Cornelli, G. - Search of Pythagoreanism, Pythagoreanism As An Historiographical Category (2013) PDF

Gabriele Cornelli
In Search of Pythagoreanism
Studia Praesocratica
Herausgegeben von / Edited by

M. Laura Gemelli Marciano, Richard McKirahan,
Denis O’Brien, Oliver Primavesi, Christoph Riedweg,
David Sider, Gotthard Strohmaier, Georg Wöhrle
Band/Volume 4
Gabriele Cornelli
In Search of
Pythagoreanism
Pythagoreanism As an Historiographical Category

ISBN 978-3-11-030627-9
e-ISBN 978-3-11-030650-7
ISSN 1869-7143
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Pittagora volse che tutte fossero d’una nobilitate, non solamente le umane, ma
con le umane quelle de li animali bruti e de le piante, e le forme de le minere; e
disse che tutta la differenza è de le corpora e de le forme.
Dante Alighieri. Convivio IV xxi.
for Cissa Dani, Bibi and Dante

Foreword
Pythagoras is and will remain one of the most familiar names among the Greek
philosophers, one we are told very much and we know very little about, and con-
cerning whom there has been and continues to be the greatest disagreement. To
some he is a mathematician, to others a religious leader – even a shaman, to oth-
ers a moralist, politician and founder of a distinctive vita Pythagorica pursued by
an elite group of initiates. Many adherents of one or another of these readings
deny the validity of the others. Ancient evidence supports all these (and more)
interpretations and over the past two centuries and more, attempts to locate
in it the genuine thought of Pythagoras have been marked by conflicting ap-
proaches and incompatible assessments of the testimonia have left a tangle
that Boeckh described already in 1819 as a labyrinthine confusion. That confu-
sion continues today with yet more versions of Pythagoras, some of them revolu-
tionary and deliberately provocative.
Professor Cornelli calls attention to this apparently hopeless state of affairs
and declines to add to the confusion. Rather, he seeks to understand how the
confusion – both in the variety of modern interpretations and in the conflicting
ancient testimonia – arose. His target is not primarily Pythagoras himself, who is
lost in the mist, but “Pythagoreanism” – a term still in use and one which (along
with the associated adjective “Pythagorean”) is employed today as in antiquity to
refer to widely different things. Cornelli presents Pythagoreanism as a “historio-
graphical category” demanding a particular kind of historiographical approach.
The diversity of the source materials and the wide range of the subject matter
demand a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on doxography, source criticism,
history, anthropology, religious studies and mathematics (to mention only the
most obvious fields) in addition to philosophy.
Cornelli begins with a valuable survey of Pythagorean scholarship from
Boeckh to Kingsley that showcases the variety and incommensurability of inter-
pretations presently available and the historical development that led to this sit-
uation. He then turns to the ancient testimony in texts composed over a time-
span of several centuries, emphasizing the contributions of Plato, Aristotle
and other relatively early authors. His aim is double. First, to trace diachronically
what the tradition reports: what Pythagoreanism meant for its ancient represen-
tatives and rapporteurs. Pythagoreanism, Cornelli contends, did not die in the
fourth century BCE (or, as Kahn asserted, in the 17th century CE); it has never
died. From this point of view, given the diversity and history of development
of the tradition, there can be no guarantee that beliefs and practices called Py-
thagorean reflect the actual beliefs and practices of Pythagoras himself or of the
proto-Pythagoreans. However, the sources provide materials that enable a partial
VIII Foreword
reconstruction of the history of Pythagoreanism and that enable us to under-

stand how the movement was able, uniquely among ancient philosophies, to
continue in existence for so very long.
Cornelli’s second goal is to detect in this later material evidence for what
may have been the case in the earliest period of Pythagoreanism. He focuses
on three strands of the tradition. The first is the distinctive Pythagorean way
of life attested as early as Plato and defined inter alia by prescriptions (symbola
or akousmata) and marked by secrecy, and recognition of the charismatic author-
ity of Pythagoras. The second strand comprises the twin doctrines of the immor-
tality and transmigration of souls, referred to already by Xenophanes and by
Plato and Aristotle. The third is the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers, first men-
tioned clearly by Aristotle and related to the doctrines of Philolaus. All three
strands, he argues, go back to the earliest days of Pythagoreanism. The original-
ity of his approach lies in the way he deploys the source materials on these
strands to show how the history of reception by later sources contributed to
the construction of the category of Pythagoreanism.
The measure of Cornelli’s success is the extent to which he accounts for the
richness and variety of the tradition about Pythagoreanism and shows that its
diverse strands stem from the earliest period. Equally important are the range
of materials he treats, the variety of approaches he employs, and the fresh in-
sights he provides on subjects ranging from the relation between Pythagorean-
ism and Orphism to the Platonic and Aristotelian interpretations of Pythagorean
number doctrine.
The perspectives opened by this book and the discussion it is bound to pro-
voke mark it as an important and timely contribution to current literature on Py-
thagoreanism and ancient thought in general.
Richard McKirahan
Contents
Foreword VII
Acknowledgements XI
Note XII
Abbreviations XIII
Introduction 1
 History of criticism: from Zeller to Kingsley 7

. Zeller: the skepticism of the beginnings 8
. Diels: a Zellerian collection 14
. Rohde: the reaction to skepticism 15
. Burnet: the double teaching of acousmatics and mathematicians 17
. Cornford and Guthrie: in search of unity between science and
religion 19
. From Delatte to De Vogel: Pythagoreanism and politics 23
. Aristotle’s unique testimony and the uncertain Academic
tradition 33
. From Burkert to Kingsley: the third way and mysticism in the Py-
thagorean tradition 40
. Conclusion 49
 Pythagoreanism as a historiographical category 52

. Interpreting interpretations: diachronic and synchronic
dimensions 52
. Pythagorean identity 55
. The Pythagorean koinōnía 61
. Acousmatics and mathematicians 77
. Conclusion 83
 Immortality of the soul and metempsýchōsis 86

. “Is it the soul?” (Xenophanes) 89
. “Wiser than all” (Heraclitus and Ion of Chios) 94
. “Ten or twenty human generations” (Empedocles) 97
. Plato and Orphism 100
.. “Understanding the lógos of their ministry” 101
X Contents
.. Hierarchy of incarnations 106

.. Sôma-sêma 107
.. Pythagorean mediation 116
. Herodotus, Isocrates and Egypt 121
. Legends on immortality 124
. A Pythagorean Democritus? 127
. Aristotle and the Pythagorean myths 129
. Conclusion 134
 Numbers 137
. All is number? 138
.. Three versions of the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers 138
.. Two solutions 147
.. The Philolaic solution 150
... One book or three books? 151
... Authenticity of Philolaus’ fragments 153
... The Doric pseudo-epigraphic tradition 155
.. The Aristotelian exception (Met. A 6, 987b) 159
.. The Platonic testimony (Phlb. 16c-23c) 167
. The fragments of Philolaus 172
.. Unlimited/limiting 172
.. The role of numbers in Philolaus 178
. Conclusion 184
Conclusion 189
Bibliography 197
Primary sources 197
Secondary sources 200
Index of Topics 214
Index of Passages 219
Index of Names 224

Acknowledgements
This publication is the result of nearly a decade of research culminating in my
second doctoral thesis defended at the University of São Paulo’s Graduate Pro-
gram in Philosophy, in September 2010. Much of this work derives from that.
For this reason I wish to thank Roberto Bolzani Filho for his warmth and gentle
guidance. Over the years many colleagues contributed in many different ways to
the improvement of this monograph. In a special way, my friends Gianni Caser-
tano, André Chevitarese and Marcelo Carvalho, as well as Alberto Bernabé,
Bruno Centrone, Franco Ferrari, Carl Huffman, Maura Iglesias, Fernando
Muniz, Loraine Oliveira, Christoph Riedweg, Dennys Garcia Xavier, Edrisi Fer-
nandes, Emmanuele Vimercati, Fernando Rey Puente, Fernando Santoro, Fran-
cisco Lisi, Franco Trabattoni, Gerson Brea, Hector Benoit, Jose Gabriel Trindade
Santos, Laura Gemelli Marciano, Livio Rossetti, Luc Brisson, Macris Constantin,
Marcelo Perine, Marcus Mota, Maurizio Migliori, Miriam Campolina Peixoto,
Pedro Paulo Funari, Thomas Szlezák, and Tom Robinson, were kind enough to
argue with me, in different circumstances, about parts of the research that result-
ed in this work. I also owe special thanks: to students of the Archai UNESCO
Chair, whose dedication and enthusiasm still surprise me and confirm the rea-
sons for my passion for ancient philosophy; to the Department of Philosophy
of the University of Brasilia, which gave me the time needed to complete this
project and a place where I can share it; to CAPES and CNPq, which provided
access to almost all relevant literature on the subject, and also let me do
some research internships; to Richard McKirahan and Daniel Moerner, for
their very accurate revision, not only of the English text, but of many passages
and ideas. And to Nicholas Riegel and Katja Flügel for his emergency rescue
in my very last revision.
Thanks, finally, especially for the patience and for the embrace of the one
who shares a life with me: Monique. For showing me every day, with sweetness
and strength, that half is a measure that overcomes itself.
Thank you.
Note
Greek alphabet is used only in footnotes, while Greek terms are translated in the
body of the text, in order to make the reading easier for non-specialists in an-
cient languages.
For modern Authors, I’ve choosen to include a translation of the passage in
the text and the original language in footnote; for ancient sources, I’ve included
only translations, because the texts are more readily available.
Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.
Abbreviations
Ael. Aelian
Aesch. Aeschylus
Against Acad. Augustine. Against Academicians
Anon. Phot. Anonymous by Photius. Thesleff
Arist. Aristotle
BCE Before the Common Era (= BC)
CE Common Era (= AD)
Crat. Plato. Cratylus
D. L. Vitae Diogenes Laertius. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
De Abst. Porphyry. On abstinence from animal food
De an. Aristotle. De anima
De Comm. Mathem. Iamblichus. De communi mathematica scientia
Diod. Sic. Diodorus Siculus
Div. Inst. Lactantius. Divinarum Institutionum
DK Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Diels-Kranz
FGrHist Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker. Jacoby
Gell. Aulus Gellius. Noctes Atticae
Gorg. Plato. Gorgias
Heraclid. Heraclides Ponticus
Herodt. Herodotus
Hist. Nat. Pliny. Naturalis Historiae
Iambl. Iamblichus
Il. Homer. Iliad
In Metaph. Alexander of Aphrodisias. Comments on Aristotle’s Metaphysics
In salm. Ambrosius. Enarratio in Psalmos
Leg. Plato. Laws
lit. literally
Liv. Titus Livius
Men. Plato. Meno
Met. Aristotle. Metaphysics
Metam. Ovid. Metamorphoses
Mete. Aristotle. Meteorology
n note
NE Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics
Od. Homer. Odyssey
orig. From the original
P. Derv. Derveni Papyrus
Phaed. Plato. Phaedo
Phaedr. Plato. Phaedrus
Phlb. Plato. Philebus
Phot. Bibl. Photius. Library
Phys. Aristotle. Physics
PL Patrologia Latina. Migne
Pol. Aristotle. Politics
XIV Abbreviations
Porph. Porphyry
Proclus. In Tim. Proclus. Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus
Prom. Aeschylus. Prometheus
Quaest. Conv. Plutarch. Quaestiones Convivales
Rep. Plato. Republic
Retr. Augustine. Retractationes
Schol. In Hom. Odyss. Scholium on the Odyssey. Dindorf
Schol. In Phaedr. Scholia on the Phaedrus. Greene
Schol. In Soph. Scholia on Sophocles. Elmsley
Soph. El. Sophocles. Electra
Speusip. Speusippus
Stob. Stobaeus. Anthologium (Florilegium)
Syrian In Met. Syrian. Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics
Theophr. Met. Theophrastus. Metaphysics
Tusc. Disput. Cicero. Tusculanae Disputationes
VH Aelian. Varia Historia
VP Porphyry. Life of Pythagoras or Iamblichus. Pythagorean Life
Introduction
According to Kahn 1974: 163, new theories of Pythagoreanism are not necessary
in our present day and age.
The history of criticism is littered with different and incompatible interpreta-
tions, to the point that Kahn suggests that, instead of another thesis on Pythagor-
eanism, it would be preferable to assess traditions with the aim of producing a
good historiographical presentation. ¹ This almost fourty-year-old observation by
Kahn directs the interpreter towards a fundamentally historiographical rather
than philological brand of work, that is, one neither exclusively devoted to the
exegesis of sources such as Philolaus, Archytas or even of one of the Hellenistic
Lives nor even to the theoretical approach of one of the themes that received spe-
cific contributions from Pythagoreanism, such as mathematics, cosmology, pol-
itics or the theory of the soul. Instead, this monograph sets out to reconstruct the
way in which the tradition established Pythagoreanism’s image.
This is not to suggest that a historiographical presentation does not have at
its base a hermeneutical or theoretical pre-comprehension of Pythagorean phi-
losophy, rooted in the sources of Pythagoreanism. However, the choice of histor-
iography has at least two indisputable advantages. The first concerns the neces-
sarily critical and, to some extent, relativistic, stance implied by historiographi-
cal work. This attitude is well expressed by Luciano Canfora:
It’s about one being aware of the constant and consubstantial relativity of the historian’s
work. Depending on the distance of the event handled, historians provide a profile and
show different faces every time: all actually, somehow, true and often complementary be-
tween themselves: none exhaustive, as it wouldn’t be exhaustive the mechanical sum of
them all either.²
1 The opportunity to return to Kahn’s thesis was suggested by Casertano, who referred to it in his
latest book on the Presocratics (Casertano 2009: 56). Cf. Kahn 1974: 163 n6: “It’s hard enough to
satisfy minimal standards of historical rigor in discussing the Pythagoreans, without introducing
arbitrary guesswork of this sort where no two students can come to the same conclusion on the
basis of the same evidence. In fact, the direct testimony for Pythagorean doctrines is all too
abundant. The task for a serious scholarship is not to enrich these data by inventing new
theories or unattested stages of development but to sift the evidence so as to determine which
items are most worthy (or least unworthy) of belief”. The context of Kahn’s own observation is
that of the criticism of the apriori in the reconstruction of Pythagoreanism from circumstantial
evidence by authors like Guthrie, as will be discussed below (1.5).
2 Canfora 2002: 8 – 9, orig.: “Si tratta di prendere nozione della costante and consustanziale
relatività del mestiere dello storico. A seconda della distanza dall’evento trattato, gli storici ne
danno um profilo e ne rileveranno delle facce volta a volta differenti: tutte in fondo in qualche
2 Introduction
The first advantage of the historiographical approach to Pythagoreanism is thus

the initial awareness that none of the accounts of Pythagoreanism are exhaustive
– in the words of Canfora –, and not even the mechanical sum of them all should
result exhaustive, thus somehow leaving the historians’ hands free for a historio-
graphical articulation that may present Pythagoreanism in its complex diversity.
Perhaps this is the only real problem with Riedweg’s excellent and recent mon-
ograph on Pythagoreanism (Riedweg 2002), which was rightly criticized in this
regard by Huffman 2008a: it approaches Pythagoreanism in general terms and
aligns itself with particular global interpretations of the movement. It is surely
right to note, of course, that this approach is an absolutely conscious one and
corresponds to the author’s critical choice; it is a choice that follows, in a
more mystical and religious sense, for example, Detienne 1962 and 1963, Burkert
1972 and Kingsley 1995 or, in a more political perspective, von Fritz 1940 and
Minar 1942. Riedweg does not forget to deal with the fundamental question at
issue: the presence of a history of interpretation which, already in antiquity –
witness the prologue of Iamblichus’ Pythagorean Life – wanted to gather totally
different (if not even contradictory) experiences and doctrines under the histor-
iographic category of Pythagoreanism. But that same approach ends up – in gen-
eral terms – becoming unfocused: it fails to take more precise position within the
several competing trends in the history of interpretation. Thus, to think about Py-
thagoreanism as a historiographical category means above all, to methodologi-
cally overcome the illusion that it is possible to reach the thing in itself, the
true history, and instead to consciously accept that each interpretation is neces-
sarily mediated by its author.
The second comparative advantage of taking a historiographical approach
rather than developing yet another interpretation of this philosophy concerns
one of the central problems that characterizes Pythagoreanism more than
other ancient philosophical movements: the drastically shifting terrain of the
criticism of the sources. It is critical to face this problem with renewed interpre-
tative and philological effort, coming to grips with the central issue of the expan-
sion of the tradition (consider Zeller) and the corresponding skeptical drift that
this usually imposes on scholars.
The advantage of a historiographical approach is to embrace Pythagorean-
ism in its entirety, by using its sources to attempt to understand it through –
and not in spite of – its complex articulation across more than a millennium
of the history of ancient philosophy. While this perspective was first introduced
modo vere, e spesso tra loro complementari: nessuna esaustiva, come esaustiva non sarebbe
neanche la meccanica somma di tutte queste facce”.
Introduction 3
by Burnet 1908, and then reaffirmed by Cornford 1922 and 1923 and Guthrie 1962,
it is possible to find an especially comprehensive approach, particularly in the
Italian historiographical tradition on Pythagoreanism, inaugurated by classic au-
thors like Rostagni 1922 and Mondolfo (in his revised and commented edition of
Zeller, 1938). The problem of the pre-Socratic sources (but not only them, see the
case of the traditio of Plato’s and Aristotle’s own texts in this sense), which is
based on the later generations of Pythagoreans, is particularly pressing. If it is
true – as Burkert 1972: 15 – 96 convincingly demonstrates – that the existence
of a Pythagorean philosophy depends largely on the invention of a Pythagorean
vulgata (heavily transfigured) by the Academics, and even if it is likely that
Aristotle’s “so-called Pythagoreans” are fundamentally philosophers like Philo-
laus, who constitute a second (or third) generation of the movement, then it is
certainly appropriate to ask what reliable information later sources could tell
us about the original “proto-Pythagoreanism”, the doctrines of Pythagoras and
his early disciples.³ However, it is also appropriate to ask whether one can say
anything at all without depending to some extent on the Lives of Pythagoras
(by Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry and Iamblichus), which were written almost a
thousand years after his death.
In this sense, the doubts of Zhmud are justified:
Why are the doctrinal differences so great in Pythagoreanism? First of all, because it had
not arisen as a philosophic school, and belonging to it had never been determined by fol-
lowing the sum of certain doctrines.⁴
One can also conclude, with Centrone 1996: 91, that ancient Pythagoreanism
would be an association based on following a particular lifestyle, following
the rules of a specific bíos, expressed by essentially eschatological akoúsmata.
However, this koinonía of life had already been recognized by ancient philos-
ophy (see Xenophanes and Heraclitus) as itself a way of doing philosophy and
was identified by a complex (though not always coherent, as will be shown) ser-
ies of characters and teachings that came to be called “Pythagoreans”. In other
words, the term “Pythagoreanism” was associated with a philosophy, not just
with a lifestyle.
3 The term “proto-Pythagoreanism” is introduced here as a new term because it is necessary to

distinguish between this first founding moment of Pythagoreanism, and the development of
Pythagoreanism during the fifth century BC, which is still “pre-Socratic”, but which is in writing
and corresponds to the era of the immediate sources of Plato and Aristotle. For the uses and
meaning of the analogous term “proto-philosophy”, see Boas 1948: 673 – 684.
4 Zhmud 1989: 289.
4 Introduction
It is the identification of the category of “Pythagoreanism” that particularly

attracts the attention of the historian of philosophy. For these reasons, therefore,
a historiographical discussion of the category of “Pythagoreanism” will be the
purpose of this monograph.
The effort to trace a comprehensive and inclusive profile of the conditions
and possibilities for setting up what is “Pythagorean”, within a philosophical
movement of such historical and theoretical breadth, ends up overlapping
with the intention to contribute methodologically to an historiographical review
of ancient philosophy in general. Understanding Pythagoreanism is crucial to
understanding the origins of philosophy and, more generally, of Western
thought. The relevant elements of the Pythagoreanism historiography turn it
into a privileged locus for an exercise that aims to reach a deeper historiograph-
ical understanding of ancient philosophy. This ideal will be a subtext of this
study.
A good historiographical presentation will thus show how the sensitive points
that contributed to the formation of so many different lectiones of Pythagorean-
ism emerge from the history of the interpetation of the movement. One has to
agree with Huffman’s claim that “Pythagoreanism is an area of study that is
full of controversial issues”.⁵ However, it is incorrect to conjecture that the multi-
faceted image of Pythagoreanism, as presented throughout the history of its tra-
dition, may simply derive from a series of missteps that would have transformed
an originally homogeneous image into a fractured set of doctrines and charac-
ters.
Burkert says this himself in the ‘Preface to the German edition’ of his funda-
mental work, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism:
If Pythagoras does not present himself to our minds as a sharply outlined figure, standing
in the bright light of history, this is not merely the result of accidents in the course of his-
torical transmission.⁶
Rather, the confused image of Pythagoras today is the result of invididually ac-
curate historiographical choices by generations of interpreters that built on an
understanding of what philosophy was in its origins (in genealogical perspec-
tive) and therefore reflect what philosophy is since its origins (in historical per-
spective). From the prologue to Iamblichus’ Pythagorean Life (Iambl. VP: 1), to
Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History, and the recent interpretations of
Kingsley 1995, it is possible to confront the presuppositions that led different au-
5 Huffman 2008b: 225.

6 Burkert 1972: ‘Preface to the German edition’.
Introduction 5
thors to favor one or another image and so conditioned their interpretations of

the “Pythagorean question” and the purported Pythagorean attempt to solve it
(Burkert 1972: I).
This work therefore seeks to follow the path of those interpretive choices,
checking wherever possible their assumptions and revealing their consequences
both for the interpretation of specific features of Pythagoreanism and also for the
very construction of Pythagoreanism as a category.
The First Chapter is therefore dedicated to an understanding of the guide-
lines that set the general framework of the modern history of the criticism of Py-
thagoreanism especially during the last two centuries. The image that will result
from it is one of an intricate series of controversies and rebuttals, alternating be-
tween skepticism and trust in the sources. (This alternation is characteristic of
the critical adopted during this period to the entire ancient philosophical tradi-
tion). The fundamental difficulty of studying Pythagoreanism, which emerges in
examining the history of interpretation, will show the importance of adopting a
careful methodology. A successful historiographical approach must consciously
allow us to describe the category of Pythagoreanism as constituted by an irredu-
cible diversity.
The Second Chapter intends to solve the above difficulties by exploring the
different modes of the definition of Pythagoreanism as a historiographical cate-
gory. By defining two dimensions, one synchronic and the other diachronic, it is
possible to provide criteria of identification for the Pythagorean community,
which would otherwise be incommensurable and heterogeneous. Even if one re-
mains aware that the hermeneutic puzzle about the traditions of Pythagoreanism
will always remain unfinished, some progress can be made by tracing a path
through the two themes that most decidedly contributed to the historical defini-
tion of the category of Pythagoreanism: metempsýchōsis and mathematics. The
intention of this analysis will be, on the one hand, to examine the possibility
of attributing the origin of the two themes to proto-Pythagoreanism and Pytha-
goreanism in the fifth century BC, and on the other, to signal how these themes
contributed to the categorization of Pythagoreanism in the history of the tradi-
tion.
The Third Chapter, therefore, will examine the traditions about the immortal-
ity of the soul and its transmigration. The analysis will consider pre-Socratic,
Platonic and Aristotelian evidence as well as other types of ancient sources, in-
cluding Herodotus, the Orphic literature, recent archaeological evidence and the
tradition of tales recounting voyages into the afterlife. The Pythagorean tradition
will be found to lie in an intermediate position between the Orphic views of im-
mortality and the reworking of these views by philosophers of the fifth and
fourth centuries BC, particularly Plato. The most solid evidence for the existence
6 Introduction
of a proto-Pythagorean theory of the immortality of the soul will be found in Ar-

istotle’s reference to Pythagorean myths.
The Fourth Chapter begins by showing that mathematics and an interest in
numbers have been commonly assigned as fundamental characteristics of Pytha-
gorean philosophy, and submit such traditions to a historiographical review. As
in the third chapter, the analysis of Aristotle’s testimony will be crucial. His at-
tribution to the Pythagoreans of the thesis that “all is number” will be recog-
nized as simultaneously the source of mathematics for the ancient Pythagoreans
as well as a testimony to the extensive, and apparently decisive, Academic re-
working of Pythagorean doctrines. However, Aristotle will demonstrate some in-
dependence of the Pythagoreans from the Academics, mainly due to his access to
the independent pre-Socratic sources of the cryptically-named “so-called Pytha-
goreans”. I will show that these sources correspond mainly to Philolaus’ frag-
ments. The “Philolaic question” will be addressed by the comparative analysis
of a famous page of the Metaphysics A, a few pages of the Philebus, and surviv-
ing fragments of Philolaus’ own book. This analysis will both confirm the possi-
bility of attributing a numerical theory, if not to proto-Pythagoreanism, at least to
the Pythagoreanism of the fifth century BC, and will also illustrate the influence
of the nearly ubiquitous Academic mediation on the categorization of Pythagor-
ean philosophy.
1 History of criticism: from Zeller to Kingsley
In the labyrinthine confusion of the tradition of the Pythagorean wisdom and society that
largely has been transmitted by later and naive writers and compilers, like hidden by a sa-
cred darkness, the fragments of Philolaus were always a sparkling point to me.⁷
Thus begins Boeckh in 1819, the work that marks the prehistory of modern criti-
cism of Pythagoreanism. A highly significant incipit, especially when considered
in the perspective of the following two centuries of interpretation that trace the
winding route of the history of the modern tradition of Pythagoreanism. It is a
beginning that reveals precisely two major loci of hermeneutic criticism: on
the one hand, the expression labyrinthischen Gewirre unmistakably captures
the common view of the difficulty of assimilating the Pythagorean literature;
on the other hand, the immediate individuation of a lichter Punkt, a ‘shining
point’ in some part of this literature, often an author or a specific theme, that
illuminates the darkness of the historiographic labyrinth: a thread of Ariadne,
which allows one to get out of the “confusion” with which the historian of Pytha-
goreanism is traditionally forced to confront.
The perception of that same difficulty is not unique to modern criticism. The
beginning of Iamblichus’s Pythagorean Life appeals to the gods, asking for assis-
tance in the difficult task of overcoming two obstacles to the development of his
historical biography: on the one hand, the strangeness and obscurity of the doc-
trines of the symbols, on the other, the number of spurious and perhaps even
intentionally misleading writings about Pythagorean philosophy that were in cir-
culation:
At the beginning of all philosophy, it is the custom of the wise to appeal to a god; this also
goes even more for the philosophy, it seems, that takes precisely the name of the divine
Pythagoras. This philosophy was indeed granted by the gods from the beginning and it’s
impossible to understand it if not with their help. Moreover, its beauty and its grandeur ex-
ceed human capabilities, so it is impossible to embrace it immediately and with just one
view. Therefore, only if a benign god guide us it will be possible to approach it slowly
and gradually to take over some part of it. For all these reasons, after having invoked
the gods as our guides and committed ourselves and our discourse to them, we will follow
them wherever they want to lead us. We should not give importance to the fact that this
school of thought has for some time been abandoned, or the strangeness of the doctrines
7 Boeckh 1819: 3, orig.: “In dem labyrinthischen Gewirre der Überlieferungen über die Py-
thagorische Weisheit und Pythagorische Gesellschaft, welche grossentheils durch späte und
urtheilslose Schriftsteller und Zusammenträger wie in heiliges Dunkel gehüllt zu uns herüber-
gekommen sind, haben des Philolaos Bruchstücke sich mir immer als ein lichter Punkt darge-
stellt”.
8 1 History of criticism: from Zeller to Kingsley
and obscurity of the symbols in which it is involved, nor the many false and apocryphal
writings that cast shadows upon it, nor the many difficulties that make access to it so hard.⁸
A sense of panic always seems to follow the historian’s encounter with labyrin-
thine Pythagorean doctrine. Always accompanying it is an immediate attempt to
escape from the maze, to find order in chaos, to settle on a reference point which
allows for the historiographical discourse to achieve some hermeneutic stability.
The two centuries that have followed the inaugural work of Boeckh on Phi-
lolaus constitute the main object of the following pages.⁹ My intention is to mon-
itor the course – not always calm and reasonable – of criticism, knowing in ad-
vance that this history will bring every fact and every witness into the discus-
sion, except perhaps the question of the very existence of the “so-called Pytha-
goreans”: “In the scholarly controversy that followed scarcely a single fact re-
mained undisputed, save that in Plato’s day and then later, in the first century
B.C., there were Pythagóreioi”.¹⁰
We will note, though, signs of continuity in a lectio of Pythagoreanism that
will deliver it to history as a particular, complex and difficult-to-interpret move-
ment within the panorama of “normal” studies (in the Kuhnian sense) of pre-
Socratic philosophy.
Obviously, the modern history of Pythagorean criticism shares its starting
point with the historical criticism of ancient Greek philosophy in general. In
this case, the precursor is certainly Zeller 1855, who in his Die Philosophie der
Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung lays the foundations for the modern
historiography of ancient philosophy.
1.1 Zeller: the skepticism of the beginnings
Significantly, the first page of Zeller’s chapter devoted to Pythagoreanism follows

the previously cited texts of Iamblichus and Boeckh, pointing to a particular dif-
ficulty for the study of Pythagoreanism – the mixture of fables and poetry that
risk concealing the philosophical doctrine:
8 Iambl. VP: 1.
9 It should be noted that most scholars (Thesleff 1961: 31; De Vogel 1966: 8; Burkert 1972: 2;
Centrone 1996: 193) do not consider the work of Boeckh 1819 to be the starting point of the
history of Pythagorean criticism. They prefer to begin more traditionally with the work of Zeller
1855 (citations to this work will be made from the Italian edition, complemented and annotated
by Mondolfo, in 1938).
10 Burkert 1972: 2.
1.1 Zeller: the skepticism of the beginnings 9
Among all the philosophical schools of which we are aware there is none whose history has
not been usually involved and almost obscured by fables and poetry, and whose doctrine
has not been merged into the tradition with a huge amount of later elements, as was that of
the Pythagoreans.¹¹
Zeller faces the problem without stalling, immediately wondering about the very
possibility of a philosophical Pythagorean system: “one could raise the question
whether it is appropriate to speak of a Pythagorean system in general as a scien-
tific and historical complex”.¹²
The problem is potentially paralyzing, because it questions the very possibil-
ity of approaching Pythagoreanism as the proper subject of a History of Philoso-
phy. The risk, according to Zeller, is that, deep down, Pythagoreanism is nothing
but a jungle of strange rituals and myths, without any relevance to philosophy.
Luckily, Zeller’s answer is positive: “everything that is conveyed to us with re-
spect to the Pythagorean philosophy, despite all the divergences in details,
still coincides in its basic features”.¹³ That is, there is something philosophical
in Pythagoreanism that can be saved for future systematization.
To accomplish this salvation in principio of Pythagoreanism, however, Zeller
historiographically must operate in a decidedly developmental and positivist
fashion, applying, with the surgical precision of the nineteenth century German
scholar, a rigid historicist scheme to the movement. For this scheme to work, Zel-
ler needs to create various hermeneutical gaps, multiple controlled and accu-
rately and clearly marked fractures. In a special way, one can see within the Zel-
lerian strategy of saving Pythagoreanism, the operation of three fractures: a) the
fracture between (1) the majority of the sources on Pythagoreanism, most of
whom are late and some of whom are Neopythagoreans, and (2) the origins of
Pythagorean philosophy on the other; b) the fracture between (1) philosophical
and scientific doctrines and (2) other forms of mythic-religious expressions; c)
the fracture between Greek and Eastern culture, so that Pythagoreanism may
be taken to be part of a genuinely Greek movement.
Thus, to solve the question of the sources, Zeller elaborates his famous theo-
ry of the expansion of tradition. Over time, the sources on Pythagoreanism in-
11 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 288, orig.: “Fra tutte le scuole filosofiche che noi conosciamo non
ve n’è alcuna, la cui storia non sia stata tanto spesso avvolta e quasi coperta di favole e poesie, e
la cui dottrina sia stata mescolata nella tradizione con una tal massa di elementi posteriori,
quanto quella dei Pitagorici”.
12 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 597, orig.: “Si potrebbe sollevare la questione se sia il caso di
parlare in genere del sistema pitagorico come di un complesso scientifico e storico”.
13 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 599, orig.: “Tutto ciò che ci è riferito della filosofia pitagorica, pur
fra tutte le divergenze di determinazioni subordinate, coincide tuttavia nei tratti fondamentali”.
creased rather than decreasing, although we would have expected the opposite
to occur:
Thus, the tradition concerning Pythagoreanism and its founder can tell us more the further
it is located in time from the historical facts, and on the contrary it is in the same propor-
tion much more silent as we move chronologically closer to its object.¹⁴
Zeller thus concludes that “the alleged Pythagorean doctrine that is not received
through the oldest testimonies is Neopythagorean”.¹⁵ That is, by using a some-
what circular argument and refusing to distinguish more carefully amongst ma-
terials within the late Pythagorean literature, Zeller intends to establish what is
Pythagorean solely on the testimonies he considers the oldest ones. Among
them, Zeller will privilege Aristotle and the fragments of Philolaus that, in the
wake of Boeckh, he considers collectively as authentic.¹⁶
Given Zeller’s methodology, the most relevant material for the history of Py-
thagoreanism are the testimonia that make it resemble pre-Socratic systems and
treats it as pursuing natural philosophy:
The object of Pythagorean science, based on what has been said so far, ends up being the
same as what was studied by every other system of pre-Socratic philosophy, that is, the nat-
ural phenomena and their principles.¹⁷
Based on these thematic criteria, Zeller circularly argues that the Aristotelian and
Philolaic testimonia are most valid for a history of the earliest phase of Pythagor-
eanism. Excluding parti pris the “mythical doctrines” attributed to Pythagorean-
14 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 299, orig.: “Cosí dunque la tradizione riguardante il Pitagorismo ed
il suo fondatore ci sa dire tanto di più quanto più si trovi lontana nel tempo dai relativi fatti
storici, e per contro essa è nella stessa proporzione tanto più taciturna a misura che ci avvici-
niamo cronologicamente al suo oggetto medesimo”.
15 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 300, orig.: “la pretesa dottrina pitagorica, che non è conosciuta dai
testimoni più antichi, è neopitagorica”.
16 See extensive discussion at footnote 2 on p. 304. On that note, however (p. 307), Zeller stands
apart from Boeckh regarding the authenticity of the fragment on the soul-world (44 B 21 DK), for
considering it strange to Philolaus a theory of the soul divided into several parts, such as that
expressed in the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition. Burkert 1972: 242– 243 and Huffman 1993: 343
will concur with him, afterwards. See Cornelli 2002 for a more extensive discussion of the
Zellerian theory of the expanding of the tradition.
17 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 585, orig.: “L’oggetto della scienza pitagorica, in base a tutto ciò
che si è detto fin qui, risulta quel medesimo di cui si occupavano tutti gli altri sistemi della
filosofia presocratica, vale a dire i fenomeni naturali e i loro principi”.
ism, Zeller cannot but declare his wholehearted agreement with Aristotle’s judg-
ment on the Pythagoreans:
There cannot be taken into account here the mythical doctrines of the transmigration of the
souls and the vision of life founded on this: these are religious dogmas, which, moreover,
were not exclusive to the Pythagorean school, and not scientific propositions. For what con-
cerns the Pythagorean philosophy, I can only agree with the opinion of Aristotle that it was
devoted entirely to natural research.¹⁸
More specifically, if one cannot verify precisely how much of fifth century BC Py-
thagoreanism (Philolaus, Archytas) can be referred to Pythagoras himself, Zeller
suggests that the main doctrines must nevertheless derive directly from him: in
primis, the doctrine that “all is number”, “which is the most general distinctive
characteristic of Pythagorean philosophy” and which can be summarized in the
statement that “number is the essence of all things, that is, everything in its es-
sence, is a number”.¹⁹ Likewise, the doctrines of harmony, the central fire and
the theory of the spheres should be attributed to Pythagoras: all of them present
in fragments of Philolaus, which – as we have seen – were deemed authentic by
Zeller.
In the same vein, despite his knowledge of both ancient testimonia and con-
temporary German Oriental studies that connect Greek philosophy in general,
and Pythagoreanism in particular, with the traditions of Egyptian, Persian and
Indian thought, Zeller nevertheless entitles his chapter devoted to this theme
‘Against the Eastern Origin’. He immediately declares that an Oriental origin of
the doctrines is improbable²⁰ and instead accepts a Greek origin and declares
that it is possible to “understand it thoroughly on the basis of its own character-
istics and on the conditions of the culture of the Greek people in the sixth cen-
tury BC”.²¹ Pythagoreanism will therefore be understood as part of a larger move-
ment of religious and moral reform, to which such figures as Epimenides, the
18 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 585 – 587, orig.: “Non possono essere qui prese in considerazione le
dottrine mitiche della transmigrazione delle anime e della visione della vita fondata sopra di
essa: questi sono dogmi religiosi, che oltre tutto non eran limitati alla scuola pitagorica, e non
sono proposizioni scientifiche. Per ciò che riguarda la filosofia pitagorica, io posso soltanto
associarmi al giudizio di Aristotele, che essa sia stata consacrata tutta quanta alla ricerca
naturale”.
19 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 435, orig.: “che constituisce il carattere differenziale più generale
della filosofia pitagórica” and “il numero sia l’essenza di tutte le cose, ossia che tutto di sua
essenza sia numero”.
20 Cf. Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 602– 606.,
21 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 607, orig.: “comprender[lo] perfettamente sulla base delle ca-
ratteristiche proprie e delle condizioni di cultura del popolo greco nel VI secolo a. C.”.
gnomic poets, and the Seven Sages belong, even though it rises above these oth-
ers by “its multi-faceted nature and power with which Pythagoras embraced
within himself the whole substance of the culture of his time, the religious,
the ethical-political, and the scientific element”.²²
Zeller’s effort to separate Pythagoreanism from possibly dangerous relation-
ships with the East leads him to derive Pythagorean mathematics from Anax-
imander: “one could hardly be introduced to mathematical studies at that
time by anyone else”,²³ as well as as to deny any influence of native Italian peo-
ples, prior to the Doric colonization, whom without any delicacy he calls “barbar-
ians”.²⁴ There fits into this same project the insistence on the deep relationship
of Magna Graecia with what Zeller calls the “Dorian strain of character”, which
was manifested by the institutions of the Doric Achaean cities that were the
stages for Pythagoras’ activities.²⁵ Zeller lists the following as some examples
of this culture: aristocratic politics, ethical music, enigmatic wisdom, female par-
ticipation in education and society, strong moral doctrine based on moderation
and the ultimate subordination of individuals to the whole, respect for parents,
authority and old age.²⁶ With a markedly Hegelian historiographical agenda like
this (see, in this sense, Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy), the conclu-
sion could not be other than that of a circular and a posteriori argument for
Greek (and Pythagorean) supremacy: the proof of the superiority of the character
of the people of Magna Graecia is that there arose philosophy: “the land that phi-
losophy found for itself in the colonies of Magna Graecia were so favorable. The
primacy it would reach is proof of that”.²⁷ It is a leitmotif of the entire history of
22 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 607, orig.: “poliedricità e la potenza, con cui esso ha abbracciato
entro di sè tutta quanta la sostanza della cultura del suo tempo, l’elemento religioso, quello
etico-politico, e quello scientifico”.
23 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 609, orig.: “agli studi matematici, difficilmente poteva a quel
tempo essere introdotto da qualcun altro”.
24 Cf. Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 610 – 611. And yet, Mondolfo, in his notes on Zeller, notes the
figure of Mamercus and a possible center of mathematical culture in Italy existing prior to
Pythagoras (Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 359).
25 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 607.
26 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 608 – 609. The first formulation of this distinction was by Boeckh,
which distinguished between the Ionian Sinnlichkeit, which would mirror the philosophical
materialism, and the Doric Volk, which would mirror the search for order (Boeckh 1819: 39 – 42).
Moreover, it cannot be forgotten that Boeckh was a disciple of Schleiermacher, who had first
postulated this model of ethnic division of philosophy in various geopolitical trends, and evo-
lutionary forms, in his 1812 lectures posthumously published under the title Ethik 1812/3
(Schleiermacher 1990).
27 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 611, orig.: “tanto più favorevole era il terreno che la filosofia trovò
per sè nelle colonie della Magna Grecia. Il fiore al quale essa vi potè pervenire ne è la prova”.
philosophical criticism that one always gets the impression that the historian
finds in the studied classic author the picture of himself or of his philosophilcal
preferences. This is as valid for Zeller as it is for Zhmud, as Centrone has recently
noted:
One gets the impression that, by a happy coincidence, the image of Pythagoras reconstruct-
ed by Zhmud cleansed as far as possible of the religious components and restored to phil-
osophical and scientific dignity, is also the one he prefers.²⁸
The privilege granted by Zeller to the Aristotelian lectio of the Pythagoreans be-
came a predominant historiographical trópos ever since, on definining Pythagor-
ean philosophy through the thesis that “all is a number”.²⁹ Likewise, both the
clear rift between old Pythagoreanism and Neopythagoreanism and a nearly uni-
versal contempt for the political dimension of the Pythagorean koinōnía have de-
cidedly influenced later studies.
However, Nietzsche’s 1872 Basel lectures on the pre-Platonic philosophers
are decided examples of his friend Zeller’s initial skepticism about the philo-
sophical relevance of Pythagoras himself. Nietzsche defends the following thesis
in his lecture on Pythagoras:
What is called Pythagorean philosophy is something much newer, which can be placed
only in the second half of the fifth century [BC]. Therefore, it has nothing to do with the
older philosophers, since he [Pythagoras] was not a philosopher but something else. Strict-
ly speaking, one could exclude him from a more ancient history of philosophy. However, he
produced a kind of philosophical life: and that the Greeks owe him. This image exerts a
remarkable influence, not on philosophy but on philosophers (Parmenides, Empedocles).
Only on these terms one should be talking about him.³⁰
The very possibility of speaking of Pythagoras within the history of philosophy is

put into serious doubt. Rather, his contribution to philosophy is minimized in
terms of a vague talk of influence on a general philosophical way of life. Conse-
quently, Nietzsche’s position reveals a fairly radical skepticism.³¹
28 Centrone 1999: 426, orig.: “Si ha l’impressione che, per felice coincidenza, l’immagine di
Pitagora ricostruita da Zhmud, depurata il più possibile dalle componenti religiose e restituita a
dignità filosofico-scientifica, sia anche quella che egli predilige”.
29 At least until the studies of Zhmud 1989: 272 ff., 1997: 261 ff., as will be seen in more detail in
chapter four.
30 Nietzsche 1994: 39 – 40.
31 Bechtle 2003 titles, for an unprecedented handbook job, his chapter on Pythagoras with the
question ‘Pitágoras Philosophus?’.
1.2 Diels: a Zellerian collection
Diels organizes his selection of fragments and testimonies on the Vorsokratiker

on the Aristotelian-Zellerian premise that Pythagoreans must speak of numbers
(Diels 1903; Diels-Kranz 1951):
It was just this criterion which H. Diels used for selecting representatives of the Pythagor-
ean school in his edition of the fragments of the presocratics. The main source (but not the
only one) he had relied on was the well-known catalogue of Pythagoreans found in Iambli-
chus (Vit. Pyth. 267). Diels believed that this catalogue went back to the Peripatetic Aristox-
enus.³²
The introduction to his chapter on Pythagoras, clearly demonstrates his depend-

ence on Zeller:
Before the time of Philolaus there was no writing of Pythagoras and there was only an oral
tradition of the same school, therefore there was no safe doxography. […] See the testimo-
nies of Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Ion on Pythagoras in the correspondence
of the authors themselves.³³
The influence of Vorsokratiker on all studies of Pythagoreanism is unquestiona-

ble.³⁴ De Vogel 1964: 9 rightly shows that Diels collects from the later tradition
about Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans only certain types of material: (a)
what is directly related to Aristoxenus and his Pythagorikai apopháseis (D), (b)
the akoúsmata and sýmbola (C), (c) the Aristotelian and Peripatetic school testi-
monies (B) and (d) some limited reference to the Pythagoreans of the Attic Mid-
dle Comedy (E). In so doing, Diels excludes virtually every reference to Pythago-
ras’ political activities. Even the revision of the collection made by Kranz 1951 for
the sixth edition of that work maintains Diels’ initial consideration: Kranz (DK
14 A 8a) decides indeed to insert, in the chapter on Pythagoras, Porphyry’s tes-
32 Zhmud 1989: 273.

33 Diels 1903: 22, orig.: “Da es keine Schriften des Pythagoras gab und überhaupt vor Philolaos’
Zeit nur mündliche Tradition der eigentlichen Schule bestand, so gibt es hier keine Doxographie.
[…] Die Zeugnisse des Xenophanes [11 B7], Heraklit [12 B40.129(?)], Empedokles [21 B129], Ion [25
B4(?)] über P. s. bei diesen!” In the VI revised edition, 1951, Kranz will qualify as entscheidend
und wichtig, important and decisive, die Zeugnisse of other pre-Socratics above mentioned. It
should also be noted that – contrary to the assertions in the introductory note above – Diels
ends up at the end arbitrarily inserting two doxographic testimonies (A 20 and 21) about the
discovery of the identity of the stars “Espero” and “Lucifero” and about calling tó hólon as
kósmos. See for this Burkert 1972: 77, 307.
34 For an exhaustive review of the development process of the collection, see Calogero 1941.
1.3 Rohde: the reaction to skepticism 15
timony (VP: 18 – 19) about the Pythagoras’ political discourses at Croton. Howev-
er, De Vogel 1964: 9 notes, he “hardly took it seriously”, as demonstrated by his
decision to exclude the political speeches in Iamblichus (VP: 37– 57) and the
parallel ones of Pompeius Trogus. The few witnesses to politics that Diels-
Kranz collect – 14 A13 on the marriage of Pythagoras, 14 A16 on the crisis of
the Pythagorean community (Iambl. VP: 248 – 257) – are included in the
‘Leben’ section. On the other hand, Kranz did not change anything in the chapter
on the ‘Pythagoreische Schule’ (58). The material he cites on Pythagoras’s life is
carefully kept quite apart from the discussion of his philosophy, suggesting a lec-
tio that wants to separate the contents of this political material from the authen-
tic Pythagorean philosophy.³⁵
Some of the arbitrary choices of Diels-Kranz will be a recurrent object of the
researches that will review this collection throughout the twentieth century.³⁶
1.3 Rohde: the reaction to skepticism
The first reaction to Zeller’s frank skepticism about the sources on the Pythagor-
eans appeared soon afterwards in two articles by Rhode, published in the second
half of the nineteenth century, in Rheinisches Museum, on the sources of Iambli-
chus’ Pythagorean Life (Rohde 1871; 1872). Rohde’s thorough analysis shows that
Iamblichus’ text is based not on the parallel Life of Porphyry, as was commonly
believed (Porphyrius 1884: x), but on sources dating from the first and second
centuries AD, before Porphyry’s life – especially Nicomachus and Apollonius.
Rohde tries to base this “mechanical theory of the two sources” (Burkert 1972:
100) on the idea that both Porphyry and Iamblichus wrote their texts simply
by cutting and pasting, with consequent infelicities in style. His confidence in
this theory leads him to ridicule the “divine Iamblichus” for his “poverty of
35 It is noteworthy, however, that in a 1890 article, Diels had suggested attributing to Py-
thagoras himself some Pythagorean texts from the Hellenistic period, among them especially the
Kopídes, a rhetorical writing reconstructed from a reference to Heraclitus, and the Paideutikón,
Politikón, Physikón, actually written in the second century BC, in the Ionic dialect, in order to
make them appear older than the Doric Perì Phýsios, by Philolaus. For the texts, see Thesleff’s
collection (1965).
36 Philip 1966: 38 is categorically fatalistic to say that the part dedicated to Pythagoreanism is
certainly the worst of the collection: “the fragments of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans are,
perhaps inevitably, the least satisfactory part of the Vorsokratiker”. Even Timpanaro Cardini’s
collection (1958 – 1962) does not escape Philip’s mordacious tone: “Miss Cardini is as ready as
Iamblichus to baptize as a Pythagorean anyone having the remotest connection with that
‘brotherhood’”.
mind and sluggish soul” (Rohde 1872: 60). In his second article (1872), he again
accuses Iamblichus:
To demonstrate significant independence in such a shameful level, to the point of prepar-

ing a multicolored mix set up with clippings from his readings, while the chaotic sequence
and the improvised connective passages would be his own contribution to the work.³⁷
Notwithstanding Rohde’s repeated criticisms about the ruthless arbitrariness of

Iamblichus’ methodology, Rohde’s work paved the way for a long Quellenfor-
schung of Iamblichus’ work. Bertermann’s 1913 and Deubner’s 1937 editions of
Pythagorean Life (depend largely on Rohde’s research as well as the studies of
Corrsen 1912, Lévy 1926 and Frank 1923.³⁸ Scholars who followed this path
could then detect textual references to authors of the fourth century BC, such
as Aristoxenus, Dicaearchus, Heraclides Ponticus and Timaeus.³⁹ Among them,
we surely should first consider Delatte, who first in his work on Pythagorean lit-
erature (1915), and later in his work on Diogenes Laertius’ Life of Pythagoras
(1922b), was inspired by Rohde’s methodology to collect the diverse sources of
these works in a broad chronological and interdisciplinary spectrum. Von Fritz’s
work (1940) on Pythagorean politics relies on the same methodological approach
by seeking to identify materials that were recognizable in Aristoxenus, Timaeus
and Dicaearchus.
Therefore, there began to appear in modern critical literature authors’ names
almost as old as Aristole’s as benchmarks for studies of the birth of Pythagorean-
ism. It should be noted, in this sense, that the Doxographi Graeci, by Diels 1879,
already indicated Theophrastus as the ultimate source of extensive, traditional
doxographic material. Thus, we will give a central role from here onwards to
37 Rohde 1872: 48, orig.: “Hier zeigt Jamblich eine bei einem so elenden Stoppler schon be-
merkenswerthe Selbständigkeit, indem er meist aus Brocken seiner Lektüre ein buntes Allerlei
herstellt, an dem wenigstens die unruhige Unordnung der Reihenfolge und die das Einzelne
nothdürftig verknüpfenden Betrachtungen sein eigenes Werk sind”.
38 It is significant to note that only four years before the publication of Rohde’s first article, on
the same Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Friedrich Nietzsche had published an article (1868)
dedicated to the same theme of the sources of late biographies, this time in Diogenes Laertius.
Nietzsche identifies the same way Rohde soon will, in authors from the first century BC (Fa-
vorino and Diocles of Magnesia) the sources of scattered biographical information in Diogenes’
work. Thus, Rohde’s work should be understood, alongside others distinguished colleagues, as
part of a broad effort to validate the later sources through the study of the Geschichte of these
works.
39 See Burkert 1972: 4. For a criticism of the articulation of Rohde’s arguments in the two
articles cited, see Norden 1913 and later Philip 1959.
1.4 Burnet: the double teaching of acousmatics and mathematicians 17
the reconstruction of Pythagoreanism according to the tradition that Diels calls

the “ancient Peripatetic tradition” (58 B DK).
1.4 Burnet: the double teaching of acousmatics and

mathematicians
Burnet’s Early Greek Philosophy (1908) initiated a brilliant tradition of Anglo-
Saxon scholars devoted to studies on the origins of ancient philosophy while re-
maining in debt to Zeller’s inaugural lectio. In fact, Burnet developed his theory
on the assumptions that Pythagoras’ religious doctrine was separate from the
subsequent development of the movement, and that the political activities of
the Pythagorean koinoníai were unconnected with their scientific concerns.
These assumptions led Burnet to found his own lectio on the celebrated distinc-
tion within the Pythagorean movement between acousmatics and mathemati-
cians. This distinction, common throughout the history of interpretation, cap-
tures the difference between the interest of some in the traditional taboos of ar-
chaic religiosity (the akoúsmata and sýmbola) and the dedication of others to the
research into scientific principles, especially mathematical principles. This dis-
tinction is already present in the sources that mention the didaskalía dítton –
the double teaching of Pythagoras, such as Porphyry, and the distinction be-
tween Pythagóreioi and the Pythagoristaí (the latter are imitators of the former
and correspond to the acousmatics) in Iamblichus (Porph. VP: 37, Iambl. VP:
80).⁴⁰ It should be noted that although the subsequent references to this distinc-
tion tend to emphasize the gap between the two groups, the distinction does not
imply, (either in Burnet’s view or in the previously mentioned Lives), that there
was a definitive separation in early Pythagoreanism between the two tendencies.
In fact, Burnet identifies two points of contact between the two tendencies: a)
the complex figure of Pythagoras himself, who was at the origin of both didas-
kalíai (Burnet 1908: 107), b) the concept of kátharsis, ‘purification’, which con-
nects the religious and the scientific aspects, since science itself also becomes
an instrument of purification.
We have to take account of the religious Philosophy as revival here, chiefly
because it suggested the view that a philosophy was above all a way of life. Sci-
ence too was a sort of “purification”, a means of escape from the “wheel”. This is
the view expressed so strongly in Plato’s Phaedo, which was written under the
40 See for a discussion on the sources of the distinction between acousmatics and ma-
thematicians section 1.2.
influence of Pythagorean ideas.⁴¹ Therefore, it is a mistake to agree with the

somewhat summary accusation of De Vogel that “Burnet had no eye for the eth-
ical-religious character of the bíos founded by Pythagoras and for the essential
connection of this aspect with the so-called scientific principles”.⁴² Instead, it is
exactly through the concept of purification that this connection is affirmed and
understood in its theoretical depth, beyond the concrete historical reality of the
movement.⁴³
However, Burnet’s formally a priori approach to the question of the sources,
by which everything archaic is religious, while everything newer is scientific, is
certainly worthy of criticism. The original Pythagoreanism would be linked to
primitive modes of thought, easily detectable in the tradition of akoúsmata and
sýmbola:
It would be easy to multiply proofs of the close connexion between Pythagoreanism and
primitive modes of thought, but what has been said is really sufficient for our purpose.
The kinship of men and beasts, the abstinence from flesh, and the doctrine of transmigra-
tion all hang together and form a perfectly intelligible whole.⁴⁴
The turning point of the matter of the sources takes place, in Burnet, with the
mathematician Aristoxenus, who originated the distinction between the school’s
most enlightened group and the superstitious and – from here on – heretical parts
of Pythagoreanism (Burnet 1908). In Burnet’s own words:
in their time, the merely superstitious part of Pythagoreanism had been dropped, except by
some zealots whom the heads of the Society refused to acknowledge. That is why he rep-
resents Pythagoras himself in so different a light from both the older and the later tradi-
tions; it is because he gives us the view of the more enlightened sect of the Order. Those
who clung faithfully to the old practices were now regarded as heretics, and all manner
of theories were set on foot to account for their existence.⁴⁵
The most powerful method of purification is the pursuit of disinterested science,

and therefore, the human being who devotedly dedicates himself to it, that is, the
philosopher, will be able to free himself from the cycle of generation (Burnet
1908: 107). However, Burnet is well aware about the fact that the big question
41 Burnet 1908: 89.

42 Burnet 1964: 11.
43 Burnet cites 1908: 98 n3 and develops there the intuition of the unity between science and
religion by kátharsis which had already been made by Döring 1892.
44 Burnet 1908: 106.
45 Burnet 1908: 106.
1.5 Cornford and Guthrie: in search of unity between science and religion 19
is how much of that post-Aristoxenus vision is attributable to Pythagoras him-

self:
It would be rash to say that Pythagoras expressed himself exactly in this manner; but all
these ideas are genuinely Pythagorean, and it is only in some such way that we can bridge
the gulf which separates Pythagoras the man of science from Pythagoras the religious
teacher.⁴⁶
The gap that separates the two Pythagorases, the man of science and the reli-
gious teacher, is the core problem that has challenged historical interpretations
of Pythagoreanism ever since.
When Burnet asserts the need to bridge this gap, to find in Pythagoras the
origin of the two strands, he was in fact assuming their very existence. It is be-
cause there is a distance to be overcome between scientific and religious
thought, both in antiquity and today, that there is a problem. However, the as-
sumption needs to be proven. Thus, in the conclusion to his chapter on Pytha-
goreanism, Burnet admits to having reconstructed Pythagoras by having “simply
assigned to him those portions of the Pythagorean system which appear to be the
oldest”.⁴⁷ However, the definition of what is “the oldest” closely matches the en-
tire problem that has to be faced and cannot be succinctly solved with a positi-
vist chronology, as Burnet seems to wish.
Still, we must repeat: Burnet’s effort to hold together the various traditions
about Pythagoras is crucial to understanding the successive hermeneutical inter-
ventions in Pythagorean literature. From Cornford to Guthrie, these interventions
will slowly draw the path of the composition of the diverse traditions of both the
figure of Pythagoras as well as the immediate development of the movement.
1.5 Cornford and Guthrie: in search of unity between science

and religion
In a two-part article published in Classical Quarterly (in 1922 and 1923), signifi-
cantly titled ‘Mysticism and Science in the Pythagorean Tradition’, Cornford ad-
dresses the issue of the correct approach to the relationship between religious
and scientific interests in Pythagoreanism. Cornford avoids reductionism and
the anachronisms of a positivistic methodology, two approaches that Burnet ap-
parently could not avoid. The two articles closely follow the historiographic per-
46 Burnet 1908: 107– 108.

47 Burnet 1908: 123.
spective of Cornford’s other work. In his first work on the complex relationships
between myth and history in Thucydides, Thucydides Mythistoricus (1907), Corn-
ford’s goal was to depart from the trends of modern history, which mostly fall
victim to the typical “modernist fallacy” by projecting Darwinian biology and
contemporary physics into the work of the Athenian historian.⁴⁸
With this theoretical background, Cornford faces the vexata quaestio of the
presence in the sixth and fifth centuries BC of two “different and radically op-
posed systems of thought elaborated within the Pythagorean School. They may
be called respectively the mystical system and the scientific”.⁴⁹ While the
other hermeneutic attempts of his time attempted to unite the two systems
into a coherent picture of the movement, Cornford recognizes that the two sys-
tems themselves are not clearly delineated. This confusion is already perceptible
in Aristotle’s works and needed to be unraveled. The solution proposed by Corn-
ford is to distinguish within Pythagoreanism two different and successive histor-
ical moments, whose turning point – in the early fifth century BC – was the Ele-
atic attack on the possibility of deriving the multiplicity of reality from a single
archḗ. Cornford summarizes his view as follows:
We can, in a word, distinguish between (1) the original sixth-century system of Pythagoras,
criticized by Parmenides – the mystical system, and (2) the fifth-century pluralism con-
structed to meet Parmenides’ objections, and criticized in turn by Zeno – the scientific sys-
tem, which may be called ‘Number-atomism’.⁵⁰
This division between mysticism and science in Pythagoreanism is only superfi-

cially identical with the separation between religion and science proposed by
Burnet. Indeed, Cornford immediately notes that Philolaus introduces a third
moment into Pythagoreanism, one which has connections with the early, mysti-
cal side, but which arises later:
There is also (3) the system of Philolaus, which belongs to the mystical side of the tradition,
and seeks to accommodate the Empedoclean theory of elements. This may, for our present
purpose, be neglected.⁵¹
The most significant point here is the subtle shift in perspective that Cornford
represents: identifying the challenge of Eleaticism as the source of the distinc-
48 For a broader analysis of this work, as well as Cornford’s historiographical position, see
Murari 2002.
49 Cornford 1922: 137.
50 Cornford 1922: 137.
51 Cornford 1922: 137.
1.5 Cornford and Guthrie: in search of unity between science and religion 21
tion between the two sides of Pythagoreanism eliminates the need for Burnet’s
postulate that religiousness preceded science. Indeed, when describing the mys-
tical side of the movement, Cornford says – that it is “not openly inconsistent”
with philosophy:
Any attempt to reconstruct the original founder of the system must, I would urge, be based
on the presupposition that his philosophy and cosmology were not openly inconsistent
with his religion.⁵²
Therefore, Cornford argues unlike the first Ionian phase of philosophy, in which
the religious element was superseded by an evolving science, in this second Ital-
ian moment the religious dimension of philosophical life is recovered and inte-
grated with science:
It is obvious that the Italian tradition in philosophy differs radically from the Ionian in re-
spect of its relation to religious belief. Unlike the Ionian, it begins, not with the elimination
of factors that had once had a religious significance, but actually with a re-construction of
the religious life. To Pythagoras, as all admit, the love of wisdom, philosophy, was a way of
life. Pythagoras was both a great religious reformer, the prophet of a society united by rev-
erence for his memory and the observance of a monastic rule, and also a man of command-
ing intellectual powers, eminent among the founders of mathematical science.⁵³
Thus, Pythagoras can be simultaneously understood as both a religious reformer

and a man of science. The contrast between these two sides came about only af-
terwards on the occasion of the Eleatic challenge. But even this distinction did
not come about in a well defined way, if the third Philolaic side that he himself
indicated (though did not discuss) is brought into view.
Raven 1948 understood well the novelty of Cornford’s position, asserting in
his Pythagoreans and Eleatics: “One of the reasons why Cornford’s reconstruc-
tion of early Pythagoreanism is so attractive is that is contrives to reconcile
the religious with the scientific motive”.⁵⁴
By closely following Cornford’s arguments and considering the coherent and
plausible image that results from them, Raven set about to the task of checking
whether Cornford reached the only possible conclusions. For the question is not
so much – according to Raven – whether the movement is coherent, but, rather,
how much this “tallies with all our available evidence” beginning with the Aris-
52 Cornford 1922: 138.

53 Cornford 1922: 138 – 139.
54 Raven 1948: 9.
totelian testimony, without which any attempt to build a historical discourse on

Pythagoreanism is, in his words, “a house built upon sand”.⁵⁵
This is exactly the reading suggested by Guthrie 1962, the last great scholar
belonging to the English tradition originating in Burnet. Guthrie refers directly to
Cornford’s cited studies (1922; 1923) and then to his disciple Raven 1948, to illus-
trate what he calls an “a priori method” of the pre-Socratic history of philosophy.
The method mainly consists putting aside the direct or indirect testimonies and
trying to imagine what such philosophers would likely or not have said, given
the historical circumstances in which they stood. Guthrie points out that such
a methodology requires presupposing a grasp of some theoretical concepts in
Greek philosophy:
It starts from the assumption that we possess a certain general familiarity with other con-
temporary schools and individual philosophers, and with the climate of thought in which
the Pythagoreans worked. This general knowledge of the evolution of Greek philosophy
gives one, it is claimed, the right to make judgments of the sort that the Pythagoreans,
let us say, before the time of Parmenides are likely to have held doctrine A, and that it
is impossible for them at that stage of thought to have already evolved doctrine B.⁵⁶
These assumptions lead to the postulation of two schools of philosophy: the Ion-
ian and the Italian.⁵⁷ All authors, in some way, will be theoretically positioned on
one side or the other. The method’s a priori nature is evident: perhaps that’s why,
even while sympathizing with it, Guthrie suggests “using it with extreme cau-
tion” (1962: 172). However this warning constitutes the extent of Guthrie’s con-
cern to control the obvious risk of circularity.⁵⁸
55 Raven 1948: 6. It is important to note that Cherniss 1977, by supporting Raven’s effort,
attempts to controversially diminish the impact of the division suggested by Cornford on the
scholars “outside of Cambridge”: “Raven was justified in feeling that the evidence does not
support Cornford’s interpretation, which incidentally has never been so widely accepted outside
of Cambridge as he appears to believe” (Cherniss 1977: 376).
56 Guthrie 1962: 172.
57 It is even the case of noting that this division goes back to the classic division between Ionic
and Italic philosophy in Diogenes Laertius (D. L. Vitae I. 13). The δύο ἀρχαί, the two beginnings
of philosophy, are identified by Diogenes Laertius, on the one hand in Anaximander as for the
Ionian strand, from which Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus will be part, and finally, So-
crates; on the other hand, in Pythagoras, the inventor of the term φιλοσοφία, for the Italic
strand, followed by his son Telauge, then Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Leucippus, Demo-
critus up to Epicurus (D. L. Vitae I. 13 – 14). For a more detailed discussion of the historiogra-
phical models of the origins of ancient philosophy, see Sassi 1994.
58 For a vehement critique of this methodological apriorism within the studies on Py-
thagoreanism, see Kahn 1974: 163 n6.
1.6 From Delatte to De Vogel: Pythagoreanism and politics 23
In discussing this methodological approach, whose stated intention is to un-

derstand pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism under penalty of failing to understanding
Plato, Guthrie states the unity of Pythagoreanism:
This pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism can to a large extent be regarded as a unit. We shall note
developments and differences as and when we can, but it would be unwise to hope that
these, in the fragmentary state of our knowledge, are sufficiently distinguishable chrono-
logically to allow the separate treatment of earlier and later phases.⁵⁹
Guthrie thus agrees with Cornford that a distinction should be defined within
pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism, solely in chronological terms. This preserves
some kind of theoretic-doctrinal unity of the movement, at least within its vari-
ous historical phases.
Scholars influenced by the great histories of philosophy of the twentieth cen-
tury were concerned to understand that same unity and seek to account for Py-
thagorean philosophy as a whole. At the same time, critical studies dedicated to
the study of particular areas and specific problems of the Quellenforschung of Py-
thagoreanism began to emerge – notibly studies on Pythagorean politics, on the
relations between Pythagoreanism and Plato and on the relations between the
Pythagoreans and the religious world around them. Unfortunately, one has to
say that after the Second World War, these two types of literature rarely show
awareness of one another: handbooks on the history of philosophy continue
still generally follow the Zellerian line, while monographs on Pythagoreanism re-
veal complexities unknown to the former.
1.6 From Delatte to De Vogel: Pythagoreanism and politics
Special attention has been dedicated to the political dimension of Pythagorean-

ism ever since Krische’s 1830 monograph asserted, peremptorily, that the mark of
Pythagorean societas was eminently political: “The scope of the Society was
purely political, not only to initially restore the failed power of the aristocrats,
but to enhance and amplify it”.⁶⁰
In the early twentieth century archaeological studies revealed the supremacy
of Pythagorean cities throughout Magna Graecia, which was confirmed by Kahr-
stedt’s study of the distribution throughout the region of coins minted by Croton,
59 Guthrie 1962: 147.

