[harvky] PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY 25S 



and a desire to study literature and the liberal arts. He told all 

 claisses that thrift be-gat virtue, so as-siduously and successfully that 

 ladies would take their goM-embroidercd robes and other onuamcnts 

 of their station and means of luxury and lay them as offerings in the 

 temple of Juno; for, said he, the true ornament of a woman was purity, 

 not dress. He was evidently the Savonarola of his epoch. 



The number of his oath-bound disciples is not clearly known. 

 Seme give it at 300, others at twice that tale. According to Polybius 

 their vows of comradeship involved living apart from other citizens, 

 abstaining from all killing (^(povov), rioting {ffTcxffeœs) and disturbing 

 political questions {rapaxt'l^). They, however, rapidly gained great 

 political influence, and we are tolid that Pythagoras and. his friends ad- 

 minisitered the affairs of the republic so prudently that it soon seemed 

 to be a state compoised entirely of the well4o-do. (Prope optimatum 

 C'ivitas viderctur) . But what were sneered at as his " aristocratic 

 methods " antagonized many interests and prejudices, the Crotonienses 

 being very much like ourselves. They would not submit to a sort of 

 Brahmin caste, a family compact. Eastern teaching under a thin local 

 veneering; so, after about twenty years' experience and enthusiasm, 

 during which societies were formed in other cities of the peninsula, 

 similar in principle and perhaps affiliated in some loose way, a con- 

 spiracy was hatched to burn up the adherents of this ancient Puritan 

 in one of their meeting houses. Sixty perished, the rest scattered. 

 Tihe Pytliagorean lodges in other parts of Magna Grgeoia were harried. 

 Whether the master was himself killed is uncertain; one account states 

 that he was found in the house of Milo, one of his set, and murdered; 

 another that he fled to Metapontuim and there died, at the age of nearly 

 a hundred. He had married Theano of Crotona, by whom he had 

 two sons and two daughters — all companions of his studies, lights and 

 ornaments of philosophy. 



As above stated, Pythagoras committed nothing to writing, nor do 

 we obtain the least scrap of esoteric information from his immediate 

 followers. Only from Philolaus do we get an inside inkling of the 

 facts; as I gather, about 150 years later. It seems that this philosopher 

 had some notes respecting the tenets of the brotherhood, and, when 

 eld and stricken with poverty, pro1)ably unable to supply even his 

 modest wants, he happened to meet Plato, who was visiting the court 

 of King Hiero, at Syracuse (Sicily), and sold them to him. It is 

 well known that Pythagoras had a powerful influence with Plato, and 

 we may well imagine his joy at securing the precious manuscript. Very 

 little, however, of its contents has reached us. The only fragments 

 W€ have are what others have copied from him — three or four pages 



