34 SCIENCE IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY 



manifested themselves later in the Pythagorean teach- 

 ing ? It is difficult to say. It appears to be incorrect 

 also to attribute to primitive Pythagoreanism, as 

 several historians do, a political, aristocratic and 

 Dorian ideal, and to see in the conflict of this ideal with 

 popular aspirations the principal cause of the fall of the 

 school. This fall was doubtless caused by the domina- 

 tion which the Pythagoreans had for a time over the 

 town, and which from its religious and moral nature 

 must have been very tyrannical. However this may 

 be, from the beginning of the struggle with the rich and 

 noble Cylon, Pythagoras withdrew to Metapontum 

 where he died soon after. His disciples remained for 

 some time in possession of power, but overcome in the 

 end, most of them were massacred. The survivors 

 concentrated at Rhegium, until, with the exception of 

 Archippus, they were forced to leave Italy. It was then 

 that Lysis and Philolaus, whose " acme ' occurred 

 about the year 440 B.C., went to continental Greece and 

 finally settled at Thebes. In this town they founded 

 an important Pythagorean community to which be- 

 longed Simmias and Cebes, the two Thebans intro- 

 duced by Plato in the Phcedo. Philolaus, however, 

 appears to have returned to Italy, a little before 

 the death of Socrates in 399 B.C. At this time the 

 chief seat of the school was Tarentum, whence the 

 Pythagoreans directed the opposition against Dionysius 

 of Syracuse. To this period Archytas belongs. " He 

 was the friend of Plato and almost realized, if he 

 did not suggest, the ideal of a king-philosopher. He 

 governed Tarentum for some years, and Aristoxenus 

 tells us that he was never defeated in any battle. He 

 was also the inventor of mathematical mechanics. 1 



Thebes and Tarentum were not the only towns in 

 which the Pythagorean doctrine found a refuge ; it 

 flourished also in other places, amongst them Phlias in 



1 8 Burnet, Aurore, p. 317. 



