founder of the discipline of mathematies and has made on thinkers and scholars of later times 93). We must also point out that this curious mixture of the mythical and the logical, of the fantastic and the scientific, of the arbitrary and the rational, of >>mathesis and mystics<<, is proper to the esoteric way The cosmos starts from Unity, a little seed, so to say, that is sown Italian cosmology displays many characteristics proper to it alone. call this direct borrowing would not be correct, because this Southteachers in Milete and during his stay in Babylonia 98), but to that Pythagoras may have learned a great deal of astronomy from his The Pythagorean cosmology is an original creation. It is true cosmos itself 97). else, something pure and unmixed, of a much higher order than the of thinking of all times and to all gnostic-dualistic movements. 8. The philosophical cosmology of Pythagoras When we ask ourselves what it was that Pythagoras taught, it becomes evident at once that he possesses a world picture of his own, called by Guthrie his >>philosophical cosmology<<. This will prove to be of the utmost importance, because in this cosmology astronomy, religion and science will meet each other 94) and will go hand in hand for a into the Unlimited. In consequence, the Unlimited constricts itself, numbers. The next stage is that the cosmos expands from the centre and the Limited comes into being, to be provided with a structure of was a key-word of the Pythagoreans, and Pythagoras seems to have been the first to use it in the sense of >>universe<< 95). The original identifiable. very long time, even to the dawn of modern science. At first there is nothing dualistic at all in the notion of >>cosmology<<. >>Kosmos<< meaning of >>kosmos<< is >> ornament<<, but soon it meant also >>ordered succession<<; the universe, it is contended, is all order seed of the cosmos, its expansion, and the further idea, moreover, that the cosmos breathes, is of particular interest; equally note- Not only this organic way of putting things in terms of the outward, although this centre, consisting of fire, always remains and beauty, all living things form a unity, and the human soul is one with the whole universum. The universe is a >>teleion<<, it has

greater too than the famous seven, the sun, the moon and the five this singular notion 99). The number of the heavenly bodies is turns around this central fire. None of the other Presocratics had worthy is the notion that the earth does not stand in the centre - it see it that way. For them there are two distinct mechanisms, one of made of the same (primary) material. But the Pythagoreans did not earthly and celestial phenomena obey the same laws and they are all According to the Milesian scholars, with their monistic systems, all In the construction of the cosmos we may detect a very clear dualism. 23 planets that can be seen with the naked eye, which we meet every- 22 where in the Ancient Near East and which are the origin of our seven is the sphere of the moon. The sun, the moon and the five planets are made of pure fire or of >>aether<<, the heaven, the other of the earth; the dividing line between them ten heavenly bodies, because they added to the seven accepted ones weekdays and of their names. The Pythagoreans believed, rather, in not only their central fire and the firmament of the fixed stars, but four well-known elements : earth, water, air and fire. The celestial element, which is something else and something far superior to the to themselves is by no means ciear. It looks very much like an the >>quintessence< or fifth also a >>counter-earth<<. How they pictured this >>counter-earth<< they constitute a perfect change, they are eternal and incorruptible, bodies of the upper sphere are completely unmixed, they do not world 100). artificial construction, because the Pythagoreans wanted to arrive at the number ten which was for them a mystical number. It constituted incredibly beautiful upper world and the rest is the sphere of the As I said already, the frontier line between this admirable, eentral fire), since our side of the earth is turned away from it. that still has a connotation of sadness for us. For here below all moon. Beneath the queen of the night lies the >>sublunary<<, a word no difficulty for them that we cannot see the counter-earth (and the cosmos Evidently this is a more appropriately, the >>music of the celestial bodies< 102). that, according to a sharp-witted remark of Taylor, might be termed, implied in the doctrine of the so-called >>harmony of the spheres<<, higher regions which as yet remain closed for mankind. This is also cosmos does not happen here below, in this sublunary world, but in What is authentic, real and essential in the functioning of the 9. The >>harmony of the spheres<< pictures differ. characteristic for all dualistic movements, even if their world pessimistic vision on world and on man - a vision that is stability in the things of this earth 101). come into being, they decay, they are always changing; there is no other, owing to differences in temperature or under pressure. They fundamentally unstable, because these elements can blend into each contain parts of the four elements. This is a mixture that is bodies and material things are of a mixed constitution, they all The following diagram will give us a basic idea of the Pythagorean THE APEIRON VAULT OF THE FIXED STARS PLANETS SUN MOON EARTH N COUNTERSEARTH [ [FIRE \ \

functions as a means to order things, as an expression of order. So Burkert numbers in the Pythagorean doctrine have four functions 108). First, number functions as a mathematical formula; second, number 25 among themselves a cosmic music, because each of these >>planets<< far, so good. One begins, however, to feel slightly uneasy on learn- 24 emits a melodious sound during its revolutions 103), in consequence According to Pythagorean teaching the great celestial bodies produce of the fact that, on account of their bulk, they meet with some ing that the third function of number is to stand as a symbol for the concepts of ordering, perhaps one might say, as the >>archetype<< >>symphony<<, an incomparably beautiful consonance. The objection of the intervals on a scale. The result of all these movements is a whole universe originates 109). According to this view there are numbers, no, it means that from the One, the number 1 therefore, the of all concepts of cosmic order. This does not mean that, as modern physics teach us, the world can be described as a relation of velccities of the planets are in a fixed proportion to one another resistance in travelling through this rarefied upper air. The orbital level-headed people that they hear nothing at all is refuted with the primarily two kinds of numbers : the number 1 and all the others. For the Pythagoreans, then, the number system is virtually identical with according to a mathematical ratio, and this again corresponds