(6) It is farther related of the Pythagoreans, that they expelled from themselves lamentation, weeping, and every thing else of this kind; and that neither gain, nor desire, nor anger, nor ambition, nor any thing of a similar nature, became the cause of dissension among them; but that all the Pythagoreans were so disposed towards each other, as a worthy father is towards his offspring. This also is a beautiful circumstance, that they referred every thing to Pythagoras, and called it by his name, and that they did not ascribe to themselves the glory of their own inventions, except very rarely. For there are very few whose works are acknowledged to be their own. The accuracy too, with which they preserved their writings is admirable. For in so many ages, no one appears to have met with any of the commentaries of the Pythagoreans, prior to the time of Philolaus. But he first published those three celebrated books, which Dion the Syracusan is said to have bought, at the request of Plato, for a hundred mina. For Philolaus had fallen into a certain great and severe poverty; and from his alliance to the Pythagoreans, was a partaker of their writings.

(334) steal a march upon the enemy? Certainly. Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief? That, I suppose, is to be inferred. Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it. That is implied in the argument. Then after all the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; for he, speaking of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favourite of his, affirms that ‘He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury.’ And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of theft; to be practised however ‘for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies,’—that was what you were saying? No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still stand by the latter words. Well, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those who are so really, or only in seeming? Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil. Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely? That is true. Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends? True. And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and

(1) Many also of the political actions of his followers are [deservedly] praised. For it is reported that the Crotonians being once impelled to make sumptuous funerals and interments, some one of them said to the people, that he had heard Pythagoras when he was discoursing about divine natures observe, that the Olympian Gods attended to the dispositions of those that sacrificed, and not to the multitude of the sacrifices; but that, on the contrary, the terrestrial Gods, as being allotted the government of things less important, rejoiced in banquets and lamentations, and farther still, in continual libations, in delicacies, and in celebrating funerals with great expense. Whence, on account of his wish to receive, Pluto is called Hades. He suffers, therefore, those that slenderly honor him to remain for a longer time in the upper world; but he always draws down some one of those who are disposed to spend profusely in funeral solemnities, in order that he may obtain the honors which take place in commemoration of the dead.

In consequence of this advice, the Crotonians that heard it were of opinion, that if they conducted themselves moderately in misfortunes, they would preserve their own salvation; but that if they were immoderate in their expenses, they would all of them die prematurely. A certain person also having been made an arbitrator in an affair in which there was no witness, led each of the litigants to a certain monument, and said to one of them, the man who is buried in this monument was transcendently equitable; in consequence of which the other litigant prayed that the dead man might obtain much good; but the former said that the defunct was not at all better for the prayers of his opponent.

Pythagoras, therefore, condemned what the former litigant said, but asserted that he who praised the dead man for his worth, had done that which would be of no small importance in his claim to belief. At another time, in a cause of great moment, he decided that one of the two who had agreed to settle the affair by arbitration, should pay four talents, but that the other should receive two. Afterwards, he condemned the defendant to pay three talents; and thus he appeared to have given a talent to each of them. Two persons also had fraudulently deposited a garment with a woman who belonged to a court of justice, and told her she was not to give it to either of them unless both were present.

Some time after, for the purpose of circumvention, one of them received the common deposit, and said that it was with the consent of the other. But the other, who had not been present [when the garment was returned], acted the part of a sycophant, and related the compact that was made at the beginning, to the magistrates. A certain Pythagorean, however, taking up the affair said, that the woman had acted conformably to the compact, as both parties had been present. Two other persons also appeared to have a strong friendship for each other, but had fallen into a silent suspicion through a flatterer of one of them, who told him that his wife had been corrupted by the other.

It so happened however, that a Pythagorean came into a brazier’s shop, where he who conceived himself to be injured, was showing to the artist a sword which he had given him to sharpen, and was indignant with him because it was not sufficiently sharp. The Pythagorean, therefore, suspecting that the sword was intended to be used against him who was accused of adultery, said, This sword is sharper than all things except calumny. This being said, caused the man to consider with himself [what it was he intended to do], and not rashly to sin against his friend who was within, and who had been previously called [by him in order that he might kill him]. A zone also that had golden ornaments having fallen [at the feet] of a certain stranger in the temple of Esculapius, and the laws forbidding any one to take up that which had fallen on the ground, a Pythagorean advised the stranger, who was indignant at this prohibition, to take away the golden ornaments which had not fallen to the ground, but to leave the zone, because this was on the ground.

That circumstance, likewise, which by the ignorant is transferred to other places, is said to have happened in Crotona, viz. that during a public spectacle, some cranes flew over the theatre, and one of those who had sailed into the port, said to the person who sat near him, Do you see the witnesses? which being heard by a certain Pythagorean, he brought them into the court, consisting of a thousand magistrates, where being examined, it was found that they had thrown certain boys into the sea, and that they called the cranes who flew over the ship [at the time,] witnesses of the deed. When likewise certain persons who had recently become disciples of Pythagoras were at variance with each other, he who was the junior of the two came to the other and said to him, that there was no occasion to refer the affair to a third person, but that it rested with them to commit their anger to oblivion.

