242 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



*' the Brahmins, among whom he particularly attached himself to the 

 '" sect Oif the Gynmosophists. JSTow, the Chalda^ams have a knowledge 

 *' of the constellations, of the regular revolutions (statos ambitus) of 

 " the planets, and can tell the various influences of the heavenly bodies 

 *•' on the birth-fates of men. They have also collected, at great expense, 

 * from earth, air and sea, medicines for curing people's diseases. But 

 ** the Brahmins contributed much to his views of philosophy, such as 

 " what could be taught about the mind and the training- of the body, 

 " how many functions the mind has, how many changes we undergo in 

 " life (qiiot artes animi, quoi vices vitœ) and what are the rewards and 

 *' punishments dealt out to each, according to his merits, by the Gods 

 " of the nether-world." Apuleius, himself a wealthy man, an extensive 

 traveller and a student of philosophy, was as likely as any one living 

 in his century, the second after Christ, to be well informed. Porphyry, 

 a century later, says that Pythagoras visited the Arabians and Hebrews 

 and the Chaldœans. Clement of Alexandria, who came between tne 

 two, tells us that he embraced many of the doctrines of the Indians, 

 thinks (erroneously, as I hold) his abstinence from meat was con- 

 D.ected with the Jewish system of avoiding blood, and adds, on the 

 authority of Antiphon, that it wias difficult to obtain access to the 

 Egyptian priests, who kept their knowledge secret from other people. 

 It is needless to repeat what has been said by others, confirmatory of 

 these distant travels, by Lucian, Pliny (lib. 25, cap. 12), Strabo (lil). 14:), 

 Jamblichus (de vita Ptjthagorœ) ; we will revert to the phrase of 

 Isocrates, early in the fourth century befoTe Christ, who says that 

 having returned from Egypt, where he had studied, he was the first to 

 instruct the Greeks in foreign philosophy {Ttjv re aW7]v (piXoffocpmv) 

 It was the consensus of antiquity that Pythagoras had traversed Asia 

 and studied among Magi and Brahmins, as well as among the Egyptian 

 priests. 



Porphyry tells us that when he returned to Samos, which he would 

 naturally revisit first on again reaching lands where Greek was spoken, 

 and found that the islanders were bound under the tyranny of Poly- 

 crates, he thought it unworthy of a philosopher to live there, and 

 resolved to emigrate to Italy. In this he follows Diogenes Laertius 

 (second century A.D.) who writes that " finding on his return to Samos 

 that the State was ruled by Polycrates, he went to Crotona, in Italy." 

 There is some confusion here; it seems unlikely that he would forgot 

 the relations to a distinguished ruler of his father and himself. It 

 is kno'wn that after the death of Polycrates, Syloson received the gov- 

 ernment of Samos from Darius, who had in the meantime become pos- 

 sessed of the little state, no longer protected by Egypt, which had itself 