with remark that as this music has been with us since we were born, we the structure of cosmos. that he, and he alone, could hear this cosmic us to follow the Pythagoreans on this road. Why for example is 3 a masculine number and 2 a female one, so that their sum, 5, is the that is almost material. For if reality may be rendered by numbers, then irrevocably numbers will be seen as objects. It is difficult for This fourth function postulates number as an indication of space, or more exactly, number as something spatial itself, even as something and not we alone : Aristotle too did not understand much of it 110). With the fourth function, however, we feel completely at a loss, can have no experience of the cosmic silence that would make us conThis celestial music is infinitely superior to all our earthly scious of the harmony 104). for him by claiming music. Pythagoras increased the veneration people already cherished Earthly music is an music; by an immense effort of concentration he succeeded in imitation of these transcendental melodies, and therefore it means immersing himself in the heavenly sounds 105). much more than amusement or embellishment. Both our earthly music, imperfect as it well may be, and the perfect transcendental melodies, are manifestations of the harmony and order prevailing in the cosmos. 2 (two points) a line, and 3 (three points) a surface (a triangle). 3 is the first number that contains unity (1) as well as plurality number for >>marriage<<? That numbers possess a >>shape<< becomes somewhat clearer to us, if we notice that 1 (one point) is a point, (2), it has a beginning, a middle and an end (.+.+.). It therefore importance; with his action in Croton Pythagoras has certainly meant that this city should reflect microcosmically the macrocosmic order; resembles the cosmos and must be regarded as its soul. So the Pytha- For the Pythagoreans this concept of harmony was of central in a miniature way it should reproduce the great harmony of the gorean numerical symbolism 10 is the smallest number that can be It is impossible to go beyond 10; our numerical system too is a combination of unities and decades. Add to this that in the Pythabecause it is the highest number one can count on one's fingers : it indicates therefore a plurality of a special sort as well as a limit. In many civilizations the number 10 has a special significance, goreans argue. universe 106). 10. The Pythagorean theory of numbers The >>rational<< basis for the doctrine of numbers is to be found in the Pythagorean theory of numbers : order and harmony are founded on the relations between numbers 107). Numbers are so important for Pythagoras that one can safely say that reality is present in, exists in and is expressed by mathematical number. According to

to say, of 1+2+3+4 111). To make the number 10, the >>decade<<, made up equally of prime numbers and of composite numbers, that is >>the universe<<. Or are we doing just the reverse : do we carry in speaking of >>the animal<<, >>the Englishman<<, >>the creation, finally we even range it under unities. This we do, when we are Therefore we reduce this multiplicity to smaller multitudes, and 27 complete, one needs not only the >>geometrical<< numbers 1, 2, 3, ourselves an image of the One, for example of >>the human being<<, 26 but also 4. How important this number is becomes apparent from the so that we are able to recognize faultlessly all human beings as structure of the decade : such? Do we know that something is red, because we possess in ourgoreans, with regard to the tetraktys, also used to speak of the lines and triangles get their fully developed shape. That the Pythaso to say, the model of it, the form in which the scattered points, If the number 3 is the soul of the universe, then the number 4 is, the three sides of which always show a four-number or >>tetraktys<<. the numbers 1+2+3+4, but also as the essential or primary triangle, In this construction the number 10 is indicated not only as a set of in short, an intellectual makeshift, but not >>real<<? Very ancient thing and the One no more than a mental fantasy, a concept, an idea, Many only appearance? Is on the contrary the Plurality the real primary and thus more real, is it the only reality then, and is the >>real<< than the Many? Or is the reverse true? And if the One is mean that a higher reality is inherent in it? Is the One more the Many to the One? And if one of the two is primary, does that deductively therefore? Do we go from the One to the Many or from selves an idea of >>redness<<? Do we operate inductively or >>roots<< of the cosmos becomes more significant, if we keep in fire, earth, air and water, for the whole cosmos is a compound of certain polarity (between the One and the Many), but even a clearsocratic philosophers 113), questions that indicate not only a questions all of them that already have intensely absorbed the Prethese elements. The Pythagoreans used to swear by the sacred number cut opposition, a dilemma that in its turn may lead to a relative well), 4 112), and something of this holiness is still living on in our or an absolute dualism, where one has perforce to elect for the one mind the doctrine of the four elements (>>roots<< just as linguistic usage. For do we not speak of >>a square deal<<, and do or the other, but never for both. And if this happens - and it contemptuously. happens fairly often -, then it is usually the Many that is rejected we not face somebody >>squarely<<? 11. The problem of the One and the Many subject. For this numerical symbolism is an attempt to solve the is one aspect of it that is of a special significance for our mixture of rationality and mysticism, in all its details. But there origin, the >>arché<<, of all things. More than one ancient or Perhaps we might conclude, then, that for the Pythagoreans 1 is the Every number may be written as a series of unities (5=1+1+1+1+1). all numbers are generated by adding up from 1 upwards and with 1. very distinct place. We must realize that we do this too, because We have seen already that the Pythagoreans give the number 1 a problem of the One and the Many, a problem that, with that of It is not necessary to elucidate the theory of numbers, this curious >>Matter<<, the primary material of all existing things, belongs to simple as that. For the early Pythagoreans the number 1 was a commodern author has drawn this conclusion 114). But it is not as common number, but a kind of >>primary number<< from which all Odd 115). We must again impress upon ourselves that 1 is not just a posite number too, that is to say, a compound of the Even and the the most ancient fundamental questions of all philosophy. Every one multiplicity sophical education. Everywhere around us we see a multiplicity of us is acquainted with this problem, even if we have no philoef things, of objects, plants, animals, men, and this is so great that we are in danger to become quite confused by it.