He, therefore, to whom these words were addressed, replied that he was very much pleased in other respects with what had been said, but that he was ashamed that, being the elder, he had not first said the same thing to the other [who was the junior]. We might here also narrate what is said of Phinthias and Damon, of Plato and Archytas, and likewise of Clinias and Prorus. Omitting, however, these [for the present], we shall mention what is related of Eubulus the Messenian, who when he was sailing homeward, and was taken captive by the Tyrrhenians, was recognized by Nausitheus a Tyrrhenian and also a Pythagorean, because he was one of the disciples of Pythagoras, and was taken by him from the pirates, and brought with great safety to Messena.

When the Carthaginians, also, were about to send more than five thousand soldiers into a desert island, Miltiades the Carthaginian, perceiving among them the Argive Possiden (both of them being Pythagoreans), went to him, and not manifesting what he intended to do, advised him to return to his native country, with all possible celerity, and having placed him in a ship that was then sailing near the shore, supplied him with what was necessary for his voyage, and thus saved the man from the dangers [to which he was exposed]. In short, he who should relate all that has taken place among the Pythagoreans in their associations with each other, would by the length of his narration exceed the proper quantity and the occasion of his treatise.

(9) The kindred of the Pythagoreans however, were indignant that the Pythagoreans gave their right hand to those of their own sect alone, their parents excepted; and that they shared their possessions with each other in common, but excluded their relations from this fellowship, as if they were strangers. These, therefore, becoming the sources of the dissension, the rest readily fell into hostility against the Pythagoreans. Hippasus, also, Diodorus and Theages said at the same time, that every citizen ought to be a partaker of the magistracy and the assembly, and that the rulers should give an account of their conduct, to those who were elected by lot for this purpose from the multitude. But the Pythagoreans, Alcimachus, Dimachus, Meton and Democedes opposed this, and persevered in prohibiting the dissolution of the polity derived from their ancestors.

Those however, who patronized the multitude, subdued the other party. The multitude therefore, being assembled together, Cylon and Ninon who were rhetoricians accused the Pythagoreans. And of these, one belonged to the class of the rich, but the other was a plebeian. They also divided their harangues between themselves. But of these harangues, the longer being delivered by Cylon, Ninon concluded, pretending that he had explored the arcana of the Pythagoreans, and that he had connected and committed to writing such particulars as were especially calculated to criminate the Pythagoreans, and giving a book to ascribe, he ordered him to read it. But the book was inscribed the Sacred Discourse . And the following is a specimen of what it contained: Friends are to be venerated in the same manner as the Gods; but others are to be treated as brutes. This very sentence also is ascribed to Pythagoras by his disciples, and is by them expressed in verse as follows:

(4) I think also, it was said by the Pythagoreans, respecting those who teach for the sake of reward, that they show themselves to be worse than statuaries, or those artists who perform their work sitting. For these, when some one orders them to make a statue of Hermes, search for wood adapted to the reception of the proper form; but those pretend that they can readily produce the works of virtue from every nature. The Pythagoreans likewise said, that it is more necessary to pay attention to philosophy, than to parents and agriculture; for it is owing to the latter, indeed, that we live; but philosophers and preceptors are the causes of our living well, and becoming wise, in consequence of having discovered the right mode of discipline and instruction.

Nor did they think fit either to speak or write in such a way, that their conceptions might be obvious to any casual persons; but Pythagoras is said to have taught this in the first place to those that came to him, that, being purified from all incontinence, they should preserve in silence the doctrines they had heard. It is said, therefore, that he who first divulged the theory of commensurable and incommensurable quantities, to those who were unworthy to receive it, was so hated by the Pythagoreans that they not only expelled him from their common association, and from living with them, but also constructed a tomb for him, as one who had migrated from the human and passed into a another life.

Others also say, that the Divine Power was indignant with those who divulged the dogmas of Pythagoras: for that he perished in the sea, as an impious person, who rendered manifest the composition of the icostagonus ; viz. who delivered the method of inscribing in a sphere the dodecaedron, which is one of what are called the five solid figures. But according to others, this happened to him who unfolded the doctrine of irrational and incommensurable quantities. Moreover, all the Pythagoric discipline was symbolic, and resembled enigmas and riddles, consisting of apothegms, in consequence of imitating antiquity in its character; just as the truly divine and Pythian oracles appear to be in a certain respect difficult to be understood and explained, to those who carelessly receive the answers which they give. Such therefore, and so many are the indications respecting Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, which may be collected from what is disseminated about them.