Pythagorus (570 - 495 BC)

Pythagoras of Samos ( c. 570 – c. 495 BC) was anIonian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and has been credited as the founder of the movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him. He was born on the island of Samos, and traveled, visitingEgypt and Greece, and maybe India, and in 520 BC returned to Samos Around 530 BC, he moved to Croton, The stories which were created were eagerly sought by the Neoplatonist writers who provide most of the details about Pythagoras, but who were uncritical concerning anything which related to the gods or which was considered divine. Thus many myths were created – such as that Apollo was his father; that Pythagoras gleamed with a supernatural brightness; that he had a golden thigh; that Abaris came flying to him on a golden arrow; that he was seen in different places at the same time. According to Sir William Smith, with the exception of a few remarks by Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, and Isocrates, we are mainly dependent on Diogenes Laërtius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus for biographical details. Burkert (1972, p. 109) states that Aristoxenus and Dicaearchus are the most important accounts.

Aristotle had written a separate work On the Pythagoreans, which is no longer extant.However, the Protrepticus possibly contains parts of On the Pythagoreans. His disciplesDicaearchus, Aristoxenus, and Heraclides Ponticus had written on the same subject. These writers, late as they are, were among the best sources from whom Porphyry and Iamblichus drew, while still adding some legendary accounts and their own inventions to the mix. Hence, historians are often reduced to considering the statements based on their inherent probability, but even then, if all the credible stories concerning Pythagoras were supposed true, his range of activity would be impossibly vast.

"Twenty-two years Pythagoras remained in Egypt, pursuing closely his investigations, visiting every place famous for its teachings, every person celebrated for wisdom. Astronomy and geometry he especially studied and he was thoroughly initiated in all the mysteries of the gods, till, having been taken captive by the soldiers of Cambyses, he was carried to Babylon. Here the Magi instructed him in their venerable knowledge and he arrived at the summit of arithmetic, music and other disciplines. After twelve years he returned to Samos, being then about fifty-six years of age."

According to some accounts Pythagoras married Theano, and it has been said that she was first his pupil, a lady of Croton. According to Mary Ritter Beard, Theano told Hippodamus of Thurium (may be Hippodamus of Miletus, who according to Aristotle planned the city ofThurium in 440 BC), the treatise On Virtue, she wrote, contains the doctrine of the golden mean.

Before 520 AD, on one of his visits to Egypt or Greece, Pythagoras might have met the c. 54 years older Thales of Miletus.

Many mathematical and scientific discoveries were att

ributed to Pythagoras, including his famous theorem,

 as well as discoveries in the field of music, astronomy, andmedicine. It is mentioned that the people of Croton were supposed to have identified him with the Hyperborean Apollo, and he was said to have practised divination andprophecy.In the visits to various places in Greece – Delos, Sparta, Phlius, Crete, etc. which are ascribed to him, he usually appears either in his religious or priestly guise, or else as a lawgiver.