school 118). If this view is the right one - it depends somewhat on the basic principles, the >>archai<< proper, of Pythagoras and his others, originate from this pair 117). Probably we have found here the origin of all things, and all numbers, the 1 as well as the >>limit-unlimited<< (in the first place). This last pair is actually place; it is preceded by >>even-odd<< (in the second place) and by serves that the pair >>one-plurality<< comes only in the third corresponding opposites (as mentioned by Aristotle 116)), one obfamous list of the ten (sic) Pythagorean principles,with their principle of the Even as well as that of the Odd. If we consult the others spring, and therefore it must necessarily contain the of chaos. And with all our admiration for Greek logic and rational We can detect here a certain >>horror vacui<<, a fear of the void, it so strongly that we may safely speak of a dualistic opposition. very different from the surrounding void, it is also contrasted with without exception from the 1. In this concept thé cosmos is not only other numbers and also in all things, because they have originated even as well as odd, and therefore one will find this element in all sense of the Pythagoreans : of number. This is why the number 1 is posing of order, law, regularity, time, or to express it in the This imposing of >>frontier<< on >>void<< is equivalent to the imthe coming into being of the cosmos out of the surrounding void. confined and circumscribed. More concretely one could see this as 29 the interpretation of the sources-, then the conclusion is incomponent of the Greek mentality. science we must keep this in mind,because this fear was also a basic 28 ideology were dualistic - >>frankly dualistic<<, says Guthrie 119) - 13. The role of music escapable that in the final analysis the Pythagorean philosophy and in spite of their views on cosmic harmony and so on. was holy and mysterious, but at the same time terrifying, it was concept, but rather as something substantial - frightened them; it habit of the Greeks. The apeiron - we must not think of this as a greatest value to the unlimited or boundless, but this was not the heirs of the Romantic tradition we are inclined to attach the limited, in Greek >>épeiron<<, and the Limit, >>peras<< 120). As Let us take a close look at these two basic principles, great cosmos, and, reversely, this great cosmos resembles man in in the macrocosmos. His organic structure is the same as that of the self is part of this cosmos, he belongs to it, he is a microcosmos things, with the foundations and the model of the cosmos. Man himand taste for it, the Pythagorean got into touch with the essence of numbers : through cognizance of this theory, by developing feeling that is proper to it gets its rational expression in the theory of declaration of war on lawlesness 121). The love of order and harmony We might say with Heidel that the Pythagorean way of life is a like the undomitable and interminable sea, the drifting sand, the such a way in its structure that the makrokosmos might be called 12. The dualistic basic principles impenetrable wilderness. Just as they strove to delimit their >>makranthropos<< (= the big man) just as well 122). the Uncities and their fields they needed definitions in their thinking, One of the most fruitful means which Pythagoras applied to subdue the polarities, the dualisms of our existence and to bring about >>frontiers<<, hence their predilection for >>peras<<. But at the same time the Pythgaoreans were aware of the fact that peras general harmony was music. It is certain that Pythagoras discovered the mathematical foundations of music 123). What led him to this restricts and confines, that it impairs the divine. The basic number 1, the One, comes into being like this. In the pair of opposites >>limit-unlimited<< the unlimited is still the usual quotient of legend. The crucial fact is that, according to discovery need not concern us here. Needless to say, it has inspired Pythagoras, the tones of a lyre with four strings form an arithmetical somewhat older or more primary than limit. Now peras lays itself on the Unlimited and delimits a part of it, a part that is clearly

the preceding paragraph and is at the same time a proper introduction of music was based on the theory of numbers, it links up nicely with succession of numerical proportions 124). As the Pythagorean theory seen 127). formed it into a cosmic harmony in miniature, as we have already which cut off the town from other >>lawless<< cities and trans- Pythagoras, and in >>lawless<< Croton this formed the >>peras<< 30 to the Pythagorean philosophy of life. such sounds purifies the soul of earthly stains and enables her to audible for a mortal, is an imitation of cosmic music. Listening to effect is typical for the Pythagorean movement. Earthly music, In her analysis De Vogel does not find sufficient justification to course, arises whether these speeches have any historical basis. have been handed down to us by Iamblichus 128). The question, of >>mission<< in Croton, are of such a considerable importance. They This is why the four speeches with which Pythagoras opened his ascend to higher spheres. It prepares the >>theoria<<, the condition speeches may not be literal transcriptions, there is little doubt ascribe them to an otter hand - Gorgias, for instance 129). While the The notion that certain rythms and melodies have a healing in which we are able to contemplate the heavens, and this in its music simply for amusement. Neither did he think that every kind of thread running through all of them is the idea of >>homonoia<<, of men, the senators of the town, the women and the children. The These four speeches were addressed respectively to the young that they do reflect faithfully his general train of thought. cumis apreparation for and the foreshadowing of the ultimate destination of the soul, her return to the reign of the stars. Pythamusic is fit for performing. If he had been equipped with a modern unanimousness, to which all moral reforms must lead 130). There is goras would have been horrified by the idea of >>light music<<, of ear for sound, would he not have been just as