Pythagoras

His Life, Teaching, and Influence

Christoph Riedweg, Steven Rendall

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780801464904
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosopher Biographies

One of the most important mathematical theorems is named after Pythagoras of Samos, but this semi-mythical Greek sage has more to offer than formulas. He is said to have discovered the numerical nature of the basic consonances and transposed the musical proportions to the cosmos, postulating a "harmony of the spheres." He may have coined the words "cosmos" and "philosophy." He is also believed to have taught the doctrine of transmigration of souls and therefore to have advised a vegetarian diet.

Ancient legends have Pythagoras conversing with dogs, bears, and bulls. A distinctly Pythagorean way of life, including detailed ritual regulations, was observed by his disciples, who were organized as a secret society. Later, Pythagorean and Platonic teachings became fused. In this Platonized form, Pythagoreanism has remained influential through medieval Christianity and the Renaissance down to the present.

Christoph Riedweg's book is an engaging introduction to the fundamental contributions of Pythagoras to the establishment of European culture. To penetrate the intricate maze of lore and ascertain what history can tell us about the philosopher, Riedweg not only examines the written record but also considers Pythagoras within the cultural, intellectual, and spiritual context of his times. The result is a vivid overview of the life and teachings of a crucial Greek thinker and his most important followers.

1. FICTION AND TRUTH

Ancient Stories about Pythagoras

Ancient reports about Pythagoras suggest a multifaceted man. Many aspects of this picture are familiar: Pythagoras the mathematician, the discoverer of certain basic principles of acoustics, the natural philosopher, and perhaps also Pythagoras the adherent to vegetarianism and to the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Other aspects strike us as alien and may make us wonder whether Pythagoras can be considered a “thinker” in the narrow sense at all. With the word thinker we usually associate the idea of a philosophically reflective person who strives, by using reason in a methodical way, to achieve clarity regarding things and the foundations of our being. Many a part of the ancient tradition concerning Pythagoras is scarcely compatible with this idea and makes him seem closer to holy men and mystics of the Eastern and Western traditions. He is represented as a politico-religious adviser and leader, a guru with supernatural powers, a seer, a miracle worker, a healer, and a psychiatrist—or as a fraud and a charlatan. Depending on the witness’s standpoint, diametrically opposed rhetorical strategies can be seen at work in the texts: Whereas adepts or at least admirers of his teaching tend toward a hagiographic idealization (which may have been promoted already by Pythagoras himself), skeptics and critics react with irony, sarcasm, and defamation, and try to belittle Pythagoras as a person as much as they can. We will see that this kind of reaction is not uncommon in the case of charismatics (in the sociological sense defined by Max Weber). But before we attempt to cautiously approach the historical personality, let us listen to the ancient sources in all their variety. For the moment, we will largely refrain from a critical evaluation. It is important first of all to mark out the field and assemble the diverse notions that were associated in antiquity with Pythagoras’ life and teaching.

PYTHAGORAS’ APPEARANCE

Appearance: The Strangely Sublime Man

To begin with outward appearance, Pythagoras is described as making an extremely striking impression. According to Dicaearchus (born c. 375 B.C.E.?), one of the pupils of Aristotle originating from modern-day Messina, he was very tall and of noble stature, and his voice, character, and every other aspect were marked by an exceptional degree of charm and embellishment.1 His natural aura was still further increased by an unusual way of presenting himself: He dressed in a white robe, wore trousers (which was untypical for Greeks, and makes us think rather of the Thracian Orpheus, with whom Pythagoras is sometimes compared),2 and crowned his head with a golden wreath,3 probably as a sign of his elevated status. Under his clothes, too, there was hiding something unique: the famous, hard-to-interpret golden thigh with which Pythagoras was supposed to have been fitted. Only once, it is said, on the occasion of the Olympic festival, was the latter briefly glimpsed as he was rising. Pythagoras also identified himself by means of this golden thigh as the “Hyperborean Apollo” when he met Abaris, the priest of the Hyperboreans, a mythical-paradisiacal people who lived at the northern fringes of the world.4

Parapsychology: The Miracle Worker

Pythagoras is surrounded by many fabulous tales of this kind. The stories about his ability to enter into contact with nature are reminiscent of St. Francis of Assisi:5

(23) If one is to believe the ancient and noteworthy writers [an allusion amongst others to Aristotle?], his admonitions did reach even irrational animals. The Daunian bear, who had committed extensive depredations in the neighborhood, he seized; and after having patted her for a while, and given her barley and fruits, he made her swear never again to touch a living creature, and then released her. She immediately took herself into the woods and the hills, and from that time on never attacked any irrational animal.

