PYTHAGORAS (6th century B.C.), Greek philosopher, was a native of Samos and flourished about 532 B.C. He is said to have been a pupil of Pherecydes (q.v.). He left in Ionia the reputation of a learned and universally informed man. "Of all men," says Heracleitus, "Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, was the most assiduous enquirer." The extensive travels attributed to Pythagoras are no doubt mostly apocryphal, but there is no in trinsic improbability in the statement of Isocrates (Laud. Busir. 28, p. 227 Steph.) that he visited Egypt and other countries of the Mediterranean. The historically important part of the career of Pythagoras begins with his migration to Croton, a Dorian colony in southern Italy, about the-year 529. According to tradi tion, he was driven from Samos by the tyranny of Polycrates. At Croton Pythagoras became the centre of a widespread organiza tion, which was, in its origin, a religious brotherhood or an asso ciation for the moral reformation of society rather than a philo sophical school. The Pythagorean brotherhood had much in com mon with the Orphic communities which sought by rites and ab stinences to purify the believer's soul and enable it to escape from the "wheel of birth." Its aims were those of a religious order rather than a political league. The new order did indeed establish for a time its supremacy over a considerable part of Magna Graecia, but this entanglement with politics led in the end to the dismemberment and suppression of the society. The first reaction against the Pythagoreans, led by Cylon, seems to have taken place in the lifetime of Pythagoras in connection with the victory gained by Croton over Sybaris in 51o. Cylon was able to bring about the retirement of Pythagoras to Metapontium, where he remained until his death at the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 5th century. The order appears to have continued power ful in Magna Graecia till the middle of the 5th century when it was violently trampled out. The meeting-houses of the Pythag oreans were everywhere sacked and burned; mention is made in particular of "the house of Milo" in Croton, where 5o or 6o Pythagoreans were surprised and slain. Those who survived took
refuge at Thebes and other places. Lysis went to Thebes, where he became the instructor of Epaminondas. Philolaus, too, who ac cording to tradition wrote the first exposition of the Pythagorean system, lived at Thebes at the end of the 5th century. Philolaus, however, and some others were afterwards able to return to Italy, and thenceforth Taras (Tarentum) became the chief seat of the school. Here Archytas, the friend of Plato, lived; he ruled Taras for years and was never defeated in battle. As a philosophic school the Pythagoreans became extinct about the middle of the 4th century.
Aristotle in his accounts of Pythagorean doctrines never refers to Pythagoras but always to "the Pythagoreans" or "the so-called Pythagoreans" (oi, KaXob,uevot). Nevertheless certain doctrines may be traced to the founder. Foremost these is the theory of the immortality and of the soul (see METEM PSYCHOSIS). Pythagoras's on this point is connected with the primitive belief in the kinship of men and beasts, a view which also held. The rule of absti nence from flesh is thus, in its a taboo resting on the blood brotherhood of men and beasts ; and a number of the Pythag orean rules of life which we find embodied in the different tradi tions appear likewise to be genuine taboos to a similar level of primitive The moral and application which gave to the doctrine of continued to be the of the school. The view of the body (o-c.7)ua) as the tomb (a a) of the soul and the account of philosophy in the Phaedo as a meditation of death are expressly connected by Plato with the teaching of and the strain of asceticism and other-worldliness which meets us here and elsewhere in Plato is usually traced to influence.