alarmed in hearing We may, indeed, agree with professor De Vogel's assertion that in something ingratiating about these speeches; they certainly aim at stuck to the lyre, a stringed instrument which he played very well antiquity Pythagoras was the first to preach the love of one's a world totally different from that of Homer's pugnacious knights. himself. It is said that with his tones he healed physical and fellow men and to practise it 131). "Lead an exemplary private life, the flute, which can produce shrill tones as well as sweet ones, and and subdued human passions 125). For by means of mental illnesses leave the wife of another alone, do not become abusive, show self- Beethoven's fifth symphony as Goethe was? At any rate he did reject music the harmony of the cosmos is transferred to man, the microrestraint, be friendly in social intercourse, try to educate yourledge one needed to know how to live is knowledge (>>gnosis<<) of 126). This is an important gnostic and dualistic element. The knowimportance, because eternal salvation had to be its final result special >>way of life<<; this way of life was of the utmost longing to be one with the All-One, is also characteristic of This aspiring after mystical unification with the godhead, this Eleusis, but by cognizance of true wisdom, of >>philosophia<< 133). in Orphic life assimilates its votaries with the godhead, not by ascesis, as wisdom, is of the utmost importance, because the Pythagorean way of This >>philosophy<<, this knowledge of wisdom, of a very special use the term >>philosophos<<, lover of wisdom 132). much about love (>>philia<<), he is said to have been the first to self and to learn". Moreover, in the speeches in which he talks so cosmos. 14. The Pythagorean philosophy of life Pythagoras' science and philosophy were the foundation of a philohidden things; as a means to earn eternal salvation it is an dualism, because it heals a breach in our existence. It transports sophy of life whose practical aim was the education of people for a essential factor in this way of life. We have already seen that the one from one world to another and a better one. This concept of the mysticism, and not by initiation, as in the mysteries of Pythagorean fraternity was the bearer of a way of life taught by

movement. The cosmos is a living being, it breathes like a human All-One, of kinship with all that is living, is fundamental in this Greek practice : they rejected abortion as well as euthanasia and ethics of the Pythagoreans were far more rigorous than the normal slept with their own husbands. It its true, however, that the sexual 33 being, but it is eternal. Man, the microcosmos, is part of this reprehensible 137). were opponents of surgery. Extramarital relations were considered as 32 eternal cosmos, and therefore, according to Pythagoras, his soul is to the gods. There is equal respect for animals, as, indeed, in even taken the trouble to address the women separately. On that valent. Man and woman are equals, so they taught, and Pythagoras had The attitude of the Pythagoreans to women is somewhat ambiimmortal, although his body is mortal. Respect for all life exother esoteric movements. Vegetarianism is the norm, although, presses itself also in the love of children, who, he says, are dear curiously enough, there is a ban on the eating of beans. occasion he had not omitted to impress upon them that, equals or not, their husbands still ranked above them. But did the Pythagoreans this does not become apparent, we do find the polarity >>male-female<< know that venomous aversion to women which we meet so often in the ancient world, and which is typical of esoteric movements? While This so-called >>bean-taboo<< has been the subject of a great odd 134). Of these I shall mention one that has some degree of number of explanations, all different, and not a few of them rather the foetus in the maternal womb. On the other hand, there is the probability : beans were banned, because their form brought to mind in that list of the ten opposites I have quoted already. The >>female<< is to be found in the fifth place of the unfavourable fairly obvious consideration that bean eating causes flatulence after health in the will to lead a regular life, in hygienic prehealth rest on his idea of harmony 136). We detect this striving mind, are extremely important. Pythagoras' views of illness and movements notions of health, indeed of absolute health of body and and an outrage on the >>philia<< and >>homonoia<<. In many esoteric contain ethical rules too, as well as the first impulses toward the theory of numbers : "The wisest of all is number". Later generations not urinate on your own cut off nails", to cite an example. They in the Greek world. Several of them are incomprehensible to us : "Do some of them evidently have connections with still older tendencies of the Pythagorean movement. By their sometimes >>magical<< character maxims 138). They formed a motley collection of rules that, according to the judgment of many scholars, belong to the most ancient sphere The >>bean-taboo<< is one of the so-called >>akousmata<< or eighth place). series together with >>unlimited<< and even with >>bad<< (in the which the Pythagoreans did not 135). Probably this propensity to flatulence was a painful reminder of the irregularity of the body scriptions, in the abhorrence of excessive drinking, in vegetarianism, found these maxims hard to stomach and preferred to speak of >>symesteem highly; anyhow it was an expression of >>lawlessness<<, of an in the predilection for physical exercise, in the exposure to rythmic evident disharmony between body and soul, between man and society, and melodious music, and perhaps too in the idea of keeping aloof bola<< which implies a certain shift in emphasis : what was at stake fraternity these were read regularly, not, perhaps, in their Greek literary tradition is evinced also by their predilection for poets of the eightncentury, Homer and Hesiod. In the Pythagorean The attraction of the Pythagoreans for the older layers of the was not so much living up to these maxims, but exploring, rather, their deeper significance 139). from the masses, in which fear of contagion may play a role. In movements like these we may meet more often than not peculiar ideas on sexuality. Sometimes unbridled sex is seen as remarkably moderate. Married himself and a father of children he necessary for absolute health, but most of the time there is a impressed conjugal fidelity on the men, and instructed the women entirety; rather certain carefully chosen pericopes were sung and in puritan abhorrence of the erotic. In this respect Pythagoras was that sexual intercourse did not make them unclean so long as they