(24) At Tarentum, in a mixed pasture, seeing an ox cropping beans, he went to the herdsman, and advised him to tell the ox to abstain from beans. The countryman mocked him, proclaiming his ignorance of the ox-language. So Pythagoras himself went and whispered in the ox’s ear. Not only did the bovine at once desist from his diet of beans, but would never touch any thenceforward, though he survived many years near Hera’s temple at Tarentum, until very old, being called the sacred ox, and feeding on what the visitors to the temple offered him.

(25) While he happened to converse with his disciples at the Olympic Games about bird omens, secret signs, and omens from the sky, saying that they were special messages and voices from the gods to those human beings truly dear to them, he is said to have drawn down an eagle which flew overhead, and after stroking it, he released it again. (Porph. VPyth. 23–5 ≈ Iambl. VPyth. 60–62; transl. after K. S. Guthrie; Dillon and Hershbell)

It is obvious that in this version, which goes back to the neo-Pythagorean Nicomachus of Gerasa (second century B.C.E.),6 each of the miracle stories is intended to illustrate a Pythagorean rule of conduct: (1) vegetarianism (not eating any creature endowed with a soul); (2) the taboo on beans; (3) the practice of divination. The text goes on to offer an example of Pythagoras’ prophetic abilities that again also explains his almost Buddhist concern with respect to the animate creature:

Meeting with some fishermen who were drawing in their nets heavily laden with fishes from the deep, he predicted the exact number of fish they had caught. The fishermen said that if his estimate was accurate they would do whatever he commanded. He then bade them to return the fish alive into the sea after having counted them accurately; and, what is more wonderful, not one of them died, although they had been out of the water a considerable time. (Porph. VPyth. 25 ≈ Iambl. VPyth. 36; transl. after K. S. Guthrie)

This passage may remind readers familiar with the New Testament that in Luke the beginning of Jesus’ teaching is associated with an exceptional catch of fish: Jesus tells Simon to cast his nets, though he has caught nothing during the whole of the preceding night, and, behold, Simon catches so many that two boats almost sink under the weight of the fish.7 This similarity, which ultimately remains rather superficial—crucial elements of the Pythagorean story such as the prediction of the number or saving the lives of the fish are missing8—must have struck the Neoplatonic philosopher Iamblichus (c. 240–c. 325 C.E.) when in his treatise On the Pythagorean Life, which sometimes assumes characteristics of a pagan alternative to the Gospels, he situates the fishermen episode at the beginning of Pythagoras’ career.9

To judge by various other anecdotes that in their essence seem to go back as far as to the fourth century B.C.E. (to Aristotle and a certain Andron of Ephesus), parapsychological phenomena appear to have accompanied Pythagoras throughout his life. Once, when he felt thirsty in Metapontum and drank water drawn from a well, he predicted that three days hence an earthquake would occur.10 He also demonstrated his prophetic ability, for example, by predicting the sinking of a boat, the conquest of the city of Sybaris, and the fraternal feuding among Pythagoreans.11 And once, when, with several comrades, he was crossing the river Casuentus (Gr. Kasas) near Metapontum, the river is supposed to have said to him, loudly enough for all to hear, “Greetings, Pythagoras!”12 (It should be noted that in antiquity, rivers were divinities, and therefore the episode contains primarily a religious statement: Even the divine communicates with this exceptional human being.) According to the reports, Pythagoras shares with yogis, shamans, and Christian mystics the gift of being in two places at the same time (bilocation):

Almost unanimous is the report that on one and the same day he was present at both Metapontum in Italy and at Tauromenium in Sicily, in each place conversing with his friends, though the places are separated by many miles, both at sea and land, demanding a journey of great many days. (Porph. VPyth 27 ≈ Iambl. VPyth. 134; transl. after K. S. Guthrie)