60 Krische 1830: 101, orig.: “Societatis scopus fuit mere politicus, ut lapsam optimatum po-
testatem non modo in pristinum restitueret, sed firmaret amplificaretque”.
especially after Sybaris’ defeat in 510 BC.⁶¹ Croton’s domination over the rest of
the Dorian city-colonies of Magna Graecia confirmed the extent of the Pythagor-
ean political influence: in fact, most of these coins have Pythagorean symbols.⁶²
And yet, as already mentioned, the first historiographical and philosophical
approaches to Pythagorean politics were strongly influenced by Zeller’s skepti-
cism, which, in turn, guided Diels’ Vorsokratiker collection. Consequently most
scholars considered the issue of Pythagorean politics simply accidental (Cen-
trone 1996: 196).
It is necessary to agree with Minar’s view that the relationship between phil-
osophical thought and political practice in the history of Pythagoreanism has
challenged the ingenuity of classicists (D. S. M. 1943: 79): this naivete would
tend – if left to its own fate – to lead to the rejection of the political connections
based on an a priori argument that a man like Pythagoras could not be involved
in this type of activity (Minar 1942: 15).
Therefore, the problem of Pythagorean political activity presents a multifac-
eted framework of issues: not only because of the complex relationships between
earlier and later sources, including the uncertain chronology of domination (and
defeat) of the Pythagoreans in Magna Graecia and the unclear influence of Py-
thagoras on these forms of Pythagoreanism, but also, perhaps mainly, because
of the theoretical difficulty of articulating the relationship between philosophy
and politics. Starting even with Aristotle, this relationship had begun to be
seen as somewhat inappropriate.
Delatte’s 1922a Essai sur la politique pythagoricienne is the fundamental
work on this topic. Delatte’s exhaustive study of the sources for Pythagorean pol-
itics led him to believe that the early Pythagoreans were an effective political
force in Croton, but he also refers to a later period, especially to the fourth cen-
tury BC, the century of Archytas and Aristoxenus, and evidence of the attempts
of these men to combine political activity with the main lines of Pythagorean
philosophical thought. Previously, Delatte argues, the goal of the Pythagorean
koinōníai was “inner peace” and they refrained from reformist action and serious
involvement in the political institutions of their cities: “Society wants only the
61 Kahrstedt 1918: 186. See also Seltman 1933, De Vogel 1957: 323 and May 1966.
62 See Seltman’s coins (1933: 76 – 80, 100, 118, 144) and May 1966: 157, 167. Especially coin n. 28
(Seltman 1933: 144), depicting a bearded man with the inscription PUTHAGORES, which could be
a portrait of Pythagoras himself, and as such has already been used by Guthrie 1962 for the cover
of the first volume of his History of Greek Philosophy. Philip 1966: 194 is, however, skeptical
about the possibility of the image depicting Pythagoras’ real face.
inner peace that will secure its own peace of mind and keep the existing insti-
tutions, of which it became the keeper”.⁶³
Moreover, even if it is true that the Pythagorean community was somehow
involved in political activity, it is not correct to infer that Pythagoras himself
was directly involved in such activities:
We can therefore conclude that the political system with aristocratic tendencies which, ac-
cording to Timaeus, marked the end of the history of Society, was not born of an impulse of
Pythagoras, and was in all likelihood even foreign to his reform plan.⁶⁴
Consequently, Delatte identifies the key element of the pro-democratic, anti-Py-

thagorean riots not as the result of the political compromise of the community as
such, with its conservative and aristocratic sense (rather, more appropriately
considered as a moral force), but rather from the attitudes of some individuals
who abused their prestige and ended up dragging it to the conflict in a reactive
movement to the attacks that followed, and therefore under the form of self-de-
fense (Delatte 1922a: 19 – 20).
Jaeger 1928, in turn, supports the Zellerian thesis that the political stance at-
tributed to the Pythagoreans was simply a projection of the ideal of a practical
life proposed by Aristoxenus and Dicearchus. Jaeger’s Pythagoras, in line with
Delatte, was an educator, who emphasized music and mathematics.
However, Von Fritz 1940 wonders whether we can even say that the ancient
Pythagorean community had political control over the cities of Magna Graecia.
Through an “austere investigation of the sources” (Tate 1942: 74), he argues
that Aristoxenus is the most reliable witness to the political system of the Pytha-
gorean communities, and Von Fritz skeptically concludes that:
Ancient tradition does not provide the slightest evidence for the existence of anything like a
real rule of the Pythagoreans in any of the cities of Southern Italy at any time.⁶⁵
Ultimately, Von Fritz’s position does not differ substantially from that of his pred-
ecessors: the Pythagoreans’ political commitment should not be treated as phil-
63 Delatte 1922a: 21, orig.: “la Société désire seulement la paix intérieure, qui lui assure sa
propre tranquillité, et le mantien des instituitions existantes, dont elle est devenue maîtresse”.
64 Delatte 1922a: 18, orig.: “On peut donc conclure que la politique à tendances aristocratiques
qui, selon Timée, caractérise la fin de l’historie de la Société, n’est pas née d’une impulsion de
Pythagore, et même que la politique était, selon toute vraisemblance, étrangère à son plan de
reformes”.
65 Von Fritz 1940: 95.
osophically important, but rather should be attributed to the personal choices,

perhaps religiously motivated, of a few isolated members of the koinōnía.
It is only Minar’s 1942 work dedicated to the politics of the early Pythagor-
eans that makes clear the dangers and historiographical presuppositions inher-
ent in separating Pythagorean philosophy from its political effects. In the preface
to this work, he describes the paradox of a philosophical movement simultane-
ously controlling the political sphere in which its work is interpreted:
That the Pythagorean Society exercised a political influence in the cities of southern Italy in
the sixth and the fifth centuries B.C. has long been a recognized fact. But the paradox of a
philosophical school being involved in political activity has brought a certain amount of
difficulty into the historical evaluation of the facts.⁶⁶
Minar acknowledges that several ancient authors explicitly claim that the Pytha-
goreans (and even Pythagoras himself) formally exercised government control in
Croton and other cities (Minar 1942: 16): Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, Iambli-
chus, and Cicero, among others.⁶⁷ Therefore, he opposes the argument of his
predecessors that political activity was an isolated activity of some Pythagor-
eans. Two considerations count against this argument: on one hand, the highly
centralized nature of the community makes isolated political activity unlikely, on
the other hand, the historical record suggests that the revolt was directed against
the Pythagorean community as a whole. Both traditions would make it improb-
able that political choice was limited to the marginal activity of a few members:
The highly centralized character of the Society, which von Fritz recognizes, makes it unlike-
ly that Pythagorean political activity was merely that of individual members; and the fact
that a revolt against the government in power was the same thing as an attack against the
Society, or at least involved such an attack as an integral part, strongly suggests that the
Pythagorean Society was recognized as the real ruler in Croton and most of the cities of
Magna Graecia.⁶⁸
Pythagoreanism, as a movement, ruled over many cities in Magna Graecia. It is

the job of modern historians, who are usually unaccustomed to such a close re-
lationship between philosophy and politics, to understand the dynamic unity of
the two dimensions of Pythagoreanism.
Minar’s attempt to link these two parts together is probably the least con-
vincing part of his reading. His solution is to give the doctrinal component of
66 Minar 1942: v.
67 D. L. Vitae VIII. 3; Porph. VP: 20, 21, 54; Iambl. VP: 30, 130, 249, 254; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. V. 4.10.
68 Minar 1942: 18.
the Pythagorean political philosophy a much lower importance than one would
expect (Minar 1942: 95 – 132). Rather than treat the Pythagorean political views as
a strict extension of their philosophy, Minar reduces Pythagoras and his move-
ment to a political society marked by some degree of opportunism and pragma-
tism.⁶⁹
It is no accident that many Italian scholars were interested in Pythagorean-
ism and especially its political dimensions: putting aside Capparelli’s chauvinis-
tic extremes (1941), several authors, starting with Rostagno 1922 and Mondolfo’s
revision of Zeller (1938), sought to link the mystical and scientific dimensions in
a complex historiographical framework in which the political dimension plays a
central role. The meaning of this tradition can be understood by the definition
that opens Ferrero’s classic work, Storia del Pitagorismo nel mondo Romano
(1955):
Pythagoreanism, as the facts attest, proved to be something larger than and different from
an abstract cultural phenomenon, a manifestation of a special religious-dogmatic purpose,
or even a merely intellectual movement. It was, if we are not mistaken, the expression of a
social and political reality connected to a permanent structure of the ancient world; it was
the characteristic expression of an organization of intellectuals which sought to respond to
the demands of a dominant group, of a political elite, which at first, as with theocracies,
identified itself and was identical with the intellectuals themselves.⁷⁰
The Italian appropriation of Pythagoreanism had its origins in Roman times. A

brief excursus on this tradition clearly shows the depth of the ethno-political
identification of Pythagoreanism with Italian culture.
By utilizing ambiguity in the term “Italian philosophy”, and appealing to a
legend that Pythagoras was the son of a Tyrrhenian, that is, an Etruscan, many
claim Pythagoras as one of the forefathers of Rome’s political, philosophical and
69 One must agree here with De Vogel 1966: 13 when she suggests that Minar would conclude
that “Pythagoras was rather a shrewd politician, an aristocratic reactionary at a time of rising
democracy – and that all this had nothing to do with philosophy”. Minar 1942: 99 seems to
credit the political doctrine of the Pythagoreans with the simple function of a superstructure,
stating that “the relationship between practice and theory will be seen most clearly through an
analysis of the doctrinal superstructure which this group built up about its political activity”.
70 Ferrero 1955: 21, orig.: “Il pitagorismo alla prova dei fatti si dimostró qualcosa di più e di
diverso di un astratto fenomeno di cultura, della manifestazione di un particolare indirizzo
religioso-dogmatico, o infine di una mera espressione intellettualisica. Esso fu, se non andiamo
errati, specialmente l’espressione di un fatto sociale e politico collegato ad una struttura per-
manente del mondo antico; fu l’espressione caratteristica di un’organizzazione degli intellettuali
rispondente alle esigenze di un gruppo dominante, di un’eletta politica, la quale in un primo
tempo, al pari delle teocrazie, si identificò e fu una cosa sola con i proprii intellettuali.
religious culture.⁷¹ The Samian philosopher ends up in the lists of Roman citi-
zens (Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXIV 26) and is identified as the teacher of the king-priest
Numa Pompilius (Plutarch, Life of Numa I. 8). Cicero, in the process of dispelling
the anachronistic error that Pythagoras was Numa’s teacher, ends up instead
confirming the patriotic tradition from which it derives:
I believe that, on account of his admiration for the Pythagoreans, king Numa too was iden-
tified by posterity as a Pythagorean. For since they knew of Pythagoras’ teaching and rules,
and had learned from their ancestors of the fairness and wisdom of that king, but since
through the lapse of time they were ignorant of the lifetimes of those men and the times
in which they lived they believed that the king, who excelled in wisdom, was a disciple
of Pythagoras.⁷²
In several Ciceronian pages, the Pythagoreans, defined as “our near fellow citi-
zens, they who were then called Italic philosophers” (Cato Maior XXI. 78), be-
came a central chapter in the glorious history of Rome (Tusc. Disput. IV).⁷³ A fa-
mous passage of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (XV. 1– 447), as well as one from Plu-
tarch’s Life of Numa (I. 8 and 11), reaffirm the connection between Numa and Py-
thagoras, consolidating, the earlier tradition of Pythagoras’ Romanness and Ital-
ianness. ⁷⁴
The philosophico-theological literature of the Middle Ages, despite lacking
access to the Lives of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry and Iamblichus, amongst
other less important sources, kept alive the tradition of Pythagoras. Ambrose re-
calls the Pythagorean sayings and several placita; Augustine, who frequently re-
ferred favorably to Pythagoras and Pythagorean philosophy in his early works
ultimately changed his mind, saying: “I once believed that there were no errors
in the so-called Pythagorean doctrine, but there are many, and even capital
71 Aristoxenus’s testimony about Pythagoras’ Etruscan father is located, among others, in

Plutarch, Quaest. Conv. VIII, 7, 1.
72 Cicero, Tusc. Disp. IV. 1– 2, orig.: “Quin etiam arbitror propter Pythagoreorum admirationem
Numam quoque regem Pythagoreum a posterioribus existimatum. Nam cum Pythagorae disci-
plinam et instituta cognoscerent regisque eius aequitatem et sapientiam a maioribus suis ac-
cepissent, aetates autem et tempora ignorarent propter vetustatem, eum, qui sapientia excel-
leret, Pythagorae auditorem crediderunt fuisse”.
73 Cicero, Cato Maior XXI. 78, orig.: “incolae paene nostros, qui essent italici philosophi
quondam nominati”.
74 Titus Livius recalls, in this sense, a very significant fact: In 181 AD, a box of books that are
thought to have been written by Numa himself was found in Rome (Liv. XL. 29). Defined as
“Pythagorean” and dedicated to religious themes and wisdom, these books were burnt (sic) at
the behest of the authorities, who feared threats to official religion.
ones”.⁷⁵ Augustine joined Tertullian and Lactantius, in recognizing the primary

mistake of the Samius sophista – the belief in metempsýchōsis. ⁷⁶
In the wake of the recovery of Platonism, the Italian Quattrocento immedi-
ately proceeded to revive Pythagoras as a member of the Italian past. The recov-
ery of the Latin sources plays a fundamental role in this development. From the
first Life of Pythagoras, written by Baldi 1888 in the vernacular to the figure of
Pythagoras found in Petrarch (Triumphus fame III. 7– 8), there is a slow appropri-
ation of Pythagoreanism. This appropriation did not remain a mere literary exer-
cise, but reached a speculative dimension with Nicholas of Cusa, the erudite
scholar from the Roman Church, whose negative theology appealed to the Pytha-
gorean number-geometry of the Timaeus and the Republic. The doctrine of the
trinity is also claimed to come from Pythagoras: “This is the threefold unity
that Pythagoras, first among all philosophers, the glory of Italy and Greece,
taught us to worship”.⁷⁷
Two Italian intellectual figures of the first order engaged with Pythagorean-
ism during this period: Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Ficino attempt-
ed to situate Florence, city of the Medici, in Western intellectual history as the
successor to Athens and Rome and to position himself as continuing the Acad-
emy, undertakes the project of translating the Platonic corpus through the influ-
ence of Neopythagorean exegesis. In his introduction to the translation of Ploti-
nus, Ficino had previously summarized the place of Pythagoras in history:
The sacred philosophy was born under Zoroaster among the Persians, under Mercury
among the Egyptians, both in the one place and in the other consistent and coherent
with itself; then it grew among the Thracians under Orpheus and Aglaophemus, matured
among the Greeks and the Italians under Pythagoras, and became an adult in Athens,
under the divine Plato.⁷⁸
75 Augustine, Retr., PL 32: col. 58 – 9, orig.: “me credidisse nullos errores in Pythagorica esse
doctrina, cum sint plures, iidemque capitales”.
76 See, for these authors, the following pages: Tertullian, De Anima, PL 2: col. 697– 701; Lac-
tantius, Div. Inst., PL 6, col. 405 – 9 and De vita beata, PL 6: col. 777; Augustine, Against Acad., PL
32: col. 954; Ambrosius, In salm., PL 15: col. 1275.
77 Cusano 1972: 68, orig.: “Questa è quella unità trina che Pitagora, primo tra tutti i filosofi,
gloria d’Italia and di Grecia, ci ha insegnato ad adorare”.
78 Ficino 1576: 1537, orig.: “Divina providentia volente videlicet omnes pro singulorum ingenio,
ad se mirabiliter revocare, factum est, ut pia quaedam philosophia quodam et apud Persas sub
Zoroastre, et apud Aegyptios sub Mercurio nasceretur, utrobique; sibimet consonas: nutriretur
deinde apud Thrace sub Orpheo atque Aglaophemo: adolesceret quoque mox sub Pythagora
apud Graecos et: in Italos tandem vero a Divo Platone consumaretur Athenis”.
In another work, Pythagoras again appears in a genealogy of ancient philosophy,

or rather of prisca theologia, from Hermes Trismegistus to Plato:
[Hermes] was succeeded by Orpheus, to whom have been attributed the following parts of
the ancient theology; later, Aglaophemus, who had been initiated into the sacred rites by
Orpheus, was succeeded in theology by Pythagoras, of whom Philolaus was a disciple,
the same who was Plato’s preceptor. Therefore, a single sect of ancient philosophy, every-
where coherent with itself, was established by six theologians, in a wonderful order, which
is inaugurated by Mercury and is fully accomplished with the divine Plato.⁷⁹
The idea of Pythagoras as a priscus philosophus, placed within a larger tradition,

assumes the universalist vision also developed by Pico della Mirandola: Pico
drew connections between Pythagorean philosophy, the Kabbalah, the Chaldean
Oracles and Arabic wisdom. As Pico prepared himself to discuss nine hundred
propositions drawn from various wisdom traditions in Rome, he desperately
asked Ficino (with the urgency well-known to every historian) to lend him the
codex containing Iamblichus’ Pythagorean Life: “in this much needed time for
my studies”.⁸⁰ Pico considered Pythagoreanism to be the main bridge to ancient
Eastern wisdom.
Constraints of space prevent us from examining the Italian path of the Py-
thagorean tradition more closely.⁸¹ What matters here is to note that modern Ital-
ian historians have recovered the tradition of studying Pythagorean politics with-
in archaeological and historical studies of Magna Graecia; see, for instance,
Prontera 1976 and 1977, Mele 1982, 2000 and 2007 and Musti 1990. However, Ital-
ian historians of philosophy have also considered the importance of Pythagoras:
among them, besides the aforementioned Ferrero 1955, the studies of Casertano
79 Ficino 1576: 1836. This is from Argumentum Marsilij Ficini Florentini, in librum Mercurij
Trismegisti, ad Cosmum Medicem, that is, the dedicatory letter addressed to Cosimo de Medici on
the occasion of the translation of the first 14 booklets of Corpus Hermeticum. In the original:
“cum secutus Orpheus, secundas antiquae theologiae partes obtinuit. Orphei sacris initiatus est
Aglaophemo successit in theologia Pythagoras, quem Philolaus sectatus est, divi Platonis nostril
praeceptor. Itaque una priscae theologiae undique sibi consona secta, ex theologis sex miro
quodam ordine conflata est, exordia sumens a Mercurio, a divo Platone penitus absoluta”.
Ficino aims to construct an archeology of knowledge, in which he uses earlier texts and authors
to explain the subsequent history of thought (Tambrun-Krasker 1999: 20 – 22).
80 Pico della Mirandola 1572: 361, orig.: “hoc tempore ad mea studia plurimum necessarium”.
81 Such an examination would have to follow the path traced by Casini 1998, among others. For
the influence of Pythagoreanism on Renaissance Europe art and architecture, see Gaugier-Joost’s
2009 extensive monograph, which agrees that the Pythagorean revival began in Italy: “the
enlivening inspiration of Pythagoreanism spread primarily from Italy, where interest in ancient
works was at first most intense, to the rest of Europe” (Gaugier-Joost 2009: 240).
1988 and 2009 and the sober chapters devoted to the topic by Centrone 1996
stand out. Particularly relevant is the contribution of Musti 1990, which shows
in the sources on the anti-Pythagorean riots a feature of achronía, which
would solve the thorny chronological (and topographical) issue of the riots:
The narration of the facts is presented with a viscous continuity. […] To the careful exami-
nation of what lies behind it, this narrative reveals a particular way (much more than a sim-
ple contradiction) of the forming of the Pythagorean traditions and about Pythagorean-
ism.⁸²
The solution proposed by Musti is to consider that the cultural conditions in

which Pythagorean literature developed did not create the conditions for a crit-
ical checking of the sources regarding the patent chronological and topograph-
ical contradictions: notably, Musti points out, in its sectarianism, in the diaspora
of Pythagoreans and in the oral circulation of the memories, the central motives
of this achronía of tradition (Musti 1990: 39).
A consideration of the attempts of Rostagni 1922 and later De Vogel 1964 to
validate the four political speeches Pythagoras delivered upon his arrival in Cro-
ton, along with their importance in defining his political role, would require a
separated chapter. The story of the tradition and modern criticism of these
four lógoi is extremely important for anyone who wants to understand the
move to deny the relevance of Pythagorean politics.
The four speeches are referred to by Porphyry (PL: 18), who cites Dicearchus.
Iamblichus quotes them in their entirety (PL: 37– 57). Iamblichus’ source was
probably Timaeus, via Apollonius of Tyana.⁸³ Rostagni 1922 proposes an extreme-
ly interesting (and as yet unexplored) hypothesis that connects Pythagoreanism
to the origins of rhetoric (especially via Gorgias). In the process Rostagni appeals
to a scholium from Antisthenes on the first verse of the Odyssey to suggest that
Dicearchus’ testimony about Pythagoras’ lógoi is reliable. The intention is to
overcome Rohde’s classic thesis, mentioned above, that the figure of Pythagoras
as a political educator was an anachronistic invention by Dicearchus. According
to Rohde, the later testimonies of both Timaeus-Apollonius and Iamblichus’
speeches would have derived from this false construction (Rohde 1871: 561;
82 Musti 1990: 38, orig.: “Il racconto dei fatti si presenta con una vischiosa continuità. […]
All’analise attenta di quello che c’è dietro, questo racconto rivela un modo particolare (assai più
che una occasionale contraddizione) di formarsi delle tradizioni pitagoriche and on Py-
thagoreanism.”
83 Bertermann 1913, Zucconi 1970, Centrone 1996, Brisson and Segonds (Jamblique, 1996).
1872: 27). Opposing this thesis, Rostagni 1922: 151 gives the “evidence” of Anti-
sthenes’ testimony regarding the tradition of Pythagoras’ speeches:
Antisthenes says that Homer neither praises nor criticizes Ulysses, calling him polýtropos
[…]. He gave Ulysses the epithet of polýtropos because he knew how to talk to men in
many ways. So, it is told that Pythagoras, invited to make speeches, wrote some speeches
for children (lógoi paidikoí), and others appropriate to women, and others appropriate to
archons, archontic ones, and others for the ephebes, ephebic ones. For finding the kind
of wisdom appropriate to each one is typical of wisdom. Rather, it is a sign of ignorance
to make use of only one form of speech (monotrópos toû lógou) with those who are differ-
ently disposed.⁸⁴
Antisthenes’ solution presupposes a genealogical understanding of the lógos and

of rhetoric that must have been rooted in Pythagoreanism:
It is very useful to consider that the tradition, accepted by Aristotle and by Alexandrian
criticism, ascribed to Empedocles and even Pythagoras himself the invention of the rhetor-
ical art. This tradition – which even today is considered empty – has a real foundation, as
the experiences and principles concerning the psychagogic value of the word should be
traced to Empedocles and the Pythagoreans, the same ones who later formed the basis
of Gorgias’s téchnē. ⁸⁵
Thus, the scholium suggests that the Pythagorean speeches are genuine, and
confirms the politico-rhetorical vocation of Pythagoreanism. There is a parallel
between Pythagoreanism and the highly pragmatic model of the relationship be-
tween politics and philosophy that was adopted by the first sophists.⁸⁶
De Vogel 1966 engages in an extensive study of the four lógoi, attempting to
find in them the pre-Zellerian view of Pythagoras as a political educator. (This
terminology comes from Thesleff 1968: 298.) Unlike the contemporary work of
Philip 1966, which attributes the creation of Pythagoreanism solely to Aristotle,
De Vogel considers the lógoi within a broader historical context. Vogel ultimately
84 Schol. In Hom. Odyss. I, 1: 50 – 63.

85 Rostagni 1922: 149, orig.: “È assai utile considerare che la tradizione, accolta da Aristotele
and dalla critica alessandrina, attribuiva ad Empedocle e perfino a Pitagora stesso, l’invezione
dell’arte retorica. Questa tradizione – che fino ad oggi si considera vacua – ha un reale fon-
damento, nel senso che ad Empedocle e ai Pitagorici dovevano risalire gli esperimenti e precetti
riguardanti il valore psicagogico della parola, che formarono poi la base della téchne di Gorgia”.
And still, according to Rostagni, the emergence of the rhetoric “rappresentava un’evoluzione
verificatasi nel seno stesso del pitagorismo pel naturale procedere della scienza e dello spirito
greco” (1922: 169)..
86 Here, obviously, we will not be able to follow Rostagni’s whole argument. There is a recent
discussion of Rostagni’s position in Cornelli 2010: 24– 25.
1.7 Aristotle’s unique testimony and the uncertain Academic tradition 33
reinforces Rostagni’s arguments (which are supposedly based on Thesleff’s 1961

views) that the Pythagorean school developed continuously in southern Italy
from its beginning to the fourth century BC.⁸⁷ This continuity would allow histor-
ians to consider relevant the material in the Hellenistic Lives as well as the tes-
timonies of Pythagoras’ political activity provided by the lógoi. It did not take
long for criticism of Rostagni and De Vogel to appear (Thesleff 1968; Kerferd
1965; and Feldman 1968): parallels with Doric apocrypha and other textual
marks immediately indicated that De Vogel’s conclusions had to be treated
with caution. Perhaps what matters most is Centrone’s point (1996) that the sour-
ces point to Pythagorean politico-rhetorical activity regardless of the testimony
of the lógoi:
A historically reliable original nucleus, inclusively confirmed by a few hints in Croton’s

local history and topography, as well as a historical reflection of the societal organization
of the archaic aristocracy is present in the rigid division of social groups, to whom Pytha-
goras makes speeches separately (something which is attested by all sources).⁸⁸
Following in Rostagni’s footsteps, De Vogel certainly helps to the discussion of

the political dimension of Pythagoreanism to its place in the historical literature.
Most importantly, they oblige us to consider it as part of a complex picture,
linked together with the scientific and religious dimensions of Pythagoreanism.
1.7 Aristotle’s unique testimony and the uncertain Academic

tradition
From the beginning, historical Pythagorean criticism has dedicated itself to an
analysis of indirect sources. These indirect sources on Pythagoreanism include
both alleged anti-Pythagorean texts of contemporary authors, as well as the in-
87 Although Thesleff, in his review of De Vogel’s book, does not acknowledge having stated this
continuity: “[De Vogel’s] account of the argumentation in my Introduction (1961) is however
somewhat misleading. For instance, I did not argue, as would appear from d. V. p. 28 ff., that the
Pythagorean school continued to live on in Southern Italy from the end of the 4th century.
Certainly there was a break in the tradition. And I did not lay stress on the evidence of the
pentagrams” (Thesleff 1968: 300 nI).
88 Centrone, 1996: 31, orig.: “un nucleo originario storicamente attendibile, confermato peraltro
da alcuni accenni alla storia locale e alla topografia di Crotone, così come un riflesso storico
dell’organizzazione societaria dell’aristocrazia arcaica si ha nella rigida divisione dei gruppi
sociali, ai quali Pitagora tiene discorsi separatamente (cosa che è attestata da tutte le fonti)”.
terpretations of writers who came after the movement (Zeller and Mondolfo 1938:
313 – 364).
Tannery’s work (1887b) was certainly the first step in an analysis of the in-
direct sources. His main thesis is that the section of the dóxa of Parmenides’
Poem constituted an argument dedicated to refuting Pythagorean cosmology.
Tannery starts with the observation that in the early section of the dóxa Parme-
nides could only be referring to the Pythagoreans:
I already said that Parmenides’ prologue on the dóxa (vv. 113 – 121) throws us right into the
middle of full-blown Pythagoreanism; the last verse seems to me especially worthy of atten-
tion. Parmenides wants science to be known as it is professed by his contemporaries, but in
Italy only the Pythagoreans enjoyed a reputation for science. Because we have no conclu-
sive evidence that the Eleatic is concerned with the Ionians, we are entitled to think that he
is aiming at none other than the Italians.⁸⁹
Likewise, the work of Zeno (as well as that of Xenophanes previously) was ad-
dressed directly against the Pythagorean theory of numbers, because he “drew
brand new consequences, and those about the unity, the continuity, the motion-
lessness of the universe particularly contradict the doctrines of the Pythagor-
eans”.⁹⁰ The central point of disagreement lies in the definition of “point”:
So what was the weak point recognized by Zeno in the Pythagorean doctrines of his time?
How does he present them as an affirmation of the plurality of things? We are given the
solution by a famous definition of the mathematical point, a still classic definition in Aris-
totle’s time, but to which historians have not given much attention. For the Pythagoreans
the point is the unit that has a position, or, to put it in another way, the unit considered in
space. It follows immediately from this definition that a geometrical body is a plurality, the
sum of points, just as a number is a plurality, a sum of units. However, this idea is abso-
lutely false […].⁹¹
89 Tannery 1887b: 226, orig.: “J’ai déjà dit que le début de Parménide sur l’opinion (v. 113 – 121)
nous jette en plein pythagorisme. Le dernier vers surtout me parait digne d’attention. Parménide
veut faire connaître la science telle que la professaient ses contemporains; mais, en Italie, seuls
les pythagoriens avaient une réputation de science. Tant que nous n’aurons pas de preuve
décisive que l’Éléate se préoccupe des Ioniens, nous avons droit de penser qu’il ne vise que les
Italiques”.
90 Tannery 1887b: 250, orig.: “il tirait des conséquences toutes nouvelles, et notamment celles
sur l’unité, la continuité, l’immobilité de l’univers contre-disaient les doctrines pythagoriennes”.
91 Tannery 1887b: 250 (author’s emphasis), orig.: “Quel était donc le point faible reconnu par
Zenon dans les doctrines pythagoriennes de son temps? De quelle façon le présente-t-il comme
étant une affirmation de la pluralité des choses? La clef nous est donnée par une célèbre
définition du point mathématique, définition encore classique au temps d’Aristote, mais que les
historiens n’ont pás considérée assez attentivement. Pour les pythagoriens, le point est l’unité
This Pythagorean position came to be known as numerical atomism and shares

several similarities with the atomism of the fifth and fourth centuries BC.⁹²
According to Tannery 1887b: 251, Zeno’s success must have been overwhelm-
ing, to the point that the Pythagoreans could not even sketch any attempt at a
refutation.⁹³
The problem with such a reconstruction is that it has no historical ground-
ing. We must agree with Burkert that the image of a dialogue – wholly pre-Soc-
ratic – between Pythagoreanism and other schools, although very tempting, is
lacking a solid textual basis:
In this way a tempting chapter of the history of philosophy may be built; erratic boulders
and unidentifiable gravel coalesce into a comprehensive structure. The suspected interac-
tion between Eleatics and Pythagoreans, in particular, becomes a living dialogue. Parme-
nides, the apostate Pythagorean, sets up his own system in opposition to that of the school;
in response, the Pythagoreans revise their theories, only to be subjected to new attacks, by
Zeno; this forces them to undertake further revision […] (sic) This structure, however, rests
on a shaky foundation”.⁹⁴
Although it is quite likely that many thinkers in Magna Graecia operated under
strong Pythagorean influence, a solid historical approach cannot be based on
possibility and plausibility, because “only meticulous study of the internal and
external evidence can raise this possibility to a probability – to say nothing of
certainty”.⁹⁵
Although historically suspect, Tannery’s first step made it possible to both
bring several ancient, indirect sources into the discussion of the Quellenfor-
schung, as well as to begin questioning the presumption that Aristotle’s testimo-
ny is unique. The importance of Tannery’s thesis caused scholars from Kranz
(Diels-Kranz 1951) to Raven 1948 to follow a dialogue between Eleaticism and Py-
thagoreanism based in pre-Socratic sources.⁹⁶
ayant une position, ou autrement l’unité considérée dans l’espace. Il suit immédiatement de
cette définition que le corps géométrique est une pluralité, somme de points, de même que le
nombre est une pluralité, somme d’unités. Or, une telle proposition est absolument fausse […]”.
92 For a more general discussion of the relationship of Pythagoreanism with Democritus and
atomism, see Mondolfo and Zeller 1938: 332– 335, Alfieri 1953: 30 – 54; Gemelli 2007a: 68 – 90.
93 Both Cherniss 1935: 215 and Lee 1936: 34.104 follow the main lines of Tannery’s interpretation
of the Zenonian controversy.
94 Burkert 1972: 278.
95 Burkert 1972: 280. See Casertano 2007b: 4 for an example of a discussion of Pythagorean
influence on Parmenides.
96 See Diels-Kranz 1951: 226; Zeller and Mondolfo [1938: 326 – in the note on Mondolfo’s sources
because Zeller, as well as Gomperz 1893, did not agree with this]; Burnet 1908: 183; Rey 1933: 183;
Much of this history of criticism operates under the aforementioned assump-

tion that Aristotle’s unique testimony is valid. The works of Cherniss 1935 and
1944 played a central role in reassessing the validity of Aristotle’s (as well as Pla-
to’s) testimony about the pre-Socratic philosophers. By painstaking analysis of
the sources (that has yet to be surpassed, in this author’s view), Cherniss had
already come to the following conclusion in 1935:
Aristotle is not, in any of the works we have, attempting to give a historical account of ear-
lier philosophy. He is using these theories as interlocutors in the artificial debates which he
sets up to lead “inevitably” to his own solutions.⁹⁷
Therefore, Cherniss analyzes Aristotle’s historiographical procedures, in search

of a solution to the central problem for the reconstruction of pre-Socratic philos-
ophy: although unreliable in its reconstruction of the theories of the early philos-
ophers, with its constant contradictions, omissions, errors and misunderstand-
ings, Aristotle is still the main, if not the only, source for the study of pre-Socrat-
ics (Cherniss 1935: 347– 350). Thus, we must take what Cherniss calls “the great-
est care” in any analysis of the Aristotelian material.
To that end, Cherniss aims to develop a consistent methodology with proce-
dures for a type of bias control (to use statistical terminology) that seeks to iden-
tify confusing factors in Aristotle’s account of the pre-Socratics so as to allow for
a correct historiographical reconstruction of the corpus. For example, he cata-
logues two types of omissions, seven common sources of mistakes, etc. (Cherniss
1935: 351– 358).
Two mistakes have deeply shaped Aristotle’s critical history of the pre-Soc-
ratics. The first mistake is to assume that the pre-Socratics all dedicated their re-
search to a single problem: what is the matter of all that is. Rather, by looking
more carefully it is possible to recognize the pre-Socratics were concerned
with understanding and describing many different processes and problems. (Ar-
istotle himself would not deny this.) The second mistake follows from the first,
since Aristotle had a reason to restrict the richness and complexity of the themes
addressed by the pre-Socratics to a single Grundfrage – as Hegel would put it (his
quote, as we shall see, is not a casual one) – in the Aristotelian system, the fun-
Cornford 1939: I; Raven 1948: 211. Contrary to this thesis, Reinhardt 1916: 24, 69, 85 and Calogero
1932: 28 consider the section of the dóxa as an inner derivation to the very metaphysics of
Parmenides.
97 Cherniss 1935: xii. See also Cherniss 1935: 349 – 50, 356– 357. Burnet 1908: 56 had already
begun to distrust Aristotle’s editorial choices, speaking of this habit of his of “putting things in
his own way, regardless of historical considerations”.
damental distinction in nature is that between matter and form. And if Plato is
seen as an exaggerated supporter of the priority of the formal cause, he is so ex-
actly because he opposes himself to the pre-Socratics, who Aristotle used as ex-
aggerated supporters of the priority of the material cause. By pitting one against
the other, Aristotle reserves for himself the comfortable place of sýnthesis, a phil-
osophical result of the agṓn of the two moments that preceded him.⁹⁸
Finally, we must note that Cherniss’ contribution to the historiography of the
pre-Socratics is of unquestionable value. After him, pre-Socratic studies have be-
come a constant struggle with Aristotle, though certainly not against him.
In the wake of Cherniss, several scholars might very well agree that “Aristo-
tle is utterly alien to the modern conception of the history of philosophy”, con-
sidering Aristotle as a necessary witness who must be treated with all possible
care.⁹⁹ Laks sums up the historiography of pre-Socratic philosophy after Cherniss
as a process of a “de-Aristotelization of the writing on the origins of Greek phi-
losophy”.¹⁰⁰ Limits of space do not permit going further into the issue of the val-
idity of the Aristotelian testimony, although such an examination would be
worthwhile, given its consequences for the historiography of the origin of philos-
ophy.
In this connection a recent article by Collobert 2002 deserves mention. Col-
lobert challenges Cherniss’ approach, by revealing how in his historiography of
the pre-Socratics Aristotle was following ante litteram the principles of an ana-
lytic (that is, non-continental) lectio. Therefore, to the question whether Aristotle
should be considered a historian of philosophy, she continues to answer no. Be-
cause
Aristotle did not write a history of philosophy in the modern sense or at least in a ‘conti-
nental’ sense when he transmitted the thoughts of his predecessors. For this reason, one
can say with U. Wilamowitz that “one does not have to blame the historian Aristotle, be-
cause Aristotle never was nor wanted to be a historian.¹⁰¹
98 Cherniss 1935: 349 does not fail to note the dependence of Aristotle’s aporetic and agonistic
method of their masters: Socrates indirectly, but, above all, Plato.
99 Reale 1968: I, 151, orig.: “il moderno concetto di storia della filosofia è totalmente estraneo
ad Aristotele”. Moreover, Mansfeld rightly argues that the first steps of a historiography of
philosophy are prior to Aristotle himself, and can be found in sophistic literature: “the ru-
dimentary beginnings of the historiography of Greek philosophy may be dated to the period of
the Sophists” (Mansfeld 1990: 27).
100 Laks 2007: 230, orig.: “désaristotélisation de l’écriture des débuts de la philosophie grec-
ques”.
101 Collobert 2002: 294– 295. One should recognize Collobert’s intent of considering the ques-
tion in more current terms (the terms of the analytic-continental querelle). However, much of his
hermeneutic solution is still dependent on the excellent work of Cherniss 1935 as, for example,
Indeed, Aristotle’s Metaphysics seems not only to want to treat Pythagoreans

somewhat separately from the other pre-Socratics (985b 23 ff.), but also constant-
ly pits Pythagoreanism against Platonism (Met. 987a 29 ff., 989b 29 ff., 990a 27 ff.,
996a 4 f.). Thus, Pythagoreanism serves as another chance to attack Platonic ar-
guments (Met. 1083b 8 ff., 1090a 30), rather than a subject of interest per se. ¹⁰²
Given Aristotle’s depiction of a controversy between Pythagoreanism and
Platonism, modern criticism has tried to explore the relations of the Pythagor-
eans with Plato. Going beyond Plato’s historical relations with the philosopher
king Archytas of Tarentum, testified in the Seventh Letter (339d), among other
sources, a longstanding attempt to evaluate the Platonic dialogues as reliable
historical sources argued that Plato’s dependence on the Pythagoreans was
greater than previously suspected. Both Burnet 1908 and Taylor 1911, while con-
sidering the Platonic dialogues to be historical testimony, treat many of them as
directly dependent on Pythagorean influence. Thus, the Socrates from the Phae-
do turns out to be Pythagorean, an advocate of metempsýchōsis and anámnēsis
(Taylor 1911: 129 – 177), while the Timaeus will appear as a work almost entirely
informed by Pythagoreanism (Burnet 1908: 340 ff.).¹⁰³
Obviously, the results of this work on the indirect sources are far from non-
controversial. Indeed, Frank 1923, contrary to the aforementioned views, and in
some ways, more skeptical even than Zeller – considers any attempt to access the
Pythagorean tradition before Plato to be impossible. His work is significantly ti-
tled Plato und die sogenannten Pythagoreer, in tribute to his argument on Aristo-
tle’s repeated reference to the Pythagorean kaloúmenoi: according to Frank, Ar-
istotle was referring to Pythagoreans of the fourth century BC, such as Archytas,
as well as to the Academics themselves, such as Speusippus (Frank 1923: 77).
the following statement he makes regarding the testimony contained in the Aristotelian corpus
shows: “one cannot safely wrench them away to use as building-blocks for a history of Preso-
cratic philosophy. There are no ‘doxographical’ accounts in the works of Aristotle, because
Aristotle was not a doxographer but a philosopher seeking to construct a complete and final
philosophy” (Cherniss 1935: 347). This is still a good ante litteram description of Collobert’s
analytical Aristotle.
102 On the Aristotelian lectio of ancient Pythagoreanism, the case will obviously be for him to
go back to it afterwards, writing down their problems and successes. It’s enough for now to
remember that, both in Physics and in De caelo, Aristotle dedicates some comments to the
scientific doctrines of the Pythagoreans, and in Metaphysics (986a 12) refers to a more accurate
discussion about these. This reference was to the two famous (lost) books he had specifically
devoted to Pythagoreanism. For the sources of this tradition and a comprehensive historiogra-
phical discussion of these books, see Burkert 1972: 29.
103 Likewise, Cameron’s doctoral thesis (1938) suggests a Pythagorean basis for the theory of
the anámnesis.
Frank’s general assumption is that one cannot imagine scientific thought in the
Greek world before Anaxagoras:
Anaxagoras was the first to formulate the principle of modern science in distinguishing, in
his optical investigations, the immediate subjective-psychological image-of-the-world from
the objective point of view of an ideal absolute observer.¹⁰⁴
Thus, all that concerns the Pythagoreans should be considered an invention by

Speusippus and the early Academics.¹⁰⁵ Consequently, both the fragments of Phi-
lolaus and all theoretical work in mathematics should be down-dated to the pe-
riod of the Academy. The radical criticism of philologists like Frank is vehement-
ly confronted by Santillana and Pitts 1951: for them, Frank is the starting point of
a school of historians who
were attracted by the company of various modern philologists, who have been trapped into
accepting some of Frank’s destructive arguments without noticing their intimate depend-
ence upon his unacceptable alternative.¹⁰⁶
Throughout the historiographical journey in search of indirect sources on Pytha-

goreanism, the lectio communis appears to have been exactly that of a parti pris
104 Frank 1923: 144, orig.: “Anaxagoras formuliert zuerst das Prinzip der modernen Wissen-
schaft, indem er das unmittelbare subjectiv-psychologische Weltbild in seinen optischen For-
schungen von der objektiven Anschauung eines ideellen, absoluten Beobachters unterscheidet”.
105 The debate that has marked attempts to answer this radically skeptical stance in Frank’s
interpretation of the expression οἱ καλούμενοι Πυθαγορείοι (Met. 985b: 23; 989b: 29) is very
broad. See, for example, Cherniss’ response (1959: 37– 38) on the interpretation of καλούμενοι: in
Politics (1290b: 40), Aristotle uses the same expression referred to the peasants (οἱ καλούμενοι
γεωργοί): after the expression, it’s not possible to imagine that Aristotle is raising any suspicion
about the real existence of peasants in general. Likewise, therefore, expressions such as οἱ
καλούμενοι Πυθαγορείοι should be understood as “designations in the currently designated
sense” (Cherniss 1959: 38).
106 Santillana and Pitts 1951: 112. The alternative to which the authors refer, and that constitutes
one of the key points of Frank’s arguments, is based on the question whether mathematics in
Greece had a Greek origin or was simply a recent Eastern import: Frank obviously would opt for
the latter. Consequently: “relying on Frank, these authors have dismissed the entire tradition
about early Greek mathematics, and supplanted it either with a most improbably late trans-
ference of Babylonian mathematics to Greece in the Vth century” (Santillana and Pitts 1951: 112).
For a review of this issue, see Salas 1996. Thesleff 1961: 45 complains about Santillana’s and
Pitts’ vehemence, because of the “irreverent mockery” of Frank by both authors. They surely said
that, if we want to be consistent with Frank’s hypercriticism, “we may begin to suspect Frank
himself of being an imaginary character in the lost dialogues of George Santayana” (Santillana
and Pitts 1951: 116).
skepticism, which reveals on the one hand a privileging of Plato and Aristotle,
which tends to regard them as inventors of almost any idea that has appeared
before them, at the expense of a careful analysis of the pre-Socratic sources;
on the other hand, a certain laziness on the researching of the origins of
Greek thought, which prefers to repeat handbook clichés than to engage in a
careful review of the normal research practices.
1.8 From Burkert to Kingsley: the third way and mysticism in

the Pythagorean tradition
A real third way for criticism, lying between Zellerian skepticism (particularly
Frank’s extreme version) and an excessive reliance on sources that is symptomat-
ic of the least cautious studies of Pythagoreanism, is found in the work of Walter
Burkert. A revision of his Weisheit und Wissenschaft (first edition German pub-
lished in 1962) was translated into English by Minar and published as Lore
and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, which has ever since been an obligatory
reference for any critical study of Pythagoreanism. The progression itself of Bur-
kert’s work reveals the difficult path of validating the sources of Pythagoreanism.
In the foreword to the first edition Burkert was skeptical about the alleged con-
tributions made by Pythagoreanism to ancient Greek mathematics, particularly
regarding the study of irrational numbers. He described the Pythagorean theory
of numbers as rooted in a pre-scientific intellectual environment.
In that twilight period between old and new, when Greeks, in a historically unique achieve-
ment, were discovering the rational interpretation of the world and quantitative natural sci-
ence, Pythagoras represents not the origin of the new, but the survival or revival of ancient,
pre-scientific lore, based on superhuman authority and expressed in ritual obligatio! The
lore of number is multifarious and changeable.¹⁰⁷
However, in the foreword to the English edition, ten years later, Burkert had to
acknowledge that – in his own words – “I have learned in these years […]
about the question of the ‘Discovery’ of the irrational, I have taken a stand
which is less critical of the tradition”.¹⁰⁸
107 Burkert 1972: ‘Foreword to the German edition’.

108 It is not our intention at present to account for the broad critical tradition over the con-
tribution of Pythagoreanism to mathematics and the development of the theory of numbers
inside Pythagorean philosophy. Some of the classical studies of this issue are those of Tannery
1887a and 1887b, Becker 1957, Von Fritz 1945 and especially Van der Waerden 1947– 1949. More
recently, one can check Huffman 1988, 1993 and 2005, Zhmud 1989, 1992 and 1997, Centrone
1.8 From Burkert to Kingsley 41
Burkert argues that, at least in regards to mathematics, there was a profound

gap between the activity of the Pythagoreans of the fifth century BC – relegated
to the world of akoúsmata and numerology (even if one should prefer, in an Aca-
demic context, the term arithmology, as observed by Delatte 1915) – and that of
the Ionian mathematicians like Hippocrates of Chios. Thus, for Burkert 1972, the
mathematics of the early Pythagoreans, including those of the fifth century BC
(and therefore Philolaus) in no manner matches the rigorous deductive exercise
of such contemporaries as Hippocrates of Chios and Theodorus of Cyrene. On the
contrary, the Pythagoreans deal with a cult of numbers, in the context of the
akoúsmata, reminiscent of the numerology of primitive cultures.¹⁰⁹
Burkert asserts that the scientific and numerological approaches to mathe-
matics are radically distinct:
Number and mathematical science are by no means equivalent. Numbers go back in origin
to the mists of prehistoric times, but mathematical science, properly speaking, did not
emerge earlier than sixth- and fifth-century Greece. People knew numbers before mathe-
matics in the strict sense; and it was in the pre-scientific era that the “number mysticism”
arose, or “number symbolism” or “numerology”, which continues even now to exert a cer-
tain influence. No one could overlook the fact that this kind of thing was present in Pytha-
goreanism; Aristotle names first of all, among the homoiṓmata which the Pythagoreans
thought subsisted between numbers and things, the equation of certain numbers with di-
kaiosýne, psychḗ, noús and kairós (Met. 987b 27 ff.), and only with a “furthermore” goes on
to add the mathematical theory of music.¹¹⁰
We must observe that something very significant happens in Burkert’s arguing.

His careful and precise deconstruction of the doxography in the tradition of Zel-
lerian skepticism ends up discrediting of much of those materials as originating
within the Academy. Plátōn pythagorízei (Plato pythagorizes) is the fundamental
maxim that casts doubt on the whole tradition (at least since Met. 987a 29),¹¹¹
1996, Salas 1996 and Casertano 2009. See below, on chapter four, for a development of this
issue.
109 There was no shortage of critical reviews of Burkert’s skeptical stance on the sources of the
contributions of Pythagoreans to mathematics. Many of them will be cited in the following
chapters, as they constitute a key obstacle to any interpretation of Pythagoreanism after 1972.
Just for now, let us remember the clever criticism that Von Fritz makes of it in his review of
Weisheit: “It is not very good method to deny categorically the occurrence of an event the details
of which are reported in a somewhat contradictory manner. If this methodical principle is strictly
and consistently applied, it becomes possible to prove that no automobile accident ever hap-
pened” (Von Fritz 1964: 461).
110 Burkert 1972: 466.
111 The adage is conveyed by Eusebius of Caesarea: Πλάτων πυθαγορίζει (Euseb. Prep.
Evang. 1903: 15, 37, 6).
thus the difficulty in admitting a significant contribution of Pythagoreanism to

the progress of the mathematics of the fifth century BC. Against this pars des-
truens of source criticism, Burkert develops a hermeneutics which admirably
links religious anthropological studies with a solid philological and historio-
graphical approach and leads to the unprecedented rescue of the historical Py-
thagoras and proto-Pythagoreanism in its whole primitive, pre-rationalistic real-
ity: Pythagoras must have been both a magician and a shaman (though a scien-
tist, at least in his own way), basing his scientism on an effort to take what Bur-
kert calls “a step beyond”. This step beyond, which distinguishes Pythagoras in-
side the primitive magic-thaumaturgical world, can be detected by the presence
of notions like káthársis and anámnēsis within the oldest testimonies (Burkert
1972: 211).
In the seesaw between trust and distrust in the sources which engages every
philologist (“The very life of philology is the struggle between the tendencies to-
ward faith in the tradition and skepticism of it”¹¹² – as Burkert clearly acknowl-
edges), ultimately there arises a middle road, a third way, as I put it, that al-
though radically skeptical of the Academic sources manages, nevertheless, to
draw a historically coherent and methodologically effective picture of the sour-
ces of Pythagoreanism and its founder.
Certainly, Burkert’s work, with its advantage of capturing both the skeptical
and faithful approaches to the sources, is a cornerstone for the history of criti-
cism, as duly noted by Von Fritz:
The work presents the results of a most energetic effort to solve the problems posed by a
complicated and confused ancient tradition and to arrive at a plausible and consistent re-
construction of the thought and the doctrines of Pythagoras himself.¹¹³
An unmistakable sign of the central impact of Burkert’s work on the history of

criticism are certainly the several answers it deserved and all the attention it
has received since its publication. His skepticism, more than the reconstruction
of an originally shamanistic Pythagoras, suffered the most precise criticisms.
Huffman initially argued that there is no consensus about Burkert’s attribution
to Philolaus of an exclusively theologico-numerological mathematics (Huffman
1988: 3). The very same Huffman reopens the case with his own monograph dedi-
cated to Philolaus (Huffman 1993), now giving it a prominent role, in the philos-
ophy of ancient mathematics rather than in mathematics per se. As Huffman ar-
gues, Philolaus deserves a prominent place in the history of Greek philosophy as
112 Burkert 1972: 9.

113 Von Fritz 1964: 459.
the first thinker to self-consciously and thematically employ mathematical ideas

to solve philosophical problems.¹¹⁴
Huffman, unlike Burkert, assigns to Philolaus, primarily on the basis of fr. 4
(44 B 4 DK), an epistemological claim. Philolaus is claimed to argue that we use
numbers to understand reality (Huffman 1993: 64 ff.), and are only able to know
the latter through its arithmo-geometric relations.¹¹⁵
On another front, Minar complains that Burkert fails to give any treatment of
the social and political aspects of Pythagoreanism (Minar 1964: 121). As our dis-
cussion above suggests, these issues were previously important issues in the in-
terpretation of Pythagoras, and so should play an important role in any recon-
struction of his philosophy.
However, it’s the very gap that Burkert is able to establish with some preci-
sion between the traditions of proto-Pythagoreanism and of those Pythagoreans
in touch with the Academy (especially Archytas) that, allows the study of proto-
Pythagoreanism to develop as a relatively independent field from its successive
re-appropriations by literature.
Detienne initiates the exploration of Pythagoreanism as originating in mys-
tical-religious concerns. His entire historical agenda, which seriously engages
with Pythagoreanism several times, is characterized by an anthropological and
comparative approach to the ancient world.¹¹⁶ We begin with his essay on the
philosophical poetry of ancient Pythagoreanism (1962). This work searches for
historical relations between poetry and metaphysics, that is, between the envi-
ronments of ancient poets and philosophers, and deals with the tradition of a
philosophical reading of Homer and Hesiod through the lens of Pythagoreanism.
This Pythagorean exegesis exhibits the concept later called theología by Plato
and Aristotle:
The work of construction, which involves a dialogue between Homer, Hesiod and Pythago-
ras, is defined basically, as we have seen, in terms of religious thought. […] It is essentially a
“theology” that Homer’s and Hesiod’s poems represent for the Greeks and, in particular, for
the Pythagoreans.¹¹⁷
114 Huffman 1988: 2.

115 We will see this controversy in more detail in chapter four.
116 For the mature synthesis of the anthropological and comparative approach to the ancient
world of Detienne, see especially his latest Comparer l’incomparable (2000).
117 Detienne 1962: 95. Orig.: “Le travail de construction que suppose le dialogue entre Homère,
Hésiode and Pythagore s’est defini de plus en plus, nous l’avons vu, sur le plan de la pensée
religieuse. […] C’est essentiellement une “théologie” que les poèmes d’Homère et d’Hésiode
représentent pour les Grecs et, en particulier, pour les Pythagoriciens”.The fundamental thesis of
this work of Detienne is based on the testimony of Neantes, as mentioned by Porphyry (VP: 1),
The thesis of the theological reading of the archaic poets among the Pythagor-
eans is further developed by Detienne’s studies on the demonological interpre-
tation of verses from Hesiod’s Works and Days: Detienne 1963 devotes an entire
work to the notion of daímon in ancient Pythagoreanism. He argues that the con-
cept of daímon, originally extremely vague, was stabilized by Pythagoreanism as
referring to an intermediary between men and gods. In the Pythagorean exegesis,
the concept acquires a theological-philosophical consistency it previously
lacked.¹¹⁸ Detienne’s successive studies on the dietary prescriptions of the Pytha-
goreans (1970, 1972) also consider them to be an expression of their understand-
ing of a relationship with the gods:
The system of nourishment formed by the main dietary practices of the Pythagoreans ap-
pears as a language through which that social group translates its orientations and reveals
its contradictions.¹¹⁹
By refusing to kill sacrificial animals, the Pythagoreans sought to establish a

common ground with the gods themselves. This reversal in theological anthro-
pology eliminates the clear separation of divine and human food that underlies
the traditional Olympian sacrifice:
From one sacrifice to another, not only do the offerings change in nature, but the relation-
ship with the gods is inverted as well. The reversal is particularly marked in the religious
status of cereals. In Olympian sacrifice, the grains of barley and (whole) wheat (oulochútai)
that the sacrifice performers spread over their animal victims represent the specifically
human nourishment, reserved to the mortals that cultivate the earth and eat bread.¹²⁰
that Pythagoras was initially trained through homeric poems. Pythagoras had been a disciple of
Hermodamante, who belonged to a traditional family of Homeric rhapsodes, the Creophiles. This
allows Detienne to state that Samos would be the place of the first meeting between poetry and
philosophy. For a criticism of this assumption and Detienne’s subsequent argument, see Feld-
man 1963: 16 and Pollard 1964: 188.
118 The work was preceded by at least two articles in which the author inaugurated the research
and defined its fundamental lines (Detienne 1959a and 1959b). For a criticism of Detienne’s
reading, see Kerferd 1965, which looks at how the concept of daímon is, in all probability, a
Platonic assignment to ancient Pythagoreanism (Kerferd 1965: 78), and, thus, does not allow for
the support of the thesis of an original theological conceptualization in a proto-Pythagorean
scope. Vidal-Naquet 1964 gives him a warmer reception, although complaining of a certain
audacity as regards the use of sources.
119 Detienne 1970: 162, orig.: “Le système des nourritures formé par les principales alimentaires
des Pythagoriciens apparaît donc comme un langage a travers lequel ce groupe social traduit ses
orientations et révèle ses contradictions”.
120 Detienne 1970: 152, orig.: “D’un sacrifice à l’autre, non seulement les offrandes changent de
nature, mais le mode de relation avec les dieux s’inverse. Le renversement se marque en par-
Major historians and archaeologists of ancient religion leave behind Detienne’s

theologizing interpretations in their investigations into Pythagoreanism. Among
them Cumont 1942a and 1942b and Carcopino 1927 and 1956 engage in the recep-
tion of the Pythagorean tradition by Roman funerary symbolism; several articles
by Festugière, many of them ultimately collected in Études de religion grecque
and hellenistique (1972), as well as two important works by Lévy 1926 and
1927, consider the legend of Pythagoras. They all acknowledge, in the reception
of Pythagorean motifs within the expressions of orientalizing Hellenistic religios-
ity, a continuity between the religious orientation of early and late Pythagorean-
ism. This suggests the metaphor of a sort of underground river of religious tradi-
tions attributed to Pythagoreanism flowing over the course of a thousand years
(Burkert 1972: 6).¹²¹
A special chapter in the history of the interactions between Pythagoreanism
and the religious world is certainly its link with the world of rituals and myths
that convention brought together under the name of Orphism. The connection
of Pythagoreanism with is linked to specific themes and experiences, in partic-
ular the immortality of the soul, metempsýchōsis and cosmology. The second
half of the twentieth century saw a continual discovery of new Orphic documents
ever since Kern’s edition of the Orphic fragments in 1922. Most important among
them are the gold leaves (Zuntz 1971; Pugliese Carratelli 2001) and new papyri,
especially the Derveni papyrus, dating from the fourth century BC, which con-
tains an allegorical exegesis of an older cosmogonic poem.¹²² Of particular rele-
ticulier dans le statut religieux des céréales. Dans le sacrifice olympien, les grains d’orge et de
blé (entiers) (oulochutai), que les sacrifiants répandent sur les victimes animales, représentent la
nourriture spécifiquement humaine, réservée aux mortels qui cultivent la terre et mangent le
pain.” Likewise, that is, underlining the theological rationalization process, Detienne provides
an interpretation ofthe Pythagorean dietary restriction on the use of a special type of lettuce,
which they called eunuch. This was especially suitable for the summer period, because their
properties decreased sexual desire, considered harmful to health in that season, due to the
impairment caused by strong heat. A use for ethical and theological ends of myths relating to the
gardens of Adonis is evident here.
121 Of great historical interest, and an unmistakable sign of erudition and wide range of res-
earch to which Levy was dedicated, is a posthumous collection of his Recherches et esséniennes
pythagoriciennes (1965): a series of essays in which the author dedicates himself to uncover
possible non-Jewish influences, and especially Pythagorean ones in the Jewish religious mo-
vement of the Essenes, which is thought to be the depository of the famous library of Qumran
near the Dead Sea.
122 See the first official edition of the papyrus, Kouremenos, Parassoglou and Tsantsanoglou
(The Derveni Papyrus, 2006). For a more detailed study of the papyrus, see the minutes of a
symposium held at Princeton (Laks and Most 1997). A group of scholars led by Pierris and
Obbink, with the help of the modern technology of infrared multispectral imaging, in collabo-
vance for its sobriety and philological attention is the study devoted to the rela-
tions between Orphism and Pythagoreanism by Bernabé 2004, as well as the lat-
est observations on the subject found in Bernabé and Casadesus 2009.
The modern revival in Orphic studies reveals the deep relationship between
Orphism, Dionysiac religion and Pythagoreanism. The interpretations of these re-
lationships are anything but consistent. Pugliese Carratelli proposes a resolution
to this problem, identifying “a particular character given to genuine Orphism by
an intimate connection of this with the Pythagorean school”.¹²³ Based substan-
tially on an original analysis of the Orphic gold leaves, Pugliese Carratelli’s thesis
is that the theoretical mixture between the two movements can be attributed to a
reform of Orphism by the Pythagoreans, which probably lasted well into sixth
and fifth century. This explains the appearance of a new “philosophy of immor-
tality”, radically different from the world view found in the gold leaves with their
formulas for ritual practices and invocations to the chthonic deities (including
Persephone, Dionysus Zagreus and Hades) and viatica to face the terrible trials
through which the initiate must pass (part of this group are the plates of Thurii,
Pelinna, Eleutherna, Pherai). A second group of leaves, a result of this Pythagor-
ean reform, emphasizes instead ethical and spiritual commitment to understand,
with the help of Mnemosyne, the cosmic and human living principles. This new
concept of immortality is rooted in the exercise of memory and the wisdom that
derives from it. The proof of this lies not just in the scientific dimension of mem-
ory, but also in the fact that mnḗmē is one of the key components of the Pytha-
gorean way of life: tradition is unanimous in remembering that members of the
Pythagorean koinōnía were instructed to devote a specific time of day (morning
or evening) to anámnēsis, to recollectio, of all events of the previous day (Iambl.
VP: 165). One likely consequence of the overlapping of the two movements is the
fact that both Herodotus and Plato show a strong tendency to confuse them. This
is a sign of the difficulty those authors had in distinguishing them.¹²⁴
This discussion of Orphism concludes our overview of the history of criticism
and ushers in an examination of Kingsley’s recent publications. Kingsley is the
vanishing point of all the attempts of considering Pythagoreanism as an intellec-
ration with Brigham Young University, is working to establish a parallel text. For the impact of
that discovery on the study of pre-Platonic Orphism, see especially Burkert 1982 and 2005,
Kingsley 1995, Betegh 2004, Tortorelli Ghidini 2000 and 2006, Bernabé 2002 and 2007a. Other
recently discovered papyri include the Bologna papyrus and several Greek magical papyri. For a
review of the Orphic fragments discovered after the Second World War, see Bernabé 2000.
123 Pugliese Carratelli 2001: 18.
124 See Herodotus II. 81; for Plato, besides Phaedo, see Gorgias (492e), Cratylus (400c), Phae-
drus (62b, 67c-d, 81e, 92a) and Meno (81a). The issue will be taken up in detail in chapter three.
tual movement deeply marked by the relations with the religious world of his
time, as well as of most of the central questions in the critical history of Pytha-
goreanism. Kingsley is devoted to a rereading, consciously original and contro-
versial, of the assumptions underlying the interpretation of the traditions of the
philosophers of Magna Graecia. Both the first monograph, dedicated to a Pytha-
gorean Empedocles (1995), and the following two, dedicated to a Pythagorean
Parmenides (1999, 2003), represent a “radical hermeneutic reversal” within the
panorama of scholars (Gemelli 2006: 657).
Kingsley is simulatenously indebted to three of the most significant herme-
neutic contributions of the twentieth century: first, Cherniss’ skepticism (1935)
regarding the value to be given to Aristotelian testimony, second, the tradition
rooted in authors such as Detienne and Festugière of recognizing philosophy
as origining within the religious traditions of its time, and third, Oriental studies
and its decisive influence on fundamental notions of ancient philosophy.¹²⁵
The articulation of these important traditions, coupled with his expertise in
history, archaeology and the anthropology of religion, and accompanied by a
careful philological homework, allows Kingsley to go down an extremely bold
path towards the resolution of the obstacle presented by the Aristotelian doxog-
raphy. The novelty of his work – though not entirely original in each of its parts,
undoubtedly unique in the conscious articulation of them – is the use of other
texts, alternatives to the conventional ones, mostly coming from both the Arab
tradition of ancient philosophy and the alchemical and hermetic literature. He
also proposes a renewed confidence in the writings of the Neopythagorean
and Neoplatonic tradition.¹²⁶ Kingsley’s conclusions intend to radically change
the axis of the research on the pre-Socratics in general, and on Pythagoreanism
in particular in two ways. First, Kingsley methodologically questions the conven-
125 An example of this Orientalist influence in Kingsley’s lectio is his highly critical review of
Huffman’s monograph (1993) on Philolaus and his thesis on the epistemological perspective of
the latter (Kingsley 1994). It is also significant that Kingsley was supervised for his doctorate at
Oxford by Martin West (Stroumsa 1997: 212).
126 This is a good time to emphasize that the recent discovery and even more recent reading of
the famous Strasbourg papyrus (Martin and Primavesi 1998) in the Egyptian city of Akhmîn,
which includes several verses by Empedocles, seems to confirm Kingsley’s central thesis that
there was a circulation of alchemic texts independent of the pre-Socratic texts. It is certainly the
case in the tradition of Zosimus of Panopolis (that is, from the city of Akhmîn), Gnostic within an
alchemic context, and to the important alchemic work Turba Philosophorum, which saw its light
in the same city. Both traditions refer, independently of normal doxographic tradition, to
Empedocles and to the Pythagorean tradition (Kingsley 1995: 56 – 67). See also Nucci 1999. For
the latest collection of Zosimus’ work, see Mertens’ volume Les alchimistes grecs (1995). For a
recent discussion of the relationship between alchemy and ancient philosophy, see Viano 2005.
tional historiographical approach to pre-Socratic philosophy, and instead offers

several instruments and novel perspectives, many of them waiting to be ex-
plored. Rather than treating the later Pythagoreans, as usual, as a magical-the-
urgic perversion, Kingsley claims that:
The later Pythagoreans were simply remaining true to the initial impetus of Pythagorean-
ism. […] Historically, of course, the significance of the accord between early and later Py-
thagoreanism is further underlined by the evidence already considered of Pythagorean
and related traditions passing directly from southern Italy and Sicily into Hellenistic
Egypt.¹²⁷
That is, the final stage of this continuity can be reached without going through
Plato and Aristotle.¹²⁸ Second, as Gemelli rightly has seen, Kingsley produces
a questioning not only of the interpretive criteria commonly used to address these texts,
and of the enormous weight given to the reassuring strength of “rationality”, the very con-
ception of philosophy as an intellectual exercise, but also and above all, of the êthos polý-
peiron that guides our lives.¹²⁹
In step with an understanding of ancient philosophy that would basically seek to

achieve some kind of bíos, that is designed primarily as an exercise in the service
of a better life, Kingsley brings back not only the Pythagorean philosophy, but
also the history of its broader interpretation, which articulates mysteries and
magic, healing and diet, all in search of a better life.¹³⁰ In a frank unritualized
way, Kingsley himself thus presents the goal of his monograph on Parmenides
and “dark places of wisdom” as follows: “And what is it that we long for?
That’s what this story is about”.¹³¹ And shortly thereafter, in order to introduce
his existential, mystical reinterpretation of the two paths of Parmenides: “If
you’re lucky, at some point in your life, you’ll come to a complete dead
end”.¹³² Kingsley does not make a point of hiding his satisfaction in his writing
127 Kingsley 1995: 339.

128 For a fuller review of this issue, see Cornelli 2002 and 2003a.
129 Gemelli 2006: 670 – 671, orig.: “una messa in discussione non solo dei criteri interpretativi
comunemente adottati per affrontare questi testi, dell’enorme peso attribuito alla forza tran-
quillizzante della ‘razionalità’, della concezione stessa di filosofia come esercizio intellettuale,
ma anche e soprattuto dell’éthos polýpeiron che guida la nostra vita”.
130 See in the same line the synthesis that Hadot 1999 makes, although in a familiar Academic
way, of philosophy thought back to its origins primarily as a lifestyle.
131 Kingsley 1999: 4. The reference to the “dark places of wisdom” is to the title of Kingsley’s
1999 work: In the dark places of wisdom.
132 Kingsley 1999: 5.
1.9 Conclusion 49
style, which corresponds to a historiographical style that flouts the rules of Aca-
demic acceptability.¹³³
Obviously, Kingsley’s proposal faces difficulties. Some are internal to the au-
thor’s own argumentative plan – in particular the difficulty inherent in pulling
together so many late and differing testimonies into a coherent vision of pre-Soc-
ratic philosophy and Pythagoreanism. One has to agree with Morgan that some-
times “he does not tie the pieces together”.¹³⁴ It is not entirely clear what Kings-
ley takes proto-Pythagoreanism to consist in both from a social and from a doc-
trinal standpoint, beyond vague references to magic, mysteries and healing.
Scholars who do not share the confidence in the new methodological path
shown by Kingsley raise other objections.¹³⁵ The next few years will probably
show whether the path he has revealed will attract more followers.¹³⁶
1.9 Conclusion
Between hermeneutic circularities and historiographic panics, this brief history

of modern criticism on Pythagoreanism reveals a narrative in which each fact
and each testimony is subjected to scrutiny, creating controversy and mutual ref-
utations. The Zellerian doubt, that Pythagoreanism is merely an intricate fabric
of traditions scarcely deserving a place in a serious history of philosophy, surrep-
titiously follows most of the interpretations of Pythagoreanism. Since Zeller’s
evolutionary historicism, which directly influenced Diels’s collection, through
133 This is certainly the case with his most recent monograph (Kingsley 2010) on Pythagoras,
which aims at bringing “dramatic and revolutionary” new documentary evidence, in the au-
thor’s own words. Notably on the connection of Pythagoras with the figure of Abaris, the priest
of Hyperborean Apollo, who arrives in Greece in all probability from the Mongolian plateau as a
god himself, as a purifier, and delivers his magic arrow to Pythagoras. Although, as usual, full of
notes and bibliographical references, Kinsgley’s work has a pace and style far removed from a
calm and sober historical-philological argument. It is enough to think about the title: A Story
Waiting to Pierce you: Mongolia, Tibet and the Destiny of the Western World.
134 Morgan 1997: 1130.
135 For all of them, see the dry review of Brien 1998.
136 Both in the most recent monograph devoted to Pythagoras (Riedweg 2002) as in the chapter
on Pythagoras in the Vorsokratiker edition by Tusculum (Gemelli 2007b), Kinsgley begins to
build his hermeneuticsal heritage. It is certainly not a coincidence the fact that both authors are
disciples of Burkert. The pages that follow will also record the contribution of other contem-
porary authors of great hermeneutical distinction. Among them, certainly, Staab, Kahn, Macris,
Centrone, Musti, Giangiulio, Sassi, McKirahan, Laks, Thom, Zhmud, Casadesús, Bernabé,
O’Meara, as well as many others. Their research will certainly soon deserve a new page in
historiography of Pythagoreanism.
Burnet’s a priori approach, which held that Pythagoreanism was originally only a
religious movement, with the identification of the archaic with the religious el-
ement of the movement, and the recent with the scientific one, the presumed
bridge between the two Pythagoreanisms has become the central problem in
the history of criticism of of Pythagoreanism.
Reactions to the scholars’ skepticism were quick to appear. Rohde and De-
latte were the first to question the alleged absolute faith in the reliability of
the later sources. Cornford and Guthrie led the way towards a comprehensive ac-
count of Pythagoreanism, despite its diversity. Criticizing the modernist fallacy,
Cornford inverted the anachronistic logic, pointing to Pythagoreanism’s mystical
side as its most important legacy, although this mystical side is not openly incon-
sistent with its philosophical side. Guthrie, for his part, proposed an a priori
method, defending the internal coherence of pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism. The
influence of the writing of the great Histories of Philosophy from the twentieth
century has certainly contributed to the development of this search for a unitary
Pythagoreanism. At the same time, however, there emerged works dedicated to
the study of particular areas and problems having to do with the sources; in pri-
mis, the question of the political involvement of the Pythagorean communities.
Many scholars had devoted themselves to this topic, especially in the Italy,
from Roman times, through the Renaissance Quattrocento up to the renewed in-
terest in the issue in contemporary historians.
In contrast, a number of scholars have dedicated themselves to the study of
the indirect sources, both pre-Socratic and Platonic, for ancient Pythagoreanism.
The image of a pre-Socratic dialogue between Pythagoreanism and other
schools, though tempting, seems to lack solid textual basis; nevertheless, the im-
portance of Tannery’s thesis about the relations between Eleaticism and Pytha-
goreanism opened an area of research that began to bring criticism from other
sources to question the presumption that Aristotle’s testimony is uniquely valua-
ble. There remains no consensus on the value of Plato’s and Aristotle’s evidence.
More historiographically naïve stances, such as Burnet’s and Taylor’s, were chal-
lenged by skeptical stances such as Cherniss’ and Frank’s. While Burkert’s work
seemed to suggest a true third way of criticism, lying between the Zellerian skep-
ticism and an over-reliance on sources, it ends up supporting the view that the
original of Pythagoreanism was a religious movement.
Studies of this religious side of Pythagoreanism by Detienne and Cumont
make a strong mark on the history of criticism. A privileged locus for these stud-
ies is certainly the examination of Pythagoreanism’s relationship with Orphism.
Recent archaeological discoveries have prompted a revival of studies on this sub-
ject.
1.9 Conclusion 51
Finally, a radical hermeneutic reversal, represented by Kingsley’s work,

closes this history of modern criticism portrayal. The most important reason
for this is that Kingsley synthesizes three of the most significant hermeneutic
contributions of the twentieth century, that is, skepticism about Aristotle’s testi-
mony, the inclusion of philosophy in its birth within the religious traditions of its
time, and the influence of Oriental studies on the history of ancient philosophy.
Kingsley offers unique and bold solutions to the sensitive issues of source criti-
cism. Of particular note is a focus on the issue of bíos and its implications for a
greater continuity than generally allowed between proto-Pythagoreanism and
Neopythagoreanism.
This brief overview, here summarized through its chief motives and their rep-
resentative authors, results in a contradictory and multifaceted picture of Pytha-
goreanism. From it emerges the central issue for understanding the movement:
that it must be considered as a unique historiographical category, one that sim-
ply does not admit of a single understanding. Instead, one must consciously fol-
low the paths of different interpretations and different strata of the tradition, in
search of a sufficiently pluralistic image of Pythagoreanism, which will give ad-
equate recognition to all the diversity it encompasses.
This is what will be essayed in the following chapters.
2 Pythagoreanism as a historiographical category
2.1 Interpreting interpretations: diachronic and synchronic
dimensions
In the previous chapter’s portrayal of the history of criticism of Pythagoreanism,

Zeller was shown to have already boldly faced the problem of the historiograph-
ical categorization of Pythagoreanism: could Pythagoreanism constitute a prop-
erly philosophical and scientific system (Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 597)?
The Zellerian doubt, which was shared by many subsequent scholars, intro-
duces the chief problem of how to deal with the variety of experiences and doc-
trines that tradition has gathered under the “umbrella” of “Pythagoreanism”.
More precisely, this means inquiring into the content of the historiographical cat-
egory that corresponds to what tradition calls “Pythagoreanism”.
The discovery of the historical and theoretical scope of this category involves
two key dimensions: the first will be called “diachronic”, while the second will
be identified as “synchronic”. Although complementary, each dimension encom-
passes a distinct field of investigation.
An account of the historiographical category of “Pythagoreanism” in its dia-
chronic dimension requires a study of its construction from Plato and Aristotle up
to the Neoplatonic literature, in search of continuity and even homogeneity in
the tradition.
The starting point of is approach is the recognition that it is impossible to
reconstruct a historical Pythagoras, because information on the origins of Pytha-
goreanism is virtually nonexistent. Rather, one must, in Burkert’s words, “inter-
pret interpretations”:
The first task must be, since the original phenomenon cannot be grasped directly, to inter-
pret interpretations, to single out and identify the different strata of the tradition and to
look for the causes that brought transformation to the picture of Pythagoras.¹³⁷
Achieving a diachronic categorization of Pythagoreanism therefore involves un-

raveling the different strata of the tradition. This task is to be sure now much eas-
ier than it was for Zeller, thanks to advances in the studies of the Academic and
Peripatetic philosophies.¹³⁸
137 Burkert 1972: 11.

138 These advances range from Jaeger’s demonstration (1934) that the Academics and Peripa-
tetics projected their own views onto Pythagoreanism, to the Wehrli’s 1944– 1960 studies on
Dicearcus (1944), Aristoxenus (1945), Clearchus (1948), Heraclides (1953) and Eudemus (1955).
2.1 Interpreting interpretations: diachronic and synchronic dimensions 53
The goal of a diachronic categorization of Pythagoreanism is not to eliminate

its basic feature as an extremely controversial philosophical movement (Huff-
man, 2008a: 225). Rather, the proposed methodology aims to understand how,
through the intertwining of diachronic and synchronic dimensions, the category
of “Pythagoreanism” survived the expected dilution of a multifaceted movement,
a movement that is not only radically and extensively diverse in its authors and
subjects, but that additionally spans over a thousand years of the history of
Western thought. In fact, the unique challenge of this project among to the prob-
lems associated with the history of pre-Socratic philosophy lies in the fact that
Pythagoreanism has properly never died. As if it were a city has remained contin-
uously inhabited, Pythagoreanism presents a special difficulty for the archaeol-
ogist of ancient philosophical thought:
(…) far more complicated problems than a site destroyed by a single catastrophe and then
abandoned, the special difficulty in the study of Pythagoreanism comes from the fact that it
was never so dead as, for example, the system of Anaxagoras or even that of Parmenides.¹³⁹
In order to traverse the path through the tradition of Pythagoreanism we need to

draw an original methodological route – an Aristotelian “rule of Lesbos” – that
suits the nature of the object of interpretation:
What the nature of the situation demands is as many-sided treatment of the problem as is
possible. For many of the contradictory conclusions have come from investigating and trac-
ing the course of single paths of development, with no thought of the way in which these
may converge with other, equally important lines.¹⁴⁰
The scholar if faced by a fork that forces him to make a methodological choice.
Either to understand Pythagoreanism as a multifaceted and complex historio-
graphical category, in which case it is possible to accomodate both the long
course of the history of its tradition and its complex and evolving relations
with the intellectual world of philosophy beginning with the sixth and fifth cen-
turies BC, or alternatively to follow one or more strands of the tradition and re-
ject or downplay the others.
Also to be recognized are the fundamental contributions to the understanding of the rela-
tionship between Platonism and Pythagoreanism which arise from the works of the so-called
Tübingen-Milan school on the doctrine of the “principles” of Plato and the Old Academy (see
especially, Krämer 1959, Gaiser 1963, Szlezák 1985 and Reale 1991.
139 Burkert 1972: 10.
140 Burkert 1972: 12.
54 2 Pythagoreanism as a historiographical category
One consequence of the former choice is that the approach must necessarily
be interdisciplinary: the conventional (though debatable) division of labor in
classical studies among historians, archaeologists, philologists and philosophers
does not seem to work very well in the case of Pythagoreanism:
It can happen that the historian of science builds his reconstruction on a philologically in-
adequate foundation; the philologist takes over the seemingly exact result of the historian
of science; the philosopher, on the basis of this criterion, rejects contradictory evidence and
so on.¹⁴¹
The importance of combining archaeological information with an anthropologi-

cal approach, and philological analysis is evident, especially in the problematic
case of the relations between Orphism and Pythagoreanism in Magna Graecia in
the sixth and fifth centuries BC, as well as in the comparative study of the history
of philosophy with the history of ancient science, crucial to solving the alleged
crisis of the incommensurable lógoi or irrational numbers.
The proper path to a historiographical category of Pythagoreanism is a meth-
odological polymathía (pace Heraclitus), which will permit Pythagoreanism to
emerge from the mists of its complex history.¹⁴²
This last identification introduces the second dimension of Pythagoreanism,
the synchronic dimension. To synchronically understand Pythagoreanism is to
recognize its place within the categories ordinarily used to describe ancient phi-
losophy, and especially pre-Socratic philosophy. Categories such as “pre-Socrat-
ic”, “school”, “science”, “religion”, “politics”, or even “philosophy” (when dis-
tinct from other intellectual and literary activities) are commonly used in at-
tempts to understand the origin of Pythagoreanism. Obviously, none of these
standard categories applies tout court to Pythagoreanism. Rather, this research
aims to point out the need for adjustments in the normal methodological ap-
proach to pre-Socratic philosophy. These adjustments can have consequences
for the study of the pre-Socratics in general, not only for the study of ancient Py-
thagoreanism. In the same vein, Gemelli states the following in the introduction
to the new edition of the Vorsokratiker (2007b):
As soon as we tackle the problems outside of a right historicist conception of the unalter-
able development of philosophical thought, and the texts are seen in the perspective of
141 Burkert 1972: 12.

142 Heraclitus seems to criticize the πολυμαθίη of Pythagoras in his fragments 40 and 129 (22 B
40, 129 DK).
2.2 Pythagorean identity 55
their own typology and of the pragmatic context in which they were conceived, they acquire
meanings and values far more complex than those of mere “natural philosophy”.¹⁴³
In the case of Pythagoreanism, it will be necessary to overcome the rigid dichot-

omies of a historiography too accustomed to distinguish, for example, between
science and magic, writing and orality, Ionian and Italian. None of these alone
seems to capture the complexity of Pythagorean social organization and doc-
trine.
The two dimensions, synchronic and diachronic, will appear strongly inter-
woven throughout this monograph, operationalizing the definition of the histor-
iographical category of Pythagoreanism, creating a picture as consistent as pos-
sible while including the breadth and diversity of tradition.
Before taking up the two key issues that contributed most decisively to the
definition of the category of historiographical Pythagoreanism (chapters 3 and
4), it will be important to consider what could be called the starting point, the
primary question for the historiography of Pythagoreanism: Who called them-
selves “Pythagoreans”?
2.2 Pythagorean identity
The definition of the category “Pythagoreanism” must begin from a seemingly

simple question. Its simplicity is only the result of a that only at first impression
may seem simple, but in fact, it will in fact prove difficult to resolve: Who can be
defined as “Pythagorean” in the ancient world?
Beginning with Aristotle, many authors have tried to answer this question
with a thematic criterion built up from an account of doctrinal unity. We have al-
ready discussed the privilege granted by Zeller precisely to the Aristotelian lectio
on the Pythagoreans, a privilege that has become, throughout the history of mod-
ern criticism, almost ubiquitous: a Pythagorean is someone who speaks about
number.
This criterion of identity largely resisted challenge until the watershed mo-
ment represented by Zhmud’s article (1989), which argues that it is circular to
use the number criterion to identify a Pythagorean:
143 Gemelli 2007b: 440, orig.: “Sobald man die Probleme also ausserhalb des starren histori-
stischen Entwurfs von der unabdingbaren Entwicklung des philosophischen Denkens angeht
und die Texte unter dem Blickwinkel ihrer Typologie sowie des pragmatischen Kontextes, in
dem sie abgefasst worden sind, betrachtet, gewinnen sie Bedeutungen und Sinngehalte, die weit
komplexer sind als die einfache “Naturphilosophie”.
In the overwhelming majority of works on Pythagoreanism this problem is not raised open-
ly, and a doctrinal criterion is implicitly used as the main working method. A Pythagorean
is someone who speaks about Number. Here we are faced with an obvious petitio principii:
that which itself is in need of being proved is taken as a starting premise.¹⁴⁴
Zhmud’s 1997 monograph advocates an even stronger rejection of the thesis that
Pythagoreanism can be non-circularly identified with a particular doctrine, to
the point that Centrone 1999 admits that Zhmud’s thesis has put an end to
this question, making the identification of Pythagoreanism with the adhesion
to a doctrine no longer possible:
One of the central theses of this monograph (Zhmud 1997), that is, the idea by which the
criterion for identifying a Pythagorean would not be the profession of a philosophical doc-
trine, finds here a solid and well argued foundation, and I don’t think it can be put under
discussion again.¹⁴⁵
On the other hand, the history of philosophy, at least since Diogenes Laertius (D.
L. Vitae I. 13 – 15), has become accustomed to using a geographical criterion, to
identify, among other philosophical schools, the Italic or Pythagorean one. How-
ever, even here, the issue is more complex than mere geographical proximity.
After the founder, the rest of the Pythagoreans are frequently identified in
terms of their adherence to a doctrine (as is the case of Empedocles or Eudoxus,
or even Democritus, see D. L. Vitae IX), but more importantly by having a direct
pedagogical relationship, that is, by some kind of intellectual dependence on Py-
thagoras or another famous Pythagorean. In the unique case of Pythagoreanism,
a group of philosophers is for the first time not identified by its doctrinal consis-
tency (physikoí), or geographical proximity (Eleatics), but rather by the name of
its founder: Pythagóreioi. ¹⁴⁶
If what makes someone a Pythagorean is not adherence to a doctrine, it will
instead be participation in the bíos, a particular lifestyle treated by tradition as
144 Zhmud 1989: 272.

145 Centrone 1999: 424, orig.: “Una delle tesi centrali di questa monografia (Zhmud 1997), e cioè
l’idea che il criterio di individuazione di un pitagorico non consista nella professione di una
dottrina filosofica, trova qui un fondamento solido e ben argomentato, and non penso possa più
essere rimessa in discussione”. See also Centrone 2000: 145. In this essay, Centrone resumes the
same arguments to deal with what it means to be Pythagorean during the Imperial era.
146 Although in Plato there appear both Ἀναξαγόρειοι (Cratylus 409b) and Ἡρακλείτειοι
(Theaetetus 179e), these designations, of course, did not have the same historic success of that of
the Πυθαγόρειοι. For a comprehensive review of the use of the term in ancient sources, see Minar
1942: 21– 22.
essential to the identity of a Pythagorean, expressed by akoúsmata and sýmbola,

that is, ‘heard’ precepts and ‘signs’ of recognition.
That seems to be the case with the long catalog of Pythagoreans that Iambli-
chus inserts at the end of his Life (Iambl. VP: 267) and that, in all probability, is
of Aristoxenean origin.¹⁴⁷ It is a list of 218 names, ordered geographically. Of
these, the majority, 34, are Tarantines, as was Aristoxenus himself.
Of all the Pythagoreans, however, it is probable that many are unknown and anonymous.
But the following are the names of those that are known and celebrated. Of the Crotonians:
Hippostratus, Dymas, Egon, Emon, Cleosthenes, Agelas, Episylus, Phyciadas, Ecphantus,
Timaeus, Buthius, Eratus, Itmaeus, Rhodippus, Bryas, Evandrus, Myllias, Antimedon,
Ageas, Leophron, Agylus, Onatus, Hipposthenes, Cleophron, Akmaon, Damocles, Milon,
Menon.
Of the Metapontines: Brontinus, Parmiseus […]. Of the Eleans: Parmenides. Of the Taren-
tines: Philolaus, Eurytus, Archytas, Theodorus, […] But the most illustrious Pythagorean
women are: Timycha, the wife of Myllias. Philtis, the daughter of Theophrius the Crotonian.
Byndacis, the sister of Ocellus and Occillus, Lucanians. Chilonis, the daughter of Chilon the
Lacedaemonian. Cratesiclea the Lacedaemonian, the wife of Cleanor the Lacedaemonian.
Theano […].¹⁴⁸
It is significant to notice that, in its classification order by geographical basis, the

catalog is reminiscent of the model of the ancient Greek epigraphic tradition;
however, the most common style of classification used in the literature resem-
bles a family tree, built based on family relationships or discipleship. An exam-
ple of that ordering is Diogenes Laertius’ classification and even the one imme-
diately preceding the quoted section in the Life of Iamblichus (Iambl. VP: 266).
The peculiarity of a geographic ordering, combined with the inclusion of 17
women and the absence of any name subsequent to the fourth century BC or
much of names cited in the apocryphal writings of the Hellenistic pseudo-Pytha-
gorean literature (Thesleff 1965), makes the catalog a real find, in all probability
147 Most scholars agree with this identification, beginning with Rohde 1872. Like him, Delatte
1922: 182, Zhmud 1988: 273, Centrone 1996: 11, Giangiulio (Pythagoras, 2000: II 545) and Brisson
and Segonds (Jamblique, 1996). Burkert 1972: 105 n40 states: “the only possible candidate for
authorship seems to be Aristoxenus himself, working in the documentary method of the earliest
Peripatos”. In any case, Huffman 2008c recently raised some doubts as regards such an as-
signment, which leads him to a cautious conclusion: “it does seem most plausible to assume
that Aristoxenus is responsible for the core of catalogue, but it is important to recognize both
that the arguments for Aristoxenus’s authorship are not ironclad and that, even if the core is
assigned to Aristoxenus, this does not mean that the catalogue has not undergone modifica-
tions” (Huffman 2008c: 297).
148 Iambl. VP: 267.
very old and extremely valuable for the present purpose of seeking the criteria
for identification of the Pythagoreans.¹⁴⁹ What this reveals is that the similarity
between Pythagoreans such as Philolaus, on the one hand, and Apollonius, on
the other, cannot be explained in terms of either a common theoretical-doctrinal
point of view or the historical relations between either of them with Pythagoras.
The only plausible criterion of their identification with Pythagoreanism relies on
their adherence to a lifestyle, a bíos, which both, Philolaus and Apollonius,
should recognize as Pythagorean. However, if it is possible to agree with Huff-
man 1993: 11 that such a lifestyle “undoubtedly included certain moral principles
such as the exhortation to live a simple life and to practice temperance”, those
moral principles are so general as to not even constitute a real mark of distinc-
tion between the Pythagorean and the old sophós in general. Hesiod himself
could, in all likelihood, share them.¹⁵⁰
It is significant that Huffman’s recent attempt to formulate a more precise list
of criteria that would identify the members of the catalog of Iamblichus as well
as others as Pythagoreans met with failure. Huffman 2008b: 299 claims three
such criteria: a) the existence of an undisputed ancient testimony, that is, one
prior to the fourth century BC, that such a philosopher was considered a Pytha-
gorean; b) compelling evidence that such a philosopher has taken the basic met-
aphysical scheme of the Pythagoreans, which Huffman equates with that descri-
bed by Aristotle and found in Philolaus’ fragments, which in his view would es-
sentially correspond to the doctrine that “everything can be known through
number”;¹⁵¹ c) evidence that the character is embodied in the Pythagorean bio-
graphical tradition, having been a disciple or interlocutor of some other Pytha-
gorean.
Although Huffman’s effort is indeed original and commendable, the result
does not allow one to reach that “vigorous” Pythagorean tradition (Huffman
2008c: 301) that the author intends to explain. For the answers to these three cri-
teria will still depend heavily on a pre-understanding – that is itself debatable –
of what is unquestionably an old testimony (a) or what the alleged Pythagorean
metaphysical scheme is (b). Huffman himself, though on different grounds, ends
up recognizing that the application of these “rigorous” criteria still produces a
long list of Pythagoreans. However, this would not be more than a
149 For an annotated collection of writings attributed to Pythagorean women, primarily based
on Thesleff 1965, see the recent Montepaone 2011.
150 Huffman 1993: 11.
151 The same idea was already present in Huffman 1993: 74. The issue will receive the attention
it surely deserves in the fourth chapter.
reflection of the fact that Pythagoras was famous for leaving behind him a way of life, so
that in addition to Pythagoreans of a cosmological and metaphysical bent, such as Philo-
laus and Archytas, there were a number of other figures who can be called Pythagoreans
merely on the basis of the way they lived their lives.¹⁵²
Thus, once again, the most reliable criterion, that of bíos as transmitted by tra-
dition, goes beyond any distinction based on doctrines. It is therefore appropri-
ate to agree with Centrone’s conclusion:
Pythagoreanism did not emerge as a philosophical school, and a philosophical doctrine

cannot be that which allows one to identify a Pythagorean. A more reliable criterion
would be to consider Pythagoreans the ones that ancient tradition qualifies as disciples
or successors to Pythagoras. […] this excludes the delimitation of the Pythagorean phenom-
enon to a specific field or to having a monothematic philosophy.¹⁵³
Thus, for all purposes, authors with interests ranging from physiology to botany,
as in Alcmaeon’s or Menestor’s case, can be considered Pythagoreans.
However, the possibility of adherence to a particular way of life implies, at
least in its inaugural pre-Socratic times, the actual existence of a community
that is structured around that same way of life. Even later, in the Hellenistic
age, when the definition of bíos may become an individual choice, the commun-
ity of the beginning of the doctrine would be held up as a model far off in time,
and worthy of being followed.¹⁵⁴ However, what kind of community would the
Pythagorean koinōnía be?
Plato, in the Republic, nominally cites the Pythagoreans twice: in the first
reference he implies that the community shared a private knowledge (ídion):
But then, if not in public life, at least privately they say that Homer, while he was alive, has
personally followed the education of the disciples who loved their attendance and has
passed on to future generations some Homeric way of life, just like Pythagoras who, for
that same reason, was greatly loved, and his followers still today call it the Pythagorean
way of life, and for this one they seem to be distinguished from others.¹⁵⁵
152 Huffman 2008c: 301.

153 Centrone 1999: 441, orig.: “Il pitagorismo non è sorto come una scuola filosofica, e non può
essere una dottrina filosofica ciò che permette di identificare un pitagorico. Un criterio più
affidabile consiste nel considerare pitagorici coloro che la tradizione antica qualifica come
discepoli o successori di Pitagora and aderenti all’associazione. […] ciò esclude la delimitazione
del fenomeno pitagorico a un ambito scientifico ben preciso o a una filosofia monotematica”.
See also Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 434.
154 For an extensive discussion of this change of the concept of bíos in Hellenistic time, see
Vegetti 1989: 271– 300.
155 Plato, Rep. X: 600a-b.
The object of this Pythagorean paideía would not be so much a scientific or phil-
osophical doctrine, but rather, a trópos toû bíou, a way of life. On the other hand,
in his second reference to the matter, Plato seems to want to identify Pythagor-
eanism with a philosophical and research school:
It is likely that, as the eyes are conformed to astronomy, so are the ears to the harmonic
movement, and that these two sciences are somehow sisters, as the Pythagoreans say,
and we agree.¹⁵⁶
The same idea seems to be expressed on the next page of the Republic, when Py-
thagoreans are utilized as part of a contrast between, on the one hand, those
who torture strings and obstruct their ears to thinking by doing empirical musi-
cological research but never “make the ascent to problems” and, on the other
hand, the methodical research of the Pythagoreans (Plato, Rep. VII: 531a-d).¹⁵⁷
A fragment from Archytas, the authenticity of which was recently defended
by Huffman 1985 and 2005: 112– 114, presents the same idea of brotherhood be-
tween astronomy and music:
It seems that those who dedicated themselves to the mathematical sciences have achieved
good results, and it is not strange that they reasoned properly about everything, because,
knowing the nature of the whole, they should see well even in the particular things, as they
were. So they provided us with clear notions about the speed of the stars, the sunrise and
the sunset, but also on geometry, arithmetic and not least about on music. These sciences
do seem to be sisters.¹⁵⁸
The similarity between this Archytas fragment and Plato’s second testimony
above suggests a way to resolve the apparent inconsistency of the Platonic tradi-
tion: in the first passage, Plato is referring to proto-Pythagoreanism, while in the
second he is referring to the Pythagoreanism of his time, in particular to Archy-
tas. Since the Pythagorean communities disappeared after the anti-Pythagorean
riots of the mid-fifth century BC, and since in fact Archytas always appears in the
tradition as an independent thinker and scientist, he was therefore not usable as
a model for the Pythagorean community and its bíos. ¹⁵⁹ What one sees at work
here is the diachronic dimension of inquiry, searching for a way through the dif-
156 Plato, Rep. VII: 530d.

157 See also for the same approach between music and astronomy Cratylus (405d). For a review
of the refusal of empiricism and the brotherhood of both sciences, see Vegetti 1999: 86 – 88 and
Meriani 2003.
158 47 B 1 DK.
159 Aristotle, in fact, comes to Archytas not when writing about the so-called Pythagoreans, but
dedicates to the philosopher-king of Tarentum a separate account. See also below (4.1.2).
2.3 The Pythagorean koinōnía 61
ferent strata of traditions that contribute to the definition of the historiographical

category of Pythagoreanism.¹⁶⁰
Returning to the Aristotelian testimony and moving beyond the above dis-
cussed expression hoi kaloúmenoi pythagóreíoi, the references to the Pythagor-
ean contributions to mathematics and physics (see Met. 985b 23) would suggest
a prior identification of Pythagoreanism with a scientific and philosophical com-
munity. And yet, the remaining fragments of works from the Aristotelian corpus
specifically devoted to the study of the Pythagoreans (fragments 191– 205 Rose)
seem, on the contrary, to reveal other approaches: Aristotle occupies himself
here with the life of Pythagoras and with akoúsmata and sýmbola which guide
the Pythagorean community life. Famous is the testimony of the fragment 192
Rose:
Aristotle in his work On Pythagorean Philosophy brings news of the fact that his followers
are guarding within the most rigid secrets of the following distinction: of the living beings
endowed with reason, one is god, the other is man, the third has the nature of Pythago-
ras.¹⁶¹
So even Aristotle’s testimony, as is the case with Plato, is not crucial to under-
stand what would be the main feature of the community, whether the scientific
research or that of a common life guided by akoúsmata and sýmbola.
It is likely that the question ideally addressed to Plato and Aristotle – “What
is the (single) salient feature of the Pythagorean koinōnía?” – is indeed mis-
placed. The aporía suggests that it’s necessary both to methodologically review
the very attempt to separate the two alternatives and to resume the search for the
nature of this community from an alternative point of view.
2.3 The Pythagorean koinōnía
There were two basic kinds of Greek associations: the thíasos and the hetairía.
The former was directly connected to a cult, and involved the sharing of rites
and mysterious knowledge, while the hetairía was more closely linked to the
idea of an association of phíloi, in the political sense of allies and brothers
who meet each other in a private club. The Pythagorean community is almost
160 On the authenticity of fr. 1 of Archytas, doubts were raised by Burkert 1972: 379 and
Centrone 1996: 70 n21. For the idea of the outmodedness of Archytas for a discussion on the
proto-Pythagorean community, see Centrone 1996: 70.
161 14 A 7 DK = Iambl. VP: 31.
unanimously considered by tradition to be a hetairía, albeit rather a sui generis

one: indeed, while trying to justify the violent revolt against the Pythagoreans,
Iamblichus reveals the feeling of estrangement felt by the population with re-
spect to the community of Pythagoreans:
The leaders of this dissension were those that were nearest to the Pythagoreans, both by
kindred and intercourse. These leaders, as well as the common folk, were offended by
the Pythagoreans’ actions, which were unusual, and the people interpreted that peculiarity
as a reflection on theirs.¹⁶²
This difference that constituted the community, linked to some strange cultural
and economic practices, was, in all probability, an essential part of the reason
for the aforementioned enmity towards that very community. The Pythagorean
community’s political presence, underlined above, also would suggest that the
best identification would indeed be with the model of hetairía. And yet, the sour-
ces are quite insistent on presenting a community openly dedicated to worship
and based on akoúsmata and sýmbola, that is, on secret words and signs of iden-
tification. This evidence supports the opposite hypothesis, that is, that the Pytha-
gorean community finding their most appropriate typological place under the
thíasos. ¹⁶³
Based on their community’s undeniable distinctness, Burkert 1982: 2– 3, 19,
followed by Riedweg 2002: 166 – 171, believes that the best definition for the Py-
thagorean community is the term “sect”.¹⁶⁴ Aware of the common derogatory use
of the term, several authors, including myself, prefer a more neutral name, like
the one used up to now, “community”, to translate the Greek word koinōnía. Bur-
kert claims the term “sect” has the advantage of being more technical and relat-
ed to sociological usage, in the wake of the works of Bryan Wilson and Arnaldo
Momigliano (Burkert 1982: 3).
162 Iambl. VP: 255.

163 For an extensive review of the terminology used by the ancient sources to indicate the
Pythagorean community, see Minar 1942: 15 – 35. Both Philip 1966: 144 and Zhmud 1992: 241– 2
consider improbable the association of the Pythagoreans with the thíasos model because of the
community’s obvious political actions. Centrone 1996: 67– 68 takes a less skeptical stance,
recognizing that, as some esoteric features of the community were in fact underlined by the later
tradition, this does not authorize tout court denying any historical value to these esoteric fea-
tures.
164 The first to use the term “Sekte” is Rohde 1898: 103 ff. The use of a terminology coming from
the sociology of religion is not unusual: Toynbee 1939: 84 and Jaeger 1947: 61 even use the word
“church” to refer to the Pythagorean community.
Thus, in studying Pythagoreanism, one might identify the minimum charac-

teristics that define a sect from the standpoint of the sociology of religious
groups. On this approach the Pythagorean community would be a very small
group, with an elitist nature, alternative modes, and some level of secrecy. Fur-
thermore, the Pythagoreans would hold regular meetings or live together, shar-
ing in economic and spiritual activity, submitting to the authority of a charismat-
ic guide and strongly identifying with a separation between themselves and the
outsiders. The salient features of the Pythagorean way of life include revengeful
actions against apostates, reproductive policies to ensure the survival of the
community, and geographical mobility.
In fact, our evidence shows Burket’s proposed classification to be appropri-
ate. We will survey some of the most prominent traditions in the light of this pos-
sible identification of Pythagoreanism with a cult. The two Lives of Porphyry and
Iamblichus, especially the latter, are rich sources of information about the com-
munity and the rules of their bíos. Although these documents contain late inter-
polations they also contain older strata which testify to many of the characteris-
tics of cults.¹⁶⁵
Limited number. The Pythagoreans, though influential in the cities they ran
in Magna Graecia, were always a minority, both within the aristocratic groups
these same cities as well as in the larger sphere of the intellectual culture of
their time. Although Pythagoras’ four political speeches upon arriving in Croton
did win – according to Porphyry (VP: 20) and Iamblichus (VP: 30) – an audience
of two thousand people, only six hundred of them became real disciples, “not
only led by him to philosophy, but also ready to ‘live together’, as it was, accord-
ing to his precepts” (Iambl. VP: 29).¹⁶⁶ Therefore, tradition seems to already sug-
gest an initial selection. Iamblichus’ intention to count the Pythagoreans certain-
ly would have required a limited number of them.
Elitist nature. The aforementioned tradition of Pythagoras’ public discourses
upon his arrival at Croton (Porph. VP: 20; Iambl. VP: 30), which resulted in the
membership of six hundred, might suggest that taking part in the community
and having access to his teachings was easy. A tradition that originates from An-
tiphon, quoted by Porphyry (VP: 9), recalls that even in Samos, Pythagoras
founded a didaskaleíon, a school, called the “semicircle of Pythagoras”, which
gathered those who discussed public business. He himself, however, took refuge
165 For an assessment of the influence of the Pythagorean tradition on the evolution of the
literary genre of the Lives of philosophers in the ancient world, see Goulet 2001: 23 – 61,
espec. 32– 34, with an analysis of Porph. VP and Iambl. VP.
166 Diogenes Laertius agrees with the number of 600 (D. L. Vitae VIII. 15). As for Apollonius of
Tyana the number was even more restricted, limited to 300 (FGrHist 1064 F, 254).
in an ántron, a cave, where he could devote himself exclusively to philosophy.

This suggests that even in the early years of Pythagoras’ teaching, the commun-
ity was already characterized by elitism and separation from the folk.
The same exclusive character can be seen in the strict criteria for admission
to the community, marked by a probationary period of dokimasía:
When some youths came up wishing to live with him, he didn’t accept them, waiting for
them to be examined and judged. First he’d learn about the relationships they had with
their parents and other relatives before they approached him; then he would see who
among them laughed inconveniently, who was silent or spoke unreasonably and further
what were their passions, who were their relatives, what relationship they had with
them, which activities they engaged in most of the day and what was the reason for
their joy and pain […]. Those who overcame this test were despised for three years, with
the intent of putting to the test their strength and real love of knowledge […]. After that,
a silence was imposed on candidates for five years, to test their continence. Because of
all the evidence of self-control, to curb the language is certainly the hardest, as the found-
ers of mystery rites rightly demonstrate.¹⁶⁷
Both Porphyry and Iamblichus draw this information about the Pythagorean bíos
from Nicomachus. There is a suspicion, raised by both Von Fritz 1940: 220 and
Philip 1966: 140, that the extreme rigidity of access to the Pythagorean commun-
ity (three years of neglect, followed by another five years of silence) is actually a
backwards projection by Nicomachus. And yet, there is a parallel testimony in
Diogenes Laertius, whose source would have been Timaeus, which confirms
the testimony’s probable antiquity:
[His disciples] kept in silence for five years, only listening to his speeches, without ever see-
ing Pythagoras until they didn’t overcome the test, from then on they became part of his
house and were welcomed in his presence.¹⁶⁸
Life in common (cenobium) and communal property. The testimony above is full
of other sectarian signs, such as secrecy and especially communal property. The
passage from Iamblichus mentioned above refers to the dokimasía of young as-
pirants, detailing the nature of this sharing:
During this period, each one’s assets, that is, their properties, were joined together and en-
trusted to the notable members of the community in charge, called politicians: Some of
them were administrators, others legislators.¹⁶⁹
167 Iambl. VP: 71– 72.

168 D. L. Vitae VIII. 10. See for this reference Centrone 1996: 74.
169 Iambl. VP: 72.
The oldest evidence for communal property seems to be again from Timaeus: a
scholium to Phaedrus (Schol. In Phaedr. 279c) that corresponds literally to a pas-
sage from book IX by Timaeus:
Why, when the youths came to him and wanted to live with him, he did not allow them to
do it, but replied that they had to have their properties in common.¹⁷⁰
That is about the famous saying koinà tà phílōn (or koinà tà tôn phílōn) which
Plato refers to the Pythagoreans.¹⁷¹ Philip’s observation (1966: 142) that in Aristo-
tle, on the contrary, “its meaning is quite un-Pythagorean”, is incorrect. The pas-
sage from the Nicomachean Ethics he quotes (NE 1159b 25 – 32), although without
a direct reference to the Pythagorean origin of the saying, inserts koinà tà phílōn
in a discussion with a remarkably Pythagorean mark: an obviously economic dis-
cussion about the community of friends as promoters of justice:
It seems, therefore, as we said at the beginning, that friendship and justice are about the
same things and happen between the same people. To be sure, in every community
there seems to be some kind of fair and friendship. Friends are the companions of naviga-
tion and arms, and likewise those belonging to other communities. As they take part of the
community, there is friendship, and also justice. As the saying goes “goods are common
among friends,” because the friendship is in the community.¹⁷²
Not coincidentally, several authors have used the expression “communism”,

though often between quotation marks to reflect the obvious anachronism of
the term, to describe the Pythagorean use of the motto koinà tà phílōn. ¹⁷³ That
same relation between phíloi and díkaion is found in Plato who conversely has
no doubts attributing the saying directly to the Pythagoreans. A key passage
from the Republic explicitly mentions the connection between Pythagoreanism
and philía: at the beginning of Book V (449c), Adeimantus, at Polemarchus’ in-
vitation, rebukes Socrates for putting aside in his discussion of the fair and per-
fect city the problem posed by applying the saying koiná tà phílōn to women and
children; he is suspicious that Socrates wants to evade the question:
It seems to us that you’re trying to run away quickly, stealing an entire part of the discourse
(and certainly not the smallest one) lest you have to discuss it, that you have thought of
170 Schol. In Phaedr. 279c = FGrHist: 566 F 13.

171 See the references to the Platonic steps in the paragraphs immediately following.
172 NE 1159b 25 – 32.
173 Among them, Minar 1942: 29, 32, 35, Conybeare, in his translation of Philostratus’ Life of
Apollonius of Tyana (1948 – 50), and Burkert 1982: 15.
running away by slightly dropping that saying by which, regarding women and children,
for everyone it should be obvious that everything must be common among friends.¹⁷⁴
The saying, phaulôs ‘slightly’ introduced, in Book IV (424a), requires on the con-
trary – in the saying of Adeimantus – an explanation regarding the trópos tês
koinōnías (V: 449d), the type of this communion. Thus, Socrates will begin to in-
troduce the gynaikeîon drâma of the city in detail. The vocabulary of this passage
is impregnated with Pythagoreanism: both the communion of property (and of
women and children), and the importance of listening as a characteristic of
the bíos and the fair city, refer immediately to the characteristics of the Pythagor-
ean life.¹⁷⁵
The types of communal property reach beyond the simple organization of
property and sharing in communities of the cenobitical life. This is certainly sug-
gested by the cases of Cleinias of Tarentum and Proros of Cyrene:
Reportedly, Cleines of Tarentum, when he learned that Proros of Cyrene, a follower of the
Pythagorean doctrine, was in danger of losing his property, collected a sum of money and
sailed toward Cyrene, putting in order the affairs of Proros, without caring about his finan-
cial losses, but also about the dangers of navigation.¹⁷⁶
The anecdote reveals once again the radical nature of this community.
Similarly revealing is the uplifting story of a Pythagorean who fell seriously
ill during a long trip. After being treated with great generosity by the owner of a
hostel that received him in the last days of his life, the Pythagorean engraved a
symbol on a tablet and gave the following instructions:
He asked him to hang it outside the hostel door and keep an eye in case some passerby
recognized the sign, as, in that case, this person would pay him back all expenses and
thank him on his behalf. When the guest had died, the owner of the pension buried him
and took great care of the casket – without worrying about the costs or receiving some rec-
ognition of whoever would eventually identify the tablet. And yet, out of curiosity regarding
the order received, he wanted to put it to test, exposing the tablet so that it could always be
visible. Much later, a Pythagorean who passed by recognized the symbol. He then asked
what had happened and gave the owner of the hostel a much larger amount than that
which was disbursed.¹⁷⁷
174 (Plato, Rep. V: 449c).

175 Plato refers the saying to the Pythagoreans also in Lysis (207c) and Laws (739c).
176 Iambl. VP: 239.
177 Iambl. VP: 238.
History doesn’t tell what the symbol was. However, a page from Lucian (Jacoby I:
330) teaches that the sign of recognition of the Pythagoreans was the pentagram,
and it was even used as a signature in their letters.¹⁷⁸ These histories are easily
datable to later times. Nevertheless, they refer to a longstanding and strong tra-
dition that endured as a memory of the centrality of community property for the
Pythagoreans.
The Pythagorean friendship. The theme of philía has been present since Pythago-
ras’ famous four lógoi delivered upon his arrival at Croton. In the First Speech,
Pythagoras exhorts the young to take good care of their friends:
He stated that they would succeed even if in the relations among themselves they behaved
making it clear to never be hostile toward their friends, but rather they would be ready, as
soon as possible, to become friends with their own enemies.¹⁷⁹
The Pythagorean discussion of philía goes beyond the scope of mere common
life, and in fact reflects a key concept that pervades all of reality. For example,
Iamblichus’ testimony (Iambl. VP: 229 – 230; VP: 69 – 70) lists the six aspects of
philía taught by Pythagoras: of gods towards men, of the doctrines among them-
selves, of the soul with the body, of men among themselves and with animals,
and of the mortal body towards itself.¹⁸⁰As a proverbial element of Pythagorean-
ism, this notion of philía has attracted various stories that border on the legen-
178 For this tradition see also Iambl. VP: 88. Just because of the revelation of the secret of the
pentagram, Hippasus was deserving of expulsion from the community.
179 Iambl. VP: 40. In our discussion above, we discussed, the value of speeches as testimonies
to the foundation of the Pythagorean community, although some prudence is necessary in
interpreting them. See especially the studies by Rostagni 1922 and De Vogel 1966.
180 Iambl. VP: 229 – 230: “Pythagoras taught very clearly the φιλία of all towards all starting
with φιλία: 1) of the gods to men, through pity and a cult based on knowledge, 2) of the doctrines
among themelves, 3) generally of the soul with the body and the rational part of the soul with
the irrational part thanks to philosophy and the contemplation that is proper to it, 4) of men
among themselves: of citizens for their strict observance of the law, among humans of various
ethnicities through the right knowledge of [human] nature, of the man with regards to the wife
or children or siblings or relatives through an unbreakable communion, in short φιλία of all, to
all and even 5) of some irrational animals because of a sense of justice and of a natural
proximity and solidarity; 6) in short, of the mortal body with itself, pacification and reconci-
liation of opposing forces that lurk in it through the health system and the diet [of life] that this
tends to, and temperance through imitation of the condition of well-being that characterizes the
heavenly elements. It is the current opinion that it was Pythagoras who discovered and made it
law that one single word comprises it all, that is, φιλία; he taught his disciples such a wonderful
φιλία, that even today many say, about those that are linked together by a mutual benevolence,
that they are Pythagoreans”.
dary. Nevertheless, some of these stories are significant for understanding the
ethics of the philía that governed Pythagorean communities. One of the most sig-
nificant is a radical test, planned by Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, of the
friendship between two Pythagoreans, Phintias and Damon. Aristoxenus claims
to have heard it from the tyrant’s own mouth who – fallen into disgrace – went
on to become a teacher in Corinth:
One day Dionysius wanted to put them to the test, as some asserted that if he had trapped
and terrified them, they would not have remained faithful to each other. He then acted as
follows: Phintias was arrested and taken before the tyrant, who accused him of plotting
against him, adding that the fact had already been proven and that, therefore, he would
condemn him to the death penalty. Phintias replied, “if you so chose, I may be granted
at least the remainder of the day to settle my affairs and that of Damon” (he was indeed
his partner and companion, and as the eldest, had taken care of his business). Phintias,
therefore, asked to be let go and offered Damon as guarantor [to take his place]. Dionysius
agreed, and it was sent for Damon who, upon learning what had happened, immediately
agreed to be Phintias’s guarantor and was waiting for his return. (61) Dionysius, for his
part, was impressed with the event, while those who had initially proposed the test mocked
Damon, saying he would be abandoned there. But at sunset, Phintias arrived, ready to die.
And all were astonished; Dionysus, for his part, warmly embraced the two and asked to be
welcomed as third in their philía. ¹⁸¹
The tradition clearly testifies to the proverbial loyalty of the Pythagorean philía.
The philía between Lysis and Euryphamus is the subject of another narrative that
also represents loyalty between friends, although Rohde 1872: 50 describes it
simply as silly (“eine alberne Geschichte”):
As for the set pacts, Pythagoras prepared with such effectiveness his disciples to honestly
respect them, that it is narrated that once Lysis, while leaving the temple of Hera, after say-
ing his prayers, found Euryphamus of Syracuse, his companion, who in turn was entering
the temple. When the latter asked him to wait while he said his prayers, Lysis sat on a stone
bench near the exit of the temple. After the prayers, Euryphamus, deep in thought and
taken by a profound reflection left the temple by another door. Lysis, for his part, stood
still, waiting all day and night, and much of the next day. And probably would have re-
mained much longer if in the next day, Euryphamus, who had gone towards the auditorium,
had not remembered the fact, after hearing that Lysis was surrounded by friends from the
community. Only then did he go to meet him: the latter was waiting for him as he had
promised. He led him away, explaining the reason for his oversight: “It was a god that
made me forget, so I test your strength in keeping your promise”.¹⁸²
181 Porph. VP: 60 – 61.

182 Iambl. VP: 185.
The unconditional faithfulness of the Pythagorean philía lies in the background

of the anecdote. This faithfulness established a group identity strong enough to
cement a relationship between us and them, to the point of becoming stereotyp-
ical of Pythagoreanism in the ancient world.
Vengeance against apostates. In all likelihood, Timaeus is the source not
only of the accounts of dokimasía just mentioned, but also for information
about the procedures for expelling apostates, that is, those who betrayed the
rules of the bíos:
In the event that they were expelled, they recovered double their belongings, while “those
who heard together” (homákooi) as all followers of Pythagoras were called, raised a memo-
rial stone for them, as if they were dead […]. If on another occasion they happened to find
one who had been refused, they considered him as a total stranger, and not as a compan-
ion, for he had died for them.¹⁸³
The comparison with death indisputably indicates the permanent exclusion of

the apostates.
Distinctive ways of living. The organization of daily life in the Pythagorean
community was unusual for the standards of the time. The most coherent de-
scription of this can be found in Iamblichus:
In the morning they held solitary walks in places where there was peace and tranquility,
temples and groves, and something that cheers the spirit. They were indeed convinced
that one should not encounter anyone before preparing one’s soul and ordering one’s
thought […]. After the morning walk, they met among themselves, usually in shrines or
in places of similar nature. On these occasions they dedicated themselves to teaching
and learning and improving their character. Then they devoted themselves to caring for
their own bodies. […] At lunch, they had bread, honey, honey mixed with wax, and they
did not have wine throughout the day. They spent the evening hours on political affairs,
both internal and external ones. […] As the evening approached, they returned to the
walks, but not alone, as in the morning, but in groups of two or three, recalling things
learned […]. After the walk, they bathed and went to the common banquet […]. After the
banquet, they offered libations and there was reading […]. Once these words were uttered,
they returned to their own homes. They wore white and pure robes, and also wore white
and pure linen, as they did not wear fur.¹⁸⁴
183 Iambl. VP: 73 – 4.

184 Iambl. VP: 96 – 100. Parallel passage in Porph. VP: 32. The testimony is in all probability by
Aristoxenus, especially in its final part (Burkert 1982: 16). On the Aristoxenus’s reception of the
Pythagorean ethics in the fourth century BC and in Peripatetic scope, see recent studies by
Huffman 2006 and 2008.
The cenobitic and monastic image of the Pythagorean life certainly belongs to a
later tradition, probably mediated by the stoic Middle Platonists. It accords more
closely with the Hellenistic and Imperial ideal of life spent in quiet and bucolic
places. It draws particular attention to the practice of reading together, which
Iamblichus shortly thereafter (VP: 104) identifies with didaskalía dià tôn symból-
ōn, that is, the explanation of the signs: a form of exegesis that would include, in
additiont to oral practice, the use of a number of different types of writings, from
notes to published writings. Such literary activity is obviously unthinkable for
the sixth and fifth centuries BC. The monastic image must be recognized more
plausibly as the description of a life of study such the one at the Library of Alex-
andria in the Hellenistic age.¹⁸⁵
Vegetarianism is certainly another sign of the alternative lifestyle of the Py-
thagoreans. As we saw above in Detienne’s studies, a vegetarian diet implies a
radical rejection of the religious and social practice of animal sacrifice, which
was one of the pillars of ancient Greek culture. Vegetarianism is directly linked
to the belief in metempsýchōsis and the universal kinship among all living be-
ings, as mentioned in the initial summary of the doctrines of Pythagoras by Por-
phyry:
Some of his [Pythagoras’s] statements gained almost general notoriety: 1) he states that the
soul is immortal, 2) that it transmigrates into other species of living beings, 3) that, periodi-
cally, what has happened once will happen again, and that nothing is absolutely new, and
4) that all living things should be considered as akin. It seems that indeed it was Pythago-
ras who introduced for the first time these beliefs into Greece.¹⁸⁶
The mention of the introduction of this belief into Greece presupposes a public
response of general surprise to it and supports the image of a sect marked by an
alternative subculture.¹⁸⁷
As already mentioned, vegetarianism implies another sign of the Pythagor-
eans’ alternative stance: the famous tradition of refusing to make animal sacri-
fices. However, sacrifice was the focal point of the system of traditional beliefs
185 Iamblichus speaks more specifically of: dialogues (διαλέξεις), reciprocal instruction (ὁμι-
λίαι), annotations (ὑπομνηματισμοί), notes (ὑποσημειώσεις), tracts (συγγράμματα) and pu-
blications (ἐκδόσεις) (Iambl. VP: 104). The comparison exercise of this description can be ex-
tended even further, covering its similarity with a description of the Essenes in Flavius Josephus
(The Jewish War II, 128 – 33) and the Jewish therapists of the lake of Mareotis described by Philo
(De vita contemplativa II), despite the reservations expressed by Centrone 2000: 161 n47 com-
pared to the latter.
186 Porph. VP: 19.
187 To confirm this, Burkert defines metempsýchōsis as “a foreign body within Greek religion”
(1977: 430).
and a fundamental element of the religious festivities of the pólis. To refuse to

sacrifice would require coming into such radical conflict with the traditional re-
ligious system that the Pythagoreans were forced to admit some flexibility. The
rationalization of animal sacrifices appears in Iamblichus (VP: 85) and, especial-
ly, in a passage from On Abstinence by Porphyry:
For this reason, the Pythagoreans, embracing this tradition, refrained throughout their en-
tire life from eating animals and when they offered the gods an animal instead of them-
selves, they only tasted it, and they lived in fact untouched by other animals.¹⁸⁸
Though not dangerous, the tradition of such a countercultural practice remains

throughout the centuries, pointing once again to an alternative and sectarian ap-
proach to community.¹⁸⁹
Silence and secrecy. Several quotes above recall the obligation to keep silent
and maintain the secrecy of Pythagorean doctrine. This secrecy is frequently
mentioned in the tradition. The earliest testimony comes from Isocrates, a con-
temporary of Plato: “in our time, are still more admired those who profess to
be his disciples [Pythagoras’s] and keep silent, than those who get very great
fame through the word” (Isocrates, Busiris 29 = 14 A 4 DK). Even some fragments
of Middle Comedy (DK 58 E) describe this obligation of silence, “it was necessary
to withstand the scarcity of food, the dirt, the cold, the silence, the severity and
lack of hygiene” (Alexis, The Pythagorizousa, fr. 201 Kassel-Austin = 58 E 1 DK).¹⁹⁰
The most famous (and melodramatic) instance of ther violation of the oath
of silence concern the revelation, probably by Hippasus, of the doctrine of in-
commensurability of the side and diagonal of a square (or, in another version,
the method of inscribing a dodecahedron in a sphere.¹⁹¹ Moreover, the mathe-
matical tradition of Pythagoreanism further attributes to Hippasus the theft of
the originality of the discovery. The tradition calls it His instead (toû andrós,
188 Porph. De Abst. 2. 28: 2.

189 Burkert 1972: 182 commented on the accommodation to the majority culture of the practice
of renunciation of animal sacrifice: “It would have meant a complete overturn of traditional
ways. As far as we can judge, the Pythagoreans sought compromise in the matter; an acusma
asks, ‘What is most just?’ and answers, ‘To sacrifice’. An accommodation of the doctrine of
metempsýchōsis and the traditional way was found, because it had to be found”.
190 For an overview of Pythagoreanism in middle comedy see Bellido 1972 and Chevitarese
2004.
191 Burkert 1972: 455 speaks of a “veritable melodrama in intellectual history” in relation to this
tradition of incommensurables. The chapter of Iamblichus which mentions the possibility of
someone educated in the sciences being expelled from the community mentions no one specific
but probably refers to Hippasus (VP: 74). For the explicit reference to Hippasus, see Iambl. VP:
88, 247.
Iambl. VP: 88), that is, Pythagoras’, who is considered unnamable. This attribu-
tion reveals a common reason to insist on secrecy of doctrine: faced by the
acousmatics’ resistance to considering mathematical issues of this kind as a fun-
damental part of the Pythagorean tradition, the side of mathematicians attribut-
ed the discoveries directly to Him, using the typical sleight of an argument from
authority. In the same way, when the vast production of apocryphal texts began
in Hellenistic times, the assumption that the early Pythagoreans had secret doc-
trines served to justify the later appearance of letters falsely attributed to Pytha-
goras or to his close relatives and disciples.¹⁹² As Huffman 2008a rightly notes,
Aristotle does not suggest that there was any difficulty in obtaining access to Py-
thagorean texts (in fact, he wrote three books on Archytas). It must follow either
that most of the Pythagorean doctrines were not, indeed, secretive, or that the
secret was “too badly kept” (Huffman 2008a: 218).
The longstanding controversy on the existence of Pythagoras’ authentic writ-
ings should also be understood within this tradition.¹⁹³
And yet, the presence of an obligation to secrecy is so significant, especially
with respect to the traditions of akoúsmata and sýmbola, that it cannot be con-
sidered to be a hellenistic forgery. It just sets up one of the central criteria for the
formation of a sect, that is, that of having an esoteric language which needs spe-
cific passwords to be understood.
A good solution to the issue of secrecy in the Pythagorean community and
literature is proposed by Gemelli 2007b. Within a careful analysis of the esoteric
language used by the pre-Socratics, Gemelli notes that:
A close connection between language and experience is characteristic of an esoteric text,

which says nothing to those who do not have the ability to “make the word concrete”.
The silence intended by the Pythagoreans is not silence over words, but about the experi-
ences. For one without the others remains a locked safe.¹⁹⁴
192 See, for the collection of these apocrypha, Thesleff 1965, and his ‘Introduction’ to this
literature (Thesleff 1961). See also Szlezák 1972 for editing and commentary on the famous
treatise On the ten categories by pseudo-Archytas, and Centrone 1990 for an edition and com-
mentary on some pseudo-Pythagorean moral treatises. Even Philolaus is remembered for a
breach of confidentiality on the occasion of the release of three celebrated books bought by
Plato (D. L. Vitae VIII. 85). And even that news is used to legitimize a false Pythagorean of the
Hellenistic age (mentioned earlier in D. L. Vitae VIII. 6). See, for this, Burkert 1972: 223 – 227,
Huffman 1993: 12– 14, and what will be written next (4.1.3.1).
193 See D. L. Vitae VIII. 6 – 8. For a comment on this controversy see Centrone 1992.
194 Gemelli, 2007b: 438, orig.: “ist ein Charakteristikum esoterischer Texte, die eben für den-
jenigen nichtssagend sind, dem die Fähigkeit fehlt, dem Wort ‘einen konkreten Sinn zu ver-
leihen’. Das Schweigen, das die Pythagoreer verlangten, bezog sich nicht auf das Gesagte,
sondern auf das Erlebte. Denn das eine blieb ohne das andere ein versiegelter Schrein.”
Therefore, secrets would be a community’s strategy to keep their experiences as

the exclusive prerogative of the initiates; Gemelli’s thesis is very convincing and
filled with consequences for understanding the esoteric dynamics of proto-Py-
thagoreanism.
Charismatic guide. The charismatic presence of the founder Pythagoras hov-
ers above the various features so far detected in his sect. Both the above Aristo-
telian reference to Pythagoras’ intermediate nature between gods and men
(Iambl. VP: 31), as well as the expression toû andrós (Iambl. VP: 88), referring
to Pythagoras without naming him, indeed suggest the presence of yet another
criterion for identifying Pythagoreanism as a sect. In addition, there is a recur-
ring tradition of attributing the authority of virtually any doctrine to the master
Pythagoras, a tradition remembered by the expression Autòs épha, ipse dixit
(Iambl. VP: 46). The figure of Pythagoras falls clearly in the pattern of theîos
anḗr, the divine man of ancient Greek tradition, whose characteristics were clev-
erly summarized by Achtemeier:
The characteristics of theîos anḗr can be summarized briefly: a miraculous birth, the over-
powering ability to persuade by speech, the ability to perform miracles, including healing
and foreseeing the future, and a death marked in some way as extraordinary.¹⁹⁵
Several testimonies about Pythagoras’s supernatural powers and, especially, his

miracles fit within the construction of this extraordinary figure.
Macris 2003: 265 – 270, while recognizing that the sources tend to use the ex-
pression theîos anḗr, prefers – in the wake of Riedweg – to use the more generic
“charismatic”, justifying the choice as follows:
If we prefer the adjective “charismatic” it is because, in its proper Weberian sociological

meaning, it inevitably evokes, beyond Pythagoras’ exceptional gifts, the relationship of
domination that is established between the master and members of the community that
formed around him.¹⁹⁶
Pythagoras’ charisma, therefore, must be thought of as another cohesive element

of the Pythagorean koinōnía.
195 Achtemeier 1972: 209.

196 See Riedweg (2002: 119 ff.) for an in-depth description of the sociological model that would
be behind the charismatic figure of Pythagoras. Orig.: “Se nous lui avons préféré le qualificatif
‘charismatique’ c’est parce que, dans son acception sociologique proprement wébérienne, il
evoque inévitablement, au-delà dês dons exceptionnels de Pythagore, la relation de domination
qui s’est ètablie entre le maître et lês membres de la communauté qui s’est formée autour de lui”
(Macris 2003: 270).
Reproductive requirements. Among the practices that mark off the Pythagor-
ean community the rest of Greek society is the admission of women to the same
social status of men. It is not a matter of chance that Pythagoreans were stock
characters in Middle Comedy. The inclusion of women in the Pythagorean com-
munity from its beginning is attested by the sources (Porph. VP: 19 – 20; Iambl.
VP: 30). The first name remembered is that of Theano: who is variously identified
as the founder’s wife and as his daughter. Beyond the anecdotes designed to
show the strength of Pythagorean women and their loyalty to the community
– this is the case of the pregnant Timycha, who resists the torture of Dionysius
II (Iambl. VP: 194) – a series of testimonies provide information concerning the
regulation and rituals surrounding reproduction and reveal different gender re-
lations among the Pythagoreans:
They say that when Theano was asked how many days after a sexual intercourse with a
man a woman regains purity, she would have replied: “ of the relationship with her own
spouse, immediately, with the one with a stranger, never.” She exhorted the wife who
was going to have with her own husband to abandon, along with the dresses, the
shame, and once getting up [from bed], to retrieve it along with these. And when she
was asked: “Which?”, she replied: “Those they call me a woman for”.¹⁹⁷
One of the accounts of Pythagoras’ katábasis to Hades points in the same direc-
tion: among those who were being punished, he saw men who had been unwill-
ing to have sexual intercourse with their wives (D. L. Vitae VIII. 21). Iamblichus
(VP: 132 and 195) reports that Pythagoras convinced the people of Croton to
abandon their concubines. Here the concern would not be, it seems, the equality
of marital moral obligations between men and women, but rather a typical atti-
tude of small sectarian communities to ensure their own survival by limiting re-
production to within the group itself. Possibly, these two goals coincide: equality
of husband and wife implies sexualy fidelity of both partners, which in turn pro-
motes the survival of the koinōnía. The various sayings dedicated to the need to
procreate in order to honor the gods, themselves seemingly generic, assume, in
the context of the relatively small Pythagorean community, tones of genuine
drama.¹⁹⁸
Intense geographical mobility. Finally, a geographical mobility is implicit in
the narrative of Timycha, mentioned above, where, while pregnant, but before
being arrested and tortured after falling into the trap of Dionysius II, she was
traveling along with nine other companions from Taranto to Metapontum
197 D. L. Vitae VIII. 43.

198 See Iambl. VP: 84.
(Iambl. VP: 189 – 194). The tradition is attributed to Neanthes and it was certainly
drawn up according to the model of the Hellenistic biographical anecdotes. Nev-
ertheless, Burkert 1982: 17 fairly notes that it reveals one last typical character-
istic of a sect, that of the mobility of its members, because: “They followed
the seasons change and chose the right places for their meetings” (Iambl. VP:
189). The mobility of the community means refusal to belong to a specific city
and the substitution of that polyadic relationship with a sectarian one.
By way of conclusion, it is important to bear in mind the narrative scheme of
the foundation of the Pythagorean community. The same account, going back to
Nichomachus, is found in both Porphyry and Iamblichus in the accounts of Py-
thagoras’ four speeches at Croton:
With a single public lesson, as stated by Nicomachus, given upon his arrival in Italy, he
won over more than two thousand listeners, so much that they never came back home
and never abandoned him, but rather constituted, along with women and children, a
huge “house of listeners” and founded that which everyone called Magna Graecia of
Italy. They took from him [Pythagoras] laws and prescriptions […] and put their goods in
common.¹⁹⁹
In one single lesson, the first he had ever given publicly after arriving alone in Italy, he
knew how to win over with his words more than two thousand people. These were taken
to the point where they didn’t return to their homes and, instead, constituted, along
with women and children, an immense “house of listeners” and founded what was called
by all Magna Graecia. They took from him [Pythagoras] laws and prescriptions […] and put
their goods in common.²⁰⁰
The narrative scheme closely follows the model of the foundation of a city-col-
ony: to the injunction not return to their own homes (oukéti oikáde apéstēsan),
the establishment of a new common center (homakoeîon), and ultimately the
foundation of a new city which includes women and children and is built on
communal property.²⁰¹
The reference to Magna Graecia alludes to something new: in its normal use,
the term Megálē Héllas does not refer to a specific city, but rather to a whole area
(southern Italy). Consequently, Pythagoreanism here means more than just
founding a city: instead, it gives the territories of Magna Graecia a political
unity (polízein is the verb used in both traditions) which was previously nonexis-
tent (Mele 2000: 329).
199 Porph. VP: 20

200 Iambl. VP: 30.
201 The terms used to indicate the political colonization are significantly πολίσαι in Porph. VP:
20 and πολίσαντες in Iambl. VP: 30.
Seen “from the outside”, the Pythagorean koinōnía-pólis-chṓra system could

not help but appear threatening to the rest of the established powers. The news
of the riots and the successive crises of the Pythagorean presence in Magna Grae-
cia are clear evidence of hostility to the school. Above all, the tradition of the re-
fusal by the inhabitants of Locri to welcome Pythagoras when he was a fugitive
is significant:
We heard, Pythagoras, that thou are wise and exceptionally talented, but with regard to our
laws, we have no reason to reconsider them and, therefore, we will try to stick to them. You,
on your part, go to another place, but take that which is necessary.²⁰²
In what way this political and diplomatic project to reestablish Magna Graecia in
fact corresponded to the intention of the first Pythagorean communities is un-
clear. Surely, however, Pythagoras and his peers were perceived as a threat to na-
tive laws and custom, as they carried with their arrival a reputation for large eth-
ical, political and legal reform: the Pythagorean community is perceived as a
mētrópolis that permeates all Magna Graecia, ready to re-found and to colonize
the whole territory. The mobility of the Pythagorean leadership (and of Pythago-
ras himself), as well as the archaeological evidence, especially of the coins of the
time, seem to point to the fact that – at least until the crisis of the end of the
sixth to the mid-fifth centuries BC – this project was very successful.²⁰³ On the
other hand, the Pythagorean literature defends koinōnía as necessary to avoid
tyranny which is inimical to the achievement of a philosophical bíos. ²⁰⁴
202 Porph. VP: 56.

203 It is believed today that the anti-Pythagorean riots had been two, not just an ἐπιβουλή, as
suggested by Iambl. VP: 248: the first would coincide with Pythagoras’s death, the second would
take place in the mid fifth century BC. For an updated review of the scholars’ positions on the
crisis of the Pythagorean communities, see Musti 1990: 62.
204 This is the tradition that sees Pythagoras exiled because of his disagreement with the
tyrant Polycrates of Samos (Porph. VP: 16). The latter, the heir of a famous pirate, had taken
Samos in 538 BC thanks to a mercenary army. By usurping the government, he had caused the
forced emigration of a part of the Samians. The first diaspora of which we know is that towards
Diceraquia, in the current region of Naples, in 524 BC (Accame 1980). Despite some traditions
remembering – in the case of Antisthenes (Porph. VP: 7; D. L. Vitae VIII. 3) – an initial colla-
boration between Pythagoras and Polycrates (the former had asked the king of Egypt, Amasis, to
welcome the latter so he could share with him the formation of the Egyptian priests), the
reference to a traditional opposition to Pythagoras’s tyranny, probably then Aristoxenian, and
therefore from the fourth century BC, serves as such to represent the figure of Pythagoras as an
“emigrant in search of freedom” (Burkert 1972: 119). This same freedom is the ideological fabric
of the rebuilding of the Pythagorean cities in Magna Graecia.
2.4 Acousmatics and mathematicians 77
In both cases, however, the koinōnía is thus political alternative to the real
mētrópolis and its logic. It is a project founded upon two solid institutions: the
homakoeîon, the “house of listeners,” and the sharing of property. The Pythagor-
ean community is, in short, a city that listens and shares, whose design is based,
on the one hand, on silence and the philosophy to be heard, on the other hand
on a communist economic system, both as conditions sine quibus non for the re-
alization of a philosophical bíos.
Thus, this account resolves an apparent contradiction between the political
involvement of the Pythagoreans and the sectarian characteristic of its commun-
ity. We agree with Burkert’s statement that there was no place in ancient Greece
for this kind of contradiction:
There is no inconsistency between this [political] and the religious and ritual side of Pytha-
goreanism. In fact, cult society and political club are in origin virtually identical. Every or-
ganized group expresses itself in terms of a common worship, and every cult society is ac-
tive politically as a hetairía. ²⁰⁵
Consequently, an image which portrays the Pythagorean community as political

and sectarian at the same time is valid: it proposes itself, ultimately, as a radical
alternative to the city, as a city within a city.²⁰⁶
2.4 Acousmatics and mathematicians
Tradition is aware of a division within the Pythagorean community itself. Iambli-

chus recalls an alleged division between Pythagoreus, on the one hand, disciples
fully integrated into community life, and Pythagoreans, on the other: rivals of the
former, who followed the studies and the doctrines but radically did not obey the
precepts of the bíos (Iambl. VP: 80). Anonymous of Photios (Thesleff 1965: 237,
paragraphs 7– 12) knows of an even greater number of categories of Pythagor-
eans: the venerable, devoted to theoretical studies; politicians, engaged in the
management of human life; mathematicians, devoted to geometry and astrono-
my; Pythagoreans, direct disciples of Pythagoras; Pythagoreus, in turn disciples
of the latter; and Pythagorists, sympathizers and non-members of the commun-
ity.
205 Burkert 1972: 119. Zhmud 1992: 247 n5 disagrees with this interpretation, denying the im-
portance of the religious component of the Pythagorean community. Similarly Philip 1966: 138.
206 On this see also Cornelli 2010.
However, the most common distinction in the Pythagorean literature, con-

stantly referred to contemporary discussions of Pythagoreanism, is the one be-
tween acousmatics and mathematicians. In general, the distinction between
the two groups captures the separation between the “man of science”, the math-
ematikós, who is dedicated to the study and research of geometry, astronomy,
music, and the “man of faith”, the akousmatikós, who would simply follow the
akoúsmata and sýmbola which regulate the Pythagorean life.²⁰⁷
However, all distinctions of the degrees to which members belonged to the
Pythagorean community are only found in later sources. In fact, references to the
distinction between acousmatics and mathematicians first appear in the second
century AD, in Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 5.59), and then later in Porphyry
(VP: 20) and Iamblichus (VP: 81, 87– 88; De Comm. Mathem. 76, 16 f.).
Moreover, the tradition of this distinction raises several historiographical
problems. First, the term ákousma, in the sense of a precept to be followed, is
not found before Iamblichus. Up through Porphyry, the precepts of the Pythagor-
ean life are called sýmbola. ²⁰⁸ Consequently, the use of the term acousmatics
shall be attributed to Iamblichus himself and cannot be considered as a valid
designation of a real group which was historically present at the time of the
early Pythagoreans. The same impossibility of the acousmatics constituting a
real group is suggested by the erratic complexity of the precepts that constitute
the akoúsmata. According to testimony from Iamblichus (VP: 82), there were
three types of akoúsmata, each corresponding to a different question: tí ésti,
what is, tí málista, what is the biggest, and tí praktéon, what should be done:
All the so-called akoúsmata are divided into three groups: those of the first indicate what
something is, those of the second, which is bigger, those of the third, what should and
should not be done. Those who define what something is, are like this: “What are the is-
lands of the blessed? They are the Sun and the Moon. What is the oracle of Delphi? The
tetrad, that is, the harmony, where the sirens are.” The following examples belong to the
group that indicates what is greater: “What is the most rightful thing? Sacrifice. What is
the wisest? The number, but right after that comes that which gave name to things. What
is the most beautiful? Harmony. And the strongest? Reasoning. And the best? Happiness.
And what is the truest thing to say? That men are evil.”²⁰⁹
207 The interpretation of the distinction of the two kinds of men as lying between the “man of
science” and the “man of faith” is by Centrone 1996: 81.
208 Iamblichus himself uses sýmbola up to the Protrepticus. See Zhmud 1992: 248 n15 for the
references to the passages from Aristotle to Porphyry.
209 Iambl. VP: 82.
The result is a series of precepts that Zhmud 1992: 241 defines in no uncertain
terms as “a tremendous amount of absurdities”. Among them, one must first
wear the right pair of the shoes, one should not frequent the main streets nor
talk in the absence of light, and one should not bear the image of a god in a
ring nor sacrifice a white rooster.²¹⁰ According to Zhmud, it is quite hard to imag-
ine that in practice one could follow this complex network of akoúsmata
Second, Iamblichus, our main source for the distinction between acousmat-
ics and mathematicians, includes a remarkable contradiction while explaining
the distinction (Iambl. VP: 81 and 87).²¹¹ While in VP: 81, he says:
His philosophy took two forms, because those who practice it are in two distinct genres: the
acousmatics and the mathematicians. Among them, the mathematicians were recognized by
others as pythagoreus, but for their part did not consider the acousmatics as such, not at-
tributing the doctrine they professed to Pythagoras, but to Hippasus.²¹²
Shortly thereafter, in chapter 87, Iamblichus states the exact opposite:
The Pythagoreans dealing with mathematics recognize [the acousmatics] as Pythagoreans.

They claim to be so to a greater extent and to be professing the truth.²¹³
Parallel to the latter is another testimony from Iamblichus, present in De commu-

ni mathematica scientiae:
Among them, mathematicians recognized the acousmatics as Pythagoreans, while the

acousmatics did not recognize the former as Pythagorean, nor that the acousmatic doctrine
was that of Pythagoras – it was, rather, of Hippasus. Some claim that Hippasus would have
been born in Croton, others in Metapontum. The Pythagoreans dealing with mathematics
210 Zhmud even suggests that it is impossible to take these taboos seriously (Zhmud 1992, 244).
However, for an extensive discussion aimed at understanding the meaning of the akoúsmata as
part of the culture of the mystery rituals in the ancient world, see Burkert 1992: 166 – 192.
211 The contradiction presented by the two versions is unprecedented, and goes beyond his
aforementioned (1.3) “cut and paste” procedure that, distinguishes Iamblichus’s writing pro-
cedures in relation to his sources. See, in general, Rohde 1872: 60, and for the specific passage
Burkert 1992: 193.
212 Iambl. VP: 81. Hippasus seems to have been the first Pythagorean to clearly engage in
scientific research: the experience of bronze disks of equal diameter and different thickness,
through which the numerical ratios that preside the musical harmonies would have been
understood, is attributed to him (see Aristoxenus, fr. 90 Wehrli). Centrone 1996 suggests that the
authorship of the accusation to Hippasus of the disclosure of the secret could be of ma-
thematical scope, an attempt to legitimize mathematical research, making the latter go back to
Pythagoras himself (Centrone 1996: 85 – 86).
213 Iambl. VP: 87.
recognize that these [the acousmatics] are Pythagoreans, but mathematicians claim to be so
to a greater extent and to be professing the truth.²¹⁴
The contradiction is obvious: while in the first version mathematicians are the
real Pythagoreans and, therefore, would deny the title of Pythagorean to the
acousmatics, in the second version (both in the Life of Pythagoras as well as
in the parallel passage of De communi mathematica scientia), Iamblichus says
the opposite: acousmatics deny that mathematicians profess the true Pythagor-
ean doctrine. There is one particularly interesting detail: Hippasus ends up being
identified as an acousmatic in the first version and a mathematician in the sec-
ond one.
This contradiction requires a reconstruction of the possible original version
of the testimony. Deubner (Iamblichus, 1937), and later Burkert 1992: 193 – 208,
demonstrated indisputably that the second testimony is the original, that is,
the acousmatics were the ones questioning the congruence between the mathe-
maticians and the real pragmateía of Pythagoras. It is, in fact, impossible to
imagine this to be just a slip of Iamblichus in VP: 81: something in this contra-
diction should reveal its reasons. However, Iamblichus’ clumsy “cut and paste”
procedure would be unlikely to cause the transformation of Hippasus from math-
ematician to acousmatic.²¹⁵ The reason for the error is that Iamblichus probably
cannot believe what he gets from his sources, that is, that the original Pythagor-
eanism is the one professed by the acousmatics, because what he knows from
Pythagoreanism, as mediated by the Academic and Peripatetic tradition, is pre-
cisely a major concern with the mathḗmata. This will be discussed in greater de-
tail in chapter four. Burkert imagines Iamblichus’ psychologico-compositional
procedure as follows:
It seemed to him unthinkable that anyone could contest this, to say nothing of these doubt-
ers being acknowledged by their opponents as genuine Pythagoreans. Iamblichus knows
the tradition that made the acousmatici the lower class, the “spurious”, the “many” who
are not true philosophers. Here he can only believe that his eyes have deceived him, and
quickly swaps the two nouns. We have here, then, an arbitrary alteration, whose motive
is transparent, but it is not maintained consistently, and the result is confusion.²¹⁶
The reconstruction of the “confusion” of Iamblichus and his name swap eventu-
ally leads to the central hypothesis of these last pages: that contrary to the stan-
214 Iambl. De Comm. Mathem. 25: 26.16 – 78.8.

215 For an analysis of the passages in which Iamblichus shows similar “superficiality” in the
reading of the sources, see Von Fritz 1940: 105 – 107.
216 Burkert 1972: 194– 5.
dard view, acousmatics and mathematicians were not, unlike the vulgata of the
Pythagorean studies, two different degrees of membership in the koinōnía, but
rather two currents, two groups within the same Pythagorean movement. The
mathematicians represent the second phase of the development of an original
Pythagoreanism, which was otherwise markedly acousmatic. For this reason,
mathematicians would have been engaged in a struggle for legitimacy, in the
face of refusal by the acousmatics to recognize them as having the same truth,
which means engaging in pursuits that go back to the founder.²¹⁷
This hypothesis raises an additional problem: when did such a schism hap-
pen? It is, in all probability, a division that happen during the successive devel-
opment of Pythagoreanism, even if it’s impossible to be more precise about when
exactly it occured. Attempts to connect this internal schism with the crisis gen-
erated by the anti-Pythagorean riots of the mid-fifth century BC did not produce
any concrete results, although Riedweg 2002: 176 suggests that it is possible to
link the separation between the two groups to the period after the diaspora
that followed the riots and contemporaneous with the advancement of natural
philosophy at the end of the fifth century and early fourth century BC.²¹⁸
Despite the very existence of this schism being placed in serious doubt by
Zhmud 1992, Delatte’s arguments 1915: 273 ff. and, in particular, Burkert’s 1972:
196 ff., that Aristotle might be the authority behind Iamblichus’ (original) testi-
mony on the distinction between acousmatics and mathematicians, would con-
firm the tradition of the division between the two groups.²¹⁹ An argument in
217 For this reason, another question is obviously the genealogy of the schism in his ma-
thematical version, Pythagoras, for receiving various political leaders of the cities, would have
needed to simplify his doctrine, that is, to dispose of the scientific demonstrations from his
public teachings, which, in contrast, he would reserve for the younger, eager to learn: the
mathematicians would derive from this (see Iambl. VP: 87– 89).
218 Seemingly agreeing with him is Huffman 2008: 220. Tannery 1887: 85 ff. and Von Friz 1940:
59, 92, in the opposite direction of the reconstruction of Iamblichus’s testimony, even suggest
that there may be some relationship between the community schism and the anti-Pythagorean
riots of the mid-fifth century BC: based in Iambl. VP: 257 ff., they imagine that the internal
division of the school, which was due to Hippasus, would then have led to a civil war and the
final crisis. After the diaspora that followed it, the Pythagoreans would have retired to private
religious life. Against this hypothesis, however, is the fact that mathematicians are still active
after the crisis, as evidenced by, among others, Philolaus and Archytas.
219 See, in this sense, also what was said above (1.4) in relation to the previous position of
Burnet 1908, 94 in this regard. Delatte and Burkert, Rohde 1871, Minar 1942: 43 ff., Frank 1943:
69 ff., Huffman 1993: 11 and Guthrie 1962: 192 ff. agree with Burnet on this, especially: “the thesis
that there were two kinds of Pythagoreans, the one chiefly interested in the pursuit of ma-
thematical philosophy and the other in preserving the religious foundations of the school, is
favor of the antiquity of the schism is that if it had taken place too late, it would
not make sense for the mathematicians to feel pressure to make a claim to legiti-
macy if the environment of Pythagoreanism was already almost exclusively
mathematical since the time of Timaeus.²²⁰ A second argument, more directly
linked to the hypothesis of an Aristotelian source behind Iamblichus, is that Iam-
blichus uses various circumlocutions very close to what we find in Aristotle: one
of them is certainly the phrase that introduces the testimony of De communi
mathematica scientia: “there are two forms of the Italic philosophy, which is
called Pythagorean” (Iambl. De Comm. Mathem. 25: 76.16), which finds parallels
with similar expressions in other Aristotelian texts (Mete. 342b 30 and De caelo
293a 20).
In the end, the tradition seems to confirm what was said earlier: the criterion
for being a Pythagorean was at first membership in a community and a shared
bíos consisting primarily in observing Pythagorean akoúsmata and sýmbola,
rather than the acceptance of certain philosophical and scientific theories.
These theories were the result of largely isolated efforts, of successive genera-
tions of Pythagoreans.²²¹
However, it is important not to overemphasize this purported historical
schism that opposes the “man of faith” and the “man of science”. Even Pytha-
goreans from clearly mathematical times, such as Philolaus and Archytas, if
asked about the trópos of their bíos, would likely answer by appealing directly
to Pythagoras. Even for the Pythagoreans of successive generations, more direct-
ly involved in scientific research, their way of life is still the defining element of
their Pythagorean identity. Admittedly, if asked again what would be the funda-
mental characteristics of that way of life, the Pythagoreans would probably give
very vague (vegetarianism, simplicity, various levels of purity, dedication to
study, pietas) and relatively inconsistent answers. Indeed, considering the length
of time and the cultural permeability of Pythagorean philosophy in the ancient
world, it is possible to agree with Huffman’s brilliant comparison (1993), of an-
cient Pythagoreans to Catholics:
In the modern world we may say that someone is a Catholic without therefore being at all
clear what he believes on a whole range of philosophical issues. Being a Pythagorean in the
both inherently probable and supported by a certain amount of positive evidence” (Burnet 1962:
193).
220 Of this same view are, among others, both Burkert 1972: 196 and Centrone 1996: 83.
221 Regarding the fact that the mathematics current of the Pythagoreans does not constitute a
homogeneous school of thought, but instead pursue different physics, cosmological and ma-
thematical doctrines, please refer to what will be said next, in the fourth chapter.
2.5 Conclusion 83
ancient world may entail more in terms of philosophical beliefs than being a Catholic does
in the modern world, but we should be wary of assuming that too much is entailed.²²²
As in with the Catholics, therefore, the Pythagoreans would be identified less by

their theology/philosophy, than by their sense of cultural belonging and lifestyle.
Thus, the reason why tradition would consider Philolaus a Pythagorean, but not
Alcmaeon, would lie not so much on doctrinal differences, but rather on the fact
that while the first would have lived a Pythagorean life, the other one would
not.²²³
It is important to note that the opposition between acousmatics and mathe-
maticians eventually becomes the leitmotif of the history of criticism, continually
returning, almost as a literary tópos, in the hermeneutics opposing a scientific
Pythagoras (and a scientific Pythagoreanism) to a magical-religious one, or a
mystical versus a political one, as we saw in the first part of this chapter. The
modern discussions seem to keep in the tracks of a longstanding debate.
Instead, the proposed interpretation that underlies this monograph – in its
synchronic dimension – aims to overcome these dichotomous interpretative
schemes, and to consider Pythagoreanism as a far reaching historiographical cat-
egory, one with a diversity of functions, irreducible to the always too much
closed schemes of the history of philosophy.
In contrast this work has already recognized, with Burkert, that it is impos-
sible to adequately grasp the origin of Pythagoreanism in its diachronic dimen-
sion.
In a certain way, the puzzle will always remain unfinished and equivocal, ir-
reducible to a single univocal hermeneutic solution of the historical traditions.
2.5 Conclusion
Before continuing to the next chapter, it may be helpful to retrace the route dis-
cussed in this chapter, in order to bring into focus the methodological sugges-
222 Huffman 1993: 11.

223 The issue of the relationship of Alcmaeon to Pythagoreanism is a thorny one and still
deserves some debate. In Metaphysics A (986), Aristotle separates Alcmaeon from the Py-
thagoreans, although noting a theoretical resemblance between the two. Iamblichus (VP: 104)
says that Alcmaeon would have been a disciple and listener of Pythagoras himself. Diogenes
Laertius says the same (D. L. Vitae VIII. 83). For the modern scholars of the issue, see Timpanaro
Cardini 1958: 119 and Centrone 1989: 116. See also Cornelli 2009a.
tions and hermeneutic proposals that will be used to analyze the two traditions
that constitute the historical category of Pythagoreanism.
We began with Zeller’s question whether a coherent description of the com-
plex phenomenon of Pythagoreanism was even possible. Our path articulated
two dimensions, the diachronic and synchronic, in the search for the category
of “Pythagoreanism”. The goal of the search was not to reduce the complexity
of meanings and experiences that the category gathers in itself. Rather, the ob-
jective was to see how this very diversity could have withstood the kind of dilu-
tion that one would predict for a movement that was in existence for over a thou-
sand years. The specificity of this goal suggested, on pain of failing to under-
stand Pythagoreanism, the need for a special methodological treatment which
consciously adopts an interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach. The syn-
chronic understanding of Pythagoreanism involves understanding it in the
light of the categories according to whom we usually describe ancient philoso-
phy: for this, it is necessary to overcome the dichotomies between science and
magic, writing and orality, Ionians and Italics, to which historiography usually
appeals, because none of them alone seem to capture the complexity of the cat-
egory of Pythagoreanism.
The first question that came up, which served as a gateway to the definition
of the category of Pythagoreanism, considered the identity of the Pythagoreans.
The criteria commonly used to classify someone as a Pythagorean did not seem
to stand up to our methodological test: because one cannot think of the Pytha-
gorean school as something doctrinally homogeneous. Further, neither geo-
graphical criteria nor doxographical trees of succession serve as adequate
ways to define the category. The only option left was to define the Pythagoreans
by their adherence to a particular lifestyle.
This conclusion immediately raises the further problem of how to describe
the primitive Pythagorean community, the proto-Pythagorean one, which must
have been the origin, at least etiologically and genealogically, of the precepts
governing this lifestyle. Plato and Aristotle are not of much help in understand-
ing the salient feature of this community, because their testimonies include an
insurmountable ambiguity between the image of a school of thought and that
of a community of life, marked by ritual and worship.
Even the synchronic comparison with the current models of thíasos and he-
tairía did not make great hermeneutical progress: somehow, the Pythagorean
community is simultaneously both and neither. The aporía of tradition forced
our inquiry to change in direction, and seek a new methodological and textual
basis.
For this reason, following Burkert’s suggestion, we tried to understand the
Pythagorean community as a “sect”. Even though one might prefer the more neu-
2.5 Conclusion 85
tral designation of “community”, the comparison between the Pythagorean

koinōnía and the sociological definition of a “sect” led to a coherent articulation
of the wide range of properties expressed by the literature that, together, make
up a comprehensive picture of the category of Pythagoreanism. These contribute
to the description of the Pythagorean community as numerically small, elitist,
existing as an alternative to the dominant culture while having a secret ideology,
sharing a common life, having communal goods, and submitting to the authority
of a charismatic guide. All of these factors led to a strong sense of identity: the
philía among the Pythagoreans became proverbial in the ancient world. The ex-
pulsion of the apostates, the reproductive prescriptions and the intense geo-
graphical mobility ensured the diachronic survival of the community.
The analysis of the narrative scheme of the foundation of the Pythagorean
community in both Porphyry and Iamblichus confirmed that it was a community
that defined itself, even from the political viewpoint, as an alternative to the city.
Finally, the various degrees of belonging to the community, and especially the
separation between mathematicians and acousmatics, were revealed rather as
reflecting two currents or two groups within Pythagoreanism. The analysis of
the traditions allowed us to detect that the mathematicians represented a second
phase of development with respect to an original Pythagoreanism, markedly
acousmatic. The schism would have already happened in very ancient times,
something that would confirm, once again, the initial hypothesis that bíos rather
than doctrinal unity indeed defined the Pythagorean identity.
Two themes contributed most decisively to the historical definition of the
category of Pythagoreanism: metempsýchōsis and mathematics. These will be
the subjects of the third and fourth chapters, respectively. The intention of this
analysis will be, on the one hand, to examine the originality of the two themes
in relation to proto-Pythagoreanism and fifth century BC Pythagoreanism, and
on the other hand, to signal how these themes contributed to the categorization
of Pythagoreanism in the history of tradition.
3 Immortality of the soul and metempsýchōsis
Porphyry, in a passage we have already discussed in the context of the possible
models of the Pythagorean community (Chapter 2.1), lists the immortality of the
soul (and its transmigration), eternal return, and universal kinship as the doc-
trines that tradition will consider as the central doctrines of the historical Pytha-
goras. Let us consider the quote again:
Some of his [Pythagoras’] statements gained almost general notoriety: 1) that the soul is im-
mortal, 2) that it transmigrates into other species of living beings, 3) that, periodically, what
once happened, happens again, nothing is absolutely new, and 4) that all living things
should be considered of the same genre. It seems that Pythagoras himself introduced
these beliefs in Greece for the first time.²²⁴
This Porphyrian summary of Pythagoras’ most famous doctrines immediately

brings us to the heart of the problem of the historical categorization of Pythagor-
eanism. There is no escaping the fact that his account contains no reference to
mathematics or astronomy, or even to cosmology or politics, despite the critical
role these other doctrines have played in the definition of Pythagoreanism in
other strata of the tradition, in particular the Aristotelian texts.
Porphyry’s claim that these doctrines originated in Pythagoreanism there-
fore brings forth from the beginning the issue of the historiographical categori-
zation of the movement that these pages are chasing: that is, the great diversity
of doctrines and the difficulties in articulating them within a coherent philo-
sophical-scientific system. Zeller’s doubt of the possibility of a coherent descrip-
tion of the Pythagorean philosophy (Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 597) to challenge
any attempt to identify themes which, throughout the long history of the tradi-
tion of Pythagoreanism, have contributed most directly to the definition of the
category of Pythagoreanism.
In this regard, two themes stand out as central: the theory of the soul, direct-
ly or indirectly assumed in the four statements quoted above, and mathematics,
which is on the contrary notably absent from the passage. The understanding of
the hermeneutical value of the two themes must comprehend both the synchron-
ic and diachronic dimensions of historiographical study.
Although is historically late, Porphyry’s summary is certainly an excellent
gateway to the discussion of the traditions that will be the topic of our third
and fourth chapters. It is a fine starting point if for no other reason than the
224 Porph. VP: 19.

3 Immortality of the soul and metempsýchōsis 87
fact that the tradition dates the passage back to Aristotle’s pupil, Dicearchus.²²⁵
It is not by chance, indeed, that many classical scholars have recognized the im-
portance of this passage for connecting the origins of Pythagorean philosophy
with ethical-religious issues.²²⁶ Therefore, Porphyry’s suggestions will guide
the search for a theoretical core that corresponds to the historical Pythagoras
and to proto-Pythagoreanism, although we will remain aware that this same Por-
phyrian tradition is far from representing the solution of a historiographical
problem. Rather, it is probably its very beginning.
The first doctrine quoted by Porphyry (VP: 19), the one of the transmigration
of the soul, is connected to a widely documented tradition about Pythagoras’
theory of the afterlife: these are traditions that are inserted in the model of
the archaic wisdom that Betegh 2006 aptly defined as a “journey model”. The
wise philosopher travels beyond the limits of time and space, even to the
world beyond the grave, acquiring the knowledge normally unreachable to the
rest of the mortals.²²⁷
This transmigration of the soul was called metempsýchōsis in the Greek
world. The term metempsýchōsis does not present special problems of transla-
tion: from India to Greece, it refers to the moving (an action commonly denoted
by the term “transmigration”) of a soul from one body to another. This movement
ideally defines a kýklos, a cycle or circle of birth-death-birth.²²⁸
225 Burkert 1972: 122– 123, despite resistance from both Rathmann 1933: 3 ff. and Wehrli, who
does not accept chapter 19 of Porphyry in his volume devoted to Dicearchus (Wehrli 1944),
supports this traditional attribution, along with Rohde 1871: 566, Burnet 1908: 92, Lévy 1926: 50,
and Mondolfo and Zeller 1938: 314. He adds clearly convincing arguments, grounded in the
passage’s skeptical tone, which certainly cannot be attributed to Porphyry, a believer: it would
more plausibly be a creation of Dicearchus, Aristotle’s skeptical student, who in other fragments
reveals the same skepticism and irony: he stated, for example, that the soul is simply a word (fr. 7
Wehrli) and that Pythagoras was, in the past, a beautiful courtesan (fr. 36 Wehrli). For a new
edition of Dicearchus’ texts see Mirhady 2001.
226 See both De Vogel 1964: 16, and Guthrie 1962: 186, as well as the more general points above
(1.5).
227 Our investigation does not allow us to develop an account of the archaic journey model. It is
helpful to refer to Betegh’s discussion (2006) for the formulation of the model, as well as to two
recent studies that develop a variation of this model, κατάβασις, that is, the journey to the Hades
(Cornelli 2007a; Ustinova 2009). Memories of κατάβασις are widely attested within the literature
on Pythagoreanism. Among them, of course, is the story of the Thracian Zalmoxis, narrated by
Herodotus (IV. 94– 95), whose discipleship to Pythagoras will be discussed below.
228 The mention of the κύκλος of the soul is significantly present in a text of the ancient Orphic
literature. The third Orphic gold leaf from Thurii (fr. 32c Kern, 4 A 65 Colli, II B1 Pugliese
Carratelli) reads: “I flew away from the painful circle that causes serious concern”. This source is
now also included in Tortorelli Ghidini 2006: 74– 75.
88 3 Immortality of the soul and metempsýchōsis
However, it is crucial to note that there was a lack of terminological preci-

sion in describing this cycle of immortality of the soul at least until the classical
age. As we shall see, different expressions and images are used to characterize
this transmigration: from clothing and covering (Empedocles), to penetration
of the soul in the body (Herodotus), to being born again, expressed by Plato’s
term palingénesis (pálin gígnesthai).²²⁹
Even though the term metempsýchōsis first appeared only in the first century
AD, with Diodorus Siculus (X. 6, 1), and was quickly applied to Pythagoras, its
etymology points to a much older origin of the term: in fact – contrary to
what was thought both in antiquity and among many contemporary scholars
– the etymology of the word does not indicate the “entry” of something into
the soul, and it does not even derive directly from the word psychḗ. Rather, as
rightly notes Casadio:
It was formed from the verb empsychóō, ‘to animate’ (which in turn is connected through
émpsychos and psychḗ to the verb psýchō, ‘to blow’), to which the preverb meta (Lat. trans),
which denotes not only change, but also succession or repetition, and the suffix sis, denot-
ing abstract action, were added.²³⁰
Therefore, the origin and even use of metempsychosis denotes the idea of blow-
ing the soul back into a body. The cycle is thus conceived as a series of acts of
inhaling the life-soul, an image which refers to the pneûma in the interior of a
body and is clearly dependent on the Ionian physical conception of aḗr. Anaxi-
menes fragment 2 links the three terms, psychḗ, pneûma and aer in the same sen-
tence: “as they say, our soul, which is air, holds us together, thus, air and breath
keep the entire cosmos together” (13 B 2 DK). This indicates a strong continuity,
at least in relation to the semantics of “metempsýchōsis”, with the oldest con-
ceptions of soul-breath-life.²³¹
What matters most for this research is that the tradition, from its very begin-
nings, associates the theory of transmigration with the figure of Pythagoras. On
this topic, as will become clear below, until today “the discussion heats up wild-
ly” (Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 560).
229 See below for references.

230 Casadio 1991: 122 – 123, orig.: “si è formato a partire dalo verbo empsychóō, ‘animare’ (che a
sua volta è collegato, attraverso émpsychos and psychḗ al verbo psýcho, ‘soffiare’), cui è stato
aggiunto il preverbio meta (lat. trans) denotante non solo il cambiamento ma anche la suc-
cessione o ripetizione e il suffissale -sis denotante l’azione astratta”. See for the ancient,
especially Olympiodorus (In Phaed: 135 Westerink). For the contemporary Kerényi 1950: 24 and
Von Fritz 1957: 89 n1.
231 See for this continuity, the observations of Casadio 1991: 142 and Bernabé 2004: 76 – 78.
3.1 “Is it the soul?” (Xenophanes) 89
3.1 “Is it the soul?” (Xenophanes)
Xenophanes’ famous fragment, almost contemporary with Pythagoras, bears wit-

ness to Pythagoras’ belief in the movement of the soul:
As a dog was being punished, he [Pythagoras] was passing by and took pity and uttered the
following words: “Stop beating it. For it is the soul of a friend of mine, whom I recognized
as I heard its cries”.²³²
The fragment is probably the oldest remaining testimony about Pythagoras. Al-
though a few attempts have been made to deny that Pythagoras was the man re-
ferred to, mostly by skeptics who doubt that metempsýchōsis qualifies as an orig-
inal Pythagorean doctrine (Kern 1888: 499; Rathmann 1933: 37– 38; Maddalena
1954: 335; Casertano, 1987: 19 ff.), there is a widespread agreement that the char-
acter mentioned by Xenophanes is Pythagoras, starting with Zeller 1938: 314, fol-
lowed by Burnet 1908: 120 ff., Rostagni 1982: 55, Long 1948: 17, Dodds 1951: 143
n55, Timpanaro Cardini (Pitagorici, 1958 – 62), up through Burkert 1972: 120 ff.,
Huffman 1993: 331, Centrone 1996: 54, Kahn 2011: 11 and the most recent work
of Riedweg 2007: 104.²³³
Maddalena’s arguments against attributing the doctrine of metempsýchōsis
to Pythagoras ironically reveal the reasons for its proper attribution. By stating
that “the fact that the quotation of Xenophanes’ passage probably depends on
an anti-Pythagorean source makes it even more inadequate for the presumption
of a safe attribution”,²³⁴ Maddalena reveals that he did not understand the ironic
game of memory. This is unlike Burnet’s statement “it becomes practically cer-
tain that it was that of Pythagoras, when we find that Xenophanes denied
it”.²³⁵ It is precisely this mokery that reveals the anti-Pythagorean intention in
Xenophanes’ source, and this confirms the importance given to the metem-
psýchōsis theory as an identifying element of the historic Pythagoras. As in
232 21 B 7 DK = D. L. Vitae VIII. 36.

233 See Casadio 1991: 119 – 123 for an argument in favor of using metempsýchōsis, instead of
metensomátōsis, to indicate the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul. In short, the second
term is more accurately attested only from the second century AD onwards, with Celsus and
Clement of Alexandria, and better translates the reinstatement rather than the reincarnation of
the soul. The use of metensomátōsis was preferred by late Platonism (it was certainly the case in
Plotinus’s school), and betrays an antisomatic concern and tendency.
234 Maddalena 1954: 336, orig.: “il fatto che la citazione del passo di Senofane è molto pro-
babilmente dovuta a uno scrittore antipitagorico rende ancor più inadeguata la presunzione
della certa attribuizione”.
235 Burnet 1908: 120.
the parallel case of Heraclitus’ controversial fragments, discussed below, the fact
that the testimony originates from an environment unsympathetic to Pythagor-
ean doctrine, rather than one sympathetic to it, only adds to its value as a credi-
ble witness. It would stretch credulity to think that the Pythagorean literature
would preserve this memory, evidently not sympathetic to the movement, if it
did not minimally constitute an early reference to one of the pillars of its doc-
trine, that is, the immortality of the soul (Cornelli 2003a: 203).²³⁶
When looking at the Xenophanic testimony in its context, that of a traditio
within the Lives of Diogenes Laertius, one notices that it occurs in a series of neg-
ative and ridiculing comments on Pythagoras and his doctrines. The quote in the
Xenophanes fragment is, in fact, preceded by a testimony from Timon of Phlius
who, in Diogenes Laertius’ own words, brings literally biting criticisms (the verb
used is indeed dáknō, ‘biting’) against Pythagoras: “Pythagoras, who tends to
use spells to hunt men, full of majestic words” (D. L. Vitae VIII. 36). Xenophanes’
passage is immediately followed by a criticism by the comic playwright Cratinus,
who dedicates to the Pythagoreans in his Tarentinos some verses whose historio-
graphical interest, although large, exceeds the scope of this analysis. The Athe-
nian comic playwright in fact presents the Pythagoreans as skilled Sophists:
They have the habit, if they ever meet someone inexperienced, of making a thorough ex-
amination on the strength of their arguments, confusing and obliterating them with argu-
ments, definitions, antitheses, equations and magnitudes, with great display of intelligence
(D. L. Vitae VIII. 37).²³⁷Diogenes Laertius also attests in another passage to Xenophanes
negative intentions towards Pythagoras.²³⁸ Moreover, the expression kaì póte (“and
again…”) at the beginning of it suggests that other witnesses of Pythagoras had been report-
236 It is significant that, in a passage of Aristotle’s lost works – in all probability from his On
the Pythagoreans – a parallel anecdote is preserved, in which Pythagoras acknowledged, in the
corpse of Milias of Croton, the newly reincarnated soul of King Midas (fr. 1 Ross = Iambl. VP
140 – 143). In this case, however, the quote is in a context far from any debating or ironic intent.
237 The historiographical interest of the passage of Cratinus must be reconsidered in light of the
connection between Pythagoreanism and the First Sophists (Chapter 1.6), using the suggestions
by Rostagni 1922: 149. This is certainly a topic that deserves urgent historical review.
238 D. L. Vitae IX. 18 also remembers in the same passage Xenophanes’ critique to Thales of
Miletus, in which Xenophanes showed skepticism of the famous memory of Thales’ prediction of
an eclipse (21 B 19 DK), his criticizing the philosophy of nature of Anaximander (21 B 27– 29, 33
DK; 21 A 47 DK) and his suspicions of Epimenides (21 B 19 DK) and of divination in general (21 A
52 DK). Thus, from the famous criticism of Homer’s and Hesiod’s theology (21 A 1 DK), Xeno-
phanes seems to also busy himself with the non-traditional religious expressions of Epimenides
and Pythagoras. Indeed, as Riedweg 2002: 105 correctly notes, for someone like Xenophanes,
Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, with their ethical-religious claims, should have proven par-
ticularly irritating.
ed earlier by Xenophanes, although Diogenes Laertius did not list them; this serves as fur-
ther confirmation that the passage refers to Pythagoras.²³⁹
However, Xenophanes’ passage contains one critical detail which makes it even
more interesting to our research. While representing probably the earliest refer-
ence to Pythagoras’s theory of metempsýchōsis, the text also immediately reveals
a serious historiographic difficulty which suggests caution attributing this doc-
trine to historical Pythagoras and proto-Pythagoreans. This difficulty is the de-
gree to which it attributes psychḗ to the dog. Both Burkert 1972: 134 n77 and Huff-
man 1988 and 1993: 331 rightly note that the testimony of Xenophanes does not
properly attribute a soul to the dog, but argue that the dog “is” (estí) the soul of a
friend. This seemingly minor detail is in fact the symptom of a deeper and diffi-
cult problem: what was the proto-Pythagorean concept of the immortality of the
soul?
The way to resolve the matter is certainly to analyze this term, psychḗ, as it
appears in Xenophanes’s testimony. Although the fragment can prove Pythagor-
as’s relationship with the theories of metempsýchōsis, it is certainly not reason-
able to think that the term “psychḗ” itself may have been part of Pythagoras’s al-
leged ipsissima verba. ²⁴⁰ That is, nothing indicates that the words “estí psychḗ”
(‘would be the soul’”) can be considered part of Pythagoras’s fragment. As proof
of this, Empedocles, himself a thinker on the soul, and in the Pythagorean
vein,²⁴¹ uses the term “daímones” (31 B 115 DK) rather than “psychḗ” in his ac-
count of immortality.²⁴² Philolaus’ fragment 13 is the first written Pythagorean
source to use “psychḗ”:
And there are four principles of the rational animal, as Philolaus too says in his work On
Nature: brain, heart, navel and genitalia. The head of the mind, the heart of soul and feel-
ing, the navel of rooting and primitive growth, the genitalia of sowing seed and generating.
And the brain is the principle of the human being, the heart of the animal, the navel of the
plant and the genitalia, the principle of all things together: as they sprout and grow from
the seed.²⁴³
239 Cf. Riedweg 2002: 106.

240 See Huffman 1993: 331: “it seems perverse to seize upon the second-hand satirical remarks
of Xenophanes and use it as the basis on which to reconstruct the Pythagorean doctrine of
psychḗ”.
241 As stated by Kingsley 1995, but even before that by the same Burkert 1972: 57 n26.
242 Cf. Dodds 1951: 174 f., Guthrie 1962: 319, Philip 1966: 157– 158. For a review of the Presocratic
term cf. Balaudé 2002.
243 44 B 13 DK. In favor of the authenticity of the fragment, widely discussed, see Huffman’s
latest arguments (1993: 307).
Thus, the heart is said to be the archḗ of the psychḗ and of the senses. However,
Philolaus’s fragment, instead of solving the question of immortality, seems to
complicate it even further. For here, the soul is indisputably real in relation to
the phenomena of animal life, not something that can be thought of as immortal.
For this reason, Burkert 1972: 270, followed by Huffman 1993: 312, proposes that
the more correct translation should be just ‘life’; this would be a pre-Platonic
usage of “psychḗ”, which does not indicate the set of psychic abilities it will in-
clude later.
This same sense of the term is confirmed by an Aristotelian passage that re-
lates the theory of the Pythagorean soul to that of Democritus:
What the Pythagoreans say seems to follow the same reasoning [as that of the atomists],
because some of them declare that the soul is dust in the air, others, in turn, that it is
what makes them move.²⁴⁴
It was noted earlier that it is quite plausible that when Aristotle speaks indis-
tinctly of Pythagoreans, he is really thinking of fifth century BC Pythagoreanism,
and more specifically of Philolaus (see 1.1). The semantic scope of the Pythagor-
ean psychḗ would, therefore, be that of the movement of the animate beings, and
one with a distinctly materialistic connotation: the soul is a jumble of tiny ele-
ments (xúsmata, dust), always in motion, and located in the heart. The theory
of harmonía, which is attributed to every material element, thought by Philolaus
to be an agreement of limited and unlimited elements (44 B 1 DK), reveals this
movement to follow strictly harmonic patterns.²⁴⁵
244 De an. 404a 16. It should be noted that the comparison between the two doctrines (Py-
thagoreanism and Atomism) is underlined by Ross’ translation with the inclusion of the qua-
lification spherical (τὰ σφαιροειδῆ), attributed to the atoms/dust on the lines 2– 4 of 404a. Diels
proposes an amendment to this, by considering it a gloss of what is later said of the Py-
thagoreans in lines 16 and next, in the passage (67 A 28 DK) in question here.
245 It is important to recognize a significant connection between the Pythagorean and the
atomistic conception of ψυχή: both are deeply linked to the environment of ancient medicine.
Burkert and Huffman speak respectively of medical milieu (Burkert 1972: 272) and medical
background (Huffman 1993: 329) as lying behind both; Gemelli comes to postulate that there is
no distinction between philosophy and medicine until the third part of the fifth century BC:
keine Grenzen (Gemelli 2007). Certainly the conceptions of ψυχή of both “schools” are deeply
influenced by the theories of health as balance (μέτρον) or ἰσονομία. See the use of these terms
by Alcmaeon (24 B 4 DK), as well Peixoto 2009 and Cornelli 2009a.
However, this theory of the psychḗ as a harmonically-structured composition

of material elements is clearly contradictory to its immortality.²⁴⁶ How can we
reconcile it with Porphyry’s claim that metempsýchōsis was one of Pythagoras’s
most celebrated doctrines (VP: 19), and with the fragment of Xenophanes, in
which Pythagoras himself seemed to speak of the immortality of the soul and
its transmigration?
Suggesting that Philolaus did not believe in the immortality of the soul, as
Wilamowitz 1920: II 90 does, is apparently only lectio facilior. ²⁴⁷ During the sec-
ond chapter we developed criteria for membership as a Pythagorean, according
to which membership depends on a lifestyle rather than doctrinal coherence;
given this fact, it would be quite hard to imagine that Philolaus did not believe
in metempsýchōsis. This very theory is an assumption of much of the Pythagor-
ean ritual and mythology (as well as philosophy), and it would be very difficult
to identify Philolaus as a Pythagorean unless he himself professed that theory.
Instead, it is easier to imagine that Philolaus believed in the immortality of
the soul, but, as with Empedocles above, used other terminology than psychḗ
to refer to that immortal portion of the individual.
This suggests that two different notions of the soul coexisted in pre-Platonic
Pythagoreanism, as mentioned in Guthrie 1964:
Two different notions of soul, then, existed in contemporary belief, the psychḗ which “van-
ished like smoke” at death, and which medical writers (including no doubt some sceptical
and therefore heretical Pythagoreans) rationalized into a harmonia of the physical oppo-
sites that made up the body; and the more mysterious daímon in man, immortal, suffering
transmigration through many bodies, but in its pure essence divine. This too could be
called psychḗ as it was by Plato. Both survived side by side in the general current of reli-
gious thought, and both also survived in the curious combination of mathematical philos-
ophy and religious mysticism which made up Pythagoreanism.²⁴⁸
246 The idea of Drosdek 2007: 66, in which the final stage of reincarnations would just be
harmony is no more than a conjecture without philological support, as the author himself
admits (“We can only guess an answer. And the answer is harmony.”).
247 Guthrie 1964: 119. This same doctrine is upheld by Plato in Phaedo (85), through Simmias.
However, Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 563 and Cornford 1922 argued that Pythagoreans of the fifth
century BC would not have been aware of this contradiction, whether because the harmony
would refer only to parts of the soul, and not to its corporeal elements (Rohde 1920), or solely to
the part of the soul destined for death with the body (Rostagni 1982). The full discussion of the
issue by Guthrie 1964: 308 – 319 connects the matter to cosmic harmony, while Philip 1966: 163 ff.
suggests that the conception of the soul as ἁρμονία would not be Philolaic, but a Platonic rear
projection.
248 Methodologically, Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 563 seem to understand the issue of the
coexistence of different theories of the soul during the development of Pythagoreanism in the
This introduction to the historiographical issues related to the theory of the Py-
thagorean soul relates to two hermeneutical suggestions, both to be developed
over the next few pages.
First, it is likely that Pythagoras and his movement produced a theory of the
immortality of the soul that included metempsýchōsis as a key element. As we
will see, this seems to be recognized by the ancient sources as one of the
most characteristic features of the thought on the soul in antiquity. The recogni-
tion of this attribution does not imply, however, that the Pythagorean theory of
the soul constitutes a coherent doctrine. In this sense, it is possible to agree with
Burkert’s anthropological observation:
Conceptions of the afterlife are and have always been syncretistic. It is only theology, com-
ing along rather late in the tradition, that is interested in smoothing out the differences. […]
Only dead dogma is preserved without change; doctrine taken seriously is always being re-
vised in the continuous process of reinterpretation.²⁴⁹
Thus, all the consistency this object needs is to be found not in an explicit doc-
trine but in a lifestyle that derives from this ethical-religious belief, that is, from
the acousmatic side of the bíos, along the lines of the story we sketched above
about Philolaus and his theory of the soul.
Second, the testimony of Xenophanes, with his anachronistic use of the term
psychḗ, points to the need to check how the history of tradition has appropriated
Pythagorean theories of the immortality of the soul. This examination must de-
velop its own lexicon and associated mythic images to build a historiographical
category able to address each of the historical moments of this transmission.
The following pages will be woven from these two suggestions: on the one
hand through the pursuit of a set of doctrines which corresponds to a proto-Py-
thagorean theory of the soul; on the other, following the construction of the cat-
egory of Pythagoreanism from his theory of the immortality of the soul.
3.2 “Wiser than all” (Heraclitus and Ion of Chios)
We will start with another fragment dedicated to Pherecydes, attributed to Ion of

Chios whose verses in an elegiac meter name Pythagoras as “wiser than all”:
same vein: “[nel pitagorismo] le concezioni vecchie paion continuare a sussistere accanto alle
nuove, non che ad altri svolgimenti collaterali, pur derivati dall’unione di elementi preesistenti”.
249 Burkert 1972: 135.
3.2 “Wiser than all” (Heraclitus and Ion of Chios) 95
Thus he [Pherecydes], distinguished by manly soul and dignity even in death, enjoys him-
self with the soul of a blessed life if Pythagoras, the wisest of them all, had truly under-
stood the mental dispositions of men.²⁵⁰
Unfortunately, the full context of the quote is lost, making it difficult to grasp the
exact relationship between Pythagoras and Pherecydes. However, it is possible
to conjecture, as Kranz 1934: 104 and Riedweg 2007: 110 do, that the connection
between Pherecydes and Pythagoras, in the context of a blessed life beyond the
grave, is bound, on the one hand, to the fact that Pherecydes led a highly moral
life which deserved a well-blessed reward, and on the other hand, to Pythagor-
as’s renowned wisdom on such matters as the reincarnation and immortality of
the soul.
Another argument seems to support this reading: the same Ion refers in an-
other fragment to Pythagoras as the author of some Orphic poems: “Ion of Chios,
in the Triagmas, says that Pythagoras attributed to Orpheus some poems written
by him” (36 B 2 DK). This is certainly the oldest testimony of Pythagoras’s rela-
tionship with Orphism. The deeper consequences of this relationship for the un-
derstanding of the Pythagorean theory of the immortality of the soul will be dis-
cussed later.
In fact, there is another detail in Ion’s fragment 4 which cannot be over-
looked: the term sophòs perì pántōn anthrṓpōn, ‘wiser than all men’ immediately
echoes the famous fragment 129 of Heraclitus.²⁵¹ The reference seems to have a
controversial tone, as if to correct Heraclitus, who in the two fragments we will
soon assess always refers to Pythagoras in a sarcastic way.
Heraclitus is undoubtedly another major source for the understanding of Py-
thagoras’ intellectual place in his time. The dialogue of Ion with the Heraclitean
testimony may, indeed, shed a very special light on the meaning of Ion’s criticism
directed against Pythagoras.
Heraclitus, in the midst of broad and unrestricted criticism of the intellectual
authorities of his time, particularly Homer and Hesiod, flings his proverbial ar-
rows against Pythagoras himself, who was already identified as one of the
most important intellectuals of his time:
250 36 B 4 DK. We accept here the amendment of Sandbach(1958/59 to the third verse, which
introduces an important idea in the quote: the knowledge that Pythagoras possesses, as we shall
see, is of the psychological history of the individual.
251 See 22 B 129 DK. This did not really pass unnoticed. See Kranz 1934: 227, whereby this
reference to Heraclitus would be proof of the authenticity of this Ion fragment, but also Zeller
and Mondolfo 1938: 317 f., Timpanaro Cardini (Pitagorici, 1958 – 62 I: 20), Burkert 1972: 123 n13
and Riedweg 2002: 110 – 111, among others.
Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, pursued inquiry (historíē) further than all other men and,
choosing what he liked from these (taútas) texts (syngraphaí), claimed for himself a wisdom
of his own, one of much learning (polymathía), but charlatanism (kakotechnía).²⁵²
Historíe is the scientific research of the Ionian school that Heraclitus knew well.
Pythagoras is here presented as excellent at this research. Yet in this same frag-
ment, in which Pythagoras stands above all others and seems worthy of unpre-
cedented praise from Heraclitus himself (“pursued further than all other men”),
Pythagoras is instead charged by Heraclitus with practicing a “multiscience”
(polymathía) and “charlatanism” (kakotechnía), with an ambiguous reference
to certain Pythagorean “writings” to which Heraclitus had also previously refer-
red, as the term taútas would suggest. While the history of criticism has tried to
guess what these writings were, their immediate context might be suggested by
another critical passage that mentions Pythagoras:
Much learning does not teach understanding. Otherwise it would have taught both Hesiod
and Pythagoras, and also Xenophanes and Hecataeus.²⁵³
The proximity of Hesiod and Pythagoras in this fragment seems to indicate that
the writings of the latter were linked to the literature whose primary exponents
were both Hesiod and Homer. However, this is literature that Heraclitus dis-
dains.²⁵⁴ Given these references, it is not surprising that Heraclitus regarded Py-
thagoras’s wisdom as unacceptable.²⁵⁵ It has also been suggested within theories
of an Eastern branch of the Pythagorean doctrine that these are Babylonian or
perhaps Egyptian mathematical texts.²⁵⁶
The Ion fragment quoted above can also corroborate a third hypothesis for
attribution of these Pythagoras sýngraphai: that they were Orphic texts. With pre-
cise textual references, Ion would have wanted to defend Pythagoras, now in an
252 22 B 40 DK.
253 22 B 40 DK.
254 See 22 B 57 and 106 DK for Hesiod; 22 A 22 DK for Homer. For further discussion of the
relationship between πολυμαθίη and κακοτεχνίη, see Gemelli 2007a: 13 ff.
255 Recently, Burkert 1998: 306 suggested the possibility of these writings being like the writings
of Pherecydes or even Orphic poems. Kahn 2001: 17 n32 imagined them more likely as something
between the writings of Anaximander and Philolaus.
256 The link of Pythagoreanism with Egypt is attested not only by these mathematical studies,
and the presence of a temple of Hera with Egyptian architectural forms on Samos, in the sixth
BC (Kingsley 1999: 16), but also through some references to it from Herodotus who, in his
remarks about the sepulchral uses of the Egyptians (who buried the dead in linen robes and not
wool, as in Greece), states: “This [practice] corresponds to so-called Orfiká and Bakchiká, which
are actually Egyptians and Pythagoreans” (Herodt. II. 81).
3.3 “Ten or twenty human generations” (Empedocles) 97
Athenian environment, from attacks which Heraclitus had launched against him.
He did this in two ways: first, by identifying these writings, as he did in fragment
2, as pseudo-epigraphic Orphic texts; second, by identifying historíe with the
practice of the knowledge of the palingénesis of previous lives, that is, the psy-
chological history of the individual as the amendment of Sandbach 1958/59 to
the fragment 4 – quoted above – seems to suggest: “he had understood the men-
tal dispositions of men” (36 B 4 DK). Heraclitus’ criticism, as well as Ion’s de-
fense, would be focused on the strong presence in Pythagoras’s sophía of Orphic
theories of the immortality of the soul. Both are, in this way, precious testimonies
to the antiquity of the allocation of such doctrines to proto-Pythagoreanism, if
not Pythagoras himself.²⁵⁷
Later Pythagorean literature will identify this genealogical psychology of the
soul, operated by Pythagoras, as the basis of their clinical strategy: “Pythagoras
knew his previous existences, and began the healing of men by evoking the
memory of their former lives” (Iambl. VP: 63). The Pythagorean epiméleia,
which is filled with the tradition of Pythagoras, therefore ultimately depends
on his capabilities as a historian of the soul.
Several testimonies point to the fame of his healing abilities: it was said of
his journeys to cities that he “would come not to teach, but to heal.” The tradi-
tion of philosopher as healer probably goes back to the central figures of Italian
philosophy.²⁵⁸ See, indeed, along the same lines, what Empedocles says in the
prologue to his poem Purifications: “thousands follow me […], some in want
of oracles, others, for a long time pierced with grievous pains, seek to hear
from me keen-edged words that will cure all sorts of diseases” (31 B 112 DK).
Healing here is also linked to a special oracular ability, which can be ap-
proximated, though not perfectly, by Pythagoras’ genealogical psychology of
the soul.
3.3 “Ten or twenty human generations” (Empedocles)
Empedocles’s testimonies belong to the same intellectual and cultural context as

Ion’s. Since ancient times, the protagonist of his Purifications was identified with
257 See Burkert 1972: 130 – 131. It is interesting to note that Kranz 1934: 227 ff. had already argued
that Heraclitus should know these Pythagorean writings, and was followed on this by Zeller and
Mondolfo 1938, although Mondolfo considers this hypothesis “alquanto ardita” (1938: 318).
258 See also Nucci 1999 and Macris 2003: 257.
Pythagoras,²⁵⁹ and the likelihood of Orphic influence on Empedocles is currently

regarded as highly probable.²⁶⁰ It is undeniable that the two figures, Pythagoras
and Empedocles, have much in common: in a special way, their “dual roles” as
philosophers-mathematicians, and religious prophets, in the words of Kahn,
brings them closer (Kahn 2001: 16). Both are perceived by contemporaries (and
by the subsequent literature) as theîoi ándres, ‘divine men’, holders of special
powers and capabilities. In this sense, recall Empedocles’s fragment 112: “I
walk among you as one imperishable god, no more mortal, honored by all”
(31 B 112 DK) and the various testimonies on Pythagoras’s divinity, among
them the famous acusma that answers the question “Who is Pythagoras?”
with “Hyperborean Apollo” (Iambl. VP: 140).
The proximity of Empedocles with Pythagoreanism is also proven, in the
fragments, by a large number of doctrinal coincidences. For this reason, from
Zeller to Kingsley, it was even imagined that Empedocles could have been a di-
rect disciple of the proto-Pythagorean movement. The enantiological pair of op-
posites of fragments 122 and 123 closely resemble the list of opposites that Aris-
totle attributes to the Pythagoreans in the famous passage from the first book of
Metaphysics (986a).²⁶¹ Similarly, there are cosmological analogues between the
Pythagorean concept of harmonía, which finds parallels in the fragments of Phi-
lolaus and Archytas,²⁶² and the epistemology of Empedocles and its principle of
the like knows like, found in Aristotle’s testimony in De Anima (404b8 = 31 B
109a DK).²⁶³ According to Sextus Empiricus’ testimony, the principle was itself
certainly Philolaic (44 A 29 DK).²⁶⁴
259 See D. L. Vitae VIII. 54– 56 and the testimonies of Alcidamas, Neanthes and Timaeus in this
sense. For the modern criticism: “Who could this be but Pythagoras?” wonders Trépanier 2004:
105. See also Doods 1951: 182, Zuntz 1971: 183, Burkert 1972: 109 n65, Zeller and Mondolfo 1958:
329, although a bit skeptical and, as always, Rathmann 1933: 94– 131.
260 See West 1983: 26, Riedweg 1995, Scarpi 2007: 150, despite Trépanier’s doubts 2004: 106.
261 “There they were the chthonia and the solar of wide look, bloody hatred and harmony with
awful look, and the beautiful and the ugly, the fast and the sluggish, the truly lovely and the
dark-haired” (31 B 122 DK). “Birth and dissolution, sleep and wakefulness, the mobile and the
immobile, grandeur surrounded by many crowns and misery, the silent and the vociferous” (31 B
123 DK). See for these fragments Casertano’s elegant comment (2007a).
262 These references to harmony in Empedocles make one suspect that the proposition of the
concept of harmony within the history of Pythagoreanism precedes its canonical formulation,
developed by Philolaus only in the fifth century BC. See Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 331.
263 “With the earth, we see the earth, with water, the water, with ether, the ether divine, with
fire, overwhelming fire, with love, love, and with disastrous fight, we see fight” (31 B 109 DK).
264 The same criterion of knowledge is recalled in Plato’s Timaeus (45c) in relation to the
creation of human beings and, in primis, of vision. A heated debate in recent years aimed to
analyze the appropriation of these theories of knowledge by what will be named “Optics”,
3.3 “Ten or twenty human generations” (Empedocles) 99
However, it is Empedocles’s fragment 129 which is more immediately rele-

vant to a discussion of the oldest testimonies to the Pythagorean theory of the
immortality of the soul. There is no need to accept the suggestion of Pascal
1904: 141 ff. that the verses of fragment 129 are only an introduction to a speech
by Pythagoras himself, as mentioned in Ovid (Metam. XV. 60). Rather, the above-
outlined doctrinal coincidences reinforce a majoritarian understanding that Py-
thagoras is the real protagonist of fragment 129:²⁶⁵
Among them, there was a man of extraordinary vision, that acquired a wealth of intelli-
gence and was excellent in a lot of wise activities. When in fact he tensed all the powers
of his mind, he easily saw all the things that is, in ten or twenty human generations.²⁶⁶
Again, the terms of the citation, as in the case of the Ion quote above, seem to
echo the well-known criticisms of Pythagoras by Heraclitus. Expressions such
as “extraordinary vision”, “wealth of intelligence”, “lots of activities of wisdom”
certainly are not casual. There is here indeed an affirmation of Pythagoras’s pol-
ymathía. This claim, unlike the one by Heraclitus, is not marked by sarcasm. On
the contrary, the second part of the quote very accurately qualifies this particular
wisdom: Pythagoras’s whole vision is directed to palingénesis, that is, to the scru-
tinizing of the history of the soul in its movements of metempsýchōsis. Both Py-
thagoras’s own soul and the souls of others as well. Although the reference is
more generally directed to the ability to see “all that is,” including, for example,
the ability to hear the harmony of the universe, in the sense of perceiving the
sound of the spheres (Porph. VP: 30), it is clear that the context of the quote im-
plies more specifically Pythagoras’ famous special ability.
Fragment 129, therefore, in the context of both Purifications and the tradition
on the figure of Empedocles as a divine man, is a testimony to the attribution to
proto-Pythagoreanism of a theory of the soul that involves granting Pythagoras a
special ability to peruse the history of the transmigrations of a soul.²⁶⁷
revealing a dialogue, in fieri, between Plato and Archytas. See for this Burnyeat 2005 and
Huffman 2005: 551– 569.
265 While Rostagni 1982: 232 follows Pascal’s suggestion, see Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 329 and
Timpanaro Cardini (Pitagorici, 1958 – 62 I: 18) for an exhaustive list of the history of this critical
attribution. More recent scholars, including Riedweg 2002, Trépanier 2004 and Gemelli 2007,
follow the tradition, agreeing with the same attribution.
266 31 B 129 DK.
267 To these arguments, Philip 1966: 156 adds another one: the food vetoes, which bring
Empedocles close to Pythagoreanism, depend directly, in his view, on the belief of trans-
migration that both share.
3.4 Plato and Orphism
The work of Plato is full of references to Pythagoreanism and metempsýchōsis,

yet most sensitive to the difficulties that attach to such a discussion. However,
even Plato’s testimony is not exempt from problems and uncertainties. For exam-
ple, the lack of explicit quotations from Pythagoras in the Platonic texts allowed
room, early on, for the hypothesis that they refer to Orphism rather than Pytha-
goreanism.²⁶⁸ It is obviously impossible in this investigation to exhaustively ex-
amine the many facets of the relationship between Plato and Orphism that go
well beyond the problem of the soul’s immortality.²⁶⁹ Here, we will confine our-
selves to considering the relations between Pythagoreanism and Orphism within
the problem of metempsýchōsis, leaving aside cosmological and political prob-
lems. However, even given the limited purview of our discussion, we cannot
help but make repeated references to general interpretive problems.²⁷⁰
The difficulties to establish the relationship between Plato, Pythagoreanism
and Orphism, even before the one related to the nature of the Platonic dialogue
or the issues raised in the previous chapter about the tradition and its categori-
zation of Pythagoreanism, lies more immediately in the uncertain determination
of what could be considered “Orphism”. Plato himself reveals the confusion rep-
resented by the existence of a great plethora of books that were passed on as
works by Orpheus and Musaeus (Rep. II: 364e).²⁷¹ The difficulty posed by pseu-
do-epigraphy, common to all ancient literature, becomes even more dramatic in
Orpheus’ case.²⁷² Wilamowitz even wondered whether the fact that there are
works ascribed to Orpheus also implied the historical existence of the Orphics
(Wilamowitz 1932: 192– 199). His answer was negative, and since then, criticism
268 Bluck (Plato, 1964: 274– 276), Boyancé 1972: 85 n4, and more recently Casadio 1991: 130 – 131
and Centrone 1996: 61 advocate the attribution of the doctrines to Orphism.
269 Compare Bernabé 1998: 2002 and 2011. See also Masaracchia 1993, Brisson 2000b and
Pugliese Carratelli 2001.
270 See above for a historiographical discussion of the question of Orphism and Pythagorea-
nism (1.8).
271 The expression used by Plato is βίβλων ὅμαδον: the term ὅμαδον indicates more precisely
turmoil, like that of soldiers in battle (see Il. IX. 573). There is another memory of the large and
confusing literature attributed to Orpheus in Hippolytus of Euripides (“the smoke of many
writings,” v. 954).
272 Recall the introduction to the monograph Orphica by Hermann, one of the first modern
scholars of Orphism, which begins: “si mea sponte eligendus mihi fuisset scriptor in quo edendo
operam meam collocarem, in quemcumque alium facilius quam in Orpheum incidissem” (Hermann
1805: v). This passage is echoed by West 1983: 17, when he writes that Orpheus was the favorite
name of the pseudo-epigraphic poems of religious, metaphysical or esoteric nature.
3.4 Plato and Orphism 101
has become accustomed to carefully consider the presence of Orphism within the
Platonic work as something inextricably linked to Plato’s rereading of this move-
ment. This interpretive stance denies, in principle, any possibility of Plato being
considered as a reliable source for pre-Platonic Orphism.²⁷³ However, recent ar-
chaeological discoveries, especially the Derveni papyrus, contributed to confuse
the still waters of the interpretive tradition, pointing to clear Orphic themes and
references prior to Plato, although contemporary criticism had cast doubt on the
pre-Platonic existence of these themes.²⁷⁴
3.4.1 “Understanding the lógos of their ministry”
Independent of the pre-understandings of criticism and the most recent archaeo-

logical documentation, Plato’s own testimony is still the first source to discour-
age an exaggerated skepticism about the existence of the Orphics and their
movement.²⁷⁵ In Cratylus (400c), Plato refers to hoi amphì Orphéa, indicating
with this expression the authors of the Orphic doctrines; in the Republic, he neg-
atively describes them as agýrtai and mánteis, ‘wandering priests’ and ‘soothsay-
ers’ (Rep. II: 364b-c), terms with a very negative connotation, suggesting that the
authors are closer to orpheoteléstai, Orphic initiates, who appear as impostors in
authors such as Theophrastus, Philodemus and Plutarch.²⁷⁶ A bíos orphikós is
discussed in a discussion on vegetarianism in the Laws (VI: 782c). Often within
Plato’s work, the antiquity of Orphic doctrines is recalled²⁷⁷ and Orphic texts are
quoted or paraphrased, as if they existed prior to Plato himself.²⁷⁸ It is impossi-
ble to deny, therefore, that Orphics and Orphism have a very significant and im-
portant place within the Platonic corpus.
However, the presence of Orphism in Plato’s work is especially visible when
he refers to theories about the soul. The dialogues are indeed full of myths,
273 Brisson’s skeptical position is, in this sense, paradigmatic (Brisson 2000a: 253). A me-
thodological solution to the problem is proposed by Bernabé 2002: 239: “chaque foi que l’on
parle d’influence orphique chez um auteur, on doit citer des textes soumis à une critique
profonde et à une herméneutique minutieuse, pour éviter les lieux communs et les affirmations
vides. Le travail reste en grande partie à faire et il est urgent de l’entreprendre”. So, showing the
texts: that’s the imperative.
274 On the Derveni papyrus, see what was said above at 1.8.
275 Although the term Ὀρφικοί is not registered as such within the Platonic corpus, it already
appears in Herodotus (II. 81, vide infra)
276 See for Vegett 1998: 229 and Burkert 1972: 125 n30; 1982: 4 n13 for citations.
277 See Phlb. 66c; Leg. 715e.
278 See Phaed. 69c-d, Crat. 402b-c. See also Kingsley 1995:118 and Tortorelli Ghidini 2000: 12.
moral reflections, and literary images that imply or directly face the issues of the
immortality and metempsýchōsis of the soul.
This is certainly the case for a famous page in the Meno, where Plato attrib-
utes the authorship of the theory of metempsýchōsis to “great priests and priest-
esses, who were concerned with understanding the lógos of their ministry”
(Men. 81a). He goes on to explicitly state the content of this lógos: “at one
time [the soul] has an end, which is termed dying, and at another time is born
again, but is never destroyed” (Men. 81b). Let us more closely examine the pas-
sage and its context. The theme of the dialogue between Socrates and Meno is
the definition of virtue, approached from an epistemic perspective. The problem
at hand is how to recognize the truth when it is not known beforehand: it is the
question, central to Platonic philosophy, of anámnēsis. In this context, the dia-
logue proceeds as follows:
SOCR. I have heard from certain wise men and women who spoke of things divine. MEN.
What did they say? SOCR. They spoke of a glorious truth, as I conceive. MEN. What was
it? And who were they? SOCR. Some of them were great priests and priestesses, who
were concerned with understanding the lógos of their ministry. Pindar and many others,
the divine poets, also spoke of these things [b]. And that is what they say, mark, now,
and see whether their words are true: they say that the soul of man is immortal, and at
one time has an end, which is termed dying, and at another time is born again, but is
never destroyed. And that is why, they say, a man ought to live always in perfect holiness.
“For Persephone, in the ninth year, sends the souls of those from whom she has received the
penalty of ancient crime back again from beneath into the light of the sun above. And from
these noble kings and mighty men and great in wisdom sprout. And for the rest of their days,
as immaculate heroes, they are invoked.”
The soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, and having
seen the world from one side and the other, in a word, all things that exist, has knowledge
of them all. And it is no wonder, therefore, that the soul should be able to call to remem-
brance all that it ever knew about virtue, and about everything else. For as all nature is
akin.²⁷⁹
In the above passage from Meno, Socrates produces a kind of historico-theoret-

ical summary of the theories of the soul, articulating its immortality with the
idea of metempsýchōsis (“is born again, but is never destroyed.”) He designates
the authorship of this indifferently to two groups: before the “priests and priest-
esses, who were concerned with understanding the lógos of their ministry,” and
then to divine poets, among them Pindar, from whom some verses are also cited.
It is not hard to imagine that in relation to these poets Socrates should also be
279 Men. 81a-c.

thinking of Empedocles.²⁸⁰ The dialectical function of Pindar’s quotation is fun-

damentally to corroborate the idea expressed immediately before by Socrates, of
the palingénesis, or ‘rebirth’, (pálin gígnesthai) of the soul.
It should be noted that Plato – instead of quoting some Orphic poem, which,
as we have seen, he certainly should know – uses Pindar’s verses. This is the first
sign of something which is, as we shall see next, a mark of appropriation of the
theory of the immortality of the soul by the Platonic work, that is, Plato’s prob-
able intention to dilute the reference to the Orphic origins of the theory in order
to appropriate it as his own. This Platonic choice is even more significant in the
context of the first reference to the authors of the theory, priests and priestesses
who are concerned with understanding the lógos of their own ministry. Wilamo-
witz 1920: II 249 and Burkert 1972: 126 both agree that the object of explaining
the lógos (lógon didónai) of their ritual practices must be the exegesis of the
the mythología that accompany the initiation rituals of the soul. It is typically ar-
gued that Plato is referring to Pythagorean practice, demonstrating that he is a
reliable source for the attribution of theories of immortality and metempsýchōsis
to the ancient Pythagoreans.
The use of the word “priestesses”, which agrees with the different testimo-
nies that point to a significant and relatively equal presence of women within
the Pythagorean koinōnía, is further proof of this reliability.²⁸¹ Indeed, Kingsley
1995: 161– 162 rightly notes that there is no tradition that allows one to consider
the Orphic rituals or mythology as inclusive of women: Plato’s reference must
therefore be an exclusive indication of Pythagoreanism.²⁸² On the other hand,
the idea of a mythological explanation points to Orphic influence, as pointed
out by Pugliese Carratelli 2001: 18 in his recent analysis of newly discovered Or-
phic plates, previously identified as Pythagorean.²⁸³ As in the quotation from
280 Empedocles’ fragment 146, especially, reveals significant parallels with the aforementioned
verses by Pindar: “And, in the end, they become soothsayers and poets / doctors and leaders for
the men who inhabit the earth / and from them gods sprout, excellent by the honors they
receive”. Look at both the biological images to indicate reincarnation (they “re-sprout” in Pin-
dar, “sprout” in Empedocles), as references to the excellence of the noble kings of Pindar, which
can be compared to the excellence of the πρόμοι of Empedocles. See Bluck (Plato, 1964: 284).
281 See what was said above in this respect (esp. 2.3), as well as De Vogel 1966: 238 n2, Dodds
1951: 175 n59, Burkert 1982: 17– 18 and Kingsley 1995: 162 n51.
282 Long 1948: 68 – 69 also agrees with him on this. Casadio 1991: 130, however, protests that, if
women were admitted into the Pythagorean communities, they should be so as philosophers,
not priestesses. And Bernabé and Jiménez 2008: 59 point to the fact that several of the most
recent discoveries of Orphic blades originated from tombs of women. One more time, there is
little consensus among scholars.
283 See above (1.8).
Pindar, here Plato seems to want to refer more directly to the Orphic notion of the
universe, which is closer to his philosophical and religious sensitivity.
The Derveni papyrus is the most striking testimony to the historical accuracy
of an image of priests who, in addition to fulfilling their rites, demonstrate inter-
est in their mythological explanation. The papyrus, which presents itself as an al-
legorical exegesis of an ancient cosmogonic poem in search of an allegorical ex-
planation of the mysteries undertakes a scathing criticism in column XX directed
against those who do not know how to do what the Meno priests and priestesses
are said to be experts at. The characters that are the targets of the papyrus au-
thor’s attacks would exhibit themselves in public with sacred rites, but would
not know how to explain the rites they perform:
I am less amazed that those who have performed the rite and been initiated in the cities do
not comprehend; for it is impossible to hear what is said and to learn simultaneously. But
those who have been initiated by someone who makes a profession of the rites are worthy
of amazement and pity: amazement because, although they suppose, before they perform
the rite, that they will have knowledge, they go away after they have performed it without
gaining knowledge, and make no further inquiries, as if they have wasted the fee which
they paid beforehand, but they also go away bereft of their judgement too. Before they per-
form the rites, they expect to have knowledge; after they have performed them, they go
away bereft even of their expectation.²⁸⁴
Just as Plato does, the author of the Derveni papyrus, although in the role of an
Orphic exegete, seems to weave in criticisms of a part of the same Orphics who
fail to know how to explain the rites performed. To this charge of incompetence,
others are added, including the both the promotion of the commercialization of
the holy, if we take into account the mention of the money charged to the faith-
ful, and the consequent disbelief among the faithful.
It is no surprise, then, that Plato uses this same image in a famous page of
the Republic (364b-c) in the context of the harsh criticism of Musaeus and his
son, Eumolpus, eponym of the hierophants of Eleusis. Plato does not hide his
criticism, that the diffusion of the Eleusinian mysteries was causing problems
for the city (Rep. II: 378a); he even parodies of these for the initiation of the
“democratic man” (560d-e).²⁸⁵
[They] guide the initiated to the Hades with his speech, preparing a pious symposium for
them, in which they lie with garlands, and from then on make them spend their whole time
drinking, as they believe that the best reward of virtue is eternal drunkenness.²⁸⁶
284 P. Derv. XX, trans. Janko 2002.

285 See West 1983: 34 ff. and Vegetti 1998: 227 n5.
286 Rep. II: 363c-d.
However, the passage that concerns us most directly is from the following page
in which Plato describes in strong tones a widespread practice of “priests and
wayfarer diviners”:
But of all these speeches, the most surprising ones are those they make on gods and virtue,
saying that those same gods assigned to many a good men misfortune and a bad life, and to
those who are their opposites, on the contrary, an opposite fate. Priests and wayfarer di-
viners frequent the doors of the rich and persuade them that they possess a god-given
power founded on sacrifices and incantations, that can fix any injustice a rich person or
any of his ancestors has committed, by way of pleasant rituals. If someone wants to
harm an enemy in return for a modest sum, they convince them that they may ruin both
the just and the unjust, and with spells and charms persuade the gods to be at their serv-
ice.²⁸⁷
This passage significantly reveals a picture very similar to that in Column XX of

the Derveni papyrus: these priests commercialize their services and undermine
the hope of the faithfuls. Because these same priests and soothsayers, immedi-
ately after, show that great plethora of books that passed as works by Orpheus
and Musaeus (Rep. II: 364e), it is lectio facilior to identify them, at least initially,
with Orphism. However, Plato’s criticism should not be considered as an unre-
stricted critique of Orphism, but – as in the Derveni papyrus case – as an almost
internal critique. The possibility of such an internal critique presupposes a cer-
tain closeness between Plato and the Orphic-Pythagorean theories, as Pugliese
Carratelli 2001 calls them.
On the other hand, the Platonic charge is not unusual. Rather, it fits in with
what was defined as a “conscious permeability” between téchnai and Naturphi-
losophie (Gemelli 2007b) and which is witnessed by the polyvalence – in the
sense described above – of such tragic characters as the Prometheus of the epon-
ymous pseudo-Aeschylian work (430 BC?), who is at the same time, a diviner and
a prṓtos heuretḗs in disciplines such as astronomy, medicine and mathematics.
Or even Melanippe, in the homonymous tragedy by Euripides (The wise Mela-
nippe), who proclaims a pre-Socratic cosmogony, claiming to have apprehended
it from her mother, a divine nymph (fragment 495 Nauck).
Relations between Orphism, Pythagoreanism and Plato have begun to delin-
eate themselves more clearly. Plato appropriated the first through the medium of
the second.
Let us return to the page in Meno (81a-c) with which we started our analysis
of Plato’s testimony on the theories of the Pythagorean soul, and observe two
other really significant details for the interpretation proposed here. Consider
287 Rep. II: 364b-c.

first its concluding reference to the syngéneia of nature, which relates to the idea
of universal kinship in Porphyry’s text (VP: 19) with which we began this Chap-
ter. This reference is another sign that Plato hands the theories of priests and
poets over to the Pythagorean strand of Orphism: there really is no reference
in the literature or in the Orphic plates to the idea of a universal kinship. Second-
ly, the claim that these same priests and poets would have preached the need to
“live the holiest life as possible” is a surprising one. The warning is not really
necessary to the argument in the passage for the epistemological thesis of anám-
nēsis, since this is sufficiently demonstrated by the pre-existence of the soul over
many incarnations. And yet, Plato seems to require that the movement in metem-
psýchōsis should be understood in a fundamentally moral sense. The fact that
once again we do not have any clear reference to it in the Orphic sources
makes one think that this is, in this case, once again, a Pythagorean variation,
to the Platonic taste, of the theory of the immortal soul.
3.4.2 Hierarchy of incarnations
The hierarchy of incarnations, widely present in the Platonic corpus, further at-
tests to the presence of a moral sense of metempsýchōsis. This is the famous law
of Adrastea, discussed at length by Plato in the Phaedrus, in the context of dem-
onstrating the immortality of the soul:
And here is the law imposed by Adrastea: every soul which, having put itself in the retinue
of a god, contemplates some of the eternal truths, will be free of suffering until the next
period, and in case it always achieves this goal, it will be free forever. On the contrary, if
it is unable to follow him, it does not reach the contemplation, and because of some mis-
fortune, is overwhelmed because of forgetfulness and evil that overruns it, and while heavy
as it is, it loses its wings and falls to the ground, then the law says that this soul should not
be planted in any animal nature in its first generation. Rather, that one that reached a
broader contemplation, will be planted in the seed of a man who will be a lover of wisdom,
or a lover of beauty, or of the Muses or love. Second, in the seed of a legitimate king or a
warrior or a courageous leader. Third, in a politician, an administrator or a businessman,
and fourth, in the seed of an athlete, someone who is dedicated to the effort, or from some-
one dedicated to healing the bodies, and fifth, to the life of a clairvoyant or someone who
knows how to initiate one in the mysteries, to the sixth place the life of a poet or other man
fit to imitation will be convenient; in the seventh (…).²⁸⁸
288 Phaedr. 248c-e.

Plato’s imagery of planting the soul in several seeds directly follows Pindar and
Empedocles. Although Plato places – as one might expect – the philosopher on
top of the hierarchy, the next positions closely resemble those of Pindar and Em-
pedocles: kings, athletes and poets in Pindar, whereas Empedocles prefers di-
viners, poets, doctors and of course the very kings themselves. Plato, controver-
sially, pushes politicians, doctors and athletes down in the ranking of reincarna-
tions.
However, the lack of any direct Orphic source for this hierarchy suggests its
invention within the aristocratic context of Magna Graecia, adopted by Plato
within his moralizing project of metempsýchōsis. ²⁸⁹ This would further explain
why, in the above quote from the Meno (81a-c), Plato prefers quoting Pindar in-
stead of the Orphics: it is his intention to dilute the reference of the theory to its
Orphic origins in order to use the hierarchy of reincarnations to moralize. The
scope again points to the Italian Pythagorean traditions.
The scope of our project prevents an examination of two central issues in the
Phaedrus passage, first the problem of the cycle duration of the successive rein-
carnations, and second the problem of the reference to Adrastea as the author of
the law. On the one hand, it suffices here to note that there is no doctrinal con-
sistency in relation to the number of years that would correspond to the comple-
tion of the cycle.²⁹⁰ On the other hand, Adrastea (etym. ‘that which one cannot
escape from’), before becoming the feared avenger of every human attempt to
challenge the divine (Aesch. Prom. 936, Rep. V: 451a), appears in the Orphic cos-
mologies as a companion to Dike (fragment 23 Kern), associated with Nemesis
and herself a cosmogonic entity (fragment 54 Kern).²⁹¹ Adrastea corresponds es-
sentially to the same personification of Ananke that rules the world in Book X of
the Republic, and where the decree is said to be, in Empedocles, to regulate the
cycle of metempsýchōsis (115 B 1 DK). In both cases, Plato seems once again to
creatively rework data from the Orphic tradition so that it will obey his own in-
terests.
3.4.3 Sôma-sêma
Plato performs the same transposition in his treatment of the famous motto
sôma-sêma. ²⁹² Again, our analysis of this issue will seek to both see how Plato
289 For this hypothesis, see Bernabé 2011, ch. 6.

290 See for this Bernabé 2011, ch. 6.
291 See for the citations Casadio 1991: 132.
292 The term transposition is used here in the sense coined by Diès 1927: 432 ff.
appropriates the Orphic theory within his own view of the immortality of the
soul, and attempt to move backwards to determine what genuine dependencies
between Orphism and Pythagoreanism can be found in his sources.
In a page of the Gorgias, Socrates, in response to Callicles’s proposition that
there is a need for a total liberation of the passions in pursuit of pleasure, intro-
duces with Euripides’s verse – “Who knows if life is not death, and death life?” –
a discussion on the body (sôma) as the tomb (sêma) of the soul, a motto whose
authorship Socrates refers to “some ingenious person, maybe a Sicilian or an
Italian”. Thus the text reads:
But even the life you talk about is an awful thing; and indeed I would not wonder that Euri-
pides may have been right in asking: Who knows if life is not death, and death life? At this
very moment maybe we are actually dead! I have heard a wise man say: we are actually
dead and our tomb is our body, and that part of the soul which is the seat of the desires
is liable for its very nature to be tossed around and blown up and down. That was said,
in myth form, by some ingenious person, maybe a Sicilian or an Italian, who playing
with the word, invented a tale in which he called that part of the soul a vessel as it was
so easily wheedled, and he called “foolish” the uninitiated men. In these, the part in the
souls in which the desires are seated, its intemperate and incontinent part, he designed
as a vessel full of holes, because it can never be satisfied. He is not of your way of thinking,
Callicles, for he declares, that of all the souls in the Hades – meaning the invisible world –
these are precisely the happiest, while the uninitiated are condemned to pour water into a
vessel which is full of holes out of a colander which is similarly perforated. The colander –
as the one who told me the story said –, is the soul of the foolish ones, because it is full of
holes, and therefore incontinent, owing to a bad memory and want of faith.²⁹³
We should note, first, that Plato, as with his other strategies of transposition so
far, uses the sôma-sêma motif in a dialogical context that is markedly ethical-
apocalyptic.²⁹⁴ At the same time, this passage attributes the story in a peculiar
way: “in myth form, by some ingenious person, maybe a Sicilian or an Italian.”
Plato’s reference makes one think of an Orphic and/or Pythagorean origin of the
motif. Indeed, the kompsós anér to which Socrates refers is commonly identified
with some Pythagorean. Some wanted to identify him with Philolaus himself, be-
cause of the reference to the same theme that appears in fragment 14 of the lat-
ter:
293 Gorg. 492e-493c.

294 The reference of the dialogue to Pythagorean doctrines is not limited to this context. See,
for example, next (Gorg. 503e-504a) the contrast between ἰσότητες, the proportion of the ele-
ments of the ethical life, and πλεονεξία of Callicles, which directly echoes this same discussion
in fragment 3 from Archytas. For a comment on this correspondence see Meattini 1983.
The ancient experts of the divine things and diviners attest that, because of certain punish-
ments, the soul is joined in the apex of the body flesh and is as if buried in this tomb.²⁹⁵
Philolaus, for his part, seems to carefully discuss the doctrine of the sôma-sêma,
in the context of the archaic magico-religious traditions: theologoí and mán-
teis. ²⁹⁶
The difficulty is that, since Wilamowitz 1920: II 90 and Frank 1923: 301, up to
Burkert 1972: 248 n47, Casadio 1991: 124 n9 and even through Huffman 1993:
404– 406, many scholars seriously doubt the originality of this fragment, and
therefore the possibility of considering the idea of the sôma-sêma as originally
Philolaic.²⁹⁷ The arguments are basically the following: a) there is evidence of
contamination of the text by the doctrines of Plato (Cratylus 400c) and Aristotle
(fr. 6 Rose); b) linguistic reminiscences identify his vocabulary with a later, Pla-
tonic time period; c) it would be strange for a Pythagorean like Philolaus to as-
cribe the theory of sôma-sêma, commonly considered Pythagorean, to ancient
theologoí and diviners; d) the meaning of the term used by Philolaus, psychḗ,
is closed to the one that will identify in the further thought the soul as the com-
plex of psychological faculties; this would conflict with the conception of soul as
life, discussed above in relation to its fragment 13 (within the comment to Xen-
ophanes’s fragment 7), as well as with that expressed by fragment 22, in which
“the soul loves the body”.²⁹⁸ While the first three arguments in favor of consid-
ering the fragment as spurious can be easily disproved, the fourth will deserve a
more careful examination.
Regarding the first two arguments (doctrinal contamination and linguistic
reminiscence), it is easy to argue instead that: a) the doctrines expressed by Phi-
lolaus do not seem anachronistic in any way, and the fact that they are men-
tioned by Plato and Aristotle may suggest that the three simply took it from a
common source, probably of Orphic tradition, which was widespread in the
fifth and fourth centuries BC; b) even though the term theología first appears
only in Plato (Rep. II: 379a), according to Vlastos 1952: 12 n22 the term was of
common usage. Significantly, it is Adeimantus rather than Socrates who brings
it up in the dialogue, thus indicating that it was most likely a term already in use
295 44 B 14 DK.
296 See Casadio 1987: 230.
297 On the more general historiographical issues concerning the originality of Philolaus’
fragments, see above (1.7). See also Guthrie 1962: 329 f.
298 For a review of these arguments, see both Burkert 1991: 404– 406 and Bernabé 2011, chap.7.
and not a Platonic creation.²⁹⁹ Moreover, Wilamowitz’s and Frank’s arguments on

the vocabulary of the passage are subjective: they claim the style does appear
Doric, but argue that this is mere appearance and hides its unmistakable Attic
clarity. This is, of course, an unverifiable statement.
There are at least two counterarguments against the third point, that a Py-
thagorean would not claim that his doctrine of sôma-sêma has its source in an-
cient theologians and diviners. First, the doctrine could have an early Orphic ori-
gin, and simply have been co-opted by both groups. Second, even if we admit
the possibility of it being Pythagorean doctrine, we cannot know what Philolaus
in the fifth century BC knew of the origin of Pythagorean philosophy. Nothing,
really, prevents one from thinking – apart from the usual presentist bias –
that Philolaus considered the origins of the intellectual movement to which he
belonged to be well represented by theologoí and mánteis, whose sophía he
felt indebted to.
On the other hand, the fourth argument deserves more thoughtful consider-
ation, because it suggests a contradiction in Philolaus’ conception of the soul.
Fragments 13 and 22 present two distinct yet complementary problems for the
idea of psychḗ underlying fragment 14 and make a careful Philolaus reader
like Huffman 1993: 405 – 406 lean toward considering the latter as doubtful.
In the case of fragment 13, discussed above, we concluded that the term psy-
chḗ, used in the sense of harmony in the composition of material parts, is clearly
inconsistent with the immortality of psychḗ. Therefore, Philolaus – who, as a Py-
thagorean, should believe in the immortality of the soul – should use a term
other than psychḗ to refer to the part of the individual who attains immortality.
In the case of fragment 22, the expression “the soul loves the body” (diligitur cor-
pus ab anima), which appears in the fragment quoted by Claudiano Mamerto (44
B 22 DK), suggests again an evident contradiction with the idea of the body as a
tomb.³⁰⁰
Trying to find a solution to the first dilemma, one could speculate that it is
only the presence of the word psychḗ which raised doubts about the authenticity
of the fragment, while the rest of the fragment seems original. Therefore, we
could imagine that the term psychḗ, and it alone, is the result of a correction
by Clement of the original Philolaic term (which could have been daímon, for ex-
ample), for the immortal part of the individual.
299 The proof of this can be seen in Burkert 1993: 405, who rightly notes that the phrase ἀμφὶ
θεῶν λόγος appears, for example, already in fragment 131 by Empedocles (31 B 131 DK).
300 Incisive is Casadio 1991: 124 n9: “per quanto ci si arrampichi sugli specchi non si riuscirà
mai a far dire a Filolao che è un sepolcro l’involucro corporeo di cui l’anima si compiace”.
A very elegant and effective solution has been proposed by Timpanaro Car-
dini for the second dilemma, regarding the contradiction between the idea of a
body-tomb and the love of the soul for it, from fragment 22:
One must consider that in the Orphic-Pythagorean mysteriology, the body is the place and
means of atonement, to achieve the liberation of the soul, hence there is a certain emotion-
al attachment of the soul to its own custody.³⁰¹
Thus, the soul’s love for the body is, consistently, its love for the possibility of the
atonement of sins committed in previous lives. Such atonement is only possible
through the body, bringing the fragment closer to the conceptual scope of the
theories of metempsýchōsis. In the same sense, the immediately following sen-
tence of fragment 22 adds: “Because without this you cannot use the senses”
(quia sine eo non potest uti sensibus). The subject of the sentence is the soul,
which without the body cannot use the senses, receive and send signals. As
we will see, this is the same theory of sôma-sêma as given by Plato in the Cratylus
(400c), that is, of the body as a sign. The body presents itself in fragment 22 of
Philolaus as an open custodian for the soul, which allows for interaction with the
world, in the form of knowledge, and expression.
To sum up, in fragment 14, Philolaus seems to discuss the immortality of the
soul as something originated previously to his work, possibly like something that
comes to Pythagoreanism from outside, by no means previous to the Pythagor-
eanism of the fifth century BC, of which Philolaus is the greatest representative.
On that point, it seems to agree with the above page of the Gorgias by Plato, that
these theories originated in a religious and ancient sphere. Though not the same
kompsós anér mentioned by Plato, Philolaus could be said to be a central witness
to the antiquity of this doctrine and of its early reception within the Pythagorean
literature.
Recent findings of three bone plates in Olbia (discovered in 1951) seem to
confirm the existence of the sôma-sêma theory in an Orphic context.³⁰² In the
first (94a Dubois) and third (94c Dubois), one can read a few sequences of
names that begin or end with the theonym DION, an abbreviation of Dionysus:
Life Death Life
Truth
Dion (ysus) Orphics
301 Timpanaro Cardini (Pitagorici, 1962 II: 246 – 7).

302 West 1982, Zhmud 1992, Dubois 1996 and Tortorelli Ghidini 2006, especially, devoted
themselves to the Olbia’s bone plates.
Dion (ysus)
[Lie] Truth
Body Soul
In the first plate, the life-death-life sequence is said to be truth and is attributed
to the Orphics: the plate contains, for the first time, the name Orphikoí. Before
the discovery, the first appearance of the term was only in Herodotus (II. 81),
as we will discuss next.³⁰³ In this plate there is an apocalyptic reversal, typically
Orphic, of the valuation of death as the real life of the soul. It is impossible not to
think of the earlier-mentioned Platonic quote of a verse of Euripides: “Who
knows if life is not death, and death life?” (Gorg. 492e), as well as on the
whole Socratic argument on that same page.³⁰⁴ The fact is that the expression
sôma-sêma eventually became like a motto or, to put it better – using a Pytha-
gorean term – a sýmbolon of the Orphic theory of the immortality of the soul.
If one accepts the reconstruction of the third plate by Vinogradov 1991: 77–
86, it contains, on the third line, the exact antonym sôma-psychḗ that we find in
the Platonic text and in Philolaus. Read together, the two plates reveal unargu-
ably – and in an overtly Orphic context – the belief in the immortality of the soul
as something that survives the mortal body.³⁰⁵
On the page of the Gorgias (492e-493c) with which we began this section, the
great intelligence of “a Sicilian or an Italian” is exemplified by a series of etymo-
logical games that are echoed in the second part of the quotation. With a play on
words (lit. a change of terms, parágon tô onómati), the sage calls píthos (vessel)
that part of the soul that is pithanós (easily persuadable), and amúetoi (uniniti-
ated) the anóētoi men (who have no “sense”). The game extends even to the very
etymology of the Ádes (Hades), the realm beyond the grave, which is understood
as aïdḗs (invisible).
No wonder, therefore, that the same sôma-sêma motif is featured in an ex-
quisite etymological game in a famous page of the Cratylus (400c), already ex-
tensively studied by criticism.³⁰⁶ It seems that the very idea of the sôma-sêma
303 See Graf 2000 for a more extensive discussion of the exact spelling and meaning of the
term. The suffix -ικο would indicate a group marked by differentiation, a “heretic” Dionysian cult
(Burkert 1982: 12).
304 See Bernabé 2007b for a thorough examination of this idea in the Orphic literature.
305 See for that also West 1982: 18 – 19 and Casadio 1991: 125. See Burkert 1980: 37 and 1972: 133
for a contrary viewpoint.
306 See Rohde 1898: 130 n2, Tannery 1901: 314 f., Wilamowitz 1932: I 199, Rathmann 1933: 65 and
82, Nilsson 1935: 205 f., Dodds 1951: 148 f., Guthrie 1952: 156 f., Timpanaro Cardini (Pitagorici, 1962
II: 228 f.), Burkert 1972: 126 n33 and 248 n47, Alderink 1981: 62, De Vogel 1981: 79 f., Bestor 1980:
motto evokes this old tradition of reflection on names and reality. At the same
time, the kompsós anḗr of the Gorgias and Philolaus’s ancient theologians and
diviners find on this page of the Cratylus, for the first time, a more precise assign-
ment: they are “disciples of Orpheus”:
In fact, some say that the body is the tomb of the soul, and the soul buried in it in the pres-
ent life, and as the soul in turn portrays a meaning, because of this it is correctly called a
sign. However, it seems to me that the disciples of Orpheus were the first ones who created
this name, as if the soul, while paying the penalty for what it is paying for, it has, in order to
save itself, this coating mirrored on the image of a prison: and the prison of the soul is thus
called salvation until the soul pays its debts, and there is no need to change one single let-
ter of that name.³⁰⁷
One must unravel the very articulate word game that the text builds, with not
only two different meanings for the term sêma (tomb and sign), but also the re-
invention – all Platonic – of a new meaning for the term sôma: salvation.
Socrates reveals here, therefore, that he knows two different meanings of the
term sêma: on the one hand, tomb; on the other hand, sign. The assonance ob-
viously plays a central role in the comprehension of the passage: Socrates must
have known well the Orphic motto sôma-sêma in the sense of body-tomb, but he
also seems to know a different exegesis of that motto, which – somehow – di-
minishes the cruel and archaic impact of the image, probably originally attached
to the rites of the telestaí like the aforementioned Olbia plates seem to indicate,
refining it to insert it into a more intellectualist semantic scope. The game is pos-
sible thanks to the archaic sense of the term séma, already present in Homer,
which meant not exactly grave, but more precisely the headstone that is erected
to indicate or signal the place of the grave and therefore to remember the person
buried there.³⁰⁸ The context of such a word game is likely an exegesis of the an-
cient Orphic myths, as in the Derveni papyrus (see above 1.8).
Several authors, beginning with Wilamowitz 1932: II 199, have suggested that
Socrates presents a Pythagorean exegesis of an Orphic motto.³⁰⁹ However, this
attribution is not universally accepted. Indeed, although Burkert initially asserts:
“We may suppose that if it is not Orphic, it is likely to be Pythagorean”, he ends
up skeptically concluding that “we do not know whether this [the great Sicilian
306 f., Ferwerda 1985, Casadio 1987: 389 f. and 1991: 123 f., Riedweg 1995: 46 and Zhmud 1997: 123.
Wondering in contrast to all of the above, Bernabé 2011, ch. 7.
307 Crat. 400c.
308 For the Homer quotations, see Il. II 814 and VII 319, Od. II 222 and XII 175. For the meaning
of σῆμα, see Liddell-Scott 1996. For a discussion of the term, see Prier 1978: 91– 101.
309 See among them, Thomas 1938: 51– 52 and Dodds 1951: 171 n95.
or Italian] was a historical character”.³¹⁰ The truth is that, even if the fragment
from Philolaus quoted above (44 B 14 DK) does not admit the interpretation of
sêma as sign, but only as tomb, Pugliese Carratelli’s hypothesis (2001) of a
mytho-logical work of Pythagoreanism on the Orphic traditions might suggest
with a certain probability that this former etymology was close to the Pythagor-
ean environments, if not even authored by the latter.³¹¹ An indirect argument that
would authorize the assignment that the idea of the body is a sign to Pythagor-
eanism is the very symbolic didactic practice of that tradition that, as we’ve seen
above (2.2) marked the Pythagorean way of life (2.2): there are sýmbola and
akoúsmata indicating that, all of the time, one thing means another.³¹² This re-
sults from the continuity of reality, its syngéneia, in which everything refers to ev-
erything.³¹³
However, the third passage of the text is the most surprising part of the ety-
mological game. At the end of the argument, Socrates proudly declares, “and no
need to change one letter.” What goes on here is an association of sôma with the
verb sṓizō, which moves the term sôma into the semantic sphere of salvation.
Linguistically, the game is clear: Socrates considers so-ma as a name formed
by so- (from sṓizō, ‘to save’) and -ma, a suffix that indicates action. Sô-ma
thus becomes an action name, a clever morphological construction of Socra-
tes-Plato which means that the body is the salvation of the soul. For this reason,
Socrates can say that there’s no need to change one letter, as was assumed in the
310 Burkert 1972: 248 n47.

311 This is certainly a good way to solve, on the Platonic page, the opposition between those
τινές who say the theory and οἱ ἀμφὶ Ὀρφέα, who were the first to say it: in the former (τινές) the
latter would fit, the Orphics, but the range of this identification is not limited to them: in τινές
could fit then, the Pythagoreans, though not in a position of “formers” to withhold this theory.
312 Significantly, in this sense, the page of Stobaeus (Stob. 3.1.199): “indeed, there is nothing so
characteristic of the Pythagorean philosophy as the symbolic, as the way of teaching in which
word and silence mix, as if not to say.” On the other hand, the idea of the symbolic sign was not
something restricted to the Pythagorean tradition, and was widely present in the rest of the
Presocratic literature. See, for example, fr. 93 of Heraclitus, “the lord whose is the oracle at
Delphi neither speaks nor conceals, he signals” (22 B 93 DK).
313 We do not follow Ferwerda’s argument (1985: 270 – 272) which tends to show that – on the
contrary – the first etymological sense of the body as the tomb of the soul cannot be Py-
thagorean. The author argues that, on the one hand, an idea so pessimistic would not match the
more positive worldview of the Pythagoreans (notably as related to the idea of συγγένεια), on the
other hand, he argues that it wouldn’t make sense to imagine that a Pythagorean thought on the
death of the soul during its earthly life in the body. The author’s mistake lies in considering, in
both cases, the death of the soul in the body as something definitive, rather than thinking on it
as continually reborn, thus thinking of death as the beginning of a new life, during the course of
metempsýchōsis.
case of the sôma-sêma game, in which there is an exchange between ōméga and
êta. This new etymology enables Socrates to make sense of the image of the body
as períbolos, a coating of the soul, after the image of a desmotḗrion, a prison.
Among the few scholars on this passage, De Vogel 1981 and Ferwerda 1985
agree that with this etymological proposal Plato rejected the totally pessimistic
view of the body as a tomb in favor of a less definitive image, as that of períbolos
or even jail.³¹⁴ The central theoretical point here is: to say that the body is a coat-
ing and imprisonment of the soul is something much lighter than saying it is its
tomb. ³¹⁵ As Timpanaro Cardini 1962 quite rightly observed, the etymology “de-
notes cultural trends closer to the age of Socrates” and should therefore corre-
spond to their own lectio of the sôma-sêma motif, as the very expression dokoûsi
moi suggest.³¹⁶
This interpretation of the passage brings it into line with other parts of Pla-
to’s conceptual universe, well exemplified by a page from the Phaedo where the
theme of the prison of the soul takes on strong ethical connotations:
314 Significant here is the position expressed by De Vogel 1981: 98: “all this, I think, brings out
fairly clearly that those modern authors who write and speak as if the σῶμα-σῆμα formula were
the most adequate expression if Plato’s view of man and human life, can do so only by a certain
misinterpretation of the function of that formula in Plato’s thought. For in fact, Plato took
human life much more as a challenge than as some kind of penance”. On the other hand, it does
not seem to make much sense to show – as Ferwerda wants to do 1985: 274 – that Plato’s term
περίβολος did not necessarily mean “cage”, but a protective enclosure. Although the proposed
review of the term throughout the rest of the Platonic work is convincing, this does not change
the fact that in the context of this passage, the specific περίβολος is indicated as δεσμωτηρίου
εἰκόνα, its more precise meaning.
315 Although Casadio 1991: 124 considers them “metafore che esprimono con gradazione diversa
lo stesso concetto”, it is yet possible to think of a more accurate change in direction in the
Platonic exegesis, as we shall see next. Guthrie 1952: 311 agrees with him.
316 Timpanaro Cardini (Pitagorici 1962 II: 229), orig.: “risente di tendenze culturali più vicine
all’età di Socrate”. See also Nilsson 1935: 205: “It may, however, seem doubtful whether the
etymologies (σῆμα-σημαίνειν, σῶμα-σώιζειν) are quoted from the Orphics or are Plato’s own
speculations. It may be doubted if such etymological speculations are appropriate for the Or-
phics, and it seems not unlikely that Plato added them as explanatory comments intended to
illuminate the saying”. And Casadio 1987: 390: “ciò che Platone attribuisce agli Orfici è l’idea
dell’espiazione delle colpe, non necessariamente il legame etimologico tra sòma e sòzo”. Ne-
vertheless, it is certainly the case to note, with Bernabé 2011, ch. 7, that in the two Orphic blades
of Pelinna, dating from the fourth century BC, we find the same idea of liberation of soul from
the body, “has just died, has just been born, or three times blessed, these days. Tell Persephone
that Bacchus himself has freed you” (see Tortorelli Ghidini 2006: 84– 85). For arguments in favor
of a now Orphic assignment of the idea of the body as salvation, see Ferwerda 1985: 267.
Those who love knowledge are conscious that philosophy takes their souls, which are in
fact chained, in a word, glued to their bodies, condemned to view all that is as through
the bars of a prison, and not in their own nature, and these souls are wrapped up in igno-
rance. And although they feel the terrible nature of that confinement due to their passion,
those who are chained in their bodies turn out to be the author of their enslavement (…).³¹⁷
Therefore, the imprisonment of the soul in the body consists of ignorance and
passion. However, it is still subject to pedagogic intervention from philosophy,
which tries to “disengage” the soul from the body, expanding the former’s vision.
What is important to underline here, in a Platonic perspective, is that the body-
imprisonment image allows this intervention from philosophy, while the simple
body-tomb image does not. And with that, the Platonic moralization of the the-
ories of the immortality of the soul reaches its highest point and at the same time
probably quite distances itself from its Orphic origins.
An unmistakable sign of the new Platonic synthesis of the various etymolo-
gies is a page of the Phaedrus (250c), in which they again appear articulated –
and without the slightest sign of tension between them – as the two images of
the body as a prison and as a tomb: the souls are at the highest level of their
initiation, along with Zeus, and are described as “being ourselves pure and un-
marked in this which we carry around with us and call the body, in which we are
imprisoned like an oyster in its shell” (Phaedr. 250c). The reference to the afore-
mentioned etymological game of the Cratylus is evident in the use of the term
asḗmantos, which we translate as “unmarked”, but which, while consisting of al-
pha+sēma, can and certainly does carry the meaning of “not buried, not entom-
bed”. So the page may be read as: “being ourselves pure and not entombed in
this which we carry around with us, in which we are imprisoned like an oyster
in its shell.” Again, the topic sôma-sêma plays with the meanings of tomb and
sign.³¹⁸
3.4.4 Pythagorean mediation
The path traced here through the key texts of the Platonic corpus, allows us to
reach some provisional conclusions on the meaning of the presence of Orphic
and Pythagorean metempsýchōsis within Plato’s works.
317 Phaed. 82e.

318 See for this Ferwerda 1985: 269, Casadio 1987: 389 n1 and Bernabé 2011, ch. 7, who come up
with an interesting synoptic picture of this parallel Cratylus passage (400c), in order to show the
difference between the former and the latter.
First, we can say that there is a very clear reference to a source, simultane-
ously ancient, religious and Italic, of theories of the immortality of the soul that
we also find in Orphic and early Pythagorean, notably Philolaic, literature. This
parallelism is found in the motto sôma-sêma.
Secondly, the Platonic appropriation of the allegedly primitive theories of Or-
phic immortality is marked by moralizing intentions. This is well demonstrated
by both the hierarchy of reincarnations and the Platonic reinterpretation of the
etymology of the sôma-sêma motif. However, it is unreasonable to conclude
that the transposition was mediated by a movement, likely Pythagorean move-
ment, which, while both geographically and socially close to the mythology
and ritual of the Orphic telestaí, also contributed to “Apollonize Orphism” – in
the famous expression of Ciaceri 1931– 32. That is to say, as Burkert 1972: 132–
133 and Pugliese Carratelli 2001: 17– 29 have argued, Pythagoreanism served to
intellectualize and aristocratize the Orphic traditions. Originally developed by
wanderers on the fringes of the culture and religion of the pólis, these Orphic tra-
ditions were gradually (and always partially) incorporated into the new sociocul-
tural context of the Dorian colonies of Magna Graecia in the fourth and fifth cen-
tury BC.³¹⁹
We cannot advance a more precise distinction between the Orphic and Py-
thagorean traditions in regards to their theories of the soul. Some authors sug-
gest that the distinction should be drawn along the lines of an original guilt. In-
itially, Pythagoreans would have considered metempsýchōsis to be a logical con-
sequence of the immortality of the soul, rather than a kind of punishment. How-
ever, the influence exerted by the anthropogonic myth of the Titans and Diony-
sus, with the consequent anthropology of man’s dual nature and the necessary
atonement of an original crime, would lead Pythagoreanism to adopt the moral-
ized Orphic conception of metempsýchōsis as punishment.³²⁰ However, there is
not a single solid textual basis for these claims, which suggests that it is appro-
priate for us to stop at this point.
The Platonic text continually refers to the theories of the immortality of the
soul and of metempsýchōsis, accustoming our ears to the Orphic-Pythagorean
theory of metempsýchōsis. However, this can lead to the misleading impression
that such a theory was common amongst Plato’s contemporaries. On the contra-
ry, Plato takes up here a rather strange and exotic idea, which he received from
Orphism, probably through Pythagoreanism. The Platonic texts themselves, in
319 “Something related to the Orphism” – states Burkert 1972: 132 – “had emerged from the
anonymity of back-alley ritual to become respectable”.
320 See Casadesus, apud Bernabé 2011, ch. 8.
their dialogical fabric, give hints that theories of the immortality of the soul were
strange for the culture of his time. This is the case with Cebes’ reluctance, in the
Phaedo (69e-70a), to accept that the soul has an existance apart from the body.
Also, Glaucon in the Republic (X: 608d), declares he has never heard of the im-
mortality the soul.
The strangeness of the Pythagorean doctrine of the immortality of the soul
coincides with another oddity, already detected (see. 1.6) in the sources on Pytha-
goreanism: the idea of a koinōnía that presents itself as a city within a city, an
alternative to the life style of the pólis. A conception of the soul that can accom-
modate such a unique political, religious and philosophical experience involves
a breakdown of order, and even a decidedly countercultural alternative to main-
stream life. Indeed, the description of the individual through the history of his
immortal soul is in direct conflict with the biological and social criteria that nor-
mally define it within the pólis. No mere sociobiological progeny, but the history
of their previous lives determines their place in society. And this history depends
entirely on an idea of ethical responsibility.³²¹ The consequence of this is the
emergence of communities and of forms of relatively autonomous and clearly sec-
tarian life within the traditional social structure. It is no coincidence that women
found in these movements not only a frank welcome, but also an opportunity to
be brought into their limelight. So, on the one hand, the proposed radical way
out for the human being trapped in a “citizen”‘s time and body is to live eternally
without a body, resulting in the eschatological definition of the eternal and
blessed life of the soul. On the other hand, the political solution is to change
one’s lifestyle and let the body be deeply inserted in another city, the koinōnía
of the “listeners” with their own moral prescriptions which were often quite dif-
ferent from those of the pólis. ³²²
Thus, Plato’s moralizing appropriation of the theories of the immortality of
the soul seem to be derived from a prior or contemporary Pythagorean aristocrat-
321 Still paradigmatic, in this sense, are the words of Cornford 1922: 141: “what is new in
transmigration is the moral view that reincarnation expiates some original sin and that the
individual soul persists, bearing its load of inalienable responsibility, through a round of lives,
till, purified by suffering, it escapes for ever. […] The individual becomes a unit, an isolated
atom, with a personal sense of sin and a need of personal salvation, compensated, however, by a
new consciousness of the soul’s dignity and value, expressed in the doctrine that by origin and
nature it is divine. […] But only on condition of becoming pure”. Less convincing, on the other
hand (pace Casadio 1991: 142– 143), are Cornford’s illations on a supposed philosophical mo-
nism and dualism embedded in these same theories of metempsýchōsis.
322 See for this discussion Detienne 1963, Vegetti 1989, Federico 2000. Particularly interesting
are the historico-anthropological observations on the Pythagorean “politics of immortality” in
Redfield 1991. I have already dedicated some pages to this issue recently (Cornelli 2009a).
ic and intellectual environment in Magna Graecia, thus making Plato a source for
the diffusion of these theories. At the same time, metempsýchōsis is one of the
central axes of Plato’s ethics and his political project of converting souls to
build another city.
It should not escape our attention that in the aforementioned text of the
Meno (81a-c), metempsýchōsis also has a central place in his theory of knowl-
edge, especially because of anámnēsis. Although it is less striking, even this sec-
ond appropriation of the Orphic theories of immortality will reveal the mark of a
strong Pythagorean influence.
The exercise of memory is central to defining the proper place of Pythagor-
eanism inside the Orphic traditions. The Pythagorean reform of Orphism (Pugli-
ese Carratelli 2001: 17– 29) was based on the exercise of memory: first remember-
ing the divine and immortal origin of the soul, and then understanding the cos-
mic and ethical principles of living. As we saw above in the testimony of Empe-
docles (31 B 129 DK), the memory of previous lives is one of the central features
of the Pythagorean sage. Pythagoras himself will have built much of his fame
upon this special ability to recall the history of his own metempsychóseis.
Sassi rightly notes in this regard that:
Pythagoras draws his image as a wise man exactly by performing like that one who, thanks
to the experience of many past lives, acquired extraordinary knowledge. This image is not
only an element of the strong aggregation of the community around their leader […], but
also a guarantee of the validity of the new knowledge, focused on the fundamental discov-
ery made by Pythagoras himself, of the harmony of the numerical proportions that rules the
cosmos.³²³
In fact, to this dimension of memory as a proof of wisdom there should corre-

spond a usage – so to speak – in its daily life within proto-Pythagorean commun-
ities: the members of the koinōnía – as Iamblichus reminds us – dedicated the
first part of their day to the exercise of anámnēsis:
The Pythagorean did not get out of bed before he called again to mind what had happened
the day before. And proceeded is this way as regards anámnēsis: he tried to call to mind the
323 Sassi 2009: 180, orig.: “Pitagora disegna la propria immagine di sapiente proprio pre-
sentandosi come colui che, grazie all’esperienza di molte vite, há accumulato conoscenze
straordinarie. Questa immagine diventa non solo un fattore forte di aggregazione della comunità
intorno al suo lider […], ma uma garanzia di validità di un sapere nuovo, centrato sulla scoperta
fondamentale, da parte dello stesso Pitagora, dell’armonia di proporzioni numeriche che regge il
cosmo”.
first thing he had said, heard or ordered the household in the previous day, soon after wak-
ing up, and then the second and the third, and he proceeded the same way in succession.³²⁴
Pythagorean communities were also marked by a special cult to the goddess

Mnemosyne, as represented by a group of Orphic plates that Pugliese Carratelli
2001: 27 calls mnemosýniae. In these plates, the lake beyond the grave is usually
dedicated to the goddess Mnemosyne, mother of the Muses, who dictates the
passwords and instructions that open the doors beyond the grave to the initiates.
The password is usually a common formula, sýmbolon: “I am the child of Earth
and starry Heaven”, according to Hipponion’s famous plate:
This is dedicated to Mnemosyne. When you go to the well-built houses of the Hades […] you
will find, from the lake of Memory, refreshing water. In front of this there will be the guards
who will ask you why you are going through the dread and dank abode of the Hades. Say:
“I am the child of Earth and starry Heaven, I am dry with thirst and am perishing: Come,
give me at once cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory.”³²⁵
Further proof of a link between Pythagoreanism, memory, and the goddess Mne-
mosyne, is found in the testimony of Theologumena Arithmeticae, a text from the
first Academy that probably refers to the traditions of Speusippus, which attest
that the Pythagoreans called the monad “Mnemosyne” and the decad
“Mneme” or “Pistis” (44 A 13 DK).³²⁶
Within the Pythagorean traditions, it is clear that the insistence on memory
and the need for anámnēsis seemed to define a distinct and special place for the
Pythagoreans within the ancient Orphic religion. The emphasis on the need not
to forget, to remember, is intimately linked on the one hand to a scientific prac-
tice that has in memory its technique, its specific ritual of learning, and on the
other hand to a true spiritual tension (represented in the Orphic fragments as a
road that divides and leads to two different lakes: Memory and Oblivion) that
wants to take the initiate out of the continuous transmigrating from different ex-
istences through to the memory of its true origin.³²⁷
324 Iambl. VP: 165.

325 This plate is the oldest testimony of a very common formula between plates from Magna
Graecia and Crete. The same text is also present on the plates of Petelia, Entella and Pharsalos,
and Eleutherna. See Pugliese Carratelli 2001: 39 ff. and Tortorelli Ghidini 2006: 62 ff.
326 See Burkert 1993: 359 ff. for a commentary on Philolaus’ testimony.
327 In this sense, the image of the two paths cannot but recall the Prologue of Parmenides’
poem. The goddess who encounters the philosopher was identified by various scholars as
Mnemosyne herself. I have previously discussed this attribution and its consequences for the
interpretation of the poem: see Cornelli 2007b.
3.5 Herodotus, Isocrates and Egypt 121
In conclusion, Plato, even in his use of metempsychosis to support his theo-

ry of knowledge through anámnēsis, reveals his debts to Orphism and the way
that it was developed out of Pythagoreanism.³²⁸
3.5 Herodotus, Isocrates and Egypt
Herodotus’ references to the Pythagorean theory of metempsýchōsis are inde-

pendently valuable testimonies because they originate an intellectual scope dif-
ferent from ancient philosophy. We will begin with a noted passage from the His-
tories which refers to Egyptian beliefs on immortality:
The Egyptians were also the first to report that the soul of man is immortal, and that when
the body dies, the soul enters into another creature coming to birth, and when it has trans-
migrated the round of all the creatures of land and sea and of the air, it enters again into a
human body as it comes to birth: and this round – they say – (the soul) makes in a period of
three thousand years. This doctrine certain Hellenes adopted, some earlier and some later,
as if it were of their own invention. And of these men I know the names but I abstain from
writing them down (Herodt. II. 123).
Several hypotheses have been raised to explain Herodotus’ reticence. The most
common explains Herodotus’s silence as a fear that Orphic circles in Magna
Graecia would turn against him if he attributed to the Egyptians a doctrine
which they – as told by Herodotus – “regarded as their own” (Timpanaro Cardini
1962: III, 21– 22).
However, the hypothesis is not very convincing, for at least three reasons.
First, Herodotus explicitly mentions connections between the Orphics, Pythagor-
eans, and Egyptians in another passage about sepulchral rituals: the Egyptians
buried the dead in linen robes, not woolen ones, as in Greece. He states that
“such [costume] corresponds to the so-called orphiká and bakchiká, which, ac-
328 Surprisingly, Burkert 1972: 214 regards as a mistake the relationship between Plato and the
Pythagoreans with regard to anámnēsis: “A closer look reveals that the connection of Pythagoras
with Plato, in relation to anámnēsis, is scarcely more than an equivocation”. The reasons for
such skepticism are connected to doubts that metempsýchōsis has anything to do with the
mathematical proofs that the Meno passage in question (80d) emphasizes. While this doubt is
reasonable, the practice of anámnēsis as a memory exercise concerning one’s former lives, in
Plato, is still hardly separable from the practices and theories of the immortality of an Orphic-
Pythagorean matrix.
tually, are Egyptian and Pythagorean” (Herodt. II. 81). Here, an earlier Egyptian
practice linked to immortality is affirmed as Pythagorean without hesitation.³²⁹
Second, knowing Herodotus’s irony and his taste for “play”, it is not hard to
think that not writing the authors’ names may be a playful reference to the ini-
tiatory silence demanded by Orphic-Pythagorean practices and, especially, to
their commandment to not write them down.³³⁰ Herodotus makes no attempt
to hide this same irony in another part of the Histories (IV. 95) in his amusing
narrative about the exploits of Zalmoxis, who, he says, was a servant of Pytha-
goras, and its relation to the Orphic-Pythagorean theories of immortality. We
will discuss this last passage in the following pages in relation to the traditions
about the legends that refer to metempsýchōsis.
Third, if it is true that Herodotus and his countrymen colonized the city of
Thurii (previously called Sybaris) in southern Italy in the mid-fifth century BC,
which was home to a long Pythagorean tradition, this same colonization should
not be understood as a philo-Pythagorean movement. Instead, the intervention
of Athens came to solve the successive stáseis that the Pythagorean domination
of the city had created, making Sybaris politically autonomous from this domi-
nation and thenceforth anti-Pythagorean.³³¹ Therefore, it would not be reasona-
ble to assume that Herodotus was afraid of creating enemies by showing an anti-
Pythagorean stance, as the very irony with which he deals with the movement in
his testimonies seems to indicate.
The history of criticism raises three hypotheses for the identity of these “cer-
tain Greeks”, especially “those who soon adopted the doctrine”: a) Pythagoras
and Empedocles, b) Orphics and Pythagoreans c) Orphics and Empedocles.³³²
329 The passage does not deserve further consideration, because the discrepancy between two
families of manuscripts, the Roman (AB) and the Florentine (SVR)s has made virtually all
scholars suspect that the information for which the sepulchral uses ἐοῦσι δὲ αἰγυπτίοισι, καὶ
<τοῖσι> Πυθαγορείοισι constitutes a late amendment. See Rohde 1898: 439 f., Wilamowitz-
Moellendorf 1932: 189, Rathmann 1933: 52 ff. and Timpanaro Cardini 1958 – 62: 22. Burkert 1972:
127 ff. argues – but is not totally convincing – in favor of the Florentine version and rightly
concludes that the latter would suggest a ritual connection between Pythagoreanism and Or-
phism. Although relevant, therefore, for the discussion of the relationship between Orphism and
Pythagoreanism, the value of the Herodotus testimony of the passage is nullified by the possible
amendment of the reference exactly to Pythagoreanism.
330 See for this discussion also Cornelli 2006.
331 For an extensive discussion of the history of Sybaris along with the Pythagorean domination
on the cities of southern Italy, see Mele 2007: 240 – 247.
332 See for full bibliographic references Burkert 1972: 126 n38. In short: a) Long 1948: 22, Kirk-
Raven-Schofield 1983: 210 ff.; b) Morrison 1956: 137, Casadio 1991: 128 f., Zhmud 1997: 118 ff.; c)
Rathmann 1933: 48 ff.
3.5 Herodotus, Isocrates and Egypt 123
However, certainly the most significant fact is that the Egyptians in fact did not
have any theory of the immortality of the soul.³³³ This mistake is strange, as Her-
odotus seems to to know well the non-existent practices of Egyptian immortality.
Therefore, Burkert imagines that Herodotus’ history is a projection of Greek ideas
onto the Egyptians.³³⁴
However, the connection of Pythagoreanism with Egypt is asserted in a frag-
ment of the orator Isocrates, already quoted in chapter 1, in the context of the
definition of the Pythagorean community through silence: “even now persons
who profess to be followers [of Pythagoras] are more admired when silent
than are those who have the greatest renown for eloquence” (Isocrates, Busiris
29 = 14 A 4 DK). The complete passage begins with a discussion of the journey
that Pythagoras made to Egypt:
Pythagoras of Samos, after arriving in Egypt, became a disciple of the Egyptian people, and
was the first to bring another philosophy to the Greeks, and more conspicuously than oth-
ers he seriously interested himself in sacrifices and in ceremonial purity, since he believed
that even if he should gain thereby no greater reward from the gods, among men, at any
rate, his reputation would be greatly enhanced. As this indeed happened to him. For so
greatly did he surpass all others in reputation that all the younger men desired to be his
pupils, and their elders were more pleased to see their sons staying in his company than
attending to their private affairs. And these reports we cannot disbelieve, for even now per-
sons who profess to be followers [of Pythagoras] are more admired when silent than are
those who have the greatest renown for eloquence.³³⁵
As a consequence of this journey to Egypt, Pythagoras brought another philos-

ophy to the Greeks. The terminology and the ironic context echo Heraclitus’ sar-
casm as much as Herodotus’ irony. Kahn notes justifiably that such a teacher of
eloquence as Isocrates cannot “refrain from a dig” at the Pythagorean silence
(Kahn 2001: 12). Similarly, the expression “And these reports we cannot disbe-
lieve” would indicate the general attitude of distrust in those traditions.³³⁶
333 See for this, already Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 133, Kees 1956: 6, Burkert 1972: 126 n36 and
now Centrone 1996: 55.
334 Burkert 1972: 126 n37, albeit with some exaggeration in his paleo-psychological analysis,
even suggests that the immediate context of the passage of the Histories II. 12, quoted above,
could have led Herodotus to a kind of reminiscence of the theories of metempsýchōsis, origi-
nating in the South of Italy. The passage in question is indeed preceded by information that
Demeter and Dionysus were called by the Egyptians as owners of the hereafter. Both, in turn,
would be revered in Southern Italy.
335 Isocrates, Busiris 28 – 29.
336 The value of Isocrates’ testimony, however, is doubted by Ries 1961, who detects a strong
Academic influence on the tradition.
3.6 Legends on immortality
The same irony is evident in the story of Zalmoxis as reported by Herodotus

(IV. 94– 96): it is about the saga of the Thracian god Zalmoxis, whom the
Getae (which are defined by the historian as athanatízontas, ‘convinced of
being immortal’) believe those who were about to die will meet. They perform
rituals of human sacrifice to this god in the hope that the sacrificed will come
into contact with God after death. This cult is deeply intertwined with the tradi-
tions of the immortality of the soul and the journey model mentioned above, that
is, travels to an afterlife. For this reason, Herodotus, after the description of the
sacrificial rituals, recalls a tale according to which Zalmoxis was in truth, a serv-
ant of Pythagoras:
Then having become free, he gained great wealth, and afterward returned to his own land;
and as the Thracians both live hardly and are rather simple-minded, this Zalmoxis, being
acquainted with the Ionian way of living and with manners more cultivated than the Thra-
cians were used to see, since he had associated with Hellenes, and not only that but with
Pythagoras, Mnesarchus’ son and not the least able philosopher of the Hellenes, prepared a
banqueting-hall, where he received and feasted the chief men of the tribe and instructed
them meanwhile that neither he himself nor his guests nor their descendants in succession
after them would die; but that they would come to a place where they would live forever
and have all things good. While he was doing these things which have been mentioned,
he was making for himself a chamber under the ground; and when his chamber was fin-
ished, he disappeared from among the Thracians and they grieved for his loss and
mourned for him as dead. Then in the fourth year he appeared to them, and in this way
the things which Zalmoxis said became credible to them.³³⁷
In addition to the ethnocentric reasoning that diminishes the divinity of the

Getae with the suggestion that Zalmoxis, in Greece, had not only been a man
but a slave, this passage of Herodotus reveals, with all the sarcasm that the his-
torian is capable of, a satire of the traditions associated with katábasis. Zamox-
is’s apparent death is in fact nothing but a trick, in an attempt to convince his
countrymen of their immortality. The indirect reference here to Pythagoras is cer-
tainly significant: as if to say that, when speaking of the immortality of the soul,
he is the immediate authority.
Indeed, the theme of immortality and the charismatic figure of Pythagoras,
are the subjects of a broad range of legendary stories.³³⁸ As one might expect,
337 Herodt. IV. 95.

338 For a study on the sources of the legends of Pythagoras, see Levy 1926. Biondi’s excellent
monograph (2009) dedicated to Pythagoras-Euphorbus also contains a brilliant philosophical
discussion and a careful philological analysis of this literature.
3.6 Legends on immortality 125
these legends have not gathered much enthusiasm within the current criticism,
though, as Burkert 1972: 137 points out, they actually correspond to the earliest
stratum of the tradition on Pythagoras, and are prior to any other information
about his life that we find in Aristoxenus or Dicearchus, which were themselves
the lost sources of the Pythagorean Lives from the imperial era. This legendary
tradition focuses on a particular topic: Pythagoras’ own effective metem-
psýchōsis. This interest in the history of the soul of Pythagoras was understood,
ever since ancient times (Porph. VP: 26 and Diod. Sic. X 6,1) as an illustration of
the very doctrine of the transmigration of the soul. In this sense, some recent
criticism has begun to consider this literature in its own right.³³⁹
The most significant source of these legends is Heraclides Ponticus, a Peri-
patetic, who recalls the history of Pythagoras’s palingénesis:
Heraclides Ponticus tells us what Pythagoras used to say about himself: that he had once
been Aethalides and was accounted to be Hermes’ son. Hermes himself told him he might
choose any gift he liked except immortality. So he asked to retain through life and through
death a memory of his experiences. Hence in life he could recall everything, and when he
died he still kept the same memories. Afterwards in course of time his soul entered into [the
body of] Euphorbus and he was wounded by Menelaus. Now Euphorbus used to say that he
had once been Aethalides and obtained this gift from Hermes, and then he told of the wan-
derings of his soul, how it transmigrated, into how many plants and animals it had come,
and all that it underwent in Hades. When Euphorbus died, his soul passed into Hermoti-
mus, and he also, wishing to authenticate the story, went up to the temple of Apollo at
Branchidae, where he identified the shield which Menelaus had dedicated to Apollo.³⁴⁰
The low probability that Diogenes Laertius took the legend directly from a dia-
logue of Heraclides Ponticus (as he does not cite any specific text for this)
makes one think of a doxographic reading that is at best second-hand of this tra-
dition. On the other hand, several variants of the same genealogy of Pythagoras’
soul are recorded in ancient literature: in all of them, the common element is the
reincarnation in Euphorbus.³⁴¹ However, Corssen 1912: 22 has considered that the
presence of Euphorbus is incomprehensible. For what reason would Pythagoras
have chosen such a secondary character in the history of the Trojan War as part
of his transmigration? The answer traditionally given, in the wake of Kerényi
1950, is that the figure of Euphorbus was a kind of incarnation of Apollo (Burkert
339 See Riedweg 2006: 115. It is also the case for Timpanaro Cardini (Pitagorici, 1958 – 62 I: 5):
“Pitagora crede nella metempsicose perchè crede nella sua metempsicose”, and Burkert 1972:
147. For the contrary idea see Rohde 1898: 422 who considers that memory all fabricated.
340 D. L. Vitae VIII. 4– 5 = Heraclid. fragment 89 Wehrli.
341 See for the quotes Delatte 1922: 154– 159, Burkert 1972: 138 – 141, Federico 2000: 372 n15 and
Biondi 2009: 8 – 12.
1972: 141). Indeed, Riedweg 2002: 51 and Biondi 2009: 67 agree that Euphorbus
plays a decisive role within the dramatic story of the Iliad by contributing to the
death of Patroclus, who is leading Achilles’s return to the fight. Euphorbus, pre-
ceded and helped by Apollo, who gets tired and dismantles the members of Pa-
troclus, strikes the first blow against the Achaean warrior (Il. XVI 805 – 815). This
close relationship with Apollo justified the choice of Euphorbus.³⁴² Further proof
is that Menelaus’ shield is, in the tradition of Heraclides, once again, dedicated
to Apollo.³⁴³
The scant attention the legends about Pythagoras have received must not
make one forget that our most important source for them is the fourth century
BC: Aristotle’s own book on Pythagoreanism (fragment 191 Rose). In this materi-
al, there are several legends about miracles and wonders wrought by Pythago-
ras: the mirabilia include instances of bi-location, dialogues with a river, divina-
tion, and the significant reference to Pythagoras as Apollo himself. Of course,
our research does not allow an exhaustive analysis of these Aristotelian passag-
es. We once again agree with Burkert’s careful analysis 1972: 145 that these leg-
ends should be considered congruent with the mood of the fourth century BC,
and only in later centuries would they be used as a source of ridicule and criti-
cism of Pythagoreanism. The value of these traditions is even more important
when considering the commonly demonstrated intentions of Aristotle to separate
proto-Pythagoreanism from its Platonization by the Academy, which – among
other things – would have reduced Pythagoras to an alter ego of Plato himself.³⁴⁴
The Aristotelian records of the legends have authority and are old enough to be
taken seriously.³⁴⁵ Ultimately, therefore, Pythagoras and his legend cannot be
separated.³⁴⁶
342 Centrone 1996: 64 rightly notes that the cult to Apollo was widespread in the Pythagorean
cities of Croton and Metapontum. See also Iambl. VP: 52.
343 Also intriguing, though an allegorical troppo, is the reading that Biondi 2009: 77 proposes
from the passage quoted above from the Iliad: “è l’intervento di Euforbo che svela l’identità
autentica di colui che sembrava Achille: se l’armatura simboleggia il corpo, allora l’indifesa
nudità rappresenta l’anima; dunque l’azione di Euforbo potrebbe effettivamente significare, al
di là della lettera del testo omerico, lo svelamento dell’anima e la punizione della sua traco-
tanza”.
344 See Burkert 1972: 146, in addition to what was said above (1.7), for the use of Py-
thagoreanism within Aristotle’s anti-Academic controversy.
345 Among the references to mirabilia, it is again the theme of apparent death that is very
present in the literature of the period, we accept that this is the reference of Sophocles’ Electra:
“For a long time ago I saw the wise men who claimed falsely to have died. And then once they
returned home, were received with great honors” (Soph. El. 62– 64). The scholiast wrote down a
reference to Pythagoras beside this passage (Schol. In Soph. 62).
3.7 A Pythagorean Democritus? 127
3.7 A Pythagorean Democritus?
Even more significant is the testimony of Democritus who is described by his

contemporary Glaucus of Reggio as “a disciple of a Pythagorean” (68 A 1, 38
DK). The tetralogical catalog of his works prepared by Thrasyllus begins its sec-
tion on ethics with the three following works: Pythagoras; On the Disposition of
the Wise Man; On the Things in Hades (68 B 0a-c DK). Proclus knows the content
of the latter work, in which the theme of apparent death appears again:
As is the case with many other ancient philosophers, including Democritus the physicist, in
the writings On Hades stories about people who seemed dead, but instead came back to life
are told.³⁴⁷
The very order of the first three ethical works of Democritus points to his depend-
ence on Pythagoreanism. This is suggested by Frank 1923: 67, who – commenting
on Pythagoras’ dedication to his most important ethical work (not accidentally
mentioned first) – believes that this is due to the fact that Democritus saw Pytha-
goras as basically the founder of an ethico-religious sect.³⁴⁸ Without being forced
to agree tout court with Frank, it is undeniable that there are many similarities
between Pythagorean and Democritean ethics. The Democritean fragments (68
B 84, 244 and 264 DK) on the need “to feel ashamed of oneself” for evil
deeds refer directly to the practice of anámnēsis, of the examination of conscience
in the Pythagorean tradition (Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 335). Still more impor-
tant are the parallel uses of measure as a basis for ethical reasoning Riedweg
2002: 116. But the parallels may not be decisive, if it is true – as we saw
above – that these same concepts of phrónesis, isonomía, métron accompany
the development of ancient ethics and of the medical tradition in a more gener-
ally diffused way and cannot therefore be considered – in its own rights – as de-
fining landmarks of the two movements in question.
346 See Burkert 1972: 120 for a methodological discussion of the difficulties arising from this
claim. Of contrary idea is Casertano 2009: 59, but for considering as legends only those of the
secret doctrines and the structure of the community.
347 68 B 1 DK.
348 The economy of these pages does not allow us to assess in detail the historiographical
issues implicit in this approximation between Pythagoreanism and atomism. The question will
be partially addressed later on in the context of the discussion of numerical atomism (4.1). For a
critique of Frank’s position, see Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 332– 333. A classical approach to the
question of the relationship between Pythagoreans and atomists is Alfieri’s 1953: 30 – 54, for the
latest discussion on the Academic Pythagorizing reading of Democritus see Gemelli 2007b: 42–
58.
However, the more relevant relation between atomists and Pythagoreans for
this discussion on the immortality of the Pythagorean soul is the passage of Ar-
istotle’s De Anima (De an. 404a 16) on the material conception of the Pythagor-
ean soul. A corpuscular conception of the soul (“dust in the air”), almost fore-
shadowing the psychology of Democritus, is attributed to the Pythagoreans.
However, the textual problems pointed out above discourage the attribution of
great importance to this passage. Moreover, in the same page of the De
Anima, Aristotle associates the continuous movement of dust with the definition
of soul as that which moves itself:
The same tendency is shown by those who define soul as that which moves itself, because
all seem to hold the view that movement is what is peculiar to the nature of the soul.³⁴⁹
With the definition of the soul as that which moves itself, we are already into Aca-
demic territory, and more precisely Xenocrates. Not by chance, a few pages later,
when the discussion of Aristotle’s predecessors theories of the soul focus a more
precise Academic field, it is stated that “some declared the soul to be a self-mov-
ing number” (De an. 404b 29 – 30). This is without a doubt the interpretation that
Xenocrates (fragment 165 Isnard Parente) elaborates, in a mathematical and Py-
thagorizing key, of Plato’s doctrine of the soul as self-moving (Phaedr. 245c-246a;
Leg. X: 895).³⁵⁰
Therefore, most scholars consider the argument of De anima 404a 16 to be a
misunderstanding by Aristotle, as the image of the soul as moving dust was
more closely linked to the archaic mystical traditions than to a dialogue that Py-
thagoreanism was having with atomism in the fifth century BC. For Cherniss, the
theory of the soul as dust had nothing to do with movement:
In this case each speck of dust was probably considered to be a soul, so that Aristotle psy-
chén (sic) implies complications which did not exist. (…) Such a theory, since fundamental-
ly it has nothing to do with the motes, must have been an accommodation of the earlier
superstition to the more highly developed psychical theories of later times.³⁵¹
Philip 1966: 151, appealing to the distinction Aristotle makes between “some Py-
thagoreans” (tínes), who think the soul is dust and others (Pythagorizing Aca-
349 De an. 404a 21– 25.

350 See especially Isnardi Parente 1971: 166 f., with which agrees Gemelli 2007: 57.
351 Cherniss 1935: 291 n6. Though without the positivist rancidity of Cherniss (evident in ex-
pressions like earlier superstition), agree with him Rathmann 1933: 18 – 19, Zeller and Mondolfo
1938: 554, Burkert 1972: 120, Guthrie 1962: 306 and Alesse 2000: 397. Casertano 2009: 70 considers
the naturalistic conception of the soul as “incontestabilmente pitagorica”.
3.8 Aristotle and the Pythagorean myths 129
demics?) who maintain that the soul is “what makes dust move”, thinks it pos-
sible that Aristotle’s notion of the former refers to later Pythagoreans of the fifth
century BC who would have accommodated their theory of the soul to contempo-
rary atomism. The hypothesis, however, is incomplete without an explanation of
what pressures these Pythagoreans would feel that would require such an ac-
commodation.
3.8 Aristotle and the Pythagorean myths
Aristotle’s connection between Pythagorean and atomistic accounts of the soul

comprises – at best – a reference to the Pythagoreanism of the fifth century
BC, and at worst just a misunderstanding. For that reason, it cannot constitute
an Aristotelian testimony of the theory of the Pythagorean soul.
However, Aristotle himself provides the most explicit philosophical testimo-
ny of the existence of a Pythagorean doctrine of metempsýchōsis. A passage from
the following pages of the De Anima reveals the difficulty of attributing a coher-
ent theory of metempsýchōsis to the early Pythagoreans. Aristotle seems to ini-
tially complain about this difficulty:³⁵²
All that these [philosophers] do is describe the nature of the soul; they do not try to deter-
mine anything about the body which is to contain it, as if it were possible, as in the Pytha-
gorean myths, that any soul could be clothed upon with any body.³⁵³
Indeed, Chapter II of Book II of the De Anima, which examines contemporary

doctrines about the nature and properties of the soul, engages in an extensive
critique of the inadequacy of all the theories of his predecessors, both in relation
to failing to understand what are the specific properties of the soul, and especial-
ly for failing to pay attention to the crucial issue of the relationship between soul
and body. In fact, “the philosophers”, that is, his predecessors, fuse the soul to
the body by “conjugation” (synáptousin) or “juxtaposition” (tithéasin), without
adding any specification of the reason for their union, or of the bodily conditions
required for it. (De an. 407b 13 – 17).
352 Centrone 1996: 105 suggests that this complaint from Aristotle depends more on omissions
(or lack of coherence) within the writings that he was referring to, than on a lack of information
on the issue, which would contradict the testimonies that he was in possession of several
Pythagorean writings (2.3).
353 De an. 407b 20 – 23.
The Pythagorean myths mentioned in the passage constitute one of the most
significant examples of this error. The absurdity (átopon, v. 13) of the explanation
put forward by both Plato’s Timaeus, as well as all previous theories of the soul
(see 13 – 14), is visually exemplified with the following image:
It is as absurd as to say that the art of carpentry could embody itself in flutes. Instead, each
art must use its tools, each soul its body.³⁵⁴
The soul, in the elegant image of Aristotle, resembles an art. As such, it requires
its own instrument, that is, a body. This is contrary to the assumption of the Py-
thagorean myths that any soul can enter any body.
This immediately brings to mind metempsýchōsis. ³⁵⁵ The very movement in-
dicated by the verb endýesthai, the act of “entering” of the soul in the body,
evokes the image of transmigration.³⁵⁶ Several scholars, however, have raised
difficulties for Aristotle’s reference to metempsýchōsis at De Anima 407b 20 –
23. Zeller perceives a contradiction between this passage’s explanation of the
myths and the moralized elements of Pythagorean metempsýchōsis:
The theory of the soul that enters the newly-born within the air of its first breath, casually
and however it may chance (katà toùs Pythagorikoùs mýthous, writes Aristotle in the above
passage), probably contributes to demonstrate its deficicncy in comparison with the doc-
trine of transmigration, where reincarnation must somehow represent (as is said in the
myth of Er) a consequence of the previous life, thus requiring a match between the tem-
perament (krâsis) of the soul and the body in which it enters.³⁵⁷
Indeed, the theory of metempsýchōsis implies moral responsibility in life, fol-

lowed by a post-mortem trial, which contradicts the idea of randomness repre-
354 De an. 407b 24– 26.

355 This theory is called μῦθος also in Plato (see above: Gorg. 492e).
356 See for this now, Kranz (Diels-Kranz 1951 I, 504, 7– 9).
357 Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 562, orig.: “La teoria dell’anima che entra nel neonato dall’at-
mosfera circostante con il primo respiro, a caso e come càpiti (katá toûs Pythagorikoûs mýthous,
dice Aristotele nel luogo sopra citato) viene probabilmente a mostrare in pieno il suo difetto
nella sua connessione con la dottrina della trasmigrazione; dove la reincarnazione deve pur
rappresentare (com’è detto nel mito di Er) una conseguenza della vita anteriore, ed esige quindi
una corrispondenza fra il temperamento (krâsis) dell’anima e quello del corpo in cui entra”. The
reference to the kind of entrance of the soul in the body launches a tendency to understand this
passage in light of that previous one from 404a 16 ff., where the soul-dust would have cor-
puscular features, as discussed above. See Timpanaro Cardini 1958 – 62: III, 213, Maddalena
1964: 340 – 41 and Guthrie 1962: 129 and 260.
sented by the repetition of the adjective tychón (“any soul in any body”).³⁵⁸ Most
scholars (Burkert 1972: 121 n3) seem to consider that Aristotle is referring, in the
specific case, not to a single soul and a body, but rather to the general nature of
the relationship between bodies and souls.
A few pages later in the De Anima, Aristotle seems to refine the critique in
407b by indicating that the problem is more specifically that souls enter different
bodies:
The body cannot be the actuality of the soul; it is the soul which is the actuality of a certain
kind of body. Hence the rightness of the view that the soul cannot be without a body, while
it cannot be a body. In fact, it is not a body but something relative to a body, and that is why
it is in a body, and a body of a definite kind, but not as former thinkers did think, who mere-
ly fit it into a body without adding a definite specification of the kind or the qualities of that
body, even if is evident that any one thing cannot receive any other thing.³⁵⁹
Aristotle’s criticism must be understood within the context of his theory of the
soul as the entelécheia of a body by which it performs the functions that are al-
ready potentially in the matter which constitutes the body. Therefore, even if it is
evident that “any one thing cannot receive any other thing”, to claim that any
body can receive any soul is still to operate at too high a level of generality –
358 Rathmann 1933: 17 ff. agrees with Zeller as much as Maddalena 1954: 340 and Casertano
1987: 19 f. Timpanaro Cardini also demonstrates his skepticism that the passage refers to me-
tempsýchōsis, advancing, however, once again, an original explanation for this. According to
her, the example of the carpenter and the flutes unmistakably indicates that the passage cannot
refer to metempsýchōsis, and should instead be simply understood as referring to the association
between body and soul. The reason for this is that it would not make sense that the art of the
luthier was considered by Aristotle as separate from the flute because, in order to improve his
ability, that is, his art, the luthier needs the flute as the soul needs the body (Timpanaro Cardini,
Pitagorici, 1958 – 62 III: 214). However, Alesse 2000: 403 n23 rightly notes that Timpanaro Car-
dini’s reading depends on a mistaken translation of τεκτονικὴ: Timpanaro Cardini believes that
this is the art of the luthier, while it would be more plausible that Aristotle was referring in this
case, to the art of the flute player, that is, the flute can be used only by one who possesses the art
of playing to perfection that instrument. Aristotle would be saying here: this would be the flute
player, not the luthier. The terms of similarity, however, are quite clear: on the one hand, art and
soul, on the other, the flute and the body, as the body in relation to the soul, the flute is the
matter that is predisposed to accept the art form (of the flutist), and only from him or her, not
that of the carpenter-luthier. Cherniss 1935: 325 n130 suspects that the passage could refer more
precisely to the Platonic theory of the Timaeus of a choice of the body after the first life, thus
representing more an anti-Platonic polemic than an anti-Pythagorean position. Anyhow, there
remains in the passage the reference to metempsýchōsis, which is what is most directly relevant
to our investigation.
359 De an. 414a 18 – 25.
only a specific kind of body can receive a kind of soul, echoing the same idea
expressed in 407b, in which it is written that “any soul could be clothed upon
with any body” (v. 23).
Aristotle’s criticism in the two passages is directed at Pythagorean metem-
psýchōsis. Aristotle could not admit the possibility of a soul entering into a
body of which it is not the entelécheia, as would happen in the case of the trans-
migration of a human soul into an inferior animal body.³⁶⁰ The Aristotelian at-
tack here is directed not only at the theory of metempsýchōsis, but also at the log-
ically related theory that Porphyry (VP: 19, see also 3.1) considered notoriously
Pythagorean: universal kinship.
In any case, for this investigation, we can conclude that page 414a of the De
anima not only refers specifically to metempsýchōsis, but that it is a continuation
of the immediately preceding passage at 407b. The Pythagorean myths of that
page can be understood, therefore, as the theories of metempsýchōsis of the soul.
More difficult – although central to our discussion – is to determine whether
these Aristotle passages refer to proto-Pythagoreanism, or, conversely, to the Py-
thagoreanism of Philolaus and Archytas, contemporary to him.
The term mýthoi, used to indicate these doctrines, is a sign that Aristotle
considered them old but not necessarily devoid of all truth. Decisive proof of
this is that he bothers to refute them. The semantic scope of the terms mýthos
or mythologeîn is often connected, within the work of Aristotle, with that of the-
ológoi and palaíoi, indicating not so much a decline in the theoretical value of
the doctrines, but more precisely obsoleteness. Such mýthoi have insufficiently
developed logical arguments and simply don’t fit in the “contemporary” way
of doing science.³⁶¹ Consider the page of the Metaphysics dedicated to the idea
of the divine that surrounds nature:
A tradition in myth form was passed on to posterity from the old and ancient, according to
which these realities are gods, and that the divine encloses the whole of nature. The rest of
360 In addition to the theory of ἐντελέχεια, a principle of subsumption, in which a higher form
contains within itself the lower form, “as a quadrangle contains the triangle” (De an. 414b 31), is
also at stake in Aristotle’s critique. The same goes for living forms, since “the case of the figures
is similar to that of the soul” (De an. 414b 29). However, the opposite is not true; incidentally, it is
absurd (De an. 407b 13).
361 See Met. 1074b 1, 1091b 9; Pol. 1269b 28, 1341b 3; De caelo 284a 23. Aristotle considers
θεολόγοι and παλαίοι, Homer, Hesiod and the Orphics, but also some physiologists: it is again
the case with the Pythagoreans, in Met. 1091a 34-b 12, which are called there θεολόγοι in the
context of the discussion on the number one and the dyad which resumes the discussion of the
book A on the subject, in which the Pythagoreans are clearly cited as being in opposition to
Plato (Met. 987b 14– 988a 8).
the tradition was added later to persuade the people and to make them subject to the laws
and to the common goods. In fact, they say these gods are in human form or are similar to
certain animals and add to these other things of the same or similar nature. If, of all of
them, regardless of the rest, we assume only the fundamental point, that is, the claim
that the first substances are gods, we must recognize this as being made by divine inspira-
tion.³⁶²
The theoretical core of the theory, according to Aristotle, should be considered as

still valid. However, even if the theory is valid, these mythological arguments are
the wrong kind of justification for the theory. Similarly, the Pythagorean myths,
however ancient, received critical considerations in the passages discussed
above.
Therefore, it is very likely that with the expression Pythagorean myths Aris-
totle refers to the early Pythagorean doctrines.³⁶³ A further proof of that is that
the expression is never used in the argumentation Aristotle makes when discus-
sing Pythagorean mathematics, which, as we will see in the next chapter, only
goes back to sources from the fifth century BC, such as Philolaus, and whom Ar-
istotle identifies in the book A of the Metaphysics as the “so-called Pythagor-
eans.”³⁶⁴
Another lexical mark of this antiquity is the verb used by Aristotle in the
passage from the De Anima (407b 20 – 23) to indicate metempsýchōsis: endýomai,
‘to enter’ (the soul enters into the body). The same verb is used by Herodotus to
describe the transmigration of the soul when indicating the Egyptian origin of
the theory of metempsýchōsis (Herodt. II. 123, see 3.5). In Plato, the verb is
used in two passages to indicate the metempsýchōsis of a soul that was in a
man and enters into an animal: “asses and other beasts of that sort” (Phaed. 82a)
or “an ape”, in the case of the ridiculous Thersites’ soul within the myth of Er
(Rep. X: 620c). The two Platonic passages illustrate precisely what Aristotle
sees as an absurd consequence of the theory of metempsýchōsis: the possibility
of a human soul entering into the body of an inferior animal.³⁶⁵
362 Met. 1074b1– 10. Unless otherwise indicated, the translation of the passages quoted from
Aristotle’s Metaphysics in the Brazilian Portuguese edition of this book are from G. Reale/M.
Perine (Aristoteles, 2002), with some modifications.
363 See in this sense Alesse 2000: 408.
364 For this identification of the Pythagorean doctrines of the book A of the Metaphysics with
Philolaus’ Pythagoreanism see Burkert 1972: 236 – 238, Centrone 1996: 105 and Huffman 1993. See
also the historiographical review of the value of Aristotle’s testimony on Philolaus outlined
above, alongside the first chapter.
365 Alesse 2000: 409 – 411 suggests that, if we enlarge the meaning of the verb ἐνδύομαι to the
semantic sphere of ‘to dress’, which also belongs to it, the verb would point immediately to a
wide range of images of the body as a garment of the soul, present in both the Platonic writings
The Aristotelian vocabulary of the passage suggests, therefore, that it refers

to the ancient traditions of the theory of metempsýchōsis, which Aristotle calls
Pythagorean myths, probably recognizing the source of these doctrines on the
immortality of the soul and its transmigration in proto-Pythagoreanism. Aristotle
thus becomes one of the most reliable sources for the attribution of the theory of
metempsýchōsis to the older Pythagoreans.
3.9 Conclusion
Based on a testimony by Porphyry on the central doctrines of Pythagoras, we

have analyzed the tradition of the theory of the immortality of the soul and its
metempsýchōsis, with the intention, on the one hand, of determining whether
it can be traced back to the practice and doctrine of proto-Pythagoreanism,
and on the other hand, of understanding to what extent it has contributed to
the definition of the category of Pythagoreanism throughout history. The oldest
testimonies attributing that doctrine to Pythagoras suggest two different herme-
neutic routes. First, although old, the theory of the immortality of the soul, apoc-
alyptic by its very nature, does not imply the existence of a dogmatic system of
beliefs. That is to say that throughout the various strata of the Pythagorean tra-
dition, the concept of this immortality significantly differed. Second, as a result
of the first route, it turned out to be necessary to verify how the reception of the
theory by later sources contributed to the construction, through it, of the catego-
ry of Pythagoreanism. The testimonies of Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Ion and Em-
pedocles reveal, albeit in different shades, an unusual feature of the historical
figure of Pythagoras – its interest in reconstructing the psychological history
of a person, that is, to define the movements of the metempsýchōsis of his
soul in its palingénesis. These testimonies suggest that metempsýchōsis is quite
an old theory, corresponding to the proto-Pythagorean stratum.
Plato and his work have been identified as crucial places for the exercise of
the two hermeneutical routes mentioned above, and especially for bringing up
the vexata quaestio of the relations between Pythagoreanism and Orphism.
The study of the references to this second movement in the Platonic work, espe-
cially in the passages that relate to the theories of the immortality of the soul,
has outlined a precise historiographical scheme by which Plato indeed reached
(Phaed. 86e-88b) and in Empedocles’ fragment 126. A garment that turns out to have also the
meaning of a tomb in the tradition of the body as the tomb of the soul; close to an Orphic
sensitivity.
3.9 Conclusion 135
the Orphic theories through a mediation by Pythagoreanism. It is assumed by

this thesis that Pythagoreanism was an intellectual and aristocratic reform of Or-
phism as such. A clear sign of this Pythagorean mediation is the moralization of
metempsýchōsis. Plato’s proposal for a hierarchy of incarnations, as well as the
etymology of the Orphic motto sôma-sêma, point to a dependency in his work on
the Pythagorean transposition of the Orphic theories of immortality. Thus, Plato
also becomes a reliable source for the existence of a proto-Pythagorean theory of
the soul and for a close relationship between that same theory and its Orphic
origin. This relationship was described as a mytho-logic exegesis by Pythagorean-
ism of the Orphic traditions, in the manner of the Derveni papyrus. The immor-
tality of the soul and metempsýchōsis are important both for Plato’s own concep-
tion of ethics and for his theory of knowledge: anámnēsis, fundamentally linked
to the exercise of memory, refers directly to the practices of historía of the soul
and knowledge of its palingénesis, that, as was said above, are attributed to Py-
thagoras by testimonies contemporary with him. In short, Plato, revealing his
debts to Orphism, ends up pointing directly to the philosophical blending that
Pythagoreanism must have developed from the former.
While the testimonies of Herodotus, Isocrates, Democritus and the legends
of immortality and the apparent deaths do not allow firm philological or histor-
iographical conclusions, one finds in Aristotle the most explicit testimony of the
existence of a proto-Pythagorean theory of metempsýchōsis. In summary, the use
of the term mýthoi to refer to these Pythagorean doctrines of the soul suggests
that Aristotle considered them sufficiently old, and therefore in all probability
proto-Pythagorean. The Aristotelian lexicon ultimately reveals proto-Pythagor-
eanism as the source of the doctrines of the immortality of the soul and its trans-
migration. In fact, in relation to mathematical doctrines, concerning another mo-
ment of Pythagoreanism, the one usually identified by Philolaus and Archytas in
the fifth century BC, Aristotle never refers to myths.
It is with these mathematical doctrines, notably absent from Porphyry’s
summary of Pythagoras’ most celebrated doctrines, that we began this chapter,
and to which we will direct our attention in the fourth and final chapter.
Before that, it is important to point out that attributing a theory of metem-
psýchōsis to proto-Pythagoreanism means much more than simply recognizing
a dialogue between the latter and the Orphic culture of its time. For, in itself,
the theory of transmigration of the immortal soul assumes the theory of the uni-
versal kinship referred to in Porphyry’s summary.³⁶⁶ This theory is also implied
by Empedocles fragment 129 and is not only a logical consequence of the very
366 See Delatte 1992: 175 for the quotes of this doctrine within ancient literature.
theory of metempsýchōsis, but represents a general law of how the cosmos

works, which embraces past and future, and both human beings and other living
beings, in a coherent explanation of how life in the universe works. This doc-
trine, by having the attributes of a totalizing explanation and by being based
on the premise that the cosmos and life are eternal, can certainly be regarded
as a genuine expression of the period in the history of philosophy which has
been generally called pre-Socratic.
4 Numbers
The passage from Porphyry with which we began chapter three, summarizing the
central doctrines of proto-Pythagoreanism, as seen by tradition, focused almost
exclusively on Pythagorean theories of immortality. It includes no references to
mathematics, the other great field claimed to originate from Pythagoreanism.
The absence of such a reference is significant for understanding how to de-
fine the historiographical category of Pythagoreanism which otherwise seems to
depend largely on a link to numbers. Such an absence suggests the need for a
closer consideration of the history of the assignment of a mathematical theory
to ancient Pythagoreanism.
In accordance with our strategy in the third chapter, the following pages will
be written with the goal of searching for a doctrine which corresponds to the Py-
thagorean theory of numbers, and of understanding the construction of the cat-
egory of Pythagoreanism, especially with respect to its interest in numbers in
general.
As we noted earlier within the discussion of Aristotle’s unique testimony
(1.7), the interpretative tradition, led in recent times by Frank 1923, has become
accustomed to regarding all Pythagorean mathematics as an Academic invention
created after Philolaus’ fragments, which must be considered spurious. As will
be seen throughout these pages, the solution to the main issue here would de-
pend exactly on a two-dimensional reassessment of Philolaus’ fragments,
which will both consider their historiographical place, that is, of the place
that the testimony of these represent for the definition of the Pythagoreanism
as well as from a theoretical point of view, that is, what is the mathematics con-
tained in them.
Although Zeller himself was confident that Philolaus’ theories that number
is the essence of all things, along with the doctrines of harmony, the central fire
and the spheres, are core pillars of Pythagoreanism, contemporary criticism
challenges the alleged Aristotelian dógma that in Pythagoreanism, “all is num-
ber.”³⁶⁷ The influence of Frank’s skepticism is such that even Cherniss 1935, who
disagrees with Frank about the value of Aristotle’s testimony, agrees with Frank’s
interpretation of the connection between the Aristotelian dógma that “all is num-
ber” and ancient Pythagoreanism. The consensus of scholars is especially im-
pressive when it comes to the value to be given to Philolaus’ fragments, which
we regard as one of the fundamental loci of this debate:
367 See for this 1.1.

138 4 Numbers
The fragments attributed to Philolaus are surely spurious, since they contain elements that
cannot be older than Plato. Erich Frank has gathered the evidence against the fragments;
and, apart from his own theory as to their origin and his conclusion of certain very weak
arguments […] his analysis makes it superfluous to restate the overwhelming case against
them.³⁶⁸
More recently, authors like Burkert 1972: 238 – 277 and Kirk, Raven and Schofield
1983: 324 have subjected Frank’s arguments to critical review. Especially signifi-
cant are Huffman’s efforts, both in his 1988 article and especially in his mono-
graph devoted entirely to Philolaus and the problems of the authenticity of his
fragments (Huffman 1993): the first book devoted entirely to the philosopher
of Croton after Boeckh’s 1819 monograph.³⁶⁹ This review offers new hermeneut-
ical perspectives and, along with Zhmud’s recent studies (1989, 1997), represents
a cornerstone for the definition of the place of mathematics in the construction
of the Pythagorean tradition.³⁷⁰
4.1 All is number?
4.1.1 Three versions of the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers
The question, “All is number?”, significantly the title of Zhmud’s famous 1989
article in Phronesis, opens a challenge to the extremely important Aristotelian
testimony that “all is number” was the fundamental definition of Pythagorean
philosophy.³⁷¹ Such a challenge is anything but easy, especially when one con-
368 Cherniss 1935: 386.

369 For a general agreement by scholars with Frank’s skepticism, see, among others, Burnet
1908: 279 – 284 and Levy 1926: 70 ff. It is certainly not correct to agree, therefore, with Spinelli
2003: 145 n345, when he “dispatches” the question of the authenticity of the fragments in this
way: “despite much that has been written for and against them, the whole argument is exposed,
in an appropriate manner, only in the work of three writers: Bywater, Frank and Mondolfo”.
370 In truth, Frank himself, in his subsequent writings, retreated from a position which, in
extreme and, in a sense, paralyzing skepticism, could not resist other scholars’ criticisms. In
fact, in 1955, he readily admited that “it can hardly be doubted that Pythagoras was the origi-
nator of this entire scientific development: he was a rational thinker rather than an inspired
mystic” (Frank 1955: 82). Nevertheless, in his review of Von Fritz’s book on Pythagorean politics,
his skeptical verve is still strongly present (Frank 1943).
371 Although some suggestions in this direction had already been made by Huffman 1988 in his
paper on the role of the number in Philolaus’ philosophy, the comments were not reportedly
received in Zhmud’s article (1989: 292 n62), because they were developed in parallel.
4.1 All is number? 139
siders that, so far, the histories of both ancient philosophy and ancient mathe-
matics seemed to have no doubts that this definition was correct.³⁷²
Reasons for such confidence are not absent. Indeed, in Aristotle, the assign-
ment of the doctrine of “all is number” to the Pythagoreans is recurring and ul-
timately summarizes his interpretation of Pythagoreanism.
Aristotle states repeatedly that:
1) “They thought the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things
2) and the whole heaven to be a harmony and a number” (Met. 986a 3).³⁷³
3) “Numbers, as we said, are the whole heaven” (Met. 986a 21).³⁷⁴
4) “They say numbers are the things themselves” (Met. 987b 28).³⁷⁵
5) “Those [philosophers] say that things are numbers” (Met. 1083b 17).³⁷⁶
6) “They’ve made the numbers to be things that be” (Met. 1090b 23).³⁷⁷
Six times, Aristotle makes the Pythagoreans affirm that reality as a whole (tà
ónta, tón hólon ouranón, tà prágmata) “is a number”.
In contrast, seven other times, Aristotle seems to suggest that the Pythagoreans
say something slightly different:
1) “There is no other number than the number by which the world is consti-
tuted” (Met. 990a 21).³⁷⁸
2) “For the Pythagoreans there is only the mathematical number, but they
say that it is not separate and that, but that sensible substances are composed
of it
3) because they build the entire heaven with numbers” (Met. 1080b 16 –
19).³⁷⁹
4) “It is impossible to say that […] the bodies are made of numbers”
(Met. 1083b 11).³⁸⁰
372 See for the citations, Heath 1921: 67, Guthrie 1962: 229 ff. and Huffman 1988: 5 and 1993: 57.
373 Orig.: “τὰ τῶν ἀριθμῶν στοιχεῖα τῶν ὄντων στοιχεῖα πάντων ὑπέλαβον εἶναι, καὶ τὸν ὅλον
οὐρανὸν ἁρμονίαν εἶναι καὶ ἀριθμόν” (Met. 986a 3).
374 Orig.: “ἀριθμοὺς δέ, καθάπερ εἴρηται, τὸν ὅλον οὐρανόν” (Met. 986a 21).
375 Orig.: “οἱ δ’ ἀριθμοὺς εἶναί φασιν αὐτὰ τὰ πράγματα” (Met. 987b 28).
376 Orig.: “ἐκεῖνοι δὲ τὸν ἀριθμὸν τὰ ὄντα λέγουσιν” (Met. 1083b 17).
377 Orig.: “εἶναι μὲν ἀριθμοὺς ἐποίησαν τὰ ὄντα” (Met. 1090b 23).
378 Orig.: “ἀριθμὸν δ’ ἄλλον μηθένα εἶναι παρὰ τὸν ἀριθμὸν τοῦτον ἐξ οὗ συνέστηκεν ὁ κόσμος”
(Met. 990a 21).
379 Orig.: “καὶ οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι δ’ ἕνα, τὸν μαθηματικόν, πλὴν οὐ κεχωρισμένον ἀλλ’ ἐκ τούτου
τὰς αἰσθητὰς οὐσίας συνεστάναι φασίν. τὸν γὰρ ὅλον οὐρανὸν κατασκευάζουσιν ἐξ ἀριθμῶν”
(Met. 1080b 16 – 19).
380 Orig.: “ὁ δὲ τὰ σώματα ἐξ ἀριθμῶν εἶναι συγκείμενα, […] ἀδύνατόν ἐστιν” (Met. 1083b 11).
140 4 Numbers
5) “They assumed that real things are numbers, but not in a separate way,
rather, that real things are composed of numbers” (Met. 1090a 23 – 24).³⁸¹
6) “They derived the physical bodies from the numbers” (Met. 1090a 32).³⁸²
7) “Those who believe that heaven is made of numbers reached the same re-
sult as them [the Pythagoreans]” (De caelo 300a 16).³⁸³
In the above quotes, Aristotle makes the Pythagoreans claim more precisely that
the foundation of the world is ex arithmôn, that is, numbers are constitutive of
and therefore immanent in the world.
This variability of the Aristotelian lectio marks his whole approach to Pytha-
goreanism (Burkert 1972: 45). We have already noted the difficulties that Aristotle
has in expressing Pythagorean doctrines in the terms of his philosophy (3.8).
Here the presentation of the doctrine of “all is number” by Aristotle is, at
worst, contradictory, and at best presents three different versions.³⁸⁴ In addition
to the first version, which identifies numbers with sensitive objects, two other
versions are provided by Aristotle.
The second identifies the principles of numbers with the principles of the
real things:
The so-called Pythagoreans are contemporary and even prior to these philosophers [Leu-
cippus and Democritus]. They have applied first in mathematics, making them grow, and
nurtured by them, believed that their principles were the principles of all beings.³⁸⁵
This claim is closely related to the above quote from Met. 986a 3, which is stated
in terms of stoicheîa instead of archaí.
The third version is that real objects imitate numbers, as suggested by a fa-
mous passage in which a parallel is drawn with the Platonic conception of par-
ticipation:
381 Orig.: “εἶναι μὲν ἀριθμοὺς ἐποίησαν τὰ ὄντα, οὐ χωριστοὺς δέ, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἀριθμῶν τὰ ὄντα”
(Met. 1090a 23 – 24).
382 Orig.: “ποιεῖν ἐξ ἀριθμῶν τὰ φυσικὰ σώματα” (Met. 1090a 32).
383 Orig.: “Τὸ δ’ αὐτὸ συμβαίνει καὶ τοῖς ἐξ ἀριθμῶν συντιθεῖσι τὸν οὐρανόν” (De caelo 300a 16).
Huffman 1988: 5 n15 and 1993: 57 n2 rightly observes that Aristotle includes, in these, also the
atomists.
384 Cherniss 1935: 386, Zhmud 1989: 284– 286 and Huffman 1993: 60 reproduce that same
tripartion.
385 Met. 985b 23 – 26.
The Pythagoreans say that beings exist by imitating the numbers. Plato, on the contrary,
says it is by participation, changing only the name. In any case, either one or the other ne-
glected equally to indicate what participation and imitation of ideas mean.³⁸⁶
The first claim, that “things are numbers”, is clearly inconsistent with the other
two. Cherniss 1935: 387 rightly notes that Aristotle seeks to reconcile the first
claim with the second, that numbers are principles of all things. His attempt de-
pends on his claim that the Pythagoreans derived all of reality from the number
one, a theory that is not present in the sources, and apparently confuses Pytha-
gorean cosmology with their theory of numbers (Cherniss 1935: 39). Aristotle
himself seems to recognize this approach to be bankrupt:
These philosophers also did not explain how the numbers are causes of substances and
being. Are they causes as limits of greatness, and just as Eurytus established the number
of each thing? (For example, a number for man, one for the horse, reproducing with peb-
bles the shape of the living beings, similar to the numbers that refer to the figures of the
triangle and the square […] .³⁸⁷
Aristotle’s reference to Eurytus introduces a theory known as “numerical atom-

ism”, according to which the numbers are the real things because the numbers
(thought of as psêphoi, pebbles) are the material of which all real things are
made. With good reason, indeed, Cherniss 1951 notes that in this way, the num-
bers can identify any kind of phenomenal object:
Numbers are held to be groups of units, the units being material points between which
there is “breath” or a material “void”; and they quite literally all identified with phenom-
enal objects as aggregations of points, without, of course, considering whether these mate-
rial points were themselves divisible or not. This was rather a materialization of number
than a mathematization of nature, but it undoubtedly seemed to the Pythagoreans to be
the only way of explaining the physical world in terms of those genuinely mathematical
propositions which they had proved to be independently valid.³⁸⁸
Tannery 1887b: 258 ff., Cornford 1923: 7 ff. and even Cherniss 1935: 387, fascinated
by Eurytus’s primitive atomistic-numerical method, found it to be quite old.³⁸⁹
They all essentially follow Frank’s hypothesis (1923: 50) that the theory was bor-
rowed by Archytas from Democritus. Not coincidentally, the citation from
386 Met. 987b 11– 14.

387 Met. 1092b8 – 13.
388 Cherniss 1951: 336.
389 See what was said above in relation to numerical atomism as the fundamental model of the
Pythagorean scientific system to Cornford (1.5).
142 4 Numbers
Met. 985b 23 – 26 refers to the atomists Leucippus and Democritus. Moreover, it

has been suggested that some of Zeno’s arguments against plurality presuppose
a Pythagorean theory of numerical atomism.³⁹⁰ However, Burkert 1972: 285 – 288
and Kirk, Raven and Schofield 1983: 277– 278 have raised serious doubts about
this assignment, and there are many arguments for both views.³⁹¹
However, it is not hard to imagine that the material nature of Pythagorean
numbers has an archaic sense, without the need to postulate a theory of numer-
ical atomism. This sense was summed up quite well by Nussbaum’s now classic
definition:
the notion of arithmós is always very closely connected with the operation of counting. To
be an arithmós, something must be such as to be counted – which usually means that it
must either have discrete and ordered parts or be a discrete part of a larger whole. To
give the arithmós of something in the world is to answer the question “how many”
about it. And when the Greek answers “two” or “three” he does not think of himself as in-
troducing an extra entity, but as dividing or measuring the entities already in question”.³⁹²
On this interpretation, the number is still “itself a thing” (Burkert 1972: 265).³⁹³
Thus, the second sense of “all is number”, by which the principles of the
numbers were the principles of all things, will correspond more readily to
what Cherniss 1935: 390 defines as an “Aristotelian construction of the Pythagor-
ean theory.” Aristotle would have been led to this synthesis, on the one hand, by
his difficulty in accepting the overly simplistic material notion of number as
analogous with Eurytus’ pebbles, and on the other hand, by considering it
more logical to understand the existence of the Pythagorean numbers in the
same way as the Platonists treated them, that is, by considering the arithmoí
as archaí. But with this move, Aristotle moves the problem of a Pythagorean
theory of numbers into an Academic sphere. In fact, Frank 1923: 255 suggests
that the source of this “misunderstanding” in Aristotle is in fact Speusippus;
therefore, part of the Academy was deeply connected to the Pythagorean tradi-
tions. Speusippus is directly quoted by Aristotle in the Metaphysics (1085a 33),
390 See also what was said on that point at (1.5).

391 However, it is not appropriate to mention all of them here. For arguments against Frank’s
thesis, see Cherniss 1935: 388 – 389. For arguments against the controversial Zenonian thesis, see
Burkert 1972: 285 – 289.
392 Nussbaum 1979: 90.
393 “Is itself a thing” (Burkert 1972: 265). In the same context, Burkert rightly notes that it
should not be forgotten that the ἀριθμός has a certain “aristocratic sound”, which refers to what
“counts” in the sense of being important, “worthwhile” to be counted. The term can be so
approximated to the pre-Socratic ἀρχή.
when he mentions those “according to whom the point is not one, but similar to
one” that is, hoíon tò hén. The point, in fact, plays a central role in Speusippus’
work; Speusippus was both a scholar of Philolaus and openly declared that he
based his writings on the latter. This statement is located in fragment 4
(Lang), preserved by Nicomachus as part of his book On the Pythagorean num-
bers. This fragment is clear evidence of the Academic origin of the principles
of the Pythagorean theory of numbers. In this vein, Speusippus would assert
“when considering the generation: the first principle from which greatness gen-
erates is the one, the second the line, the third the surface, the fourth the solid”
(44 A 13 DK = Fr. 4 Lang).³⁹⁴
The ubiquitous Academic mediation of Pythagorean doctrines, which played
an important role in the discussion of the Pythagorean theory of the immortality
of the soul in the third chapter, begins to emerge as well in the theory of num-
bers. This mediation will be recognized as one of the central explanatory princi-
ples behind the formation of the category of Pythagoreanism.
The first sense in which “all is number” also contradicts the third sense, that
is, the idea of a mímēsis of the numbers by real objects. In fact, this thesis is
mentioned by Aristotle only once (Met. 987b 11), inside a passage in which the
Pythagorean conception is identified with the Platonic one of participation.
This makes Cherniss 1935: 392 and Zhmud 1989: 186 consider it quite likely
that Aristotle was trying to diminish the originality of the Platonic idea of mé-
thexis by pointing to Aristoxenus, whose antagonism towards Plato is well attest-
ed. Indeed, Aristoxenus’ testimony reproduces the same idea of imitation: Pytha-
goras “likens all things to numbers” (fr. 23, 4 Wehrli).
In fact, other passages in Aristotle refer to something very similar to the con-
cept of mímēsis by using words that involve a conception of similitude:
Since just in the numbers, precisely, more than in fire, earth and water, they thought they
saw many similarities of what is and comes into being; for example, they believed that a
certain property of numbers was justice, another soul and intellect, yet another the moment
and opportunity and, in a few words, similarly with all other things.³⁹⁵
394 Cherniss 1935: 391 considers the probability of Aristotle having also derived entirely from
Speusippus the list of opposites from Met. 986a 22, though simply as the most well-rounded list
that was available to him. Without denying, therefore, the possibility that there could be other
lists that could be originally Pythagoreans.
395 Met. 985b 27– 32.
144 4 Numbers
Therefore, it is in this sense of homoiṓmata that the reference to mímēsis must be

understood.³⁹⁶
The analogy between numbers and Eurytus’ pebbles (Met. 1092b 8 – 13) also
relates to conceptions of similitude and imitation. Alexander of Aphrodisias, in
his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, explains the reasoning which would
have led to the imitative connection between justice and the number four:
Assuming that the specific nature of justice be proportionality and equality, and realizing
that this property is present in numbers, for this reason the Pythagoreans used to say that
justice is the first square number; […] This figure some used to say it was four, as it is the
first square, and also because it is divided into equal parts and is equal to the product of
these (indeed, it is two times two).³⁹⁷
Burkert 1972: 44– 45 notes that this conception of mímēsis, even if the terminol-
ogy is Aristotle’s, must correspond to a pre-Platonic theory. The fundamental
idea of magic or of Hippocratic medicine is that of a “two-way” match between
two entities (body and cosmos, art and nature). In this specific case, there is a
two-way match between the cosmos and number – the cosmos imitates number,
and vice versa. Cornford 1922 considered this idea of imitation rather ancient,
precisely because of its mystical nature; he uses etymology (mîmos = actor) to
connect the term to Dionysian cults and the fact that the protagonists of the
cults play the role of god himself:
At that stage “likeness to God” amounts to temporary identification. Induced by orgiastic

means, by Bacchic ecstasy or Orphic sacramental feast, it is a foretaste of the final reunion.
In Pythagoreanism the conception is toned down, Apollinized. The means is no longer ec-
stasy or sacrament, but theōría, intellectual contemplation of the universal order.³⁹⁸
Against these hypotheses, however, the fact that Aristotle actually does not indi-
cate the imitation of prágmata, but of abstract realities such as justice, time, etc.,
plays an important role.³⁹⁹ In any case, even though one may concede that Aris-
totle is here referring to a proto-Pythagorean, acousmatic, doctrine, in the fol-
lowing page (Met. 987b 29), he argues forcefully that the Pythagorean and Pla-
tonic notions of méthexis assigned to numbers differ. This would suggest, in
396 See for this approach Centrone 1996: 107– 108.

397 In Metaph. 38, 10 Hayduck.
398 Cornford 1922: 143. Casertano 2009: 67 also agrees with the possibility of this “mystic
numbers” origin.
399 Burnet 1908: 119, on the other hand, warns that one should not take seriously these pas-
sages: “They are mere sports of the analogical fancy”.
this case, that a controversial anti-Academic intention should perhaps be the

most appropriate explanation of the reference to mímēsis. ⁴⁰⁰
We can conclude that the three versions of the doctrine “all is number” (that
of identification, of the numbers as principles and of imitation) appear imper-
fectly articulated and ultimately contradictorily within Aristotle’s work.
However, it is significant that Aristotle never mentions that the three differ-
ent lectiones of “all is number” belong to different groups of Pythagoreans. He
seems to consider them, if not coherent among themselves, at least reconcilable,
and refers to them all without distinction as defining the “so-called Pythagor-
eans.”⁴⁰¹
Recognition of this fact has led several authors to adopt conciliatory solu-
tions to the problem. First of all, Zeller himself. Although he felt that Aristotle’s
testimony should be taken with all due care, its historical proximity to the Pytha-
gorean doctrines should support its authenticity. Thus, for Zeller:
No doubt that in Aristotle’s exposure we must seek first of all and only his own way of see-
ing, and not an actual and immediate testimony of reality, however even in this case [that
of the numerical theory], everything speaks in favor of a recognition of the fact that his way
of seeing was based on a direct knowledge of the actual connection of the very ideas of
Pythagoreanism.⁴⁰²
Frank 1923: 77 n196 and Rey 1933: 116, seeking to show the possibility of the
compability of the three versions of “all is number”, imagine that Aristotle un-
derstood the different versions to be logically derived from one another. Rey
draws up a proposed compromise between the version of numbers being the
things and that of numbers imitating things: numbers would be things when con-
sidering their nature and would imitate things when one would consider their
400 This is also one of the reasons which forces one to reject Burnet’s hypothesis (1908: 355)
and Taylor 1911:178 ff., taken up also by Delatte 1922a: 108 ff. Whereby Pythagoreanism would be
the inventor of the theory of the Platonic forms. Thus, Burnet 1908: 355: “the doctrine of ‘forms’
(eídē, idéai) originally took shape in Pythagorean circles, perhaps under Sokratic influence”.
401 For these reasons, it is unfounded from a methodological point of view to use only Aristotle
to say anything about an alleged mathematical design in proto-Pythagoreanism.
402 Zeller and Mondolfo 1932: 486, orig.: “non v’há dubbio che nella esposizione di Aristotele
noi dobbiam cercare anzi tutto e soltanto il suo proprio modo di vedere, e non un’immediata
testimonianza sulla realtà di fatto. Tuttavia anche in questo caso tutto parla in favore di un
riconoscimento del fatto che questo suo modo di vedere si fondasse su una diretta conoscenza
della effettiva connessione d’idee propria del pitagorismo”.
146 4 Numbers
properties (Rey 1933: 356 ff.⁴⁰³ More elaborate is Raven’s conciliatory argument
(1948: 43 – 65), whereby:
To suppose, as so many scholars appear to suppose, that Aristotle was hopelessly confused
about it, is not only to lay a very serious charge at his door, but also, incidentally, to demol-
ish the main basis upon which any reliable reconstruction of Pythagoreanism must be
erected.⁴⁰⁴
In an open controversy with Cornford 1923: 10 and his idea that Aristotle failed to
distinguish two moments of Pythagoreanism (a first one on the idea of the ma-
teriality of numbers, and a second one where the Pythagoreans would be more
concerned with the numerical make-up of reality), Raven proposes instead a rad-
ical inseparability of the dual use of these senses within ancient Pythagorean-
ism.⁴⁰⁵ Aristotle would be thus simply getting from Pythagoreanism a conception
of nature as “equal to numbers”, that is, constituted by an aggregation of spatial-
ly extended units (Raven 1948: 62). However, the numbers would not constitute
only the matter of reality, but would also be the origin of the qualitative differ-
ences that distinguish each material object from others. This is the only way you
might think either version of the imitation and of the number of the principles as
articulated with the first version.⁴⁰⁶
We can say at the very least that the idea of mímēsis that Aristotle attributed
to the Pythagoreans has little to share with the Platonic conception of mímēsis
according to which phenomenal realities mimic the forms, in the sense of
being made “similar to” supra-sensible realities of a higher ontological level.
If this observation is correct, what Aristotle must attribute to the Pythagoreans
when speaking of mímēsis cannot be anything other than a generic correspond-
ence between things and the numerical relationships that explain them and
make them intelligible. Casertano summarizes the matter very well:
Immanent intelligibility, therefore, and not transcendent to the same things. This is why the
Pythagorean formula, “things are numbers” and “things are similar to numbers”, are not
contrasted, but rather are expressions of the same basic intuition, which is one of homo-
geneity between reality and thought, between the laws of reality and the laws of thought:
403 For the criticism of Frank’s and Rey’s proposal, see both Cherniss 1935: 386 and Burkert
1972: 44 n86.
404 Raven 1948: 63.
405 Cornford 1923: 10 says in effect that: “Aristotle himself draws attention to the two diverse
ways of making numbers ‘the causes of substances and being’, which, in my view, are cha-
racteristic of the two different schools of Pythagoreans”.
406 See Guthrie 1962: 230 f. for a similar idea.
to comprehend things is essentially to mirror them, to reproduce at the mental level that
fully intelligible structure, which is characteristic of material reality.⁴⁰⁷
Although the fundamental insight of the Pythagoreans, an attempt to under-

stand the nature of numbers by analogy with the nature of the world, is clear,
the fact is that the Aristotelian attempt to reconcile the different versions of
the theory does not seem at all successful.
If, moreover, we consider that the main version of the Pythagorean doctrine,
that of the identity of number with realities, pays obeyance directly to the con-
troversial intention of Aristotle as regards to Platonism, making him consider the
Pythagorean arithmós is a material cause, in opposition to the Platonic militancy
in favor of its being a formal cause (Cherniss 1935: 360), this makes it difficult to
appeal to the Aristotelian “all is number” as a genuine and pure piece of histor-
iographical evidence for the foundations of Pythagoreanism.⁴⁰⁸
4.1.2 Two solutions
Two solutions have been proposed to the problem of the validity of Aristotle’s
claim that “all is number” accurately describes Pythagorean philosophy.
The first engages in a radical challenge of the validity of the Aristotelian tes-
timony, coming to even deny that a doctrine of number belongs tout court in
proto-Pythagoreanism. There is no lack of reasons for this challenge, and they
center on the fact that no testimonies earlier than Aristotle attest to this doctrine.
Zhmud’s article (1989), quoted above, begins with this argument, and we will fol-
low it step-by-step.
Zhmud’s article operates in the context of determining the criteria for iden-
tification as a Pythagorean. His fundamental concern is to consider the impres-
sion that the Aristotelian text seems to give, that is, that “someone who speaks of
numbers” would be the best definition of a Pythagorean. As noted above (2.2),
407 Casertano 2009: 65, orig.: “Intelligibilità immanente, appunto, e non trascendente le cose
stesse. Ecco perchè le formule pitagoriche ‘le cose sono numeri’ e ‘le cose somigliano ai numeri’
non sono in contrasto, ma sono espressioni di una medesima intuizione fondamentale, che è
quella dell’omogeneità tra realtà e pensiero, tra leggi della realtà e leggi del pensiero: capire le
cose è essenzialmente rispecchiarle, riprodurre a livello mentale quella struttura, pienamente
intelligibile, che è propria della realtà materiale”.
408 Centrone 1996: 105 notes in this sense that “l’interesse [di Aristotele] per il pitagorismo, i
cui pregi in definitiva consistono solo nell’assenza dei difetti propri della filosofia dei platonici,
non è soverchiante, ed è anzi determinado proprio dalle affinitità con le dottrine platoniche”.
148 4 Numbers
the use of the criterion of numbers to identify a Pythagorean (Zhmud 1989: 272)
would be either circular or question-begging. Indeed, despite several attempts in
this regard, no historian – says Zhmud – has succeeded in finding any doctrine
about numbers in the pre-Aristotelian sources on Pythagoreanism (Zhmud 1989:
272). On the contrary, Iamblichus’ catalog, which closes Pythagorean Life (VP:
267), reveals no doctrinal criteria for the inclusion of the 218 Pythagorean
names beyond a presumed vague adherence to the Pythagorean bíos (2.2,
above). Indeed, some inclusions seem to challenge the (Aristotelian) doctrine
of numbers as archaí; I would be surprised by the presence of a Pythagorean
such as Hippasus, whose surviving fragments indicate that he had a material
conception of archḗ (such as fire, see 18 B 7 DK) far from the Aristotelian doxog-
raphy of the Metaphysics.
With these arguments in mind, Zhmud admits only two possible explana-
tions for Aristotle’s testimony: either the expression “all is number” belongs to
an ancient and secret teaching of the “divine” Pythagoras, which must have
been directly revealed to Aristotle and first published by him, or that the expres-
sion “all is number” was not actually a Pythagorean doctrine.⁴⁰⁹ This second
possibility corresponds to the classic position of Burnet, in which “Pythagoras
himself left no developed doctrine on the subject, while the Pythagoreans of
the fifth century did not care to add anything of the sort to the school tradition”
(Burnet 1908: 119).⁴¹⁰
Although not surprising, given the aforementioned studies of Cherniss (1.7)
that suggest that Aristotle’s own “historiographic” method freely reformulated
the doctrines of his predecessors in his own terms, it is important to ask what
would make Aristotle falsely attribute such a doctrine of “all is number” to
the Pythagoreans.
Our arguments so far give a crude first response to this question. Aristotle
was faced with a great diversity of Pythagorean sources, both ancient (Hippasus)
and closer to him (Ecphantus, Philolaus, Archytas). However, for purposes inter-
nal to Aristotle’s Metaphysics, this plethora of Pythagoreans needed to be
brought back to a common denominator, under a school that would somehow
fit into the theoretical-historical course that Aristotle intended to draw on in
his doxography.
409 So says Zhmud 1989: 275: “If we do not wish to think that the central dogma of Pythagorean
philosophy was secret, then it would be quite reasonable to suppose: either this dogma was not
central, or it was not a dogma at all. Only very few of those who write about Pythagorean
philosophy arrive at such a paradoxical conclusion”. On the practice of secrecy in the earlier
Pythagorean community, see above (2.3).
410 Gigon 1945: 142 follows the same idea.
Without reducing Pythagoreanism to a set of core theoretical doctrines, it

would have been impossible to find a place for it inside the agonic model by
which Aristotle describes the history of his predecessors (Cherniss 1935:
349).⁴¹¹ For example, only in this way could the Pythagorean archḗ be an antag-
onist of the Ionic material cause. At the same time, terminological imprecision in
the Pythagorean sources (which Aristotle himself complains about in Met. 1092b
1– 13) allows the postulation of Pythagorean numbers as the precursor of the Pla-
tonic formal cause. Even if number did not already have this dual valence, Aris-
totle would probably have invented it, for it fits to perfection within his doxo-
graphic model.
Thus, the postulation that “all is number” would have been Aristotle’s sol-
ution to a historiographical problem, and in some ways the beginning of a
long tradition which, starting with Zeller (Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 435), re-
duced the category of Pythagoreanism to the narrow limits of this metaphysical
doctrine.
The first solution leaves us at a hermeneutic impasse: Aristotle himself in-
vented a historiographic category (“the so-called Pythagoreans”) and a doctrinal
common denominator defining it (“all is number”). The second solution seeks to
avoid tracing the category back to a mere invention by undertaking a reassess-
ment of the Pythagorean sources of the fifth century BC for possible historical
references to Aristotle’s term “so-called Pythagoreans”.
Let us start with an important observation: the great number of references to
Pythagoreanism and their theory of numbers in Aristotle reveals an indisputable
fact: Aristotle must have really had several Pythagorean texts on his desk.⁴¹² The
certainty with which Aristotle presents some statements about the Pythagoreans
seems to presuppose his access to a sufficiently broad literature of their author-
ship. Consider the debate whether the Pythagoreans considered the world to be
generated or not. Aristotle says it is impossible to doubt it: “There is no reason to
doubt whether the Pythagoreans do or do not introduce generation of things
which are eternal” (Met. 1091a 13). Likewise, he appears to be absolutely certain
that the Pythagoreans had not philosophized about sensible bodies: “They did
not say anything about fire nor earth, or on other bodies” (Met. 990a 16 – 17).
Moreover, tradition informs us that Aristotle devoted at least two books to
the Pythagoreans, not to mention the works devoted specifically to Pythagoras
or particular Pythagoreans such as Archytas.⁴¹³ Any account of who were the
411 About Aristotle’s agonic historiographical model, see what was said above (1.7).
412 Burkert 1972: 236, Zhmud 1989: 281, Huffman 1993: 57 and Centrone 1996: 105 agree on that.
413 For extensive discussion of these works and references, see Burkert 1972: 29 n5.
150 4 Numbers
“so-called Pythagoreans” to whom Aristotle wants to assign the doctrine of num-

bers depends, mostly, on the possibility of identifying the subjects of these
books. However, tradition only tells us of books on Philolaus and Archytas. As
Aristotle seems to deal with Archytas separately, it is likely that the books of Phi-
lolaus constitute Aristotle’s Pythagorean sources.
The second solution would be represented, therefore, by Philolaus.
It is the case to point out, again, before diving in what has traditionally been
defined precisely as “the Philolaic question”, that it is no wonder this same
methodological conclusion was not reached before, that is, the solution accord-
ing to whom the problem of the attribution of the doctrine “all is number” was
the study of Philolaus’ fragments. Much of the tradition, beginning with Cherniss
himself (1935: 386), could not pursue this direction because the texts of Philolaus
were considered spurious in the wake of Frank 1923. Only after the “rediscovery”
of the value of an essential part of Philolaus’ fragments, first with Burkert 1972,
218 ff., and then with Huffman 1988 and 1993, did that path become possible.
The recent reassessment of the historical value of Philolaus’ fragments,
therefore, allows new, previously impossible, hermeneutical steps. However, to
identify the so-called Pythagoreans with Philolaus and fifth century BC Pytha-
goreanism still carries serious difficulties for the Aristotelian identification of
the Pythagoreans as those for whom “all is number”: even in Philolaus there
is no explicit reference to such a doctrine. It is time to finally enter the labyrinth
of the Philolaic question (pace Boeckh 1819: 3) and to assess the extent to which
a solution of this issue can be also a solution of the problem of the proper rela-
tionship between ancient Pythagoreanism and numerical theory.
4.1.3 The Philolaic solution
There are strong parallels between our question of the authenticity of Philolaus’
fragments and the celebrated question of the authenticity of Plato’s Socrates. The
so-called “Philolaic question”, first mentioned in Boeckh 1819, shares with the
more famous “Socratic question” difficulty in distinguishing what was originally
pre-Platonic (and specifically Pythagorean) from what was a Platonic or Academ-
ic reworking of earlier doctrines.⁴¹⁴ The solution to the Philolaic question takes
414 For this discussion, see Burkert 1972: 92, who states that “the true problem of the Py-
thagorean tradition lies in Platonism, for Platonizing interpretation took place of the historical
reality”; likewise, Huffman 1993: 23 considers that “what we have is another version of Socratic
question, but this time in regard to the Pythagoreans”. Again the Platonic choice not to speak in
place in a hermeneutic seesaw between the Academic tradition and the Aristo-
telian lectio.
4.1.3.1 One book or three books?

The first problem we must face is that the tradition does not consistently de-
scribe Philolaus’ literary production. Despite some agreement that Philolaus
was the first to publish Pythagorean doctrines in writing, according to the testi-
mony of Demetrius of Magnesia (D.L. Vitae VIII. 84), tradition presents us with
two different possibilities: the existence of three books (the famous tripartium)
or the existence of only one.
The testimony in favor of the former possibility, which dates back to Satyrus,
a Peripatetic of the third century BC, is simply a mess, a problem typical of pseu-
do-epigraphic literature but particularly pronounced in the Pythagorean tradi-
tion. Philolaus is quoted within a reference to a letter from Plato: “Plato wrote
to Dion to buy from him [Philolaus] the Pythagorean books” (D.L. Vitae
VIII. 84). The reference here is to tà bíblia pythagoriká that the tradition
knows well: “Pythagoras wrote three works: On Education, On Statesmanship
and On Nature” (D. L. Vitae VIII. 6).
A few pages later, the claim that Pythagoras wrote three books is accompa-
nied by a mention of Philolaus. Philolaus is considered – anachronistically – as
the “editor” of the tripartitum:
Up to the time of Philolaus it was not possible to know any Pythagorean doctrine: he pub-
lished only those famous three books that Plato, by letter, asked to be purchased for the
price of one hundred minai.⁴¹⁵
The reference to the letter alludes even more strongly to the pseudo-epigraphy of
the tradition in question: it was quite common in ancient times for a pseudo-epi-
graphic text to be accompanied by a letter from an esteemed authority, which
would attest beyond any suspicion to the authenticity of the work (Burkert
1972: 224).
The claim that Philolaus wrote three books must have been erroneously de-
rived from the parallel attribution of three books to Pythagoras himself. This in-
ference was not without reason: unlike Diogenes Laertius (Vitae VIII. 6), the
the first person, hiding behind his characters as well as the use of quoting his predecessors with
extreme parsimony, plays a decisive role in the appearance of such an issue.
152 4 Numbers
greater tradition had always identified Philolaus as the first writer on Pythagor-
eanism.
Starting with Wiersma 1942, a new consensus that Philolaus wrote a single
book has arisen among historians.⁴¹⁶ Indeed, in the pages immediately follow-
ing, Diogenes Laertius himself significantly uses the expression gégraphe biblíon
hén:
He wrote one book, which – as evidenced by Hermippus, which in his turn was quoting
another author – the philosopher Plato, having arrived in Sicily with Dionysus, bought
from Philolaus’ relatives for forty Alexandrian silver minai, and that he copied in the Ti-
maeus. ⁴¹⁷
The Hermippus tradition seems, for all purposes, older. Two things confirm this:
first, the fact that there was no need for a Platonic letter of attestation and, sec-
ondly, because the intent of this tradition is alien to the very question to the
text’s authenticity. Hermippus was indeed more interested in accusing Plato of
plagiarizing Philolaus in his Timaeus than of selling Philolaus’ book as a Pytha-
gorean original. Moreover, ancient sources independently attest to the plagia-
rism of the Timaeus. ⁴¹⁸ A satirical verse of the bitter (amarulentus) Timon con-
firms the existence of the tradition on plagiarism:
You too, Plato, were taken by the temptation of knowledge

And you gave a lot of money in exchange for a small booklet
And choosing the better part, you learned how to write the Timaeus. ⁴¹⁹
Both Hermippus’ charge against Plato and the testimony of Timon presuppose
the existence of Philolaus’s book. And, even though it might not have been pur-
chased by Plato himself, the book must have been in some way available to both
Plato and Aristotle in Athens.⁴²⁰
416 Wiersma was followed on this, among others, by Maddalena 1954: 169, Philip 1966: 41,
Burkert 1972: 225, Huffman 1993: 26 and Centrone 1996: 119.
418 In truth, the tradition of Plato’s plagiarism is actually quite extensive. See, for a long section
dedicated to the accusations of plagiarism, D.L Vitae III. 9 – 18. For a recent discussion of the
question, see Brisson 2000b: 35 – 45.
419 44 A 8 DK = Gell. III 17, 6. The same tradition is remembered by Iamblichus in his In-
troduction to Arithmetic by Nicomachus (105), which mentions the book as being written by
Timaeus of Locri. For a recent critical edition of the book, see Timaeus Locrus (ed. Marg 1972).
420 Huffman 1993: 30 defends the authenticity of the booklet against suspicions that Timon
himself was a fake Academic, by arguing that his reference to the smallness of Philolaus’ book
would point to it its pre-Socratic origin, since pre-Socratic books would all have been of reduced
There is even a document confirming this, which comes from the 1893 dis-
covery of the papyrus catalogued as Anonymus Londinensis (44 A 27– 28 DK).
The text is attributed to Aristotle’s disciple, Meno, and presents excerpts from
medical doctrines attributed to Philolaus.
Philolaus of Croton said that our body is made of heat. That it does not participate in the
cold is deduced by certain facts such as: the sperm, which has the property of producing
the living being, is hot. […] The desire for outside air is born precisely from this need,
that our body, being too hot, by breathing that air, it will cool down when in contact
with it. […] Diseases are generated either by bile or blood or mucus; these are the causes
for the emergence of diseases.⁴²¹
The detailed description of Philolaus’ medical thinking, suggested by the pas-

sage evidently presupposes a written source as its foundation.⁴²² Moreover, med-
ical terminology is also present in Plato’s Timaeus (Burkert 1972: 227). Thus, the
papyrus represents some evidence that Plato may have plagiarized from Philo-
laus can also be approximated to the tradition of the charging of Plato with pla-
giarism, thereby making it even more reliable.
4.1.3.2 Authenticity of Philolaus’ fragments

Although we have demonstrated that Philolaus likely wrote a single book, the
Philolaic problem is far from solved. It suffers the same historiographical prob-
lems that accompany all ancient Pythagorean literature. Unlike most other criti-
cism, the burden of proof for a Pythagorean text’s authenticity generally falls on
those who propose it as authentic, because the general assumption is that every-
thing must be spurious.⁴²³
Indeed, several scholars note skeptically (and with a bit of methodological
cynicism) that the existence of a single Philolaic book is just one more reason
to consider all the fragments of Philolaus to be spurious. The argument is almost
naïf: if Philolaus wrote only one book, then all the fragments attributed to him
must belong to that same book. This line of thought follows Boeckh’s first state-
ment about this question: “there is no other solution than that of recognizing
that all we have [by Philolaus] is genuine or reject it as spurious” (Boeckh
dimensions. The suggestion is not totally convincing because it is not clear what should be
understood as a small book in the fourth century BC.
421 44 A 27 DK.
422 Several scholars, from Wilamowitz 1920: II 88 to Huffman 1993: 30 and Centrone 1996: 120
think this way.
423 See Burkert 1972: 218 and Huffman 1993: 18.
154 4 Numbers
1819: 38).⁴²⁴ Although Boeckh himself favored the former alternative, these skep-
tics favor the latter.
The consequences of this either-or choice are disastrous: a number of schol-
ars went looking for three or four evidently spurious passages, amongst the 15
pages in the Dielsian collection of Philolaic fragments, all in order to “throw
the baby out with the bath water”. For example, Bywater 1868: 52 and Burnet
1908: 283 simultaneously show the impossibility of fragment 12 being authentic
and try to demonstrate its linguistic and thematic continuity with the other frag-
ments, with the intent of proving the contamination of them all. The fragment in
question (44 B 12 DK) refers to “five regular solids”, a “discovery” that was Aca-
demic (see Plato, Rep. VII: 528b). However, this single observation does not en-
title Burnet to conclude that “this sufficiently justifies us in regarding the ‘frag-
ments of Philolaos’ with something more than suspicion”.⁴²⁵
These scholars’ argument does not add up mainly because they seem to con-
veniently forget that Philolaus’ book was followed by a huge effort in the pseu-
do-epigraphic period to forge all the Pythagorean texts: Thesleff’s collection
(1965) has about two hundred pages worth of texts. Given, therefore, this “luxu-
rious” (Huffman’s term, 1993: 27) pseudo-epigraphic tradition, it would be
strange that the works of Philolaus would have been immune to forgery.⁴²⁶
Therefore, there is serious reason to carefully address the issue of pseudo-
epigraphic literary production and its connection with the older Pythagorean
sources. Though Burkert is not totally devoid of reason to say that there was little
pseudo-epigraphic work on Philolaus because he was little-known, it would be a
mistake to also infer that the Academic Platonization of old Pythagorean litera-
ture, which characterizes the pseudo-epigraphy of the Hellenistic period, had
spared only Philolaus. We agree with Burkert 1972: 228 – 229 that the information
we have on Philolaus is not a body of legends or anecdotes (as is the case with
Pythagoras himself and other Pythagoreans), but rather takes the form of a mas-
ter-disciple model, which was a common doxography among the pre-Socratics:
his name is often linked to those of Eurytus and Archytas as the three immediate
424 Orig.: “(…) so bleibt nichts übrig als alles Vorhandene zusammen als ächt anzuerkennen
oder als unächt zu verwerfen”.
425 Burnet 1908: 329.
426 Huffman 1993: 27 significantly notes that the case of Archytas is paradigmatic in this sense:
“there are forty-six pages of spurious fragments of Arquitas in Thesleff’s collection (1965: 2– 48)
in comparision with eight short pages of fragments likely to be authentic in DK”. The number of
pseudo-epigraphic texts referred to Pythagoreans is vastly greater than the number of pseudo-
epigraphic texts assigned to other pre-Socratics. This is another sign of the expansion of the
tradition, discussed above in the context of Zeller’s notion of “memory” (1.1).
disciples of Pythagoras (Iambl. VP: 267). Philolaus is also said to have been the
master of Democritus (D.L. Vitae IX. 38). The form of this tradition, therefore, al-
lows one at least to conclude that a late pseudo-epigraphic appropriation of Phi-
lolaus’ book, although not impossible, on the whole is not likely.
A consequence of the above observations is that the only possible approach
to the Philolaic question will be to consider the authenticity of each piece of evi-
dence on a case-by-case basis.
However, before undertaking this more precise assessment, we should dwell
on the motives and methods of the Hellenistic pseudo-epigraphic forgeries, as
these will play an essential role in evaluating Philolaus’ fragments.
4.1.3.3 The Doric pseudo-epigraphic tradition

Thanks to the tremendous work of Thesleff 1965, we now have a better idea of
how this varied corpus of works falsely attributed to Pythagoras and other Pytha-
goreans was formed. Constraints of space do not permit full consideration of an
issue as complex as the formation of the whole pseudo-epigraphic Pythagorean
tradition. Two sources are particularly worth noting: the still unsurpassed stud-
ies of Thesleff (1961, 1965) and the analysis of the historiographical route of these
studies through neo-Platonism in O’Meara’s 1989 masterful work.
However, it is necessary to note at least two characteristics of the historical
“forgeries”, both central to the evaluation of Philolaus’ fragments.
First, almost the entire collection is united by use of the Doric dialect. The-
sleff coins the term “Pythagorean Doric” for this because the use of that archaic
dialect “reflects a specific manner of writing prose which it is very tempting in-
deed to derive ultimately from Archytas”.⁴²⁷ If the use of artificial Doric as a lin-
guistic archaism plays a key role in the strategy of falsification, the critical at-
tempts to uncover the authentic works will use the same strategy, though in
the opposite direction. A sensitive issue for the argument of these pages is
that Philolaus’s fragments were also written in Doric. However, this cannot be
reason to consider them per se pseudo-epigraphical, because until the end of
the fifth century BC Doric was still a widely used dialect. Proof of this is that
both Archytas and the physician Acron of Acragas used it, as well as the rhetori-
cians Tisias and Corax.⁴²⁸
427 Thesleff 1961: 92.

428 See for references Burkert 1972: 222. Burnet 1908: 327, in his turn, found it impossible that
Philolaus had written in Doric: “Is it likely that Philolaos should have written in Doric? Ionic was
the dialect of all science and philosophy till the time of the Peloponnesian War, and there is no
reason to suppose that the early Pythagoreans used any other”; although he knows Diels’
156 4 Numbers
The second characteristic of that corpus, and perhaps the most important
one, is the presence in pseudo-epigraphical texts of concepts that directly de-
pend on Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies. Indeed, since the beginning, Aca-
demic sources showed a clear tendency to identify most of the Platonic doctrines
as originating from Pythagoras (Burkert 1972: 92– 93). Heidel 1940: 7, in his his-
tory of Greek mathematics, proves it to be almost impossible to verify what is Py-
thagorean and what is Platonic in the ancient sources on mathematics.⁴²⁹ Aris-
totle also says that Plato’s philosophy follows in many respects that of the Pytha-
goreans and presents itself primarily as a synthesis between Socrates and Pytha-
goras (Met. 987a 29).⁴³⁰
Not coincidentally, the Life of Pythagoras that Photius reproduces in his Bib-
liotheca, revealing a genealogical intent also typical of late Platonism, puts Plato
as the ninth successor to Pythagoras, and Aristotle as the tenth: “Plato, who had
been disciple of the older Archytas became, as they say, the ninth Diadochos of
Pythagoras, and Aristotle was the tenth” (Phot. Bibl. 249.438b 16 – 17).⁴³¹
However, with the skeptical turn of the Middle Academy headed by Arcesi-
laus, the Platonic tradition ultimately identifies itself more firmly with the Soc-
ratic side, and Pythagoras becomes both a new problem and the solution to an-
other one.⁴³² In the Middle Academy, the importance of Pythagoras was down-
played. In facts, while the influence of Pythagoras is denied in order to establish
a less dogmatic tradition of Platonism, Pythagoras himself is used to attribute to
him such part of the Platonic doctrine which, by being too metaphysical and
mathematical, is now fitting better to Pythagoras rather than Plato.
In contrast, the reaction to skepticism which began with the arrival of the
dogmatic Antiochus of Ascalon inspired charges of plagiarism against Plato, in-
cluding the already discussed plagiarism of Philolaus’ book. In the opposite di-
rection from the skeptics, and perhaps closer to the vision of the first Academy of
opinion, whereby Philolaus and Archytas would have been the first to write in the dialect of the
Magna Graecia colonies, who welcomed them. Huffman 1993: 27 n13, echoing Burkert’s argu-
ments, indeed considers Burnet’s argument insufficient.
429 See Heidel 1940: 7: “it is difficult if not impossible for the most part to distinguish what is
Platonic and what is Pythagorean”.
430 However, Aristotle distances himself from an absolute identification between Platonism
and Pythagoreanism in the case where, for example, he derives the theory of forms from Cratylus
and Socrates. In fact, as will be seen, the Platonization of Pythagoreanism develops opposite to
this Aristotelian lectio; the latter is primarily interested in distinguishing the two.
431 Burkert 1972: 53 notes that the author of the work can be Eudora himself.
432 See for this Dillon 1977, Leszl 1981 and Isnardi Parente 1989. For a recent discussion of this
skeptical turn of the Middle Academy, see the Epilogue of Dillon’s excellent study on the
Platonic heritage (Dillon 2003: 234 ff.).
Speusippus and Xenocrates, the Academic followers of the Pythagorean influ-

ence on Plato eventually assigned Pythagoran doctrines to all representatives
of the Platonic philosophy, including Socrates and Aristotle.⁴³³
This is the controversy that still surrounds Numenius of Apamea’s Neo-Pla-
tonism, as well as the later views of Porphyry and Iamblichus. The three, albeit
with different intensities, declare a desire to restore the true Plato, purifying him
from all doctrinal overlappings of Aristotle and the Stoics.⁴³⁴ Numenius’ history
of Platonic philosophy was controversially titled: On the divergence between the
Academics and Plato. His conclusion is simply that true Platonism is Pythagor-
eanism (fr. 24, 73 – 79), despite what the “Academics”, identified in his book sim-
ply with the skeptics, were saying.⁴³⁵ Echoes of this controversy also appear in
Porphyry, who plunges the knife into the Platonic tradition, accusing it of plagi-
arism and malice, by establishing a history of Pythagoreanism only in order to
ridicule it:
The writings are in the Doric and this dialect has something unclear: exactly for this reason
also the doctrines that it was investigating were suspected to be apocryphal and the result
of misunderstandings, because orthodox Pythagoreans would not have been those that
published them. Moreover, Plato, Aristotle, Speusippus, Aristoxenus and Xenocrates, ac-
cording to what Pythagoreans said, appropriated, with minor modifications, from the fruit-
ful doctrines, while they would have collected and compiled as specific doctrines of the Py-
thagorean philosophy everything that was ridiculous and superfluous and all that subse-
quently the slanderous had presented to refute and denigrate the school.⁴³⁶
Thus, the passage paints a picture of an ongoing controversy about Pythagoreans

within the Academic and Peripatetic tradition. The Pythagoreans mentioned in
the passages were specifically the Neopythagorean side represented by Modera-
tus of Gades.⁴³⁷ Therefore, the Pythagorean pseudo-epigraphic Hellenistic litera-
ture must be understood within this intra-Academic controversy that extends
into the imperial era.⁴³⁸ This should help to explain why the Academic discus-
433 See also the arguments therein by Centrone 2000: 155.

434 Burkert can thus conclude that “one might therefore define later Pythagoreanism as Pla-
tonism with the Socratic and dialectic element amputated” Burkert, 1972: 96.
435 See for this O’Meara 1989: 10 – 14.
436 Porph. VP: 53.
437 Agreeing with this attribution are Dillon 1977: 346 and Isnardi Parente (Speusippo 1980:
237– 238). Opposed, Burkert 1972: 95 and O’Meara 1989: 11 n8.
438 See Centrone 2000 for a broad review of the reception of Pythagoreanism in Platonism in
the imperial era.
158 4 Numbers
sions of Pythagoreanism include several concepts and themes that assume not
only Plato, but even Speusippus or Theophrastus.⁴³⁹
This Platonic-Pythagorizing reconstruction of the philosophy of the “old” Py-
thagoreans does not follow the work of Aristotle. Rather, the Neoplatonic tradi-
tion brings several charges against the lectio of Aristotle. Syrianus and Proclus
openly accuse Aristotle of distorting the thought of the Pythagoreans (Syrian,
In Met. 80: 22; Proclus. In Tim. 1: 16, 29). Especially significant is a pseudo-epi-
graphic text attributed to Theano, wife and disciple of Pythagoras:
I learned that many of the Greeks assumed that Pythagoras said that everything comes from
the number. This statement, however, reveals a quandary: how, in fact, there is something
which doesn’t even exist is conceived as a genitor. But he didn’t say that all things come
from numbers, but that they come into being according to numbers. For in number there
is the first real ordination, thanks to its presence in the communion of things that can
be counted, something takes its place as the first, something else as second, and then
all the others.⁴⁴⁰
Theano thus denies the doctrine of numbers as principles, attributing it to “many

of the Greeks”, although she means essentially Aristotle.⁴⁴¹ The choice to put this
denial into the mouth of Pythagoras’ wife follows a very precise strategy, similar
to the forgery of Plato’s letter quoted above: the aim is to provide authenticity to
what does not in fact have it.
Aristotle’s treatment of the so-called Pythagoreans offers a challenge to the
Neoplatonic “derivation system” of the New Academy.⁴⁴² It is exactly this chal-
lenge that becomes a hermeneutic lever for our exploration: If Aristotle stood
in opposition to the Platonization of the Pythagoreans because he wrote about
the Pythagoreans’ authentic and unadulterated views, then a close parallel be-
tween the fragments of Philolaus and Aristotle’s testimony will be a point in
favor of the authenticity of Philolaus’ fragments.
439 For a more accurate assessment of the influence of older Academic and peripatetic tradi-
tions on the Pythagorean pseudo-epigraphic literature – with related sources –, see Thesleff
1965, but also Burkert 1972: 83 – 96. Huffman 1993: 21 rightly notes that: “even if the forgeries do
not arise among the Neoplatonists, the Neoplatonic attitude towards Pythagoras and hence the
motive for forgeries could go back much earlier”.
440 Stob. 1.10.13, Thesleff 1965.
441 The term γεννᾶν could be a direct reference to the Aristotle page that speaks of γένεσιν
ποιεῖν ἀϊδίων ὄντων of the Pythagoreans in Met. 1091a 12. See Burkert 1972: 61.
442 The expression is by Gomperz (apud Burkert 1972: 17).
It is to the modality of this distinction that Aristotle operates between an-

cient Pythagoreanism and Platonic and Academic reception that one must
then pay all attention.
4.1.4 The Aristotelian exception (Met. A 6, 987b)
Before considering the fragments of Philolaus, we must consider Aristotle’s fa-

mous analysis of the relationship between Pythagoreanism and Platonism
(Met. A 6, 987b). To be sure, Aristotle approaches both Pythagoreanism and Pla-
tonism in terms of their relation to the theory of forms. However, he clearly dis-
tinguishes Pythagoreanism from Platonism in at least two ways, including a di-
vision in terms of their theories of numbers.
The argument begins with the widely-cited Pythagoreans disagreement with
Plato on the role of numbers in the existence of sensible things. Aristotle strongly
argues that the Pythagoreans disagree with the role of méthexis that Plato as-
signed to numbers. Rather, Aristotle’s claim that the concept of mímēsis is
best suited to represent the Pythagorean doctrine introduces a more precise ar-
ticulation of the two differences between the Pythagoreans and Plato: the first
concerns the ontological place of the numbers, the second concerns the concep-
tion of the One.
Thus begins the page in question:
After the philosophies mentioned, there arose Plato’s doctrine, who in many points, follows
that of the Pythagoreans, but also presents its own characteristics, strange to the philoso-
phy of the Italics.⁴⁴³
Aristotle begins by recognizing an analogy between the Platonic procedure of re-

ducing things to their principles and the Pythagorean procedure of reducing of
reality to numbers. Although, as we saw earlier, the terms for the description
of the relationship between shapes/figures and the sensible things change –
mímēsis for the Pythagoreans, méthexis for Plato (Met. 987b 11– 12) – the analogy
is still stressed by Aristotle. The Pythagoreans are said to “believe that the prin-
ciples [of mathematics] are the principles of all beings” (Met. 985b 25), similarly,
443 Met. 987a 29 – 31. For a different interpretation of the passage, which tends to diminish the
influence of the Pythagoreans on Plato on the Aristotelian lectio, see Huffman 2008: 223. The
author’s argument is based on the idea that τούτοις, on the above passage, does not refer to the
Pythagoreans – according to the largest lectio – but to all other predecessors (τῶν πρότερον)
mentioned in the immediately preceding lines (Met. 987a 28).
160 4 Numbers
a process of reduction to forms is attributed to Plato, where the forms are causes
of material reality. Aristotle calls these elements stoicheía. These elements were,
in Aristotelian language, “causes” of what exists:
Indeed, given that forms are the causes of other things, Plato considered the building
blocks of forms as the elements of all beings. As part of the material forms, he placed
big and small, and as the formal cause the One: in fact, he considered that shapes and
numbers were derived by the participation of big and small in the One.⁴⁴⁴
This page has generated much controversy among scholars.

The doctrine of the forms as the principles of all things, attributed here to
Plato, does not seem to find an immediate echo in his dialogues. This mismatch
contributed to an established hermeneutic tradition which regards Aristotle’s
testimony as evidence for the existence of ágrapha dógmata, taken from Plato’s
oral esoteric teachings.⁴⁴⁵
What matters here, however, is simply that Aristotle is comparing the Pytha-
goreans and Plato, in the terms of his own philosophy (aitíai, stoicheía), and
finding deep analogies in their ontological systems. In the lines immediately fol-
lowing, the analogy is summed up as follows:
As for the statement that the One is substance and not something different from what it
predicates, Plato is very close to the Pythagoreans and, like the Pythagoreans, considers
the numbers as the cause of the substance of other things.⁴⁴⁶
However, after affirming this analogy, Aristotle’s text immediately observes a

profound difference between the two doctrines:
However, it is peculiar to Plato that he placed, instead of the infinite understood as One, a
dyad, and the fact of having conceived the infinite as derived from large and small. Plato,
moreover, places the numbers outside the sensible things, while the Pythagoreans hold that
numbers are the very things and do not have the mathematical entities as intermediaries
between the latter and the former. Placing the One and the numbers outside of things, un-
like the Pythagoreans, and introducing forms, were the consequences of the research
444 Met. 987b 18 – 22.

445 It is not certainly possible and opportune to go into here on this vexata quaestio that
aroused so much controversy in recent years. The esoteric position is defended by the so-called
Tübingen-Milan School. See, for this, Krämer 1959, Gaiser 1963, Szlezák 1985 and Reale 1991. On
the other hand, with skeptical positions in different degrees, Cherniss 1945, Vlastos 1963 and
Isnardi Parente 1977. For a most recent review of the issue, see Trabattoni 1999 and 2005.
446 Met. 987b 22– 25.
founded on pure notions, which was a Plato characteristic, as his predecessors did not
know dialectics.⁴⁴⁷
The Platonic theory of principles stands apart from the Pythagorean tradition in
two ways: first, by “positing a dyad and constructing the infinite out of great and
small, instead of treating the infinite as one”, and second, because of Plato
“placing the numbers (arithmoí) outside the sensible things (parà tà aisthētá),
while those [the Pythagoreans] hold that the numbers are autà tà prágmata
and do not have the matematiká as intermediaries (metaxý) between the latter
and the former” (987b 25 – 29). This latter difference corresponds to what Aristo-
tle considers a typical Platonic error (Kahn 2001: 63). The second difference re-
flects the Platonic doctrine of chōrismós, that is, the separation of shapes/num-
bers from the sensible world, which Aristotle considers to have been a Platonic
error (Kahn 2001: 63) which arose within the Socratic dialectic, and was thus ab-
sent from Pythagorean philosophy.⁴⁴⁸
It is not worth further considering this second difference. As noted above
(4.1.1), Aristotle utilized Pythagoreanism as a foil for the Platonic doctrines he
wished to critique. This is expressed in such a definitive way in the categories
of his own philosophy, to the point of making it almost impossible to rescue
the original meaning of the Pythagorean doctrine of “all is number.” However,
this is not the deformation of some original Pythagorean doctrines, but, rather,
a translation of these into other terms. In fact, Aristotle’s own argument would
fail if he completely fabricated the difference between Pythagoreanism and Pla-
tonism (Centrone 1996: 109).⁴⁴⁹ On the other hand, the harsh criticisms of this
Aristotelian lectio by Academic authors like Syrianus and Proclus and the pseu-
do-epigraphical Platonizing tradition behind Theano’s text confirm that the Py-
thagorean tradition was external to the Platonic tradition. All these arguments
allow us to imagine that Aristotle’s testimony, although expressed in his own ter-
minology, reveals the pre-Socratic vision of Pythagorean numbers.⁴⁵⁰
447 Met. 987b 25 – 33.

448 See more recently Szlezák 2011: 126: “Surely we can believe in Aristotle when he says that
the chōrismós so characteristic of the Platonic theory of ideas, belongs also to the philosophy of
number, only to Plato and the Academy, and not to the Pythagoreans”.
449 Of the same opinion is Isnardi Parente 1977: 1034, who states: “naturalmente il giudizio
aristotelico, come di consueto, implica una sovrapposizione delle proprie categorie inter-
pretative a quelle del pensatore della critica, ma contiene anche un nucleo di attendibilità da
non trascurarsi”.
450 Says enthusiastically Burkert 1972: 32: “is treasure-trove for the historian: here we have a
piece of Pythagorean doctrine that was not subsumed into Platonism”.
162 4 Numbers
The first difference is in the way in which the One is conceived, or more pre-
cisely, the fact that Plato differed from the Pythagoreans in positing “instead of
the infinite understood as One, a dyad, and the fact of having conceived the in-
finite as derived from large and small.” Aristotle’s critique cannot be less blunt:
However, having placed a dyad as a nature opposed to the One had in view making it easily
derive from it, as from a matrix, all numbers except the first ones. However, the exact op-
posite occurred, because this doctrine is not reasonable.⁴⁵¹
But putting a dyad in place of hén ápeiron, of a Pythagorean “unlimited one”

(with the intention of deriving from it more easily all the other numbers), is even-
tually resulting in a doctrine “ou eulógos”, that is, a theory that is not valid from
an argumentative point of view.
Aristotle is alone in defining this difference. The doxographic tradition in-
stead claims that the Pythagoreans postulated both the One and the dyad, left
undefined, as principles of reality. Consider a famous fragment from Speusippus,
quoted by William of Moerbeke in his Latin translation of Proclus’ commentary
to Plato’s Parmenides. Proclus refers to the opinions of the ancients (tamquam
placentia antiquis) whereby:
They, considering that the one is superior to being and that from this derives being, freed it
from the condition of principle. On the other hand, whereas if anyone posits the one con-
sidered, in itself and alone without other things, without positing any other additional el-
ement, nothing would exist, so they introduced infinite duality as the principle of beings.⁴⁵²
The reference to antiqui cannot be understood, of course, as a reference to Plato,

who was almost contemporary. By elimination, the ancients will then be the Py-
thagoreans. These are called palaioí by Plato in a passage from the Philebus that
will be discussed shortly (Phlb. 16c).⁴⁵³
451 Met. 987b 33 – 988a 2.

452 Speusip. fr. 48 Tarán, orig.: “le unum enim melius ente putantes et a quo le ens, et ab ea
quae secundum principium habitudine ipsum liberaverunt, exstimantes autem quod, si quis le
unum ipsum seorsum et solum meditatum sine aliis secundum se ipsum ponat, nullurn alterum
elementum ipsi apponens, nihil utique fiet aliorum, interminabilem dualitatem entium princi-
pium induxerunt”.
453 Agreeing with this attribution Burkert 1972: 63, Huffman 1993: 23, Centrone 1996: 110 and
Kahn 2001: 64. Contrary to this attribution is Tarán himself (Speusippus 1981: 350 f.), which gives
the reference to the ancient to Proclus not to its Speusippus source, thereby reversing the
attribution of the passage for the Academics.
A testament to the strength of this Academic tradition is that even Theo-

phrastus, Aristotle’s immediate disciple, considered it true, and therefore strayed
away from the lectio he had received from his master:
Plato and the Pythagoreans make great the distance [between the real and the things of na-
ture], but consider that all those things want to imitate the real. And from the moment they
define a kind of opposition between the one and the indefinite dyad, on which ultimately
what is infinite and uncontrolled depends, and so to speak, all dysmorphía, it is absolutely
inconceivable to them that the nature of the whole exists without it [the indefinite dyad].⁴⁵⁴
Plato and the Pythagoreans are similar not only in separating the real ontologi-
cal element from the nature of things, but also for understanding that, without
the aóristos dyás, the world could not be generated. From this perspective, the
postulation of the indefinite dyad as one of the principles is absolutely necessa-
ry. We are, therefore, already in Academic ground.
However, the cited passage of Aristotle’s Metaphysics leaves no doubt that
this difference does really exist. Aristotle’s decision to attribute this doctrine
to Pythagoreanism as a whole, rather than to particular characters, suggests
that it is not a hápax legómena, but – as stated above (4.1.1) – a piece of a bigger
puzzle, which contributed to the very definition of the Pythagorean conception of
the principles of the world. Shortly before, in fact, Aristotle assigns to the Pytha-
goreans – in continuity with other Italics (Empedocles and Parmenides) and
Anaxagoras – a theory of the two principles:
The Pythagoreans likewise affirmed two principles, but added the following peculiarities:
they considered that the limited, the unlimited and the one were not attributes of other re-
alities (for instance, fire or earth or something else), but the very unlimited and the one
were the substance of the things that are not predicated, and therefore number was the
substance of all things.⁴⁵⁵
Here, the two Pythagorean principles are called peperasménon and ápeiron, that
is, limited and unlimited. However, Aristotle, with the phrase kaì tò hén, adds a
third principle, the one. How can we understand the fact that Aristotle announ-
ces two principles but ends up identifying three: “limited, unlimited and the
one”? The acknowledgment of this contradiction in Aristotle’s testimony
makes some authors exclude the expression kaì tò hén from the passage.⁴⁵⁶
454 Theophr. Met. 11a 27– 11b 6.

455 Met. 987a 13 – 19.
456 Among the most important manuscripts, only Ab maintains καὶ τὸ ἓν, while MS and E
exclude it (and with them Ross, see above). Burkert 1972: 36 n38 remembers that Alexander of
Aphrodisias, in his commentary (In Met. 47,11), reads the expression καὶ τὸ ἓν: something not
164 4 Numbers
With this exclusion, the one would be related in some way to the limited. In the
passage’s second mention of the two principles, the reference to limited is re-
placed by a reference to the one: the two principles are identified as the unlim-
ited and the one.
Since a Platonic would have considered the equation hén-péras to be abso-
lutely normal, Huffman 1993: 207 suggests that Aristotle is making a slide to-
wards Plato here, especially if this passage is compared with the passage from
Met. 987b 25 – 33. Aristotle tried to show there the analogy between the two Pla-
tonic principles (the one and the indefinite dyad) and the Pythagorean principles
(limited and unlimited). However, despite acknowledging that there is a differ-
ence between the two philosophies, for Plato considers the unlimited as a dual-
ity (big-small) and the Pythagoreans do not, Aristotle does not clearly explain
any difference between the Platonic one and the Pythagorean peperasménon.
This lack of explanation would explain the second version of the comparison
(987b 18): Aristotle, consciously or unconsciously, falls prey to the fallacy of
the Platonizing interpretation by identifying the one with the limited, whereas
in the first version (987b 16), Aristotle was more precise in his description of
the two principles as limited and unlimited.⁴⁵⁷
Despite the possible Platonizing slide, which shows how tempting the Pla-
tonic “derivation system” is, the first statement, that numbers themselves are
created from the principles, is still in compliance with all of the Aristotelian lec-
tio. As will be seen in the comparison with Philolaus, this interpretation must
correspond precisely to the thought of the Pythagoreans.
Confirmation of the idea that number is composed of both principles, limit-
ed and unlimited, appears clearly in the passage immediately preceding this dis-
cussion, in which the Pythagoreans
claim as constituents of the number, the odd and the even, from which the first is unlimited
and the second limited. The One stems from both elements, because it is even and odd at
the same time. From One there proceeds then number, and numbers, as we said, would
constitute the entire universe.⁴⁵⁸
obvious, because it is a Platonic author, and therefore an argument in favor of the authenticity of
καὶ τὸ ἓν. See for that Burkert 1972: 35 – 37, Centrone 1996: 111 and Huffman 1993: 206.
457 The possibility of an unconscious slip by Aristotle is an argument that actually would
methodologically require impossible verifications. And yet, it is suggested both by Burkert 1972:
36 and by Huffman 1993: 206.
458 Met. 986a 17– 21.
This derivation does indeed make the one to be both even and odd, and as such,
the principle of numbers. Here, the two principles are odd and even, while lim-
ited and unlimited appear to be only their attributes. Aristotle explains this cor-
relation between even and limited on one side, and odd and unlimited on the
other, in a difficult passage of the Physics (203a). The same idea reappears
also in his fragment 199 (Rose), probably taken from one of his books on the Py-
thagoreans, and finds a significant echo in the idea of artiopéritton, the “even-
odd” from fragment 5 by Philolaus, which we will soon consider.
The most significant difference that Aristotle perceives between the Pytha-
goreans and Plato is, however, still connected to the idea of chōrismós, as it ap-
pears in the central passage of Met. 987b 25 – 33, and makes him conclude that
for the Pythagoreans numbers are the things themselves. Of course, this state-
ment has cosmological importance. Indeed, in relation to the two issues we
are discussing, that is, both that of the identity between numbers and reality
as well as the generation of numbers from the principles of limited and unlim-
ited, Aristotle undertakes a description in cosmological terms (Burkert 1972:
31 ff.). This appears most clearly in the passage of the Physics where he deals
with the void:
Also the Pythagoreans affirmed the existence of the void, which enters the heavens by the
unlimited breath, as if heavens breathed, and that void borders the nature of things, as if
the void was something separate and bordered things in succession. And this happens pri-
marily in numbers, because the void demarcates its nature.⁴⁵⁹
Here, the unlimited is not only an ontological principle separate from reality, as
was the Platonic infinite dyad, but also something that is “inspired by the heav-
ens” to give rise to the multiplicity of beings. A page of the Metaphysics mirrors
the same ontological vision:
To be sure, they clearly state that once the One is formed – be it with plans, with colors,
with seeds, with hardly definable elements – immediately the part of the unlimited that
was closer to it began to be attracted and demarcated by limit.⁴⁶⁰
Timpanaro Cardini (Pitagorici, 1958 – 62 III: 154) notes that this could be Aristo-
tle’s description of a number of doctrines that were developed by ancient Pytha-
goreanism to explain how the one was formed. The plan would be a first, geo-
metric, hypothesis; chroiá, ‘color’, would correspond to a body’s surface, that
459 Phys. 313b 23 – 27.

460 Met. 1091a 15 – 18.
166 4 Numbers
is, its péras, which is not identifiable with the actual body.⁴⁶¹ A third hypothesis,
which postulated spérma, is reminiscent of fragment 13 of Philolaus (44 B 13 DK)
and its claim “all things sprout and grow because of the seed”.
The generation of the cosmos is thus described in embryological terms as the
birth of a living organism, in a way similar to early embryological theoriesin
which the generation of the embryo takes place through breathing.⁴⁶² The em-
bryological terminology and the premise of a macrocosm-microcosm correspond-
ence refer to a more ancient, in all likelihood pre-Socratic, origin of this doc-
trine.⁴⁶³
However, Aristotle complains about the differentiation between the numer-
ical and cosmological level in the doctrine of the “so-called Pythagoreans,” as
we saw, stating that the postulation of these principles explains neither the
movement nor the weight of bodies (Met. 990a 7– 13). There is one reason for
these aporias: “the principles that [the Pythagoreans] postulate and assume
refer to both mathematical bodies as to the sensible bodies” (Met. 990a 14–
16). By relating the principles to the sensible world, in fact, the Pythagoreans
lose the heuristic sense of these principles. Aristotle is, indeed, wondering:
How should one understand that the properties of number and number are causes of things
in the universe and the things in it are produced from the beginning until now, and on the
other hand, how to understand that there is no number other than the number which con-
sists the world?⁴⁶⁴
461 See for that Aristotle himself in De sensu (439a 30).

462 See for the citations, Burkert 1972: 37, Huffman 1993: 289 – 306 and Centrone 1996: 115.
463 Burkert 1972: 39 goes further and, in line with his presentation of Pythagoreanism between
lore and science, attributes this blend of numerical theory and cosmogony to a direct Orphic
influence: “Orphism and Pythagoreanism were almost inextricably intertwined in the fifth
century, so that it is understandable that, within the pre-Socratic domain, Pythagorean doctrine
developed as a transposed version of Orphic cosmogony”. This transposition has likely played a
role in the definition of this cosmologico-numerical theory. It is not hard to imagine, as does
Burkert, that this Pythagorean doctrine can be thought of as an exegesis of the Orphic cos-
mogonic myths, and even analogous to the exegesis represented by the Derveni papyrus. This
hypothesis would come up with fruitful conclusions if understood, for example, in the light of
what is said above in the third chapter, with respect to relations between Pythagoreanism and
Orphism on the theory of the soul. On the other hand, Kahn 1974: 172 rightly notes that a
cosmogonic attire to philosophy is typical of many pre-Socratics. Finally, Burkert’s hypothesis,
which has not been adopted by any other scholar, is difficult to prove and would need another
monograph devoted exclusively to it.
464 Met. 990a 18 – 22.
Obviously, it is not possible to answer these questions. For the differentiation be-
tween the numerical level and the cosmological one prevented the solution of
this problem in the terms of Pythagorean philosophy.⁴⁶⁵
4.1.5 The Platonic testimony (Phlb. 16c-23c)
An analysis of a central passage of the Philebus reveals that Aristotle was right to
highlight the influence Pythagorean theories had on Plato. The passage shows
the extent to which Plato regarded his effort to understand the first principles
as a continuation of Pythagoreanism, as Aristotle also later pointed out in
Met. 987b. At the same time, the Pythagorean tradition which Plato preserves
with some fidelity, is a starting point for his own theoretical projects, especially
his search for a solution to the problem of the unity and multiplicity of existing
things. It will be possible to conclude that the Platonization of Pythagoreanism is
not simply an Academic trend, but rather can be traced back to Plato himself.
It is therefore Burkert 1972: 85 who first discussed the importance of page 16c
of the Philebus for our understanding of the relationship between Pythagorean-
ism and Platonism. The passage introduces the subject of the dialectics of limited
and unlimited. Here, the search for the bigger question of pleasure is developed
in terms of the theme of the unity and multiplicity of the one and the many, a
concern which was shared by many pre-Socratic philosophers. The dramatic
character of this theme is underlined by the prologue: “There couldn’t be a
more beautiful way than this, which I have always loved, but that often ran
away and left me alone with no way out” (Phlb. 16b). The solution to the question
comes from afar, both in the physical sense and in the temporal sense: it is pre-
sented as a revelation, as a gift from the gods (dósis theôn) in 16c and as the dis-
covery of the ancients (hoi prósthen) in 17d. This is the discovery of the simulta-
neity of limiting/unlimited in things that are, and the harmonía between the two
as a principle of the metaphysical “functioning” of reality:
A gift from the gods to men, so it seems to me, from a divine place in heaven one day it was
thrown on earth, by some Prometheus, along with a blinding glare of fire and the ancients
(who were braver than us and lived closer to the gods) sent us this revelation, that is, that
resulting from the unity and multitude of things that be, the things that always be were said
465 Aristotle will solve the issue of lack of distinction between numbers and things within his
own philosophical system. In the context of the discussion of the meaning of time, as to resist
Platonic idealism which posits the existence of numbers separately from things, he will in-
troduce the distinction between numbered number and numbering number (Phys. 219b 6 – 7).
See for this also Rey Puente 2001: 49 and the latest one in 2010.
168 4 Numbers
and will be said “things that be,” they have in them, by nature, limit and unlimited
(Phlb. 16c-d).
It is apparently about a gift of epistemological significance, as immediately after

it is said to consist “in the way the gods point to us that one must learn and
teach each other” (Phlb. 16e). The scope of this observation will be revealed in
the commentary that will be soon made on Philolaus’s fragments.
Migliori 1993: 98 correctly points out that the double concept limiting-unlim-
ited serves as an ontological foundation for the double concept one-many, in the
sense that it is the action of limiting and unlimiting that enables reality to be one
and manifold. This is a strong statement about the reality of the things that
are.⁴⁶⁶
Plato’s methodology, and its deliberate use of dual principles, aims to draw
a contrast with a problematic, heuristic method. Certain “wise men of today” (hoi
dè nûn tôn anthrṓpōn sophoí, the syntactical construction of the expression
leaves no doubt about the irony of this) merely “place One at random, immedi-
ately passing to the infinite” (17a), and escaping contemporarily from the inter-
mediate realities (17a). Plato, on the other hand, carefully follows a “road”
(hodós, 16b) – the method of dialectic – which will correctly solve the problem
of the relation of the unity with the infinite, as well as permit a solution to
the greater problem of determining the place of pleasure in the good life.
Protarchus, who seems unable to even keep up with the improvised meta-
physical turn of the argument, “throws in the towel” (17a). However, Socrates re-
plies with two clarifying examples. The first, annoyingly didactic, is the sound
emitted by our mouth when pronouncing the letters of the alphabet.⁴⁶⁷ This
sound is at the same time one (mía) and infinite possibility (ápeiros aû plḗthei),
for whom utters it (17b). But understanding grammar does not consist in know-
ing the dual nature of a sound as an infinity and a unity, but rather consists in
knowing the quantities and qualities (pósa kaí opoîa) of sound in each syllable
and their relation in a sentence.⁴⁶⁸
466 There does not seem to be reason to doubt it, not even wanting to be too conservative in
relation to the expression “the things that we always say are things that be,” as Mazzarelli
(Platone, 1991) and Striker 1970, among others, want to be: in the context of the stability of
predication, the axis of the issue does not seem to be this one, but rather, on the contrary, the
correspondence of this stability of the being with things that be. See Migliori 1993: n96.
467 See, indeed, the resulting irritation of Protarchus with κύκλοι by which Socrates seems to
want to tangle – Sophistically – his interlocutors (Phlb. 19a).
468 The idea is, as yet, only hinted at inside the development of the argument in this page from
Philebus; it will be resumed and more fully developed below, along the same dialogue.
The second example chosen by Socrates is musical. He argues that knowing

three tones, one low, one high, and one intermediate, still does not make us mu-
sical experts:
But, my friend, when you have grasped the number of the intervals in respect to high and
low pitch, and the limits of the intervals, and all the combinations derived from them,
(which the men of former times discovered and handed down to us, their successors,
with the name of harmonies, and also when the said that even as regards to the movements
of the body, corresponding effects are verified, which as they are measured by numbers,
those men said they must be called rhythms and measures, and at the same time, they
said that we must also understand that every unity and multiplicity should be considered
in this way); thus, when you have also grasped those facts, you will then become a connois-
seur of music, and when you have obtained and understood, by analyzing it, any of the
unities, then you will become a deep and intelligent knower of the object of your analysis.
But the infinity of things, the infinite multiplicity that is present in each one of them, in any
and every case makes you unfit of thinking deeply and hinder that you be a distinguished
man, one whose value has been recognized, so long as you have never recognized in any-
thing any number
Therefore, the analysis of music requires careful knowledge of limits, intervals

and correlations between different sounds; this will be knowledge of the num-
bers that constitute the sounds.
The two examples draw on the way in which we can explain reality through
an appeal to the web of relationships that constitute the “infinite number of
things and the infinite number that is present in each one them” (Migliori
1993: 108). The discovery of this systematic explanation is attributed to Plato’s
predecessors (hoi prósthen).⁴⁶⁹ Significantly, the term systémata is used to indi-
cate systems of conjunctions of intervals which are also called harmonía: in Ar-
istoxenus, the latter term will come to mean musical scale (2.36).⁴⁷⁰
Plato’s text draws an analogy between the goodness of a life of many, mixed
goods and the ontological structure of reality as a mix of péras and ápeiron. What
matters most to us is Socrates’ reference in the summary (23c-d) to a divine rev-
elation of the dual nature of limited and unlimited:
SOCR. Let us take some of the subjects of our present discussion. PROT. What subjects?
SOCR. We said that God revealed, somehow, the presence of the unlimited and the limited
in things that be, did we not? PROT. Certainly. SOCR. We, therefore, assumed these two as
469 Pace Gaiser 1988: 84, both dialectics and the theory of principles are indicated, by the
Socratic statements in the Philebus, as having its origin among the ancients, and not as Platonic
creations.
470 See for this quote Huffman 1993: 162.
170 4 Numbers
two of our genres, and as a third one, that made by a certain combination of these first
two.⁴⁷¹
Leaving aside for a moment the introduction of a combined genre, consider the
assertion of a divine revelation. This insistent reference to a divine origin empha-
sizes the value that Plato gives to the theory of the limiting and the unlimited.
Socrates begins the dialogue by declaring his fear of the gods several times
(12c). On the other hand, the revelation should not be thought of as something
complete or definitive – to assume that revelations are absolutely true would
suggest a Platonic influence on the dogmatic readings of the Jewish-Christian-Is-
lamic matrix, that is, the so-called “religions of the Book.”⁴⁷² A revelation, on the
contrary, could be understood like something of noble origin which must be con-
tinued: as a commitment to follow through in the future with something given,
rather than being something static or dogmatic.⁴⁷³
However, the assertion of divine origin seems to be a direct reference to Py-
thagoreanism and, in particular, its founder Pythagoras, who is described “with
an air of divinity” in many ancient testimonies. Among them, the aforemen-
tioned (2.1) Aristotelian testimonium describes the secret Pythagorean classifica-
tion of living beings, “of living beings endowed with reason, one is god, the other
is man, the third has the nature of Pythagoras” (Iambl. VP: 31 = Arist. Fr. 192
Rose = 14 A 7 DK). This same is true of Aristoxenus, who “states that Pythagoras
derived the greater part of his ethical doctrines (ēthicà dógmata) from the priest-
ess Themistocle of Delphi” (fr.15 Wehrli = 14 A 3 DK). This latter fragment implies
that Prometheus represents Pythagoras and his tradition.⁴⁷⁴
There is further confirmation that a Pythagorean is Plato’s source for these
passages in the Philebus: in the passage quoted above from 17c-d, there is not
only a reference to the ancients, but also a clear statement of the Pythagorean
musical theory: according to these ancients, rhythms (rhythmoí) and measures
471 Phlb. 23c-d.

472 Although this first, strict interpretation of revelation, even within the religions of the book,
can be somewhat open to criticism, it is this interpretation which essentially lies at the base of
the dramatic explosions of the various fundamentalisms in our day.
473 Burkert 1972: 90 agrees with this: “For Plato’s affirmation of the divine origin of the doctrine
of Limit and Unlimited is more than a glittering sequin on the fabric of the exposition. It signifies
that its truth is beyond doubt; and Plato feels that this imposes on him the obligation to grasp
the truth of this idea and its all-encompassing significance. Such a divine revelation is not
something finished and complete, but a task to fulfill”.
474 As regards Pythagoras’s relation to Prometheus, Hackforth (Philebus, 1945: 21), Philip 1966:
38, Taylor 1968: 639, Burkert 1972: 85, Waterfield (Plato, 1982: 60), Casertano 1989: 92 and Gosling
1999: 55 agree to it.
(métra), that is, musical intervals, are measured by numbers (di’ arithmôn metrē-
thénta). Interestingly, the same reference is used by Plato in Rep. VII: 530d: the
Pythagoreans are said to affirm the brotherhood of astronomy with music: in
contrast with the imperfect and literally “by ear” approach taken by musicians
to understand musical harmony, who “put the ear before the mind”, Pythagor-
eans “act just like astronomers”: they study the numbers that result from the
chords to determine consonant intervals.⁴⁷⁵
These passages from the Philebus, central to the definition of the dialectics
of the limited and unlimited, reveal the Pythagorean roots of the Platonic theory
of the principles. This makes them a pre-Aristotelian testimony on Pythagorean
philosophy. These ancient, Pythagorean roots are recognized by Plato’s own
text, and then reinterpreted by the Academy, which, in a certain sense, continues
to mediate the Pythagorean dialectical-metaphysical effort.
Although the Pythagoreans are the source of the dialectical argument in the
Philebus, the final argument is the fruit of the Platonic philosophical outlook. In
the conclusive summary of the whole argument (see above, 23c), Plato introdu-
ces a third element besides the opposition of limited/unlimited: there is “a some-
what mixed, combined thing” (hén ti summisgómenon) that originates from both.
There is also a fourth element: the cause (aitía) of that mixture.
The argument is developed within the full scope of Plato’s theoretical philos-
ophy. Despite recognizing the theory of limited/unlimited as Pythagorean (we
might say, more precisely, Philolaic), Plato develops the argument in a novel
way. This modification of the Pythagorean view would not have been sanctioned
by Philolaus himself.
The application of Plato’s theoretical philosophy to ancient Pythagorean
doctrines corresponds to the first movement of what we have called the Platonic
mediation of Pythagoreanism. In the Philebus, Plato begins with the unlimited,
thought by the Pythagoreans to be a spatial and numerical plurality, and trans-
forms it into an indefinite quantity, opening the door to the theory of the forms
and its indefinite dyad.
The prologue of what should have been the Philolaus’ book (44 B 1 DK) also
refers to this doctrine of the limited and unlimited. Therefore, we will now move
to a discussion of Philolaus.
475 Interestingly, Glaucon’s response refers again to the world of the divine: Δαιμόνιον πράγμα!
– says Glaucon – would be the way up to the numbers as such (Rep. VII: 531c). Burnet 1908: 228
and Burkert 1972: 87 agree to recognize in οἱ πρόσθεν the Pythagoreans mentioned in the
Republic. Barbera 1981: 395 – 410 and Centrone 1993: 112 are more skeptical. However, even Frank
1923: 155 agrees with Burkert this time.
172 4 Numbers
4.2 The fragments of Philolaus
4.2.1 Unlimited/limiting
The proximity of Philolaus’ fragment 1 to the Philebus was already noticed in an-
tiquity: Damascius of Damascus, the last diádochos of the School of Athens,
spoke of “what is derived from the limited and the unlimited, as Plato says in
the Philebus and Philolaus in the books on nature” (De principiis I: 101, 3).
The previous sections have pointed to the complicated relationship between
the lectio of Aristotle and Philolaus’ testimonies. The subject of this chapter will
be an analysis of Philolaus’ fragments through the lens of Aristotle’s non-Platon-
ic testimony. Aristotle is used as a cornerstone for two reasons. First, his work
offers textual proof of the revisionist nature of the Academic reception of Pytha-
gorean mathematics. Second, his work contains unmistakable signs of a Pytha-
gorean theory of numbers dated back to the fifth century BC.
Let us return briefly to the question of the authenticity of Philolaus’ book.
Besides the already mentioned (4.1.3.2) skepticism of Bywater 1868: 21– 53, Bur-
net 1908: 279 – 284, Frank 1923: 263 – 335 and Lévy 1926: 70 ff., the proximity of
Philolaus’ fragments to Aristotle’s testimony has made more recent authors
such as Raven 1966: 98, Kahn 1974, and Barnes 1982, raise the hypothesis that
Philolaus’ fragments are a forgery based on the Aristotelian testimony. Although
it is technically possible to imagine that someone forged Philolaus’ book on the
basis of the Aristotelian testimony, such a procedure would be unprecedented
within the pseudo-epigraphy of Pythagoreanism, which usually aimed to Platon-
ize, rather than to Aristotelianize, Pythagorean concepts. To be sure, Burkert
1972: 238 ff., Huffman 1993: 23 and also more recently Kahn 2001: 23 agree that
at least the first seven fragments in the collection of Diels-Kranz (44 B 1– 7
DK) are authentic. Again, the sense in which Aristotle’s lectio represents an ex-
ception to the Academic line on Pythagoreanism suggests that the falsification
of the fragments would be unlikely. The opposite is much more likely to be
true – that is, that these fragments of Philolaus are authentic and were the sour-
ces of Aristotle.
Out of those seven fragments, fragments 1, 2, 3 and 6 are explicitly about the
issue of the limited and unlimited which we recently examined in the Philebus.
Thus begins Philolaus’ book:
4.2 The fragments of Philolaus 173
The work On Nature began with the following statement: nature in the ordering of the world
resulted from the agreement of unlimited and limiting things, and so the entire cosmos and
all things that are in it,⁴⁷⁶
Several textual signs confirm that this is an original fragment, from the title of
the work, Perì Phýseōs, to the presence of the particle dé. ⁴⁷⁷
Besides the work’s title, which could simply be conventional, the recurrence
of such terms as phýsis and kósmos puts the fragment within the century-old pre-
Socratic tradition. The book might operate as a synthesis of the pre-Socratic Mile-
sian cosmology of the unlimited and the Eleatic design of the perfection of being,
basically as a response in a dialogue between philosophers like Anaxagoras and
Parmenides.
However, the introduction of the concepts ápeira and peraínonta particularly
draws our attention here. In a search for the definition of a phýsis en tô kósmō, of
a rationality internal to nature, which we could take to be synonymous with the
pre-Socratic archḗ, Philolaus does not claim – as Aristotle’s testimony might lead
one to expect – that “all is number”, but rather that there is an “agreement of
unlimited and limiting things”.
There is a further terminological detail that deserves to be highlighted.⁴⁷⁸
Philolaus does not use the terms unlimited/limited, but, always only the plural:
ápeira and peraínonta. A more philologically faithful and philosophically fruitful
translation would be “unlimited and limiting things,” the latter being the present
participle of the verb peraínō. On the other hand, in both Plato’s Philebus and
Aristotle’s Metaphysics, the terms are thought and used in the singular: the
name péras for “limit” or the passive participle of the verb peraínō, peperasmé-
non for “limited”, and the neuter singular adjective ápeiron, preceded by the ar-
ticle (tò ápeiron), the “unlimited”, all of them singular. This distinction in quan-
tity indicates that Philolaus will not understand these principles as metaphysical
476 44 B 1 DK.
477 Boeckh 1819: 45 had suggested that the presence of δὲ at the beginning of the sentence
demonstrates this could not be the beginning of Philolaus’s book. δὲ suggests that there is
something that was said before, and for this reason could not be in the prologue to the book.
However, Burkert 1972: 252, followed by Huffman 1993: 95, argues that the presence of δὲ early in
a work was a common practice among authors of the fifth century BC (see Heraclitus, fr. 1 and
Ion, fr. 1), and it might refer to the title of the book. Contrary to Boeckh’s thesis, its presence
would be a good reason to consider this fragment as authentically pre-Socratic.
478 See for these observations, Burkert 1972: 253 ff. and Huffman 1993: 39.
174 4 Numbers
in the way they will be understood by Plato and then Aristotle (and it is for ex-
actly this reason they prefer to use the singular).⁴⁷⁹
This is confirmed by fragment 2 which, using the same terminology of the
“agreement” of “unlimited/limiting” of fragment 1, more clearly spells out
what should be the reach of this theory:
Of Philolaus, on the arrangement of the world: necessarily the things that be must be all or
unlimited or limiting, or unlimited or limiting at the same time; limiting only, however, or
only unlimited, they could not be, whereas they show clearly things are neither all limiting
nor all unlimited, of course, therefore, that from the agreement between limiting and un-
limited, resulted both the arrangement of the world and how things in it. It is shown by
the fact that things that derive from limiting things limit, and those derived from the limit-
ing and unlimited ones do or do not limit, and those who derive from unlimited ones seem
unlimited.⁴⁸⁰
Fragment 2 leaves no doubt that Philolaus’ limiting and unlimited things are at-
tributes of reality itself, not abstract principles which are separate from the
world. This is why the fragment describes the limiting/unlimited as “evident”,
that is, as manifest in the world. Philolaus insists on this four times, using
terms semantically related to a manifest appearance: a) phaínetai… eónta:
“show clearly the things they are”; b) dḗlon: “It is clear that from the agree-
ment…”; c) dêloi… en toîs érgois: “it is shown by the facts…”; d) phanéontai:
“seem [unlimited]”. Such a philosophy is far away from a Platonizing forgery.
The rhythm of fragment 2 is also signicant. The litany of limiting/unlimited
things closely resembles an incantation. This is certainly another sign of the
deep roots of the Philolaic text in the sphere of pre-Socratic philosophical pro-
duction.⁴⁸¹ The expression of ideas here is performative: it is as if the repetition
of the harmony between limiting and unlimited things itself echoes the sound of
that same harmony. The fragment, in a way, asks us to hear its own rhythms and
sounds, revealing a certain kind of world structure to be manifest in words. This
oracular style also inserts the Philolaic text into the Pythagorean (and generally
pre-Socratic) esoteric traditio, well described by Gemelli Marciano:
479 See, more generally, for Aristotle’s reception of the “principles” of the pre-Socratics,
especially Cherniss 1935: 374 ff., which considers the latter’s testimony “errors of interpretation
which influenced Aristotle’s general attitude toward the Presocratics and which continue to have
an effect on modern historians”.
480 44 B 2 DK.
481 Burkert 1972: 252 n67 cites Anaxagoras’ fr. 6 and Parmenides’ fr. 8 as examples of that same
style.
In the esoteric writings of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, the receiving of mýthoi and
of the lógoi is only expressed by the verb akoûein, ‘to listen’. That it is not simply the arti-
ficial reproduction of a situation of oral transmission, but an actual situation, is especially
evident when the word is explicitly defined as a physical entity that enters the body causing
mutations. The power of action and transformation exerted by the word in its physicality is,
on the other hand, the fundamental element of spells and magic formulas, as Gorgias wit-
nesses explicitly in his Encomium of Helen. ⁴⁸²
The plurality and naturalness (in the sense of them being attributes of phýsis un-
derstood as real nature) of the unlimited/limiting things are also confirmed by
the fact that Philolaus refuses to define or enumerate exactly what realities
are limiting and unlimited, that is, to give a list of limiting principles and unlim-
ited principles, such as water, fire, etc.
In fact, in the first part of fragment 6, he says the following:
On nature and harmony, things are like this: the being of things, which is eternal, and the
very nature require a divine knowledge, not human. Moreover, it would be impossible for
any of the things that be, were not known to us if there had not been as a groundwork the
being of realities that form the ordered world, that is, the limiting and unlimited ones.⁴⁸³
This is far from merely an example of the “epistemic modesty that is customary
in archaic thought”.⁴⁸⁴ Here the reference to the divine – analogously present in
the above mentioned pages of the Philebus – presents itself as an anti-Ionic
statement. The definition of the ultimate reality is so “beyond the capabilities
of human knowledge,” that it would be more appropriate to content oneself to
establish that all realities must have arisen in some way, out of the limiting
and unlimited, rather than to awkwardly imagine water or air to be archaí, as
the Ionians did. If anything is knowable, it is the physical world, the reality of
visible things. It is probably for this reason that Aristotle (Met. 989b) said that
Pythagorean philosophy offered a better explanation of physical entities, al-
482 Gemelli Marciano 2007b: 449 – 450, orig.: “In den esoterischen Texten von Heraklit, Par-
menides und Empedokles wird die Rezeption der Mýthoi und Lógoi ausschliesslich mit dem Verb
akoúein, hören, ausgedrückt. Dass es sich dabei nicht einfach nur um die gekünstelte Nach-
ahmung einer oralen Vermittlungssituation, sondern um ein reales Geschehen handelt, wird vor
allem an den Stellen deutlich, an denen das Wort explizit als physische Entität aufgefasst wird,
die in den Körper endringt und dort Änderungen hervorruft. Die mächtige Wirkung und Ver-
änderung, die das Wort qua seiner Körperlichkeit ausübt, ist im übrigen das grundlegende
Element aller magischen Formeln und Zauber, wie Gorgias im Helena-Enkomion ausdrücklich
erklärt”.
483 44 B 6, 1– 8 DK.
484 Kahn 1974: 173.
176 4 Numbers
though the principles developed by them lent themselves more to the super-sen-
sible level.
Fragment 6 contains echoes of the same concern that Plato seems to put into
Socrates’s mouth in the polemic about the “wise men of today” (Phlb. 17a). Those
wise men passed too quickly from the one to infinity, without considering the in-
termediate realities; this is precisely what the Pythagoreans did. It is exactly
what is in the middle that presents itself, for Plato, as decisive for understanding
the world. Philolaus’ fragment, “innocent of the later distinctions” (Huffman
1993: 52), of course does not concern itself with these issues, but is merely engag-
ing in a controversy with Anaximander and Anaxagoras and their indeterminate
archaí.
Philolaus’ limits on our knowledge of being puts him in accordance with
Parmenides. Such epistemic concern is also confirmed by fragment 3: “In no
way one could know something, if all things were unlimited” (44 B 3 DK). The
similarity to Eleatic philosophy is also evident in the use of the term estṑ, in frag-
ment 6, translated as “being”: the being of things (estṑ tôn pragmátōn) is aídios,
‘eternal’. As in Parmenides’ poem, Philolaus takes being to be unknowable with-
out divine revelation. It is necessary to resist the temptation to understand estṑ
from the point of view of the Aristotelian categories: it is incorrect to think that
limit or harmony is a formal cause which gives shape to the undifferentiated un-
limited, material cause. Rather, estṑ consists of both realities, the limiting and
unlimited, and the arguments of Philolaus are all internal to the pre-Socratic di-
alectic. This is most certainly another proof of the doctrine’s antiquity.⁴⁸⁵
The path of Philolaus is certainly unique, even within pre-Socratic philoso-
phy. On the one hand, he does not express a monist position, since being results
from a plurality of the unlimited and limited; on the other hand, the epistemo-
logical skepticism of fragment 6 is moderated by the possibility of knowing at
least two things: that everything in the world is made up of a plurality, and
this plurality is held together, tuned by the harmonía.
It is precisely the harmonía, the tuning (harmosthén) between the limiting
and unlimited, that helps explain the appearance of reality. The introduction
of this third element, harmony of the limiting and unlimited, makes Philolaus
start looking for examples of how things are “tuned”.⁴⁸⁶ First, fragment 7 sug-
485 Agreeing with this interpretation are Burkert 1972: 256 and Kahn 1974: 173. Huffman 1993:
130 ff. and Centrone 1996: 125 remember the fact that the identification of the ἐστὼ with the
Aristotelian material cause is one of the features of the Hellenistic pseudo-epigraphical litera-
ture.
486 Frank 1923: 304 ff. notes that precisely this need to provide proof of their arguments would
be an unequivocal signal that Philolaus’ fragments, were a hellenistic forgery. However, what
gests fire as an example: “the first tuned, the one in the middle of the sphere, is
called fire”.⁴⁸⁷ Fire seems to lend itself well to Philolaus’ explanatory intentions:
although fire is in principle unlimited, since it is at the center of the sphere, it is
simultaneously limited.⁴⁸⁸ It is possible that Philolaus’ reference to fire as the
center of the sphere may explain the Philebus’ use of a Promethean quote to in-
troduce Pythagorean theories of the limiting and unlimited. However, this may
simply be accidental conceptual assonance.⁴⁸⁹
However, the most interesting relation between Aristotle, the Philebus, and
Philolaus lies in their discussions of the musical scale. In the second part of frag-
ment 6, the musical scale is defined as a magnitude of agreement (harmonía mé-
gethos) in a Pythagorean diatonic scale (Timaeus 35b also assumes a Pythagor-
ean diatonic scale):
The magnitude of the agreement is formed by the intervals of the fourth and the fifth. The
fifth is greater than the fourth by a tone. In fact, from the highest chord/pitch to the string
in the middle there is a fourth, from the one at the middle to the last, there is a fifth. From
the last to the third, there is a fourth, and from the third to the higher, there is a fifth. The
interval between the one at the middle and the third is a tone (9:8), the fourth is expressed
by the epitrite ratio (4:3), and the fifth by the emiolium (3:2), and octave by the double (2:1).
Thus, the agreement (harmonic scale) consists of five tones and two minor semitones, the
fifth, three tones and a minor semitone, the fourth, two tones and a minor semitone.⁴⁹⁰
Here, the image of limiting and unlimited – as in music theory and the example
that Plato uses in the Philebus – is that of a musical string, continuous and un-
limited, in which specified intervals are defined and delimited.⁴⁹¹ Once again,
harmony, the agreement, should never be confused with the limiting factor itself:
the agreement works through the number, but the number and the agreement
are not replaced by the limiting.
It is not surprising to find cosmology and music joined in fragment 6. We
have already discussed an Aristotelian testimony which connects exactly these
two dimensions in a summary of the Pythagorean numerical theory: “They be-
will be said next about the methods of the archaí that Philolaus shares with authors from the
fifth century BC like Hippocrates of Chios and Herodotus, should suggest just the opposite.
487 44 B 7 DK, orig.: “τὸ πρᾶτον ἁρμοσθέν, τὸ ἕν, ἐν τῶι μέσωι τᾶς σφαίρας ἑστία καλεῖται”.
488 See other doxographic parallels in A 16 and A 17.
489 Other examples arise from the medical-anthropological range, as is the case of a significant
parallelism between fire and the heat of life (Huffman 1993: 45). The economy of these pages
makes it impossible for a detailed analysis of these references.
490 44 B 6, 16 – 24 DK.
491 For a detailed study of the relationship between Greek music theory and string instruments,
see Rocconi 2003, as well as a very recent study on Creese’s monochord (2010).
178 4 Numbers
lieved the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things and that all of
heaven is harmony and number” (Met. 986a 3).
Philolaus’ fragment’s notion of numbering the consonant intervals hints at
the central theme of this chapter, Pythagorean numbers. Although we have
not found any explicit reference so far to number in Philolaus’ fragments, frag-
ment 6 shows that the theme of numbers is also not entirely absent.
This brings us to our next question: what is the function of numbers within
the Philolaic system, and what is their relationship with the duo of limiting/un-
limited?
4.2.2 The role of numbers in Philolaus
Philolaus’ fragment 4 more precisely indicates the role of numbers in his philos-
ophy:
And, really, all things that are known have numbers. Thus it is not possible that something
is thought or known without them.⁴⁹²
Given that the Greeks understood arithmoí as an ordered plurality, the expression
arithmón échonti, “have number”, should be understood in the sense that reality
“consists” of an ordered plurality. “All things have number” means, in practice,
“all things are, basically, number” (Burkert 1972: 266 f.).⁴⁹³ The second part of the
fragment leaves no doubt what role should be assigned to numbers: their func-
tion is precisely epistemological: thanks to the fact that reality “has a number”,
it is liable to a numeric description and can be known.
Since Bywater 1868: 35, the epistemological argument in fragment 4 has
been considered obvious proof of the inauthenticity of the Philolaic fragments.
However, several scholars have recently called our attention to the fundamental-
ly epistemological interests in pre-Socratic philosophy, exemplified by Parme-
nides.⁴⁹⁴ Huffman 1993: 67 rightly notes that Philolaus’ numbers directly corre-
spond to Parmenides’ epistemological “signs” on the way to the nature of
being (28 B 8 DK): knowledge’s object must be unbegotten, eternal, etc. In
492 44 B 4 DK.
493 Again, therefore, one could confirm Aristotle’s statement that, to the Pythagoreans, the
numbers were the very things (αὐτὰ τὰ πράγματα), and not intermediaries (μεταξὺ), as according
to Plato.
494 See especially Mourelatos 1970 and Kahn 1969; and more recently Curd 1998 and Robbiano
2006.
short, something limited. However, as we saw above, Philolaus wants to escape

from the stillness of the Eleatic being. Identifying numbers with things seems the
best way to keep both plurality and the determination of being. The mathemat-
ical relationships expressed by the musical scale of fragment 6 are quite deter-
mined and can be found in reality. Although reality is in fact made of the harmo-
ny of limiting/unlimited things, rather than numbers, number can be considered
as a sign (in the manner of Parmenides) of the being of the things that are.
Fragment 5 uses the verb sēmaínō to describe how reality expresses num-
bers:
Number has two species of its own: odd and even, the third resulting from the mixture of
both is the even-odd. Of each of the two species many forms exist, of which each thing as
such gives signs.⁴⁹⁵
The three species of numbers, properly, do not correspond to reality, but to signs
emitted by reality in order that it may be known. Therefore, Philolaus does not
say that reality as such is a number (something Aristotle will say), but that it
is knowable through numbers. Reality itself is truly made up of limiting and un-
limited things, of which the numbers are signs. Herein is perhaps the greatest
originality of Philolaus’ thought: of the dual explanatory principles of limiting
and unlimited introduced like explanatory principles of reality, not like some-
thing real themselves. This is an epistemological rather than an ontological per-
spective, and far more than a simple “mixture of myth and physiology”.⁴⁹⁶
However, fragment 5 suggests that there may ultimately be a correspondence
between the ontological (limiting/unlimited) and epistemological (even-odd)
levels. In fact, the introduction of a third species, the artiopéritton, “even-
odd”, may correspond to the introduction of harmonía as joining the pair limit-
ing/unlimited. As we discussed above, Aristotle himself suggests this: “they af-
firm as constitutive elements of the number odd and even, the first of which is
unlimited and the second limited. The one is derived from both elements because
it is even and odd at the same time” (Met. 986a 17– 19). Aristotle explains more
precisely the meaning of this correspondence between even and limited and odd
and unlimited in the Physics (203a):
For them [the Pythagoreans], the unlimited is the even number. This, in fact, when inter-
cepted and limited by the odd, presents indeterminacy to the beings. A sign of this is
495 44 B 5 DK.
496 Burkert 1972: 350, orig.: “melánge of myth and physiología”.
180 4 Numbers
what happens to numbers, in fact, for if gnomon are placed around the one, the species (of
number) remains only one or, conversely, it is always different.⁴⁹⁷
The Aristotelian explanation can be easily understood by using the arithmetic of

the pséphoi of Eurytus, quoted above.⁴⁹⁸ The gnómon, a carpenter’s square used
to draw right angles, can be oriented around one or two dots. Each results in two
different series of numbers: evens and odds. The gnómon which circumscribes
the one will always intercept odd numbers, always resulting in square figures.
The gnómon that circumscribes even numbers, by contrast, will always draw rec-
tangles, that is, geometrical figures with always different sides, as shown below:
Although Aristotle complains again about the Pythagorean ambiguity between

numerical and cosmological concepts (see above Met. 990a 18 – 22), the testimo-
ny of Physics 203a ends up confirming the authenticity of a certain correspond-
ence in Philolaus between the unlimited/limiting principles and numbers. Also,
harmonía, cited by Philolaus in the second part of his fragment 6 on the numer-
ical ratios of musical scales, is assigned a magnitude (mégethos). In a way, it is
possible to imagine that Philolaus was thinking that harmony between limiting
and limited things is something that could itself be expressed numerically.
However, Philolaus’ fragment 5 does not authorize taking this correspond-
ence very far, because the reality sēmaínei, “gives signs” of the numbers by
which it can be counted and explained (“have number,” he says in fragment
4). Therefore, numbers are not identical to reality, cannot coincide with the un-
limited/limited principles that constitute reality.
It is true that the use of arithmogeometry by Philolaus is undeniable, as Ar-
istotle’s explanation (Phys. 203a) suggested. The very testimony A7a declares the
priority geometry over all other sciences: “geometry is the principle and the
motherland of the other sciences” (44 A 7a DK). Here, geometry is said to be
497 Phys. 203a = 56 B 28 DK.

498 Eurytus is considered by doxography a disciple of Philolaus (D. L. Vitae III. 6; VII. 46).
the archḗ of science, just as the motherland is the archḗ of her colonies: that is,
as cause and explanatory principle of their existence.
However, Philolaus’ interest in numbers is fundamentally based on their role
as explanatory principles of reality, within a new form of research that was
called the method of archaí: a kind of research methodology seeking sufficient
principles to explain phenomena in the world, and engaging historians and phi-
losophers, geometers and physicians alike, throughout the fifth century BC.⁴⁹⁹
A proof of all this is the aforementioned passage of the Anonymus Londinen-
sis (44 A 27 DK), which makes two apparently inconsistent claims. Philolaus first
says that the body “consists of heat”, an interesting parallel with the fragment
on the fire in the center of the sphere (44 B 7 DK). This indicates a connection
between cosmology and medicine, similar to the archaic macro-microcosmic
thought considered above in relation to embryology. However, in a second
stage, Philolaus calls archaí of the “emergence of diseases”, respectively,
“bile, blood and phlegm”. Huffman 1993: 289 states that this is a contradiction:
how can Philolaus indicate three different archaí for diseases, but early in the
same testimony, state that our bodies are made up of a single principle, heat?
Wouldn’t it be more consistent to assign the same principle (heat) to the origin
of diseases?
However, Philolaus’ argumentative procedure here is analogous to his argu-
ments about number. While heat is a sufficient principle to explain embryolog-
ically the emergence of the living being, to understand the origin of disease as
well, three further principles are necessary. In the same way, the fact that reality
is constituted by limiting and unlimited things does not mean that these can ex-
plain everything, because reality also has numbers, and with their series and re-
lationships, numbers are sufficient to explain many phenomena, including the
musical scales of fragment 6.
The use of numbers as epistemological rather than ontological explanatory
principles is Huffman’s strongest argument against Burkert’s interpretation of
Philolaus’ theory of numbers as a kind of mysticism.⁵⁰⁰ Burkert’s argument is
499 A previous study of mine details this method of the archaí and their references, see Cornelli
2003c. See also Burkert 1972: 420: “From about the middle of the fifth century, it is clear that
mathematics is a center of intellectual interest. Almost all the important thinkers are concerned
with mathematical questions”, and Huffman 1993: 78 – 92.
500 See what was said above (1.8) in relation to the use of the term arhythmology for indicating
more precisely the Pythagorean numerological tradition. For a comprehensive study of the
history of the tradition of arhythmology, see Robbins 1921. For a recent critical evaluation of the
relationship between Pythagorean arhythmology and the development of ancient Greek ma-
thematics, see Cambiano 1992.
182 4 Numbers
based in other fragments of Philolaus that engage in numerology. This is certain-

ly the case with fragment A14, which attributes geometric figures to certain dei-
ties, and which since Tannery 1899 has been associated with the first appearance
of astrology in Greece. A vestige of that numerology might be present in Aristo-
tle’s account of the association of certain numbers with properties and entities
such as justice, the soul or the intellect (Met. 985b 27– 32, see above). In the
same vein, Philolaus refers in fragment 20 to number seven as a “virgin” and
“motherless” number (44 B 20 DK).⁵⁰¹
These observations, in addition to the fact that Philolaus’ fragments show no
major discoveries or advances over the mathematical theories of his contempo-
raries, suggest that the use he makes of numbers is different. Huffman’s thesis
also incurs difficulties when applied to the scope of embryology and medicine
addressed by the Anonymus Londinensis, because Philolaus does not refer to
numbers to explain either subject. This is even more significant when you
look at the fact that the use of mathematics in the Hippocratic corpus itself is
quite attested, in particular with respect to the lenght of pregnancy and the dif-
ferent stages of diseases.⁵⁰² Somehow, it seems that “Philolaus’ program” (Huff-
man 1993: 74) in search of the numerical structure of reality was not actually car-
ried out, since the history of embryology and medicine seems to contain no ref-
erence to his particular brand of research.⁵⁰³
501 Although frankly intemperate, Kingsley’s critical review (1994) of Huffman’s book on Phi-
lolaus is dedicated to the question of Huffman’s excessively rapid dismiss of A14, and the
astrological reference therein, as a post-Platonic forgery. Huffman argues that this reference
would be an elaboration from Plato’s Timaeus. Kingsley responds that the influence of Baby-
lonian astrology on Greece in the fifth century BC has been widely proven and that, therefore,
this would be the origin of the thematic in Philolaus (and later in Plato). The absurdity of
Kingsley’s criticism is well summarized in the final sentence of the review: “Huffman presents a
picture of him [Philolaus] ultimately as false as any Philolaic forgery in antiquity” (Kingsley
1994: 296).
502 Lloyd 1989: 257 confirms: “Great importance is attached by many Hippocratic authors to the
study of numerical relationships in connection with the determination of periodicities, notably
in two types of context: (1) pregnancy and childbirth; and (2) the phases of diseases, especially
their ‘crises,’ the points at which exacerbations or remissions are to be expected”. Burkert 1972:
264 imagines, however, on the contrary, an influence of Philolaus – and more generally of the
Pythagorean concepts of harmony and number on the Hippocratic corpus: “we perceive in the
Hippocratic corpus reflections of Pythagorean doctrines, which were probably in written form;
and the most likely source is the book of Philolaus”.
503 Huffman’s arguments (1993: 75) that Philolaus, like a modern scientist, would be waiting for
a confirmation of the theory which would come from further evidence, but also that his search
would not force him to indicate a numerical structure “at all costs”, actually weakens Huffman’s
thesis and therefore the idea that there may be a Philolaic program. See in this regard Huffman
We must conclude that no definitive account can be given, due to our frag-
mentary information, on the role of the numbers in the work of Philolaus. And
for this reason, both the epistemological and the numerological theses could be
considered valid. However, we certainly disagree with Philip’s careless assess-
ment that even if the fragments of Philolaus were authentic “they would not en-
able us to solve our problems. For they reveal a thinker of no great stature, whose
interests are peripheral.”⁵⁰⁴
We should also briefly mention the historiographical theory that Philolaus’
philosophy of numbers was a response to the crisis of incommensurables or irra-
tionals.⁵⁰⁵ For example, Knorr 1975: 45 suggests that Philolaus hanged the theory
“everything is number” to the theory of the limiting/unlimited things to respond
to the recent discovery of the irrationals in geometry.⁵⁰⁶
The discovery would have generated a real “melodrama in Greek intellectual
history” (Burkert 1972: 455), since for a Pythagorean, modeling numbers in the
same manner as Eurytus’s pebbles, a diagonal inexpressible by numerical
units would be something simply outrageous. However, there is a serious chro-
nological difficulty with Knorr’s arguments: in the Phaedo, Simmias and Cebes
claim to have heard Philolaus in Thebes a few years before. Consequently, Phi-
lolaus must have been fully intellectually mature at the end of the fifth century
BC, which allows us to date his birth around 460 – 70, and make him possibly
still alive in Tarentum in the early fourth century. These chronological precisions
are critical to determine the relationship between Philolaus and Hippocrates of
Chios: Philolaus could not have written his book in response to the problem of
incommensurability, as the irrationals would be discovered by the latter only
around the year 430, a time when Philolaus – a contemporary of Socrates and
Hippocrates, and not younger than them – would have already reached maturity
and developed his own doctrine.
However, the arguments in this monograph demonstrate that the problem of
incommensurability, in the event that it had somehow reached Philolaus’
thought, should not in any way challenge his system, because he does not
have a proper theory of numbers as principles of reality, even if Aristotle had as-
signed such a theory to him. Rather, as suggested by Huffman 1988: 16, if Philo-
laus had known of the irrationals, he could easily make it an example for his
1993: 77: “his project was nonetheless to find the numbers in things where he could and not to
put them there at all costs”.
504 Philip 1966: 32.
505 I devoted a recent article to this question (Cornelli and Coelho 2007a), to which I refer for
further information regarding the reasons and the consequences of that crisis.
506 See also on the same theoretical line, the aforementioned Tannery 1887 b, in (1.7).
184 4 Numbers
thesis that everything is composed of limiting and unlimited things. In a right

triangle with an incommensurable hypotenuse, in the same figure, an unlimited
measure, the hypotenuse, is related with two perfectly limited measures, the two
other sides.⁵⁰⁷
Finally, whether or not Philolaus made any contributions to mathematics in
the fifth century BC is irrelevant. With good reason, Burkert notes that “the ques-
tion is not who invented mathematics, but who connected mathematics with phi-
losophy” first.⁵⁰⁸ The answer to this question is Philolaus (Huffman 993: 55). And
it is in such Pythagorean philosophy of the fifth century BC that Aristotle is al-
most exclusively interested.
What is certain is that the relationship between Philolaus and numbers is
significant, and the so-called Pythagoreans deserve the attention Aristotle
gives them. Given the arguments presented here, we can certainly consider Aris-
totle’s testimony to be a quote from Philolaus himself.
Exactly because Philolaus’ doctrine is “innocent of distinctions, such as that
between the intelligible and the sensible, which become important later”,⁵⁰⁹ that
is, it is an exception to the Platonizing system (Burkert 1972: 230), Philolaus’ doc-
trine of numbers coincides in several places with the Aristotelian testimony. For
these reasons, Philolaus’ doctrine is the solution we have been looking for to the
problem of attributing a doctrine of “all is number” to ancient Pythagoreanism,
in epistemological, ontological and numerological dimensions.
The rest of the Pythagorean doctrine of number, which is no small amount of
philosophy, is mainly a result of the Platonic reception and revision of such the-
ories.
4.3 Conclusion
This chapter has submitted Aristotle’s claim that the Pythagoreans believed that
“all is number” to critical review. Contemporary criticism is generally skeptical
507 See Huffman 1988: 16: “Viewed in this way, the case of the diagonal of the square (i. e. the
isosceles right triangle) becomes an excellent illustration of Philolaus’ central thesis about the
cosmos. That thesis said that all things are composed of two unlike elements, limiters and
unlimiteds, and that, since these elements are unlike each other, they must be held together by a
harmonia which supervenes on them. In the case of the isosceles right triangle what must
initially have caused wonderment was not only that the hypotenuse cannot be measured by any
measure no matter how small but that such a magnitude without measure (an unlimited) is
combined in the same figure with magnitudes that do have a measure, the sides (limiters)”.
508 Burkert 1972: 413.
509 Huffman 1993: 52– 53.
4.3 Conclusion 185
about this attribution; Frank and Cherniss argue that all of Pythagorean mathe-
matics was a result of an Academic revisionism.
However, the more recent trends in criticism focus on the reevaluation of the
authenticity of Philolaus’ fragments, which can be used to recover a genuinely
pre-Socratic Pythagorean theory of numbers.
Our analysis of the many ways that Aristotle states the thesis “all is number”
revealed, beyond merely semantic variations, a fundamental theoretical contra-
diction that Aristotle himself seems incapable of solving. Three different versions
of the doctrine are in fact present in the Aristotelian doxography: a) an identifi-
cation of numbers with the sensible objects; b) an identification of the principles
of numbers with the principles of things that are; c) an imitation of objects by
numbers. While versions a) and c) seem to identify numbers with the material
cause of reality, in terms (“imitation”) reminiscent of Plato, version b), numbers
as formal causes of reality, is an Aristotelian reconstruction of the Pythagorean
theory. Aristotle would have been pushed to such a reconstruction by the diffi-
culty he found in accepting the Pythagorean material notion of number, and by
considering it closer to its sensitivity, strongly marked by the reception of that
same theory in the Academic realm. In contrast, the Platonizing tradition treats
numbers as ontological principles. After having played a central role in defining
the Pythagorean theories of immortality (3.4.4), the Academic reception of the Py-
thagorean doctrines also affects how tradition has remembered their theory of
numbers. The Aristotelian summary of the Pythagorean theory of numbers re-
veals itself to be simultaneously a response to Plato, and also, therefore, depend-
ent on Plato’s commentary. Although it is clear that Aristotle deeply values the
fundamental insight of the Pythagoreans, that is, their attempt to understand
the nature of the numbers in relation to the nature of the world, the fact is
that his attempt at reconciliation, straddling both pre-Socratic sources and Pla-
tonizing mediation, seems less than successful.
Considering these difficulties, two approaches have been recently presented
to examine the validity of the doctrine “all is number”. On the one hand, Zhmud,
deepening Burnet’s already classic position, radically challenges the validity of
the Aristotelian testimony. He even denies that proto-Pythagoreanism included a
doctrine of number, pointing to a lack of references in pre-Socratic sources. The
conclusion of this skeptical thesis is that Aristotle himself invented “all is num-
ber” as a common denominator under which to unite a disparate group” He
needed a clear account of the “so-called Pythagoreans” so he could use them
as a foil for Plato. In reaction to this solution, Huffman, following a point in Bur-
kert, undertook a careful review of the pre-Socratic sources of Pythagoreanism
likely available to Aristotle, searched for possible independent references to
the Pythagorean doctrine of number. Aristotle’s testimony seems to be based
186 4 Numbers
on a written Pythagorean literature, and textual hints seem to identify Philolaus’

book as Aristotle’s primary source, and though this to the the Pythagorean move-
ment from the fifth century BC. However, even this solution presents a difficulty:
the works of Philolaus lack an explicit reference to that doctrine “all is number”.
The “Philolaic problem” is not yet a solution, but rather sets us back on the
hermeneutic saw between an Academic Platonization, on one side, and an Aris-
totelian reconstruction on the other. However, the inconsistency of the tradition
on the size of Philolaus’ literary output and the existence of the ample pseudo-
epigraphical Hellenistic literature suggest the need for a careful job of sifting
through Philolaus. Ultimately, the two questions depend on a fundamental char-
acteristic of the Pythagorean pseudo-epigraphical Hellenistic literature: it is in-
delibly tied to Pythagoras’ relation to Plato and the way this relationship was
manipulated in the various moments of the history of the intra-Academic polem-
ic debates between dogmatists and skeptics. On the other hand, within the Py-
thagorizing-Platonic reconstruction of the philosophy of the “ancients”, we
find no echoes of the fourth-century BC Aristotle’s description of Pythagorean-
ism. On the contrary, the value of his testimony is widely criticized by Platonic
tradition. However, it is exactly Aristotle’s status as an outsider to the Platonic
tradition that constitutes a real hermeneutic lever for the Philolaic question.
The proximity of the fragments attributed to Philolaus with the Aristotelian lectio
of the “so-called Pythagoreans”, the latter hopefully untainted by Academic in-
fluence, can become a sign of the authenticity of Philolaus’ fragments.
Aristotle, in fact, distinguishes Pythagoreanism and Platonism in two central
ways, both articulated in a famous page of the Metaphysics (987b). The first dif-
ference is in the ontological place attributed to numbers: for Plato, numbers are
separate from the sensibles, while the Pythagoreans hold that the numbers are
“the things themselves.” This is the doctrine of chorismós, separation, which Ar-
istotle takes to be a typical Platonic error: Aristotle’s intention to critique Platon-
ism could not be clearer. The difference between Aristotele’s testimony and the
revisionist Academic testimony suggests that we can discover the genuine pre-
Socratic vision of numbers in Aristotle’s views. A second difference between
Plato and the Pythagoreans is in the way the One is conceived: Plato has a “poor-
ly reasoned” doctrine, because he uses a dyad as the fundamental thing and
conceives the unlimited as derived from large and small, whereas the Pythagor-
eans take the unlimited and limiting to be the fundamental elements of the
world. Once more, Aristotle is alone in defining this difference, because the
later, Platonic doxographic tradition points out instead that the Pythagoreans
postulated both the One and the indefinite dyad as principles of reality.
The analysis of a passage from the Philebus confirmed the credibility of Ar-
istotle’s testimony: Plato himself, not just the Academy that followed him, had
4.3 Conclusion 187
already begun the Platonizing of Pythagoreanism. Plato probably viewed his