any case accompanied by the lyre. Possibly the recited verses were provided with a commentary. An especially well-liked part seems to have been the death of Euphorbus, in the >>Iliad<< 140), because Pythagoras saw in this man an earlier incarnation of himself 141). Here Detienne suggests the interesting idea that the aim of the sessions may have been to run counter to the course of history and place oneself outside of time 142). This is interesting because adherents of dualism regularly show the tendency to divest themselves from the vicissitude and changeableness of all earthly things as they become apparent in time and history. Pythagoras is said to have been not the first, but the third reincarnation of Euphorbus, who in his turn was a reincarnation of Aethalides, a son of the god Hermes. A late source tells us that between two incarnations a period of 216 years elapsed 143). Now >>216<< is a mystical number, because it is the third power of 6, and 6 too has a mystical significance, since it represents the >>ewige Wiederkehr<< : every power of six also ends in the number 6. This brings us to one of the most fundamental ideas of the Pythagorean doctrine : the idea that is normally, but not entirely correctly called >>migration of the souls<< (metempsychosis), but should more properly referred to as >>rebirth<< (palingenesis). This 55 in more than one respect. It affirms the hope that everything does deceased leads a shadowy existence in Hades must have been attractive finally, that the soul ascends to the divine and becomes unified not end in death; that the best in man, his >>soul<<, survives; and, with it. Thus the soul can exist in itself, apart from the body, because it is immortal in itself. The doctrine, however, not only speaks about a return to the divine, but also of an origin in the divine, for the soul is a spark or a part of the universal soul, the world-soul. This implies that the human soul must have had a preexistence, long before she became united with a body. All three elements, the survival of the soul, her divine origin and her return to the world of the eternal, are characteristic of gnostic- The consequences of this view are just as characteristic. It is dualistic movements. obvious that in this way we get a polarity >>soul-body<<, even a dualism, for the soul is locked up in the earthly, material, transient imperfect body as in a prison and tries to liberate herself from it. The idea that the body, with its passions and needs, is of a lesser quality, is not biblical, but was shaped for the first time in the Hellenic world, in the Pythagorean movement, and was taken up later by Plato. The fact that the soul is joined with some body or another only goes to prove that she has not yet recovered her original theology. In other respects, its theology is far from precise. Pythais the nearest Pythagoreanism comes to anything we could call a body, human, animal, vegetable, until she is qualified for her final purity. And as long as this is the case she must roam from body to goras picked up his doctrine of rebirth 145); things eternal, had to be supported by a particular way of life, by which is only for the happy few. The knowledge, this theoria of of the theory of numbers, of cosmical mysticism, a secret knowledge regains her divine purity by knowledge, knowledge of things divine, may release herself from this cycle. For the Pythagoreans the soul They differ, however, with respect to the way in which a soul >>wheel of rebirth<<, is common to all these movements. return. This idea too, of the cycle of transmigrations, of the goreanism uses terms such as god, the gods, and the godhead interchangeably. As Diés tells us, it is highly questionable whether >>the divine& is represented as an unequivocal principle, and if located. But one thing is certain : the human soul comes from this this is the case, it is far from clear where this principle is principle and returns to it again 144). We shall not yet take up here the difficult problem where Pythaselves to the fact that it was well established prior to the time we shall restrict ourof Pythagoras. For its diffusion, however, the Pythagorean movement god was Apollo. And the others who know nothing of these things, who (peras), order, number, temperance, cosmos, harmony; their beloved calm, study, music, seclusion, ascesis. The key-words were : frontier has been of the utmost importance. The Pythagorean doctrine which deviates strongly from the usual Greek view that after his death the

only live on? They live on indeed, as a dog, as a cow, as a cook, fraternity dualism for the first time got a firm hold on an ideology this question later. But it is certain that in the Pythagorean 37 may be even as a prince, but they are utterly incapable of jumping and used this movement as a vehicle to propagate itself. The most 36 off the wheel of rebirths. 15. Was Pythagoreanism dualistic? time gap which divided them. chapter, I shall try to connect Pythagoras with Plato across the whose works we shall discover it fully, was Plato. To end this important thinker, a man with an incalculably great influence in text : can we call Pythagoreanism dualistic or isn't this per- There is one question left which is the decisive one in this con- 16. Pythagoreanism between Pythagoras and Plato of cosmos, of harmony, of the All-One, all of them factors that may the downfall of his society. For the period between 500 and 400 Croton meant the end of Pythagoras' sojourn in this city, but not The rebellion in 509 B.C. against the Pythagorean fraternity in the idea of a dualistic Pythagoreanism. The notions, for instance, missible? There are, doubtless, some elements which run counter to there is also a strong dualistic tendency in Pythagoreanism. On the indicate a basic monism. Yet in addition to these monistic elements opposition. In 454 B.C. there was yet another revolt against it indeed, have increased, but at the same time there was a sizeable them Mnesarchus, Pythagoras! son. The influence of the league may, conflict exists between opposing forces, good and evil, darkness and fomented by a party that is somewhat euphemistically referred to as several leaders of the fraternity in Croton are mentioned, among light 146). Even Cornford who has defended for a time the thesis of >>democratic<<. During the clashes the house of Milo, in that time other hand, the dualistic axiom : in the world, in the soul, a real a fundamental Pythagorean monism, admitted that the system of Pythaprobably the headquarters of the fraternity, was set on fire, and one hand, there is the monistic axiom : all life is one; on the 147). goras is dualistic because of the unbridgeable soul-body opposition other rebellions ended the influence of the Pythagoreans : everywhere most of the leaders perished in the flames. In the following years consider the One as absolutely primary; the pair One-Many is prethe >>democrats<< took over. As we have seen earlier in the list of Aristotle, we should not ceded by the pairs Limited-Unlimited and Even-Odd, and it is from from the burning headquarters. Archippus went to Tarente. This city, But the ‘fraternity was not yet lost! Archippus and Lysis escaped god or as something divine, but this does not exclude the originally Taras, said to have been the one and only Spartan colony, these the Monad springs. The Pythagoreans venerated the One as a supposition that they believed in two opposite principles. We find here; it remained in existence till 300 B.C. Lysis, on the other hand, had an aristocratic ruler; it had never been a part of the Crotonian that the Monad is a god and the good, the real nature of the One, left Italy and arrived in Thebes, in Greece, where he became the league of cities. Archippus, a Tarentian himself, founded a fraternity the Spirit itself, but the unlimited Dyad is a daimoon and bad; it teacher of the famous general and statesman Epaminondas. The Theban to cite only one of them : "About the principles Pythagoras said occupies itself with material multiciplicity" 148). In my opinion we fraternity was therefore held in a certain esteem. Among its members this confirmed by later commentators, the so-called >>doxographers<<; cannot escape the conclusion that Pythagoreanism was a genuine, albeit it counted one of the most famous emigrants from South-Italy, the pupils; we know them from Plato's >>Phaedo<<, and here we have a already mentioned Philolaus. Simmias and Cebes are on record as his mitigated, dualistic system 149). I have skipped expressly the question whether Pythagoras' düalism was completely original, or whether it had any forefathers and relations in or outside the Hellenic world. I shall return to

connection between him and the fraternity 150). Another Pythagorean colony is mentioned in Megara, on the Isthmus of Corinth, and yet 39 arrangement according to themes in the three volumes of Cardini, Pitagorici (Greek texts with Italian translation). Important texts also in Kirk/Raven. The classical commentaries have been assembled by Diels, Doxographi Graeci, cited in this book as Dox. 2) Guthrie, Hist. I 146. another at Phlius, on the Peloponnese. At Phlius Pythagoreans were still active in the fourth century, but it is said they were the second link with Plato. very last ones. The group there had connections with Socrates, the After the collapse of the Pythagorean influence in Southern(Reggio Philosophia I 78/79. 3) Burnet, Early Gr.Phil. 84 and 92. 4) Erwin Rohde, Die Quellen des Iamblichus. Rheinisches Museum, 1871, 544 sqq, cited by De Vogel, Pyth. 53. 5) Burkert, Weish. und Wiss. 201 speaks of a >>quasi-historical person<<. The conclusions reached by Burkert are summed up briefly by De Vogel in her review of Burkert's book in her own book Italy not all the leaders seem to have left Italy. At Rhegion di Calabria) a new centre came into being after 440 B.C., which seems 10) The dates of DL are not certain, maybe 6) Rod, Phil.d.Ant. I 52 says that later authors showed the tendency to ascribe every result to Pyth. himself, and that the secrecy maintained in the Pyth. fraternities makes it impossible to ascertain whether central scientific insights go back on Pyth. or are the work of later scholars. 7) In his >>Vitae philosophorum<<. 8) In his >>Philosophi Platonici ‘Opuscula Selecta<<. 9) >>De Vita Pythagorica Liber<<. a general he was succesful 151). In a way he surpassed Pythagoras, mathematician and a philosopher, and a statesman in Tarente. Even as Pythagorean became influential and respected, Archytas, at once a to have existed for a long time. It even happened that once again a for he was not overthrown. Perhaps the reason was that, as Strabo nothing. Rep. 529d, 530d, 600a-b, Gorg. 507a, 508a. Raven, Pyth. and El. 97-100. De Vogel, Pyth. 8. Her. IV 95. Ion of Chios, DK. fr.2.; Heraclitus, DK fr. 40 and 129; Empedoeles, DK fr. 129. 31) Iambl. 9; Gorman 19. 28) De Vogel, Pyth. 24; Gorman 14 and 182. 29) Gorman 23. 30) Gorman 18. 24) The word >>tyrant<< had then not yet got its later unfavourable meaning. 25) See for this passage Nestle, Mythos zu Logos, Ch. II. 26) See the chronologies of Von Fritz, Pyth.Pol. 49 and De Vogel. Pyth. 21. 27) De Vogel. Pyth. 21-23. 23) De Vogel, Pyth. 3. 18) 19) 20) 21) 22) 16) DL III 46; Von Fritz 27. 17) De Vogel, Pyth. 9. Against the historical existence of Pyth. the objection has been raised that Ar. does not mention his name, but because Plato does not do so either, this argument means 15) Von Fritz, Pyth.Pol. 31. 14) Von Fritz, Pyth.Pol. 16. >>complete<< biography than is historically justified. 12) Gorman 2. 