Another similarity between Eastern teachers of wisdom and Pythagoras’ was the supernatural “perfect ability” (called siddhi- in Sanskrit) to diagnose earlier existences. He is reported to have reminded Myllias of Croton of his rebirth as the Phrygian king Midas.13 “But himself he proved, by means of indubitable signs, to be Euphorbus, the son of Panthos.”14 In the sixteenth and seventeenth books of Homer’s Iliad, this “Dardanian” who fought the Greeks at Troy plays a rather significant role in connection with Patroclus’ death: Like Paris later on in relation to Achilles’ death, Euphorbus acts on the human level as the helper of the god Apollo, who brings about Patroclus’ death.15 The collaboration with Apollo makes it clear why Pythagoras—whom the people of Croton called the “Hyperborean Apollo”—singled out precisely this Trojan warrior as his earlier reincarnation. Etymology may also have played a role in his choice: The name Euphorbus means “he who has a good pasture or good food,” and this seems highly appropriate for the founder of a way of life characterized by numerous dietary rules.16 By the way, Homer praises Euphorbus not only for his military and athletic superiority, but also for his beauty, and especially his extremely charming locks of hair, “interlaced” with gold and silver—they are described as “like the Graces.”17 Did Pythagoras, who wore a golden wreath in his hair, feel attracted to Euphorbus in this respect as well? In any event, among the “indubitable signs” by means of which he identified himself with Euphorbus the episode stands out in which, as he was in the shrine of the Argive Hera and saw the booty the victorious Greeks had brought home from Troy and dedicated to the goddess, he recognized Euphorbus’ bronze shield: This one, he said, he was carrying when he was killed by Menelaus.18

Various other reincarnations are mentioned in the sources—in India as well “one biography is not enough; the lives of saints and saviors are provided with preludes—infinitely expansible—of earlier saintly existences,” until the hero, after rising step by step, “at last arrives at that supreme state of embodied spirituality which distinguished his actual, historical biography.”19 The lists of Pythagoras’ rebirths differ somewhat depending on the sources. It can easily be seen why Aethalides, the son of Hermes, was included in the series: According to legend, he had received from his divine father the gift not only of remembering everything in his life but even retaining his memory after death. This gift was transmitted to all his subsequent reincarnations,20 and it is especially characteristic of Pythagoras, whose unique mental and mnemonic abilities are emphasized early on. We shall return later to this subject and to the doctrine of reincarnation.

“Countless other, still more marvelous and divine things were said about this man in the same way and agreeing with each other,” the Platonist Porphyry of Tyre (234–c. 305/310 B.C.E.) noted in concluding his account of the miracle stories. Porphyry also summarily refers to Pythagoras’ power of disposing over the forces of nature, which he used to the benefit of his companions, as when he put an end to an epidemic of plague, stopped wind and hail storms, and when necessary calmed the waves,21 or overcame a poisonous snake—allegedly by biting it back.22

BIOGRAPHICAL IINFORMATION

Birth

According to the testimony of ancient sources then, this Pythagoras of Samos was a wholly exceptional person. Therefore it is hardly surprising that his early biography also includes astonishing things. A man so far above the average cannot have an ordinary career—so much is required, independent of any question of fact, merely by the literary rules of hagiographic narratives. Over time, even a divine origin was attributed to him. The well-known importance of Apollo for Pythagoras—his name, too, was associated with the Pythian oracle: “He was called Pythagoras because he spoke the truth no less than the Pythian oracle”23—suggests the Delphic divinity. His mother, whom Apollonius24 is able to call by name, is also embedded in this context: Her name is supposed to have been Pythaïs. A writer from Samos, Apollonius, in Porphyry VPyth. 2, expressed this divine origin in the following distich:

and Pythagoras, dear to Zeus, whom Pythaïs has born to Apollo, who was the most beautiful amongst the Samian women

(FGrHist 1064 F1; transl. Radicke)

Here again, relationships with the Christian tradition were noted long ago...

Table of contents

• PREFACE
• 1. FICTION AND TRUTH
• 2. IN SEARCH OF THE HISTORICAL PYTHAGORAS
• 3. THE PYTHAGOREAN SECRET SOCIETY
• 4. THINKERS INFLUENCED BY PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PUPILS
• CHRONOLOGY
• ABBREVIATIONS
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY