PYTHAGORAS. 
through the austerities which he himself 
had endured. He at first enjoined (liem a 
five years’ silence in the school, during 
which they were only to hear; after which 
leave was given them to start questions, and 
to propose doubts, under the caution, how- 
ever, to say, “ not a little in many words, 
but much in a few.” Having gone through 
their probation, they were obliged, before 
they were admitted, to bring all their for- 
tune into the common stock, which was 
managed by persons chosen on purpose, and 
called (Economists, and the whole commu- 
nity had all things in common. 
The necessity of concealing their mys- 
teries induced the Egyptians to make use of 
three sorts of styles, or ways of expressing 
their thoughts ; the simple, the hieroglyphi- 
cal, and the symbolical. In the simple, 
they spoke plainly and intelligibly, as in 
common conversation ; in the hieroglyirhical, 
they concealed their thoughts under certain 
images and characters ; and in the symboli- 
cal, they explained them by short expres- 
sions, which, under a sense plain and simple, 
included another wholly figurative. Pytha- 
goras borrowed these three different ways 
from the Egyptians in all the instructions 
he gave; but chiefly imitated the symbo- 
lical style ; which he thought very proper 
to inculcate the greatest, and most impor- 
tant truths; for a symbol, by its double 
sense, the proper and the figurative, teaches 
two things at once ; and nothing pleases the 
mind more tlian the double image it repre- 
sents to our view. In this manner Pytha- 
goras delivered many excellent things con- 
cerning God, and the human soul, and a 
great variety of precepts, relating to the 
conduct of life, political as well as civil; he 
made also some considerable discoveries and 
advances in the arts and sciences. Thus, 
among the works ascribed to him, there are 
not only books of physic and books of mo- 
rality, like that contained in what are called 
his “ Golden Verses,” but treatises on po- 
litics and theology. All these works are 
lost; but the vastness of his mind appears 
from the wonderful things he performed. 
He delivered, as antiquity relates, several 
cities of Italy and Sicily from the yoke of 
slavery; he appeased seditions in others; 
and he softened the manners, and brought 
to temper the most savage and unruly 
spirits of several people and tyrants. Pha- 
laris, the tyrant of Sicily, it is said, was the 
only one who could witl)stand the remon- 
strances of Pythagoras ; and he it seems 
was so enraged at his discoqrsqs, that he 
ordered him to be put to death. But 
though the lectures of the philosopher could 
make no impression on the tyrant, yet they 
were sufficient to reanimate the Sicilians, 
and to put them upon a bold action. lu 
short, Phalaris was killed tlie same day that 
he had fixed for the death of the philoso- 
pher. 
Pythagoras had a great veneration for 
marriage ; and therefore himself married at 
Croton a daughter of one of the chief men 
of that city, by whom he had two sons and 
a daughter. One of the sons succeded his 
father in the school, and became the master 
of Empedocles. The daughter, named 
Damo, was distinguished both by her learn- 
ing and her virtues, and wrote an excellent 
commentary upon Homer. It is related, 
that Pythagoras had given her some of his 
writings, with express commands not to im- 
part them to any but those of his own fa- 
mily ; to which Damo was so scrupulously 
obedient, that even when she was reduced 
to extreme poverty, she refused a great sunt 
of money for them. 
From the country in which Pythagoras 
thus settled and gave his instructions, his so- 
ciety of disciples was called the Italic sect of , 
philosophers, and their reputation continued 
for some ages afterw'ards, when the Acade- 
my and the Lycaeum united to obscure and 
swallow up the Italic sect. 
Pythagoras’s disciples regarded the words 
of their master as the oracles of a god ; his 
authority alone, though unsupported by 
reason, passed with them for reason itself; 
they' looked upon him as the most perfect 
image of God among men. His house was 
called the temple of Ceres, and his court 
yard the temple of the Muses : and when 
lie went into towns, it w'as said he went 
thither, not to teach men, but to heal 
them.’’ 
Pythagoras was persecuted by bad men 
in the last years of his life, and some say he 
was killed in a tumult raised by them against 
him ; but according to othera, he died a 
natural death at 90 years of age, about 497 
years before Christ. 
Beside the high respect and veneration 
the world has always had for Pythagoras, 
on account of the excellence of his wisdom, 
his morality, his theology, and politics, he 
was renowned as learned in all the sciences, 
and a considerable inventor of many things 
in them ; as arithmetic, geometry, astrono- 
my, music, &c. In arithmetic, the common 
multiplication table is, to this day, still call- 
ed Pythagoras’s table. In geometry, it is 