13) De Vogel, Pyth. 5. This Timaeus is not the same as the namegiver of one of Plato's late dialogues. three quoted >>vitae<< and has therefore written a much more 11) De Vogel, Pyth. 9. Gorman, Pyth. has set too great a store by the Ist cent. writes, Tarente had democratic institutions under his rule 152). Plato who was about the same age as Archytas and who visited Southern-Italy three times, in 388/387, in 368 and in 362, was a that Archytas freed Plato in 362 out of the hands of his enemy, personal friend and paid him several visits in his town. It is said Dionysius II of Syracuse 153). It is certain that Pythagoreans such as Archytas exercised a strong influence on Plato; this constitutes the third, the most important and the most direct link between Pythagoreanism and Platonism. But the detailed description of this relationship falls outside the scope of this volume 154). NOTES TO CHAPTER I 1) It is another question whether he has in fact written nothing at all. Diogenes Laertius (DL VIII 6) says that some scholars in Antiquity were of the opinion that he had written several works; he himself mentions six texts by Pythagoras. One will find a short survey in Van der Waerden, Die Pythagoraer, 286-293. An extensive list of so-called >>Pythagorean<< books in PW Suppl. X 843-863. See also Thesleff, Pyth.Texts. The greater part of the texts relating to Pythagoras, Pythagoreanism and the Pythagorean fraternity is to be found in DK I; in this work, however, the texts are not systematically arranged. One will find a systematical

34) 35) 36) Porph. 1; Gorman 23. Philip 175. Porph. 2 and 10. According to Aristoxenus cited by Hippolytus, Elenchos 12.12.7. Porph. 12 says that in Babylon Pyth. came into contact with >>Zaratos<< (=Zarathustra) and heard his doctrine >>about nature and the origin of all things<<; see also Gorman 63-65. 37) Iambl. 20. 38) Iambl. 28. 39) De Vogel, Pyth. 55-60. 40) De Vogel, Pyth. 60. 41) 42) 43) 44) 45) 46) 47) 48) 65) 66) 67) 41 does not tell us much. Regulations of spiritual orders are tenacious. The Carthusians still live up to their original rules and have never been in need of a reformation. And other orders of the Roman-Catholic Church have always reformed themselves in conformity with the original rule, if they had deviated from it. Pythagoreanism too was conservative. Therefore I do not think that the situation of 370 was much different from that of 520. Perhaps there was originally only a partition into two; into >>outsiders<< (>>exoteroi<<) and >>insiders<< (>>esoteroi<<), Hippolytus, Elenchos 1 2.4 and Iambl. 72; later, however, the members proper fell apart into two groups, the mathematici and the acousmatici, see Burkert 187-202; he shows that the source for this falling apart has probably been Aristotle. For a good review of this problem see Van der Waerden 30-45. De Vogel 48; at the back of her book pictures of these flags. Words that, according to legend, Constantine the Great heard, when he saw the vision of a cross just before the battle at the Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312 : "In hoe signo vinces!". Darmstadt, 1961. Nachdruck der ersten Ausgabe, Konigsberg, 1829. 68) Goettling 286 is referring there to C.A.Lobeck, Aglaophamus. 69) Cited by De Vogel 47. 70) De Vogel 45/46. Minar, Early Pyth.Pol. 15. Gorman 130. De Vogel, Pyth. 52-57. Minar 100; Von Fritz 96. De Vogel, Pyth. 2. Philip 24 and 34. Philip 146. De Vogel, Phil. I 105 points out that Philip begins to write in an extremely sceptical way, but ends with accepting a classical Platonic Pythagoreanism. 49) Minar 18. 71) Lucianus, Pro lapsu inter salutandum 5. See De Vogel 45/46 and Van der Waerden 179/180. Goettling too points to the word >>hygieia<< as the significance of the pentagram. shaman and nothing else, this shamanism is an indispensable part of that tradition. Iambl. 7; these rumours have presumably Apollonius of Tyana as their source and were perhaps circulated because Jesus of Nazareth was considered the Son of God. Iambl. himself did not attach much value to this report; see also Gorman 19/20. 86) De Vogel 1. 87) In his >>Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte<<, 1949, 19sqq. 85) Porph. 28; Iambl. 135 and 140; DL VIII 11; Ael., Var. hist. 2. 26 and 4.17, emanating from Apollonius. See Van der Waerden 58/59 and Gorman 40, who caljs Pyth. a >>freak<< here. of metal is typical for shamanism. 84) According to Burkert the idea that somebody could have a body 83) 81) Porph. 27; Iambl. 134; Aelianus, Varia historiae 2.26 and 4.17. 82) Burkert 123; for this author who wants to see in Pyth. only a Van der Waerden 51-63. 80) Miracle-stories arranged by Burkert 118-120; good survey in a shaman in Pyth. 75) Stapleton passim. 76) Burkert 109 and 141. 77) Burnet 97. 78) Philip 3. 19) Philip 159; according to this author there is no reason to see it is now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. 72) Stapleton 35. 13) De Vogel 47 and Appendix A. 74) Stapleton 12; the ewer comes from Jemdat-Nasr, in Lower-Iraq, 50) For instance, Rostagni cited by De Vogel, Pyth. 13/14, and Delatte cited by De Vogel o.c. 10/11, see also Minar 15. Burnet has stated categorically : "The Pythagorean order was ... not ... a political league", Early Gr.Phil. 89, and with Rohde he assumes that the idea of the order as a political league goes back on Dicaearchus who wanted to see in the order above all something practical. 51) Von Fritz 95/96. 54) Minar 12/13. 52) Ar., Met. 985b 24-25. 53) Minar 17-22. 62) Iambl. 96-100, see also DL III 22. 55) In support of these passages I have used Gorman's chapter >>The Society<<. 56) DL VIII 10; Iambl. 71/72. 57) Iambl. 246. The injunction to remain silent about the secrets was observed rather well, but nevertheless there were >>leaks<<. Van der Waerden 117 thinks that in his lost book >>Katharsis<< Empedocles has communicated part of the secret doctrine, because he found that it had to be accessible to all. 58) Iambl. 81. 59) Iambl. 81. 60) Iambl. 72 who may have found this report in Timaeus, via Apollonius of Tyana, see Van der Waerden 173. 61) Iambl. 98. 63) There existed also a taboo on the use of wool. 64) Boyancé thinks that Iambl. found this description in Aristoxenus and that this author has described the way of life of the order about 370 B.C. rather than that of the 6th cent. But this

