Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources by James Wasserman, Thomas Stanley, Henry L. Drake, J Daniel Gunther Read Free Book Online Page B

in Thrace. These preserved the customs and doctrines from the beginning, but with the sect itself, at last they were wholly extinguished. This is related by Aristoxenus.
    Nicomachus agrees in all things with this relation. Except in thathe says this Insurrection happened at the time Pythagoras was gone to Delos to visit Pherecydes, who was sick of a Phthiriasis. Then were they stoned and burned by the Italiotes and cast forth without burial. Hitherto Iamblichus.
    With these also agrees the relation of Neanthes, thus delivered by Porphyry. 192
    Pythagoras and his friends, having been a long time so much admired in Italy, many cities committed themselves to them. At last they became envied, and a conspiracy was made against them in this manner. Cylo was a Crotonian, who in extract, nobility, and wealth exceeded all the rest of the citizens, but otherwise was of a violent, rigid, and tyrannical disposition, and one that made use of the multitude of his friends to compass his unjust ends. As he esteemed himself worthy of all excellent things, so most particularly to partake of the Pythagorean philosophy, he came to Pythagoras and much extolled himself and desired his conversation. But Pythagoras presently observing the nature and manners of the person, and perceiving by the signs which he observed in the bodies of such as came to him what kind of disposition he was of, bade him depart and go about his business. Hereat Cylo was not a little troubled, taking it for a great affront, being of himself a person of a rough violent spirit. Therefore, calling his friends together, he began to accuse Pythagoras and to conspire against him and his disciples. Whereupon, as some relate, the friends of Pythagoras were gathered together in the house of Milo the wrestler. Pythagoras himself was absent for he was gone to Delos to visit Pherecydes, the Syrian, formerly his master, who was desperately fallen sick of a Phthiriasis, and to attend on him. Cyclo's men set the house on fire, and burned and stoned them all, except two who escaped the fire, Archippus and Lysis, as Neanthes relates, of whom Lysis went into Greece to Epimanondas, whose master he had formerly been.
    But Dicaerchus and other more accurate authors affirm that Pythagoras himself was there present when this conspiracy was perpetrated; for Pherecydes died before he left Samos. 193 Of his friends, forty being gathered together were beset in a house; most of them going dispersedly to the city were slain. Pythagoras, his friends beingtaken, first escaped to the Caulonian haven, thence went to the Locrians. The Locrians sent some old men to the borders of their country who gave him this answer, “We have heard, Pythagoras, that thou art a person wise and of great worth; but we have nothing in our laws that is reprehensible, and therefore we will endeavor to preserve them. Go to some other place, taking of us whatsoever you have need of.” Hereupon leaving the city of the Locrians, he sailed to Tarentum, where receiving the same entertainment he had at Crotona, he went to Metapontum. For great seditions were raised against him in every part which are remembered by the inhabitants to this day. They recount the seditions against the Pythagoreans, as they call them, for all that faction which sided with Pythagoras were called Pythagoreans. In the Metapontine faction, Pythagoras is said to have died, flying to the Temple of the Muses and staying there forty days, through want of necessaries. 194
    Others relate that when the house wherein his Friends used to meet was fired, his friends threw themselves into the fire to make a way for their master, spreading their bodies like a bridge upon the first; and that Pythagoras, escaping out of the burning, destitute of all his friends, for grief ended his days.
    With these men, oppressed with this calamity, failed their knowledge also—which till then they had preserved secret and concealed, except some things difficult to be understood, which