88) Nestle calls this >>die Gebrochenheit der Vollkultur<<. 89) Nestle 1-6. 90) Detienne 18/19. 91) Guthrie I 193 thinks that this split did not become a fact earlier than 450 B.C. See also Cornford, Mysticism, in Class. Quart. XVI 137-150, and Nestle, Entwicklung, and Intellektualismus. Van der Waerden modifies this in so far that he sees in Pyth. an able mathematician who picked up his knowledge in Babylonia, but not an original mathematical thinker. If this is right, then the >>theorem of Pythagoras<< did not originate with him. 93) Guthrie I 181. 94) Rougier, Rel. astrale 22. 98) Van der Waerden 256. 96) For some elements in this passage see Guthrie I 106. 97) Guthrie I 470/471 and II 211-263. 98) Van der Waerden 256. 99) strong. The texts that ascribe the system to Ph. are of a very One can read this extensively in Aristotle, De Caelo 293. This philosopher ascribes the opinions about the central fire and the >>counter-earth<< to the so-called Pythagoreans<<. Van der Waerden, however, thinks that the older Pyth. had the earth in the centre and that the system as I have drawn it is of a much later date, being designed by, perhaps, Philolaus of whom vdW does not have a high opinion. I do not think that the proofs of vdW are late date, others do not mention Ph., but Niketas. VdW thinks that Plato who put the earth in the centre, had this from Pyth., but what proof is there for this? And then he finds that Arist. speaks somewhat denigratingly about his >>so-called<< Pyth. and that therefore there must have existed older Pythagoreans who earned more respect. But Ar. nowhere shows deep respect or veneration for any Pyth. Anyhow, anachronisms are unavoidable here. Guthrie I 289 is ready to ascribe the whole system to Philolaus, but says then that there are elements of Pyth. himself in it. There is, for that matter, also a Pyth. tradition according to which the earth stood in the centre, and this agreed better with popular belief, Guthrie I 293. Philip says first that the astronomical-mathematical theory cannot be of Pyth. himself, but, he then adds, as >>a poetical notion<< it is possible! We remain guessing, he sighs somewhat dejectedly, Philip 128. 100) This picture remained intact till Galilei discovered the solar spots, Rougier, Rel.astrale 52. 101) Rougier, Rel.astr. 44-52. Texts in Rougier, Origine. 102) Taylor, Commentary 107. 103) Since the celestial bodies are perfect, they describe a circle, a >>sphairos<<, the distinctive mark of the perfect, DL VII 35. This is why we speak of the >>harmony of the spheres<<, although it is not the spheres that produce the sound. 104) Ar., De Caelo 290b; Ar. deals with this theory with an unmistakable disdain. 113) See Stokes' book 'One and Many'. 105) Porph. 30; Iambl. 65. 106) De Vogel 67. 107) De Vogel 159. 108) Burkert 36. 109) Philip 76. 110) Ar., Met. 986a. 111) Burnet 103. 112) Gorman 143/144, 117) Io) 114) Among others Cornford, Mysticism 3, n. 1. 115) Ar., Met. 986a. 116) Ib. 118) Guthrie I 246. 119) Guthrie I 249. 120) Heidel 384-399. 121) Heidel 386. 122) Meyer 5-7. 43 123) Gorman 160. 124) Iambl. 66, 67. 125) Iambl. 64; Porph. 33. Compare this with the role that Corelli's harpsichord sonatas play in Hermann Hesse's >>Das Glasperlenspiel<< (1943). 126) Guthrie I 182. 127) De Vogel 67. 128) Iambl. 37-57. 129) De Vogel 140. 130) Gorman 96. 131) De Vogel 159 sees in the fact that this doctrine is different from that of Plato in Nomoi and Politeia a proof that it is authentic. 132) The origin of this word is an old point of controversy. See Burkert, Platon oder Pythagoras 159-177. 133) Guthrie I 199. 134) Delatte, Faba 34-70. 135) "Every bean has its tone", in Dutch vulgar speech. 136) Iambl. 106; De Vogel 292. 137) De Vogel 235-239. 138) List in DK 45c; sources in Burkert, W.u.W. 155-157. 139) Burkert, W.U.W. 150 sqq. 140) Il. XVII 51-60. 141) Porph. 26; Iambl. 63; DL VIII 4-5. 142) Detienne 31. 143) Theologoumena Arithmeticae, cit. Gorman 29. 144) Diés, Cycle 50-61. 145) Fimmen 513-523. 146) Cornford, Mysticism 140/141. 147) Cornford, Principium 111; it therefore seems to me that Guthrie I 248 does not do full justice to Cornford. 148) Aet. 1.7.18 = Dox. 302, cit. by Guthrie I 248. not the Monad - a term unknown to Arist. -, but the antagonistic 149) Raven 19 also draws the conclusion that in early Pythagoreanism

152) 153) 154) pair >>peras-apeiron<< has been primary. For Philolaus see Guthrie I 329-333. DL VIII 79. Strabo, Geographia VI 280 = DK 47 A 44, Guthrie I 333-336 Our principal source for the period after 500 B.C. is Iambl. 250 sqq. See also Von Fritz Ch. IV; Gorman Ch. X; Van der Waerden Ch. IX; Guthrie I IVE. CRE AP TER TONICA II AND ELEATICA 1. Pherecydes, a link with Pythagoras? Guthrie calls Pherecydes of Syros 'one of the most interesting figures on the borderline between myth and philosophy', but he allows, nevertheless, this interesting figure not more than one but, just as in Guthrie, he is rarely the subject of extended 45 line in a footnote 1). He is also alluded to in other general works, comment. He is, however, interesting precisely because he stands in that 'development away from mythopoeic towards rational thought' 2), and from our point of view he is particularly interesting since he Hence a short consideration may be useful. may be thought of as a link between Pythagoras and the Ionians. Pherecydes, hailing from the island of Syros, in the centre of the Cyclades, lived without any doubt in the sixth century B.C., but with regard to his precise chronology much difference of opinion exists. We may, however, take for granted that he experienced his >>floruit<<, the pinnacle of his activity, in the middle of that century 3). He seems to have visited many cities in the Hellenic authors call Pherecydes the teacher of Pythagoras, and they do this world, and there is also talk of a stay in Egypt 4). The classical that I have already referred to, Pythagoras, according to one unanimously 5). During the dramatic events in Croton in 509 B.C. tradition, happened to be on Delos. There, although others say it was on Samos, the old Pherecydes was dying of the >>lice illness<< - whatever this ailment may have been, it does not give us a high opinion of the personal hygiene of this philosopher! Pythagoras is reported to have laid his old teacher to his last rest 6).