“second navigation” as a continuation of Pythagoreanism, and this necessitated
occasionally altering the original Pythagorean doctrines. Even if the page from
the Philebus proves to be a pre-Aristotelian testimony of the Pythagorean philos-
ophy, it is a starting point for Plato to pursue his own theoretical projects, espe-
cially in search of a solution to the problem of the unity and multiplicity of the
existing ones.
The same issue of the relationship between the unlimited and limited which
guides Philebus’ argument appears indeed in what should be the prologue of Phi-
lolaus’ book. Aristotle’s place as an exception to the Platonizing categorization
of ancient Pythagoreanism becomes central to the analysis of Philolaus’ frag-
ments. Aristotle’s testimony lets us discover the process of the formation of
the Academic reception of Pythagorean mathematics, as well as to have a
clear sign of a fifth-century BC Pythagorean theory of numbers. Philolaus’
own fragments show themselves to positioned within secular, pre-Socratic de-
bates. They seem to attempt a synthesis of the Milesian cosmology of the unlim-
ited and the Eleatic concept of the perfection of being. The authenticity of frag-
ment 2 is demonstrated by its lack of Platonic influence: limiting and unlimited
are still thought of, not as abstract principles and separate from the world, but as
attributes of reality itself. Philolaus, attempting to show the harmonía between
limiting and unlimited, significantly uses the Pythagorean diatonic musical
scale as an example. However, here we find our first hint of the theme of our
chapter: Philolaus’ fragment 6 suggests that these consonant intervals in a
scale are essentially numerable. Number certainly plays a role within the Philo-
laic system, although not as the ontological principle that Plato and Aristotle
wanted. Rather, the analysis of fragments 4 and 5 indicates that Philolaus valued
numbers for their epistemic roles, because reality can be known in virtue of its
propensity to be described in numerical terms. Numbers are thus signals emitted
by reality, and as such allow it to be known (fr. 5). However, this fragment also
suggests that there may be a correspondence between the ontological (limiting/
unlimited) and epistemological (even-odd) levels. The introduction of a third
type of number, “even-odd,” seems to correspond, in the argumentative order,
to the introduction of harmonía for the pair limiting/unlimited. Huffman rejects
the idea that numbers play a mystical role in Philolaus’ system, rather than an
epistemological one. Even if this is the case, we have enough evidence to con-
clude that Aristotle’s testimony about the “so-called Pythagoreans” coincides
in several places with Philolaus’ book. In short, Philolaus can be considered
the solution to our problem: ancient Pythagoreanism, or at least fifth-century Py-
thagoreanism, did hold the doctrine of “all is number”, whether in a mystical or
epistemological sense.
188 4 Numbers
As with the theories of immortality (see 3.8), Aristotle again provides the
most reliable testimony on ancient Pythagoreanism. This same testimony, con-
sidered in light of its probable source, Philolaus, allows one to detect the long
process of Platonic and Academic appropriations of Pythagorean mathematics.
The analysis of the tradition of the Pythagorean theory of numbers, from its
mystical to its epistemological moments, reveals once again the process of the
formation of the category of Pythagoreanism in its synchronic and diachronic di-
mensions. This process reveals significant discontinuities in the tradition: initial-
ly valid approaches, like a proto-Pythagorean numerical mysticism, are aban-
doned because they do not fit in with the general philosophical new context.
However, such interpretations are finally resumed with renewed enthusiasm in
later times when the conditions of philosophy change, remarkably in the Neopla-
tonic period. Thus, it is possible that Iamblichus’ mathematics are closer to the
mystique of proto-Pythagorean numbers than Philolaus’ mathematics.
However, the assumption that there is a clear division between a mysticism
of numbers and an epistemology of numbers during all stages of Pythagorean-
ism, even during the Philolaic stage, is itself the result of historiographical prej-
udices. It depends, ultimately, on a positivist view of the history of thought as a
steady progress from its very origins towards a barely related ideal of modern ra-
tionality, masterfully represented by Galileo and Descartes, and epitomized by
mathematical reasoning. A description of ancient Pythagoreanism from these
historiographical pre-comprehensions reveals itself to fail as a historical analy-
sis. It also ends up losing what is probably Pythagoreanisms’ most striking fea-
ture: that of a movement of life and thought that lasted for centuries, throughout
antiquity, and which succeeded in being identified as a single movement, de-
spite – or rather by virtue of – the polyphony of its differences and contradic-
tions.
Conclusion
There is no better way to conclude a historiographical work on Pythagoreanism
than to focus on a seemingly innocuous editorial detail, but one revealing itself
significant to the history of criticism of Pythagoreanism in the twentieth century.
Giangiulio introduces his edition of Pythagorean literature (Pitagora, 2000: XVI)
by reproducing an entire section of Burkert’s essential work on Pythagoreanism,
Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (1972: 208 – 217). However, he quite
significantly omits a passage from Rohde quoted in p. 217 of Burkert’s book.⁵¹⁰
The quote is as follows:
“Every age has its own ideal of Wisdom; and there came a time when the ideal of the Wise
Man, who by his own innate powers has achieved a commanding spiritual position and in-
sight, became embodied in the persons of certain great men who seemed to fulfill the high-
est conceptions of wisdom and power that were attributed to the ecstatic seer and priest of
purification (…) We cannot call them philosophers – not even the forerunners of Greek phi-
losophy. More often their point of view was one which the real philosophic impulse toward
self-determination and the freedom of the soul consciously and decisively rejected, and
continued to reject, though not indeed without occasional wavering and backsliding”. So
wrote Erwin Rohde (Psyche II, 90), in reference to figures like Epimenides and Abaris, with-
out including Pythagoras. But the most ancient evidence indicates that it is precisely in this
perspective that we must see Pythagoras.⁵¹¹
The omission is obviously deliberate and follows a widespread difficulty for con-
temporary criticism. We are used to simply repeating the script of the diadochaí
of characters and concepts formatted by Aristotelian doxography, but Rohde im-
plores us to seek to understand the emergence of this phenomenon within the
pragmatic context of ancient times.
The Dielsian collection of texts on pre-Socratic philosophy gives the illusion
that the succession of philosophical systems in history embodies a Hegelian
progress of thought. However, we have discovered that the existence of a Pytha-
gorean philosophical school is a retrospective illusion. For the most part, critics
have not yet come to realize this, and to try to understand pre-Socratic philoso-
phy as a whole, and particularly Pythagoreanism, through the very characteris-
tics of the permeable and fluid first steps of the construction of philosophy itself.
Laks’ conciliatory suggestion (2007: 233 – 235) is to understand the heterogeneity
of pre-Socratic philosophy as a “not wild, but rather reflexive diversity”, which is
510 See Giangiulio (Pitagora, 2000: XVI). The omission is not unreasonable from a formal
standpoint: the author warns (Pitagora, 2000: V) of the occurrence of “poche omissioni” in the
translation of that Burkert section.
511 The ellipses inside the quotation are the author’s own.
190 Conclusion
structured, in a Weberian way, by two types of “consistencies”: a logical one, ac-

cording to whom a new thesis implies the answer or explanation of an earlier
theory, and a practical one, which connects each subject with the specific con-
cerns of its author. The pages of this book have attempted to frankly discuss
the connections between the ideas and protagonists of proto-Pythagoreanism
and fifth-century Pythagoreanism in the context of the raising of early philoso-
phy. However, the image, admittedly somewhat anachronistic, of scholars debat-
ing amongst themselves, is still related to the first kind of logical consistency.
Hermeneutic progress would be possible only if we could also bring them
under the rubric of a practical consistency.⁵¹²
In fact, Pythagoreanism is heterogeneous in a way that is irreducible by this
disciplinary logic. While Laks 2007: 230 rightly states that “it is very common
place today to state that philosophy as a discipline does not exist before
Plato”, you cannot simply forget that the tradition sees Pythagoras as the inven-
tor of the terms philosophy and philosopher (D.L. Vitae I. 12 = Heraclid. fragment
87 Wehrli).⁵¹³ However, a focus on the Pythagorean tradition reveals that its unity
is of a fundamentally practical nature, that is, one of lifestyles, revealed and
heard doctrines, ethical and sapiential rituals.
The bottomless pit of research on the Pythagoreans – in Guthrie’s famous
words (1962: 146 n1) – proves to be a privileged locus for a review of commonly
used historiographical practices. Normal, limited historiography divides early
ancient philosophy into two phases: Ionic and Italic. We have discovered that
the difficulty of making Pythagorean philosophy fit within this rubric requires
revising our methodology. In the best modern scientific tradition, we have
been forced to rebuild our very methodology to understand its flaws.
In short, the history of Pythagorean criticism is a history of omissions.
Giangiulio’s editorial omission is the latest example of a secular process of
reception, whereby, as in a palimpsest, parts of Pythagorean philosophy have
been erased and rewritten from ever new perspectives (Riedweg 2002: 201).
The result, viewed from the standpoint of Pythagorean sources, has rightly fright-
ened many scholars since ancient times: a plethora of multifaceted images of Py-
512 Despite stating the criteria of practical consistency, Laks does not develop it as he does
logical consistency. The omission is still a symptom of the difficulty of the historiography of
ancient philosophy in facing its object outside the “presentist” schemes of tradition (see Laks
2007: 233).
513 Burkert 1960 first criticized the reliability of the testimony, which dates back to Heraclides
Ponticus. Also skeptical is Huffman 2008: 205 – 206. More confident in the tradition is Riedweg
2002: 156 – 164. Centrone 1996: 93 – 98, although skeptical, considers that, nevertheless, one can
qualify Pythagoras as a philosopher.
Conclusion 191
thagoreanism represent it now as a religious sect, then as a philosophical

school, and sometimes even as a political party or scientific community. Unfortu-
nately, the charity demanded by good scientific practice, having a generic “trust
based on the testimonies” as in the sincere wish expressed by Boyancé in his
speech in memoriam of Ferrero 1966: 31, is not enough to solve this problem.
In fact, many scholars, lost in the woods of the Quellenforschung of Pythagorean-
ism, eventually “gave in to an intuitive method and formulated hypotheses
based on mere likelihood” (Centrone 1996: 23) in despair,⁵¹⁴ thus only increasing
the confusion in the secondary literature to which Boeckh already made refer-
ence in 1819.
One of the latest examples of the lostness and fear that scholars seem to feel
is Graham’s in many ways excellent edition (2010) of a bilingual selection of pre-
Socratic literature. Pythagoras is relegated to an Appendix at the end of the sec-
ond and last volume, and so taken away from the normal Dielsian order of the
pre-Socratics. The reason for this editorial choice is that “of all the Presocratics,
Pythagoras is the most difficult to deal with (…). The early sources we have for
him do not tell us much of what we need to know, and the later sources are un-
reliable” (2010: 905). And Graham finishes by admitting that “Pythagoras re-
mains a riddle about whom only tentative reconstructions can be made”
(2010: 906). These are more likely problems which apply to all pre-Socratics,
and by no means sufficient reasons to put Pythagoras in the appendix of a his-
tory of pre-Socratic philosophy.
On the other hand, the attempt of these pages was to define a conscious
methodological course, which instead of trying to solve the complexity of the
phenomenon by choosing to fit it within a single particular image, set out to un-
derstand Pythagoreanism as a historiographical category. Following the previ-
ously outlined metaphor of the palimpsest, the thesis of these pages is that
the solution should not be sought mainly in an alleged original parchment,
but rather in the very process of the continuous superscription of it. We look
to understand the logic of its omissions, translations and reappropriations
throughout history. Our job is interpreting interpretations.
Far from considering the multifaceted image of Pythagoreanism simply as
the result of a series of accidents, we have tried to follow the path of the choices
which made up the tradition, pointing out, wherever possible, its underlying as-
sumptions and their consequences for interpretation. A few central themes, such
514 Orig.: “ad affidarsi a un metodo intuitivo e a formulare ipotesi basate sulla semplice ver-
osimiglianza”.
192 Conclusion
as metempsýchōsis and the theory of numbers, received such a treatment, as well

as the very route of defining Pythagoreanism as a category.
This requires moving beyond the modern assumption that we must choose
between an acousmatic and a mathematical Pythagoreanism, as we saw in the
first chapter. Although traces of the Pythagorean koinōnía are in fact acousmatic,
this fact alone does not explain the wide range of Pythagorean tradition, even in
pre-Socratic times. However, at first glance, our approach of dividing the themes
of metempsýchōsis (chapter three) and the theory of numbers (chapter four) into
two chapters might seem to hermeneutically reproduce the classic distinction be-
tween bíos and theōría. The first focuses on the myths and rites of the immortal-
ity of the soul, the second focuses on the science of numbers. However, this is
certainly not the case. On the contrary, the analysis developed above has
shown that in both themes so dear to the tradition of Pythagoreanism there ap-
pear lectiones both mystical and scientific, because on the one hand, the theory
of metempsýchōsis does not respond only to a soteriological mystique, but also
becomes an explanatory element of a reality that is irreducibly interconnected,
as well as being the foundation of epistemology in the practice of anámnēsis.
On the other hand, the theory of numbers does not match up only to an arithmo-
geometrical, ontological and cosmological reflection, but also serves a numero-
logical mystique widely attested by tradition.
That said, if Philolaus has a theory that the soul is harmony of material el-
ements, along with a theory of the immortality of the soul, and likewise uses
numbers not only as epistemological principles of his ontological system, but
also reveals his numerological meaning, this certainly raises the question wheth-
er the distinction between mysticism and science applies to ancient Pythagor-
eanism. The third and fourth chapters, linking the two dimensions, diachronic
and synchronic, of the categorization of Pythagoreanism, confirm this suspicion.
In its synchronic dimension, the categorization of Pythagoreanism intends to
separate mysticism and science, while its diachronic dimension shows how
the processes of omission and reduction of the multiplicity of the Pythagorean
doctrines are operating in reception by Academics, Peripatetics, Neoplatonists,
etc.
However, in its diachronic dimension, the historiographical category of Py-
thagoreanism resisted various reductionist attempts to be assimilated to a single
side of the dichotomy between bíos and theōría. These attempts go beyond dis-
tinction between acousmatics and mathematicians in proto-Pythagoreanism, and
are still present even after the mediation of the Academic tradition and its vul-
gata pitagorica. In imperial times, there is indeed a chasm between the “math-
ematician” Moderatus of Gades and the “acousmatic” Apollonius of Tyana. How-
ever, both are equally identified as Pythagoreans. This homología cannot be ex-
Conclusion 193
plained by a simple reference to a Pythagorean ideal way of life, because this

ideal must necessarily include a set of doctrines which identified it, even if
this set was never a canon and always was hidden by the convenient presence
of secrecy and oral traditions, as a strategy to guarantee that different readings
remains conveniently present.⁵¹⁵
The controversy over the end of Pythagoreanism in the Hellenistic age also
belongs to this problem. The question alone deserves a new monograph. It is
mentioned here simply as an illustration of the attempts to insert some evolu-
tionary logic into the history of Pythagoreanism which tradition nonetheless re-
sists. It is common among today’s scholars in the wake of Burkert 1961: 232 to
postulate a reflourishing of Pythagoreanism in the last years of the first century
BC, after its extinction in 360 BC, the year Aristoxenus claims he had known the
last Pythagorean (fragment 14 Wehrli). The revival of Pythagoreanism is wit-
nessed by Cicero, in his introduction to the translation of the Timaeus: his friend
Nigidius Figulus is claimed to have revived (renovaret) Pythagoreanism (Cicero,
Timaeus 1.1). The two phases of Pythagoreanism were separated not only in
time but also, according to Burkert 1982 himself, the two movements were
quite heterogeneous anyway.⁵¹⁶
However, the postulation of a separation between an ancient Pythagorean-
ism and a Neopythagoreanism incurs some difficulties. First, it requires us to for-
get the continuity, at least literary and cultural, represented by the pseudo-epi-
graphical Hellenistic literature, which fills the alleged three century gap. In ad-
dition, it is not clear what value should be given to the testimonies of Aristoxe-
nus and Cicero if one treats Neopythagoreanism as a new phenomenon.⁵¹⁷
On the other hand, the advantages of this separation for the historiography
of Pythagoreanism are incomparable. Notably, by allowing one to push the
acousmatic features of Pythagorean philosophy to a later time, one can maintain
the canonized image of an Ionian enlightenment and of an ancient Italic philos-
ophy. This certainly motivates Dodds 1951, when he states that:
Many students of the subject have seen in the first century B. C. the decisive period of Welt-
wende, the period when the tide of rationalism, which for the past hundred years had flow-
ed ever more sluggishly, has finally expanded its force and begins to retreat. There is no
doubt that all the philosophical schools save the Epicurean took a new direction at this
time. […] Equally significant is the revival, after two centuries of apparent abeyance, of Py-
515 This has to do most likely with symbolic doctrines (τὸν τῆς διδασκαλίας τρόπον συμβολικὸν)
– in the terminology used by Iamblichus (VP: 20) – represented by the memory of the akoús-
mata.
516 Against Burkert, see both Dörrie 1963: 269 and Kingsley 1995: 320 ff.
517 See for that Kingsley’s arguments (1955: 323 – 324).
194 Conclusion
thagoreanism, not as a formal teaching school, but as a cult and as a way of life. It relied
frankly on authority, not on logic: Pythagoras was presented as an inspired Sage […].⁵¹⁸
However, these same characteristics which Dodds attributes to Neopythagorean-

ism – being a bíos, rather than the doctrine of a school, cultivating a principle of
authority, and even presenting Pythagoras as a divine man – all could equally
apply to proto-Pythagoreanism.
The historiographical bias that outlines the path of this hermeneutic separa-
tion is the assumption of a several-century decay of the rational impulse of clas-
sical philosophy. One can even find this assumption in an author such as Festu-
gière, a frequent visitor of ancient mystical literature. His judgments on Neopy-
thagoreanism, which do not hide his sense of outrage and personal condemna-
tion, regard it as a perversion or degradation of a pure classical theoretical sci-
ence, as a result of the relaxation of contemporary morals (Festugière 1932: 74–
77).
Beyond the arguments that cast doubt on the historical motivations of sep-
arating proto-Pythagoreanism and Neopythagoreanism, there is also evidence of
the proto-Pythagorean origin of practices and doctrines that critics regarded as
“impure” philosophy and tried to push onto late Pythagoreanism. The continuity
is in fact greater than one would normally admit. Since the beginning of the Py-
thagorean tradition, bíos and theōría have remained fundamentally inseparable.
The picture that emerges from the analysis of the category of Pythagorean-
ism throughout the history of tradition is that of a great, homogeneous philo-
sophical tradition that wanted to understand human beings, heaven, history,
and politics, through concepts such as harmony, number, justice etc. And yet,
because this image of Pythagoreanism may seem fascinating and has won sup-
porters throughout Western history, it is itself a result of a categorization, which
is designed to meet the interests of those who tell the story in this way. The Pla-
tonic vulgata is the source of many “Pythagorean” traditions, and is the funda-
mental historiographical axis of this reconstruction, as the examples of the the-
ories of the immortality of the soul and of the doctrine of numbers have quite
demonstrated. The systematization of Pythagoreanism in the Neoplatonic Lives
has played a central role in the influence of Platonizing readings of Pythagorean-
ism.
Despite the difficulties we face in identifying how much of ancient Pythagor-
eanism is really left after such an Academic appropriation, one cannot deny that
the Platonic vulgata has contributed positively to the immortalization of Pytha-
518 Dodds, 1951: 247.

Conclusion 195
goreanism as “the philosophy”, allowing the “so-called Pythagorean” collection

of styles and doctrines to win the sympathy, if not even the unconditional em-
brace, of so many diverse characters throughout history, from the Renaissance
men Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola to the precursors of modern sci-
ence, Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo.⁵¹⁹
Often, the historical success of Pythagoreanism is used to retroactively justify
the value of a tradition that in itself is hopelessly contaminated by suspicious
elements unacceptable to the eye of the modern scientist. With a barely con-
cealed relief, part of the contemporary critique recognizes that, in spite of all
this, Pythagoras’ positive influence on modern science provides the turbulent
history of Pythagoreanism with a “happy ending” (Kahn 2001: X).⁵²⁰
However, it is not a given that the history of Pythagoreanism needs such a
scientific happy ending. Instead, the pages of this book intend to show that
this method of selective collection within the traditions on Pythagoreanism is his-
torically incorrect and philosophically futile. Burkert, in his turn, pointed out
this same problem in relation to the way that Pythagoras’ own equivocations
mirror the entire historiographical category of Pythagoreanism:
Often a simple “not only-but also” has seemed enough; he was not only a “medicine man”
but also a thinker. But may not even a “shaman” perhaps accomplish intellectual feats,
without necessarily clothing them in strictly rational or conceptual form?⁵²¹
Once again, therefore, it is the awareness of the equivocality of categories such

as philosophy, religion and science – the latter often used in its broadest positivist
description to describe primitive philosophy – which demonstrate the methodo-
519 Copernicus explicitly acknowledges the Pythagorean influence on the theory of mobility of
the earth in the Preface of his De revolutionibus: Pythagoreorum & quorundam aliorum sequi
exemplum. Such influence is also mentioned in the Edict of the Sacred Congregation of the Index
(dated March 5, 1616), quoted by Galileo at the beginning of his Dialogo sopra i due massimi
sistemi del mondo tolemaico e copernicano: “Si promulgò a gli anni passati in Roma un salutifero
editto, che, per ovviare a’ pericolosi scandoli dell’età presente, imponeva opportuno silenzio
all’opinione Pittagorica della mobilità della Terra”. For his part, Kepler is called “Pythagoras
redivivus” by Riedweg 2002: 206, for his attempts to demonstrate the essential harmony of the
world in a Christian-Pythagorean perspective, and by regarding himself, intellectually, as a
Pythagorean, the very reincarnation of Pythagoras.
520 Thus, Kahn 2001: X: “[Pythagorean] tradition includes so many elements of wild, almost
superstitious speculation, for example, in numerology, that it is sometimes difficult to remember
that there is also a solid basis for numerical harmonics. So Copernicus and Kepler, with their
fundamental contributions to modern science and to the modern world view, may be regarded as
providing the Pythagorean story with a happy ending”.
521 Burkert 1972: 209.
196 Conclusion
logical need to overcome an overly presentist view of ancient philosophy which

seeks only to reduce the past to a general proof of the present.
Although a somewhat fuzzy image of Pythagoreanism results from this his-
toriographical course, this image should be preferred to the many attempts to
clarify Pythagoreanism’s multifaceted complexity by narrowing it into a category
that will inevitably be hopelessly inadequate. Here, we find an echo of Wittgen-
stein’s words on language games:
One might say that the concept “game” is a concept with blurred edges. “But is a blurred
concept a concept at all?” – Is an indistinct photograph a picture of a person at all? Is it
even always an advantage to replace an indistinct picture by a sharp one? Isn’t the indis-
tinct one often exactly what we need?⁵²²
This work is thus the result of a conscious choice, announced from the begin-
ning, to avoid proposing yet another interpretation of Pythagoreanism; these
pages, on the contrary, seek to address the very historiographical issue that un-
derlies the various hermeneutical solutions of the “Pythagorean question” and
which, somehow, continually reinvent it.
A study of Pythagoreanism “takes the risk of being either useless or insuffi-
cient, such is the amount of literature, so complex the problem is,” as Maria Tim-
panaro Cardini lucidly noted.⁵²³ If these pages were also forced to choose be-
tween these two fates, they would certainly prefer to believe they have escaped
the former, but to have inevitably fallen into the latter.
522 Wittgenstein 1958: 71.

523 Timpanaro Cardini (Pitagorici, 1958 I: 3), orig.: “rischia di essere o inutile o insufficiente:
tanta è la mole della letteratura, tanto complesso è il problema”.
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Index of Topics
Academy, First (cf. also Middle Academy) Body (cf. also Sôma) 67, 70, 87 – 88, 93,
29, 41, 43, 53, 120, 126, 142, 156, 161, 108 – 116, 118, 121, 125, 129 – 134, 144,
171 153 – 154, 165 – 166, 169, 175, 181
Adrastea, law of 106 – 107 Breathing (cf. also Air; Atmosphere) 153,
Air (cf. also Atmosphere; Breathing) 88, 92, 166
121, 128, 130, 153, 170, 175
Akoúsma; Akoúsmata; Acousmatics; 3, 14, Chorismós 161, 165, 186
17 – 18, 41, 57, 61 – 62, 72, 78 – 83, 85, Corinth 68
114, 192 – 193 Corpus Hermeticum 30
Alchemy 47 Cosmology 21, 34, 45, 86, 141, 173, 177, 181,
Alimentation (cf. also Meat; Vegetarianism) 187
36, 70 Creophiles 44
Anamnesis Anamnésis (cf. also Memory; Croton 15, 23 – 24, 26, 31, 33, 57, 63, 67,
Mnemê; Mnemosyne) 38, 42, 46, 102, 74 – 75, 79, 90, 126, 138, 153
106, 119 – 121, 127, 135, 192 Cult 41, 61, 63, 67, 77, 112, 120, 124, 126,
Animal; Animals 44 – 45, 67, 70 – 71, 91 – 92, 194
106, 125, 132 – 133 Cure; Heal (cf. also Medicine) 48 – 49, 73,
Ápeira; Apeíron (Unlimited; cf. also Limitati- 97, 106
on; Limit; Peiránonta; Peperasménon; Cycle(s) (cf. also Kýklos) 18, 87 – 88, 107
Péras) 162 – 163, 168 – 169, 173 Cyrene 41, 66
Aporía 61, 84, 166
Apostates; Apostasy 35, 63, 69, 85 Daímon 44, 93, 110
Archaeology, Archaeological(s) 5, 23, 30, 45, Delphi 78, 114, 170
47, 50, 53 – 54, 76, 101 Desmotérion (cf. also Sêma) 115
Archaí; Archḗ (cf. also Beginning, Origins, Dialectic (method) 157, 161, 167 – 169, 171,
Principles) 20, 92, 140, 142, 148 – 149, 176
173, 175 – 177, 181 Didaskaleion (cf. also School) 63
Arithmetic (cf. also Arithmos; Arithmology; Dionysism: dionysiac, dyonisian 46, 112,
Number) 60, 152, 180 144
Arithmology (cf. also Arithmos; Arithmetic; Dokimasía 64, 69
Number) 41 Dorian, Doric 12, 15, 24, 33, 110, 117, 155,
Arithmos (Number; cf. also Arithmetic; Arith- 157
mology) 142, 147 Dyad, indefinite [or undetermined] (cf. also
Artiopéritton (cf. also Contrary; Opposites) Dýas, aoristós) 163 – 164, 171, 186
165, 179 Dýas, aoristós (cf. also Dyad indefinite [or un-
Astrology 182 determined]) 163
Athens 29, 122, 152, 172
Atomism; Atom(s) 20, 35, 92, 118, 127 – 129, Education 12, 59, 151
141 – 142 Egypt: Egyptian(s) 121 – 123, 133
Elea; Eleatics; Eleatic; Eleaticism 20 – 21,
Bíos (cf. also Life) 3, 18, 48, 51, 56, 58 – 60, 34 – 35, 50, 56 – 57, 173, 176, 179, 187
63 – 64, 66, 69, 76 – 77, 82, 85, 94, 101, Elements (cf. also Stoichéia) 67, 92 – 93,
148, 192, 194 108, 139, 160, 162, 164 – 165, 171, 176,
178 – 179, 184, 186, 192
Index of Topics 215
Eleutherna, plates of 46, 120 5 – 6, 45 – 46, 86 – 88, 90 – 100, 102 –

Entelécheia 131 – 132 103, 106, 108, 110 – 112, 116 – 119, 121 –
Entities (mathematical) (cf. also Mathema- 125, 128, 134 – 135, 137, 143, 185, 188,
tiká) 160 192, 194
Epiméleia 97 Incommensurability, doctrine of 71, 183
Er, myth of 130, 133 Infinite (cf. also Unlimited) 160 – 163, 165,
Esoteric (doctrines); Esoteric (teachings) 62, 168 – 169
72 – 73, 100, 160, 174 – 175 Ionian; Ionian(s) 12, 21 – 22, 34, 41, 55, 84,
Essenes 45, 70 88, 96, 124, 175, 193
Éthos; Ethics 12, 18, 45 – 46, 48, 65, 68 – 69, Isonomy; Isonomía 127
76, 78, 87, 90, 94, 108, 115, 118 – 119, Italy; Italic; Italics 117, 122 – 123, 159, 163,
127, 135, 170, 190 190, 193
Etymology 88, 112, 114 – 115, 117, 135, 144
Kabbalah 30
Fire (central) 11, 98, 137, 143, 148 – 149, 163, Katábasis 74, 124
167, 175, 177, 181 Kathársis (cf. also Purification) 17 – 18, 42
Fire (cf. also Central Fire) 11, 137 Kýklos (cf. also Cycle) 87
Koinōnía 3, 13, 17, 24, 26, 46, 59, 61 – 63,
Genealogy, Genealogical (a) 4, 30, 32, 81, 65 – 67, 69, 71, 73 – 77, 81, 85, 103, 118 –
84, 97, 125, 156 119, 192
Geometry 29, 60, 77 – 78, 180, 183 Kopídes 15
Gnomon(s) 180 Kósmos 14, 173
Goods, communion or sharing of 65, 75, 85, Krásis 130
133, 169
Greece 29, 39, 41, 49, 70, 77, 86 – 87, 96, Lectio 8, 13, 15, 17, 37 – 39, 47, 55, 93, 105,
121, 124, 182 115, 140, 151, 156, 158 – 159, 161, 163 –
Guilt 117 164, 172, 186
Life (cf. also Bíos) 2 – 4, 7, 11, 13, 15 – 17, 21,
Hades 46, 74, 87, 104, 108, 112, 120, 125, 25, 28 – 30, 42, 46, 48, 57 – 61, 63 – 67,
127 69 – 71, 77 – 78, 80 – 85, 88, 92, 95,
Harmony (cf. also Measure; Métron; Isonomy; 105 – 106, 108 – 109, 111 – 115, 118 – 119,
Proportion) 11, 78, 93, 98 – 110, 119, 125, 127, 130 – 131, 136, 148, 156, 168 –
137, 139, 171, 174 – 180, 182, 192, 194 – 169, 177, 188, 193 – 194
195 Limiting; Limit (Peiránonta; Péras; cf. also
Hellenism, Hellenistic 1, 15, 33, 45, 48, 57, Ápeira; Apeíron; Unlimited; Peperasmé-
59, 70, 72, 75, 154 – 155, 157, 176, 186, non) 37, 74, 87, 141, 149, 167 – 170,
193 172 – 181, 183 – 184, 186 – 187
Hetairía 61 – 62, 77, 84 Locri (Locrus) 76, 152
Heuristic (method) 166, 168 Lógoi 31 – 33, 54, 67, 102 – 103, 175
Hippocratic, medicine (cf. Medicine) 144
Homoiómata 41, 144 Magna Graecia (cf. also Italy) 12, 23 – 26,
30, 35, 47, 54, 63, 75 – 76, 107, 117, 119 –
Ídion 59 121, 156
Imitation (cf. also Mímesis) 67, 106, 141, Magnitude (cf. also Mégethos) 177, 180, 184
143 – 146, 185 Mareotis 70
Immortality (cf. also Soul; Metempsychosis; Mathematicians, Mathematikós 17, 41, 72,
Palingenesis; Psyché; Transmigration) 77 – 83, 85, 98, 192
216 Index of Topics
Mathematics 1, 5 – 6, 12, 25, 39 – 42, 61, 79, 40 – 41, 43, 54 – 56, 58 – 59, 63, 128,
82, 85 – 86, 105, 133, 137 – 140, 156, 159, 132, 137 – 188, 192, 194
172, 181 – 182, 184 – 185, 187 – 188 Numerology 41, 182, 195
Mathematiká (cf. also mathematicians) 17,
41, 72, 77 – 83, 85, 98, 192 Omakoeîon 75, 77
Measure (s) (Métra, Métron, cf. also Harmony, Opposites (cf. also Artiopéritton, Contrary)
Isonomia, Proportion) 127, 169 – 171, 93, 98, 105, 143
184 Oracles, Chaldean Oracles 30, 97
Meat, Abstinence of (cf. also Vegetarianism) Oriental, Easter, Orientalizing 9, 11,30, 39,
18, 71 45, 47, 51, 96
Medicine (cf. also Cure, Healing) 92, 105, Orphic, Orphism 5, 45 – 46, 50, 54, 87, 95 –
144, 181 – 182, 195 101, 103 – 117, 119, 122, 132, 134 – 135,
Mégethos 177, 180 144, 166
Memory, Mnemê, Mnemosýne (cf. also Anam-
nesis, Anamnésis) 46, 97, 119 – 121, Paidéia 60
125, 135, 154, 193 Paideutikón, Politikón, Physikón 15
Metapontum 57, 74, 79, 126 Palingenesis (cf. also Soul, Immortality, Me-
Metempsychosis, Metempsychósis (cf. also tempsychosis, Psyché, Transmigration)
Soul, Immortality, Palingenesis, Psyché 88, 97, 99, 103, 125, 134 – 135,
Transmigration) 5, 29, 38, 45, 70 – 71, Papyrus(s) 45 – 47, 101, 104 – 105, 113, 135,
85 – 100, 102 – 104, 106 – 108, 110 – 112, 153, 166
114, 116 – 126, 128 – 136, 192 Participation (cf. also Méthexis) 140 – 141,
Méthexis (cf. also Participation) 143 – 144, 143, 160
159 Pelinna, plate of 46, 115
Métra, Métron (Measure, Proportion, cf. also Pentagram (s) 33, 67
Harmony, Isonomia) 127, 171 Peperasménon (Delimited, cf. also Apeíron,
Middle Academy (cf. also Academy) 156 Limiting, Limit, Unlimited, Peiránonta,
Middle Comedy (Attic) 14, 71, 74 Péras) 163 – 164, 173
Mimesis (cf. also Imitation) 143 – 146, 159 Péras (Limit, cf. also Apeíron, Unlimited, Limi-
Mirabilia (cf. also Miracles) 126 ting, Peiránonta, Peperasménon) 163 –
Miracles (cf. also Mirabilia) 73, 126 164, 166, 169, 173
Mixture 8, 46, 171, 179 Períbolos 115
mnḗme̅ 46, 120 Peripatetic (s) 14, 17, 52, 69, 80, 125, 151,
Moral 11 – 12, 25, 58, 72, 74, 95, 102, 106 – 157 – 158, 192
107, 116 – 118, 130, 135, 194 Pherai, plate of 46
Music 12, 25, 41, 60, 78 – 79, 169 – 171, 177, Philía, Phílon 65, 67 – 69, 85, 199
179 – 181, 187 Physics 20, 38, 61, 82, 165, 173, 180
Mysticism 19 – 20, 40 – 41, 93, 181, 188, 192 Plates [bone] 111
Mýthos, Mýthoi, Mythología 93, 103 – 104, Plates [gold] 45 – 46, 87
114, 117, 130, 132 – 133, 135, 175 Platonism 29, 38, 53, 89, 147, 150, 156 – 157,
159, 161, 167, 186
Neoplatonists, Neoplatonism 47, 52,158, Poets (gnomic) 12, 43 – 44, 102 – 103, 106 –
188, 192, 194 107
Neopythagorean, Neopythagoreanism 9 – 10, Pólis, Polízen 71, 76 – 77, 117 – 118
13, 29, 47, 51, 157, 193 – 194 Politics, Political(s) 1 – 2, 12 – 17, 23 – 27,
Number(s) (cf. also Arithmos, Arithmetic, 29 – 33, 39, 43, 50, 54, 61 – 64, 69, 75 –
Arithmology) 6, 11, 13 – 14, 20, 29, 34,
Index of Topics 217
77, 81, 83, 85 – 86, 100, 106 – 107, 118, Secret (cf. also Secrecy) 61 – 62, 67, 72 – 73,
122, 138, 191, 194 79, 85, 127, 148, 170
Prágmata, Pragmatéia 80, 139, 144,161, 176 Sect, sectarian, sectarianism 18, 30 – 31,
Pre-Platonics 13, 23, 46, 50, 92 – 93, 101, 62 – 64, 70 – 75, 77, 84, 118, 127,191
144, 150 Sêma (cf. also Desmotérion) 107 – 117, 135,
Pre-Socratics 14, 36 – 38, 47, 54, 72, 154, 179 – 180
166, 174, 191 Seven Sages 12.
Principles (cf. also Archaí) 10, 17 – 18, 32, Sex (cf. also Procreation, Reproduction) 45,
37, 46, 53, 58, 91, 119, 140 – 143, 145 – 74
146, 158 – 169, 171, 173 – 176, 179 – 181, Shaman, Shamanism 42, 195
183,185 – 187, 192 Sybaris, Sybari (c. also Thurii) 24,122
Proportion (cf. also Harmony, Isonomy, Mea- Silence 64, 71 – 72, 77, 114, 121 – 123
sure, Métron) 10, 108, 119, 144 Sôma (cf. also Body) 89, 107 – 117, 135
Proto-Pythagoreanism, proto-Pythagorean 3, Sophist(s), Sophistic 29, 32, 37, 90, 168
5 – 6, 42 – 44, 49, 51, 60 – 61, 73, 84 – Soul (Psyché cf. also Immortality, Metempsy-
85, 87, 91, 94, 97 – 99, 119, 126, 132, chosis, Palingenesis, Peribolos, Transmi-
134 – 135, 137, 144 – 145, 147, 185, 188, gration). 1, 5 – 6, 10 – 11, 16, 45, 67, 69 –
190, 192, 194 70, 86 – 126, 128 – 136, 143, 166, 182,
Psêphos, Psêphoi 141, 180 189, 192, 194
Pseudo-epigraphic (cf. also Apocrypha) 97, Sphere(s) 11, 26, 63, 71, 99, 111, 114, 133,
100, 151, 154 – 158, 161, 176, 186, 193 137, 142, 174, 177, 181
Psyché (cf. also Soul, Immortality, Metempsy- Stars 14, 60
chosis, Transmigration) 41, 88,91 – 94, Stoic (tradition), Stoics 70, 157
109 – 110, 112, 128, 189 Stoichéia (cf. also Elements) 140, 160
Purification (cf. also Kathársis) 17 – 18, 97, Sýmbola, Sýmbolon 14, 17 – 18 , 57 , 61 –
99, 189 62 , 70 , 72 , 78 , 82 , 112 ,114 , 120
Syngéneia 106 , 114
Religion (cf. also Cult) 18 – 21, 28, 45 – 47, Systémata 169
54, 62, 70, 117, 120, 170, 195
Reproduction (cf. also Procreation, Sex) 74, Tarentum 38 , 60 , 66 , 183
175 Telestai 101, 113, 117
Rhythms (also Rýthmoi) 169 – 170, 174 The Apocrypha (cf. also Pseudo-ephigra-
Rome, Romans 27 – 30 phic) 8, 33, 57, 72, 157
Thebes 183
Sacrifice 44 – 45, 70 – 71, 78 – 79, 105, 123 – Theology 29 – 30, 43, 83, 90, 94
124. Therapists 70
Samos, Samian 28, 44, 63, 76, 96, 123 Thíasos 61 – 62, 84
School (cf. also Didaskaleion) 39, 46, 50, Thurii (c. also Síbaris, Sibari) 46, 87, 122
53 – 54, 56, 59 – 60, 63, 76, 81 – 82, 84, Thurii, plates of 46, 87
89, 92, 96, 146, 148, 157, 160, 172, 189, Titans 117
191, 193 – 194 Tradition 1 – 11, 14, 16 – 22, 25 – 28, 30 – 33,
Science 4, 10, 17 – 21, 34, 39 – 41, 54 – 55, 35, 37 – 49, 51 – 53, 55 – 63, 67 – 68, 70 –
60, 71, 78, 82, 84, 96, 127, 132, 155, 73, 75 – 78, 80 – 88, 90, 94, 97, 99 – 101,
166, 180 – 181, 189, 192, 194 – 195 103, 107, 109, 113 – 114, 117 – 120, 122 –
Secrecy (cf. also Secret) 63 – 64, 71 – 72, 128, 132 – 135, 137 – 138, 142,148 – 158,
148, 193 160 – 163, 167, 170, 173, 181, 185 – 186,
188, 190 – 195
218 Index of Topics
Transmigration (cf. also Soul, Immortality, Unlimited(s) (Ápeira, Apeíron, cf. also Limi-
Metempsychosis, Palingenesis, Psy- ting, Limit, Peiránonta, Peperasménon,
chḗ) 5, 11, 18, 86 – 89, 93, 99, 118, 125, Péras) 92, 102, 162 – 165, 167 – 187
130 , 132 – 135
Trojan 125 Vegetarianism (cf. also Meat, abstinence
Trópos, Monotrópos, Polýtropos 13, 32, 60, of) 70, 82 , 101
66, 82
Women 32, 57 – 58, 65 – 66, 74 – 75, 102 –
Universal kinship 70, 86, 106, 132, 135 103, 118
Index of Passages
AESCHYLUS (Aesch.) 1269b 28 132

Prometheus (Prom.) 107 1341b 3 132
Metaphysics (Met.)
ALCMAEON 985b 23 38, 39, 61
24 B 4 DK 92 985b 23 – 26 38, 140, 142
985b 25 159
ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS 985b 27 – 32 143, 182
Comments about the Metaphysics of Aristo- 986 83
tle (In Metaph.) 144 986a 98
986a 3 139, 140, 178
ALEXIS 986a 12 38
The Pythagorean fr. 201 Kassel-Austin = 58 986a 17 – 19 164, 179
E 1 DK 71 986a 17 – 21 164
986a 21 139
AMBROSIUS 986a 22 143
Enarratio in Psalmos (In salm.) PL 15: 987a 13 – 19 163
col. 1275 29 987a 28 139, 159
987a 29 38, 41, 144, 156
ANAXIMENES 987a 29 – 31 38, 159
13 B 2 DK 88 987b 159, 167, 186
987b 11 143
ANONYMOUS LONDINENSE (cf. PHILOLAUS) 987b 11 – 12 159
44 A 27 – 28 DK 98, 153, 181 987b 11 – 14 141
987b 14 – 988a 8 132
ANTISTHENES – cf. SCHOLIUM; Scholium 987b 18 – 22 160, 164
about the Odyssey 32 987b 22 – 25 160
987b 25 – 33 161
ARISTOTLE (Arist.) 987b 27 161
De anima (De an.) 987b 28 139, 159
404a16 = 67 A 28 DK 92, 128, 130 987b 29 38, 41, 144, 156
404a 21 – 25 128 987b 33 – 988a 2 162
404b8 = 31 B 109a DK 98 989b 175
404b 29 – 30 128 989b 29 38, 39
De caelo 990a 7 – 13 166
284a23 132 990a 14 – 16 166
293a20 82 990a 16 – 17 149
300a16 140 990a 18 – 22 166, 180
Nicomachean Ethics (NE) 990a 21 139
1159b: 25 – 32 65 990a 27 37 – 38
Physics (Phys.) 996a 4 38
203a = 58 B 28 DK 165, 179, 180 1074b 1 – 10 133
219b 6 – 7 167 1080b 16 – 19 139
313b 23 – 27 173 1083b 8 38
Politics (Pol.) 1083b 11 139
220 Index of Passages
1083b 17 139 DEMETRIUS OF MAGNESIA

1085a 33 142 D. L. Vitae VIII. 84 151
1090a 23 – 24 140
1090a 30 38 DEMOCRITUS
1090a 32 140 68 A 1 DK = D. L. Vitae IX. 38 127
1090b 23 139 68 B 0a-c DK 127
1091a 12 158 68 B 1 DK 127
1091a 13 149 68 B 84, 244 and 264 DK 127
1091a15 – 18 165
1091a 34 – b 12 132 DERVENI, PAPYRUS (P. Derv.) – cf. PAPYRUS
1091b 9 132 DERVENI
1092b 1 – 13 149 Col. XX 104 – 105
1092b 8 – 13 141, 144
Meteorology (Mete.) DICAEARCUS
De sensu fr. 7 Wehrli 87
Fragmenta fr. 36 Wehrli 87
fr. 6 Rose 109
fr. 191 Rose 61, 126 DIODORUS SICULUS (Diod. Sic.)
fr. 192 Rose = 14 A 7 DK = Iambl. VP: 31 Bibliotheca historica 88
61, 170
fr. 199 Rose 165 DIOGENES LAERTIUS (D. L.)
fr. 1 Ross = Iambl. VP: 140 – 143 90 Lives of eminent philosophers (Vitae) 22,
26, 56, 63, 64, 72, 74, 76, 83, 89, 90,
ARISTOXENUS 98, 125, 151, 152, 155, 180, 190.
fr. 14 Wehrli 193
fr. 15 Wehrli = 14 A 3 DK 170 EMPEDOCLES
fr. 23, 4 Wehrli 143 31 B 109a DK = De an. 404b8 98
31 B 109 DK 98
ARCHYTAS 31 B 112 DK 97, 98
47 B 1 DK 60 31 B 115 DK 91
31 B 122 DK 98
AUGUSTINE 31 B 123 DK 98
Against Academicians (Against Acad.) 31 B 129 DK 99, 119
PL 32: col. 954 29 31 B 131 DK 110
Retractationes (Retr.) PL 32: col. 58 – 9 29 31 B 146 DK 103
CICERO EURIPIDES
Cato Maior 28 The wise Melanippe (fr. 495 Nauck) 105
Timaeus 193 Hippolytus, v. 954 100
Tusculanae disputationes (Tusc. Disput.)
26, 28 EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA
Praeparatio evangélica 41
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
Stromata 78 FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS
The Jewish War 70
DAMASCIUS OF DAMASCUS
De principiis 172
GREEK HISTORIOGRAPHY LACTANTIUS

FGrHist: 566 F 13 = Schol. In Phaedr.: De vita beata PL 6: col. 777 29
279c 65 Divinarum Institutionum (Div. Inst.) PL 6,
FGrHist 1064 F 254 71 col. 405 – 9 29
HERACLIDES PONTICUS (Heraclid.) MIDDLE COMEDY (ATTIC) – cf. ALEXIS

fr. 87 Wehrli = D. L. Vitae I. 12 190 fr. 48 Taran 162
fr. 89 Wehrli = D. L. Vitae VIII. 4 – 5 125
NUMENIUS
HERACLITUS About disagreement among academics and
22 A 22 DK 96 Plato (fr. 24, 73 – 79 Des Places) 157
22 B 40 DK 54
22 B 57 and 106 DK 96 OLBIA PLATES
22 B 93 DK 114 94a Dubois 111
22 B 129 DK 95 94c Dubois 111
HERODOTUS (Herodt.) OLYMPIODORUS

Histories (Hist.) In Phaedon (in Phaed.) 135 Westerink 88
II. 81 46, 96, 101, 112, 122
II. 123 121, 133 ORPHIC FRAGMENTS
IV. 94 – 96 87, 124 fr. 23 Kern 107
IV. 95 122, 124 fr. 32c Kern = 4 A 65 Colli, II B1 Pugliese
Carratelli 87
HIPPASUS fr. 54 Kern 107
18 B 7 DK 148
OVID
HOMER Metamorphoses (Metam.) 28, 99
Iliad (Il.) 100, 113, 126
Odyssey (Od.) 113 PARMENIDES
28 B 8 DK 178
ION OF CHIOS
36 B 2 DK 95 PETRARCH
36 B 4 DK 95, 97 Triumphus fame III: 7 – 8
ISOCRATES PHILOLAUS
Busiris 28 – 29 = 14 A 4 DK 71, 123 44 A 7a DK 180
44 A 13 DK = Fr. 4 Lang (cf. SPEUSIPPUS)
IAMBLICHUS (Iambl.) 180, 143
De communi mathematica scientia (De 44 A 27 – 28 DK (cf. ANONYMOUS LONDI-
Comm. Mathem.) 78, 80, 82 NENSIS) 153, 181
De vita Pythagorica (VP) 4, 8, 15, 17, 26, 44 A 29 DK 98
46, 57, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 44 B 1 DK 92, 171, 173
70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 44 B 2 DK 174
83, 90, 97, 98, 120, 126, 148, 155, 170, 44 B 3 DK 176
193. 44 B 4 DK 43, 178
44 B 5 DK 179
44 B 6 1 – 8 DK 175
222 Index of Passages
44 B 6 16 – 24 DK 177 PORPHYRY (Porph.)

44 B 7 DK 177, 181 On abstinence from animal food (De Abst.)
44 B 12 DK 154 71
44 B 13 DK 91, 166 Life of Pythagoras (VP) 15, 17, 26, 43, 63,
44 B 14 DK 109, 114 68 – 70, 74 – 76, 78, 86, 87, 99, 106, 125,
44 B 20 DK 182 132, 157
44 B 21 DK 10
44 B 22 DK 110 PROCLUS (Procl.)
Commentary on the Timaeus (In Tim.) 158
PHILO
De vita contemplativa 70 SCHOLIA
Scholia on the Phaedrus (Schol. In Phaedr.
PHOTIUS Greene) Schol. In Phaedr.: 279c = FGr-
Library (Bibl.) 156 Hist: 566 F 13 65
Anonymous of Photius (Anon. Phot. Thes- Scholium on the Odyssey (Schol. In Hom.
leff) 77 Odyss. Dindorf) Schol. In Hom. Odyss. I,
1: 50 – 63 32
PYTHAGORAS (On him) Scholia on Sophocles (Schol. In Soph.
14 A 3 = fr. 15 Wehrli 179 Elmsley) Schol. In Soph. 62 126
14 A 4 DK = Isocrates, Busiris 29 71, 123
14 A 7 DK = Iambl. VP. 31 61, 170 SICULUS, DIODORUS (Diod. Sic.)
14 A 8a DK 14 [Bibliotheca historica] 125
14 A 13 DK 15
14 A 16 DK 15, SIRIANUS
Commentary on the Aristotle’s Metaphysics
PLATO (In Met.) 158
Seventh Letter (Ltr. VII) 38
Cratylus (Crat.) 101, 113 SOPHOCLES (Soph.)
Phaedo (Phaed.) 101, 116, 133, 134 Electra (El.) 126
Phaedrus (Phaedr.) 106, 116, 128
Philebus (Phlb) 101, 162, 167, 168, 170, SPEUSIPPUS (Speusip.)
176 fr. 4 Lang = 44 A 13 DK (cf. FILOLAU) 120,
Laws (Leg.) 101, 128 143
Lysis (Lys) 66 fr. 48 Taran 162
Meno (Men.) 102
Republic (Rep.) 29, 59, 60, 65, 101, 104, STOBAEUS (Stob.)
107, 118, 171 Anthologium (Florilegium) 114, 158
Timaeus (Tim.) 98, 130, 177
TERTULLIAN
PLINY De Anima PL 2: col. 697 – 701 29
Naturalis Historiae (Hist. Nat.) 28
THEOPHRASTUS (Theophr.)
PLUTARCH Metaphysics (Met.)
Quaestiones Convivales (Quaest. Conv.) 58 B DK 17
28
Life of Numa (Numa) 28
THURII’S LEAVES TITUS LIVIUS

fr. 32c Kern, 4 A 65 Colli, II B1 Pugliese Car- [Ab Urbe Condita] 28
ratelli 87
XENOCRATES
TIMAEUS OF LOCRI fr. 165 Isnardi-Parente 128
Schol. In Phaedr.: 279c = FGrHist: 566 F
13 65 XENOPHANES
D. L. Vitae VIII 10 64 21 A 1 DK 90
21 A 47 DK 90
TIMON 21 A 52 DK 90
44 A 8 DK = Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 21 B 7 DK = D. L. Vitae VIII. 36 89
III 17, 6 152 21 B 19 DK 90
21 B 27 – 29, 33 DK 90
Index of Names
Abaris 49, 189 Bechtle, G. 13

Accame, S. 76 Becker, O. 40
Achilles 126 Bellido, A. M. 71
Achtemeier, P. J. 73 Bernabé, A. 9, 46, 49, 88, 100 f., 103, 107,
Acron of Acragas 155 109, 112 f., 115 – 117
Adeimantus 65 f., 109 Bertermann, W. 16, 31
Adonis 45 Bestor, T. W. 112
Aelian 11 f. Betegh, G. 46, 87
Aeschylus 11 f. Biondi, G. 124 – 126
Aglaophemus 29 f. Bluck, R. S. 100, 103
Alcmaeon 59, 83, 92 Boas, G. 3
Alderink, L. J. 112 Boeckh, A. 7 f., 10, 12, 138, 150, 153 f., 173,
Alesse, F. 128, 131, 133 191
Alexis 71 Boyancé, P. 100, 191
Alfieri, V. E. 35, 127 Brisson, L. 9, 31, 57, 100 f., 152
Ambrose 28 Burkert, W. 2 – 5, 8, 10, 14 – 16, 35, 38, 40 –
Anaxagoras 22, 39, 53, 163, 173 f., 176 43, 45 f., 49 f., 52 – 54, 57, 61 f., 65, 69 –
Anaximander 12, 22, 90, 96, 176 72, 75 – 77, 79 – 84, 87, 89, 91 f., 94 – 98,
Anaximenes 22, 88 101, 103, 109 f., 112 – 114, 117, 120 – 123,
Antiochus of Ascalon 156 125 – 128, 131, 133, 138, 140, 142, 144,
Antiphon 63 146, 149 – 158, 161 – 167, 170 – 174, 176,
Antisthenes 31 f., 76 178 f., 181 – 185, 189 f., 193, 195
Apollo 49, 98, 125 f. Burnet, J. 3, 17 – 22, 35 f., 38, 50, 81 f., 87,
Apollonius of Tyana 31, 63, 65, 192 89, 138, 144 f., 148, 154 – 156, 171 f., 185
Arcesilaus 156 Burnyeat, M. F. 99
Archelaus 22 Bywater, I. 138, 154, 172, 178
Archytas (cf. also Pseudo-Archytas) 1, 11, 24,
38, 43, 57, 59 – 61, 72, 81 f., 98 f., 108, Callicles 108
132, 135, 141, 148 – 150, 154 – 156 Calogero, G. 14, 36
Aristotle 3, 6, 10 – 12, 20, 24, 32 – 41, 43, Cambiano, G. 181
48, 50 – 52, 55, 58, 60 f., 65, 72, 78, 81 – Cameron, A. 38
84, 87, 90, 92, 98, 109, 126, 128 – 135, Capparelli, V. 27
137, 139 – 150, 152 f., 156 – 167, 172 – 175, Carcopino, J. 45
177 – 180, 182 – 188 Casadesús, F. 49
Aristoxenus 14, 16, 18 f., 24 f., 28, 52, 57, Casadio, G. 88 f., 100, 103, 107, 109 f., 112 f.,
68 f., 79, 125, 143, 157, 169 f., 193 115 f., 118, 122
Augustine 11 f., 28 f. Casertano, G. 1, 9, 30, 35, 41, 89, 98, 127 f.,
131, 144, 146 f., 170
Bacchus (cf. also Dionysus) 68, 111, 115, 117, Casini, P. 30
123, 152 Cebes 118, 183
Balaudé, J.-F. 91 Centrone, B. 3, 8 f., 13, 24, 31, 33, 40, 49,
Baldi, B. 29 56 f., 59, 61 f., 64, 70, 72, 78 f., 82 f., 89,
Barbera, A. 171 100, 123, 126, 129, 133, 144, 147, 149,
Barnes, J. 172
Index of Names 225
152 f., 157, 161 f., 164, 166, 171, 176, Diogenes Laertius 3, 11, 16, 22, 26, 28, 56 f.,
190 f. 63 f., 83, 90 f., 125, 151 f.
Cherniss, H. 22, 35 – 39, 47, 50, 128, 131, Dion 59, 111 f., 151
137 f., 140 – 143, 146 – 150, 160, 174, 185 Dionysus (cf. also Bacchus) 68, 111, 117,
Chevitarese, A. L. 9, 71 123, 152
Ciaceri, E. 117 Dionysus Zagreus 46
Cicero 12, 26, 28, 193 Dodds, E. R. 89, 91, 103, 112 f., 193 f.
Claudiano Mamerto 110 Döring, A. G. P. 18
Clearchus 52 Drosdek, A. 93
Cleinias of Tarentum 66 Dubois, L. 111
Clement of Alexandria 78, 89
Coelho, M. C. M. N. 183 Eleusis 104
Colli, G. 87 Elmsley, P. 12
Collobert, C. 37 f. Empedocles 13 f., 32, 47, 56, 88, 91, 93,
Conybeare, F. C. 65 97 – 99, 103, 107, 110, 119, 122, 134 f.,
Copernicus, Nicholas 195 163, 175
Corax 155 Epicurus 22
Cornelli, G. 10, 32, 48, 77, 83, 87, 90, 92, Epimenides 11, 90, 189
118, 120, 122, 181, 183 Eudemus 52
Cornford, F. M. 3, 19 – 23, 36, 50, 93, 118, Eudoxus 56
141, 144, 146 Eumolpus 104
Corssen, P. 125 Euphorbus 124 – 126
Cratinus 90 Euripides 100, 105, 108, 112
Creese, D. 177 Eurytus 57, 141 f., 144, 154, 180, 183
Cumont, F. 45, 50 Eusebius of Caesarea 41
Curd, P. 178
Cusa, Nicholas of (Cusano, Nicola) 29 Favorino 16
Federico, E. 118, 125
D. S. M. 24 Feldman, L. H. 33, 44
Damascius of Damascus 172 Ferrero, L. 27, 30, 191
Damon 68 Ferwerda, R. 113 – 116
Delatte, A. 16, 23 – 25, 41, 50, 57, 81, 125, Festugière, A. J. 45, 47, 194
135, 145 Ficino, M. 29 f., 195
Demetrius of Magnesia 151 Flavius Josephus 70
Democritus 22, 35, 56, 92, 127 f., 135, 140 – Frank, E. 15 f., 38 – 40, 48, 50, 81, 109 f.,
142, 155 118, 127, 137 f., 141 f., 145 f., 150, 171 f.,
Derveni, Papyrus 11, 45, 101, 104 f., 113, 135, 176, 185
166
Detienne, M. 2, 43 – 45, 47, 50, 70, 118 Gaiser, K. 53, 160, 169
Deubner, L. 16, 80 Gemelli, M. L. M. 9, 35, 47 – 49, 54 f., 72 f.,
Dicaearchus 16 92, 96, 99, 105, 127 f., 174 f.
Dies, A. 14, 121 Gigon, O. 148
Dike 107 Glaucon 118, 171
Dillon, J. M. 156 f. Glaucus of Reggio 127
Dindorf, W. 12 Gomperz, T. 35, 158
Diocles of Magnesia 16 Gorgias 11, 31 f., 46, 108, 111 – 113, 175
Diodorus Siculus 11, 88 Gosling, J. 170
226 Index of Names
Goulet, R. 63 Kerferd, G. B. 33, 44

Graf, F. 112 Kern, O. 45, 87, 89, 107
Greene, W. C. 12 Kingsley, P. 2, 4, 7, 40, 46 – 49, 51, 91, 96,
Guthrie, W. K. C. 1, 3, 19, 22 – 24, 50, 81, 87, 98, 101, 103, 182, 193
91, 93, 109, 112, 115, 128, 130, 139, 146, Kirk, G. S. 122, 138, 142
190 Knorr, W. R. 183
Kouremenos, T. 45
Hades 46, 74, 87, 104, 108, 112, 120, 125, Krämer, H. 53, 160
127 Kranz, W. 11, 14 f., 35, 95, 97, 130, 172
Hadot, P. 48 Krische, A. B. 23
Heath, T. 139
Hecataeus 96 Lactantius 11, 29
Hegel, G. W. F. 4, 12, 36 Laks, A. 37, 45, 49, 189 f.
Heidel, W. A. 156 Lee, H. D. P. 35
Heraclides Ponticus 11, 16, 125, 190 Leszl, W. 156
Heraclitus 3, 14 f., 54, 90, 94 – 97, 99, 114, Leucippus 22, 140, 142
123, 134, 173, 175 Levy, C. 45, 124, 138
Hermann, G. 100 Lévy, I. 16, 45, 87, 172
Hermes (cf. also Mercury) 30, 125 Liddell, H. G. 113
Hermippus 152 Lloyd, G. E. R. 182
Hermodamante 44 Long, H. S. 16, 26, 33, 48, 53, 56 – 58, 66,
Herodotus 5, 11, 46, 87 f., 96, 101, 112, 121 – 68, 86, 89, 97, 103, 122, 126, 144, 149,
124, 133, 135, 177 152, 169, 188
Hesiod 43 f., 58, 90, 95 f., 132 Lysis 66, 68
Hippasus 67, 71, 79 – 81, 148
Hippocrates of Chios 41, 177, 183 Macris, C. 9, 49, 73, 97
Huffman, C. A. 2, 4, 9 f., 40, 42 f., 47, 53, Maddalena, A. 89, 130 f., 152
57 – 60, 69, 72, 81 – 83, 89, 91 f., 99, Mamercus 12
109 f., 133, 138 – 140, 149 f., 152 – 154, Mansfeld, J. 37
156, 158 f., 162, 164, 166, 169, 172 f., Martin, A. 47
176 – 178, 181 – 185, 187, 190 Masaracchia, A. 100
May, J. M. F. 2, 4, 9, 20, 24, 35, 37, 39, 53,
Iamblichus 2 – 4, 7 f., 11 f., 14 – 17, 26, 28, 55, 59, 68, 81 – 83, 91, 95, 105, 108 f.,
30 f., 57 f., 62 – 64, 67, 69 – 71, 74 f., 77 – 113, 115 f., 122, 127, 130, 144, 153, 177,
83, 85, 119, 148, 152, 157, 188, 193 179, 182, 187, 194 f.
Ion of Chios 94 f. Meattini, V. 108
Isnardi Parente, M. 128, 156 f., 160 f. Medici, Cosimo de 29 f.
Isocrates 71, 121, 123, 135 Melanippe 105
Mele, A. 30, 75, 122
Jacoby, F. 11, 67 Menelaus 125 f.
Jaeger, W. 25, 52, 62 Menestor 59
Meno (disciple of Aristotle) 11, 46, 57, 102,
Kahn, C. H. 1, 22, 49, 89, 96, 98, 123, 161 f., 104 f., 107, 119, 121, 153, 171
166, 172, 175 f., 178, 195 Meno (platonic character) 11, 46, 57, 102,
Kahrstedt, U. 23 f. 104 f., 107, 119, 121, 153, 171
Kees, H. 123 Mercury (cf. also Hermes) 29 f.
Kepler, J. 195 Meriani, A. 60
Index of Names 227
Migliori, M. 9, 168 f. 96, 98, 108 – 114, 120, 132 f., 135, 137 f.,
Mnemosyne 46, 120 143, 148, 150 – 156, 158 f., 164 – 166,
Momigliano, A. 62 168, 171 – 188, 192
Mondolfo, R. 3, 8 – 12, 27, 34 f., 52, 59, 86 – Philostratus 65
88, 93, 95, 97 – 99, 123, 127 f., 130, 138, Phintias 68
145, 149 Photius 11, 156
Morgan, M. L. 49 Pierris, A. L. 45
Morrison, J. S. 122 Pindar 102 – 104, 107
Most, G. W. 1, 5, 8 – 11, 18, 20, 24 – 27, 30, Pitts, W. 39
33, 39, 42, 45, 47, 49 – 51, 55, 57, 59, Plato 3, 5, 8, 11 f., 18, 23, 29 f., 36 – 38, 40 f.,
61 – 64, 68 f., 71 f., 78, 85 f., 88 f., 93 – 43, 46, 48, 50, 52 f., 56, 59 – 61, 65 f.,
95, 100 f., 103 – 105, 109, 114 f., 121, 123, 71 f., 84, 88, 93, 98 – 109, 111, 114 – 119,
125 – 131, 134 f., 143, 145, 153, 156, 160, 121, 126, 128, 130, 132 – 135, 138, 141,
163, 165, 169, 176 f., 182, 188 f., 191, 193 143, 150 – 154, 156 – 165, 167 – 174, 176 –
Mourelatos, A. 178 178, 182, 185 – 187, 190
Murari, F. 20 Pliny 11, 28
Musaeus 100, 104 f. Plotinus 29, 89
Musti, D. 30 f., 49, 76 Plutarch 12, 28, 101
Polemarchus 65
Nauck, A. 105 Pollard, J. R. T. 44
Neantes 43 Pompeius Trogus 15
Nicomachus 15, 64, 75, 143, 152 Porphyry 3, 11 f., 14 f., 17, 26, 28, 31, 43,
Nietzsche, F. W. 13, 16 63 f., 70 f., 75, 78, 85 – 87, 93, 106, 132,
Nigidius Figulus 193 134 f., 137, 157
Nilsson, M. P. 112, 115 Prier, R. A. 113
Nucci, M. 47, 97 Primavesi, O. 47
Numa Pompilius 28 Proclus 12, 127, 158, 161 f.
Numenius of Apamea 157 Prontera, F. 30
Nussbaum, M. 142 Proros of Cyrene 66
Protarchus 168
Obbink, D. 45 Pseudo-Archytas (cf. also Archytas) 72
Olympiodorus 88 Pugliese Carratelli, G. 45 f., 87, 100, 103,
O’Meara, D. 49, 155, 157 105, 114, 117, 119 f.
Orpheus 29 f., 95, 100, 105, 113 Pythagoras 3 f., 7, 11 – 22, 24 – 33, 40, 42 –
Ovid 11, 28, 99 45, 49, 52, 54, 56 – 59, 61, 63 f., 67 – 77,
79 – 83, 86 – 91, 93 – 100, 119, 121 – 127,
Parmenides 13, 20, 22, 34 – 36, 47 f., 53, 57, 134 f., 138, 143, 148 f., 151, 154 – 156,
120, 162 f., 173 – 176, 178 f. 158, 170, 186, 189 – 191, 194 f.
Pascal, B. 99
Patroclus 126 Rathmann, G. 87, 89, 98, 112, 122, 128, 131
Peixoto, M. 9, 92 Raven, J. E. 21 f., 35 f., 122, 138, 142, 146,
Persephone 46, 102, 115 172
Pherecydes 94 – 96 Reale, G. 32, 37, 53, 133, 160, 175
Philo (Philo) 70, 122 Redfield, J. 118
Philodemus 101 Reinhardt, K. 36
Philolaus 1, 3, 6 – 8, 10 f., 14 f., 20, 30, 39, Rey, A. 35, 145 f.
41 – 43, 47, 57 – 59, 72, 81 – 83, 91 – 94, Rey Puente, F. 9, 167
228 Index of Names
Riedweg, C. 2, 9, 49, 62, 73, 81, 89 – 91, 95, Tisias 155

98 f., 113, 125 – 127, 190, 195 Titus Livius 11, 28
Ries, K. 123 Toynbee, A. J. 62
Robbiano, C. 178 Trabattoni, F. 9, 160
Robbins, F. E. 181 Trépanier, S. 98 f.
Rocconi, E. 177
Rohde, E. 15 f., 31, 50, 57, 62, 68, 79, 81, 87, Ustinova, Y. 87
93, 112, 122, 125, 189
Rostagni, A. 3, 31 – 33, 67, 89 f., 93, 99 Van der Waerden, B. L. 40
Vegetti, M. 59 f., 104, 118
Salas, O. D. A. 39, 41 Viano, C. 47
Sandbach, F. H. 95, 97 Vidal-Naquet, P. 44
Santillana, G. 39 Vinogradov, J. G. 112
Sassi, M. M. 22, 49, 119 Vlastos, G. 109, 160
Satyrus 151 Vogel, C. J. 8, 14 f., 18, 23 f., 27, 31 – 33, 67,
Scarpi, P. 98 87, 103, 112, 115
Schleiermacher, F. 12 Von Fritz, K. 2, 16, 25 f., 40 – 42, 64, 80, 88,
Schofield, M. 122, 138, 142 138
Scott, R. 113
Segonds, A. P. 31, 57 Wehrli, F. 52, 79, 87, 125, 143, 170, 190, 193
Seltman, C. 24 West, L. 47, 98, 100, 104, 111 f.
Simmias 93, 183 Wiersma, W. 152
Sophocles 12, 126 Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, U. von 122
Speusippus 12, 38 f., 120, 142 f., 157 f., 162 William of Moerbeke 162
Spinelli, M. 138 Wilson, B. 62
Stobaeus 12, 114 Wittgenstein, L. 196
Striker, G. 168
Stroumsa, G. G. 47 Xenocrates 128, 157
Szlezák, T. A. 9, 53, 72, 160 f. Xenophanes 3, 14, 22, 34, 89 – 91, 93 f., 96,
109, 134
Tambrun-Krasker, B. 30
Tannery, P. 34 f., 40, 50, 81, 112, 141, 182 f. Zalmoxis 87, 122, 124
Tate, J. 25 Zeller, E. 2 f., 7 – 15, 17, 24, 27, 34 f., 38, 49,
Taylor, A. E. 38, 50, 145, 170 52, 55, 59, 84, 86 – 89, 93, 95, 97 – 99,
Tertullian 29 123, 127 f., 130 f., 137, 145, 149, 154
Theano 57, 74, 158, 161 Zeno 20, 22, 34 f., 142
Theophrastus 12, 16, 101, 158, 163 Zeus 116
Thesleff, H. 8, 11, 15, 32 f., 39, 57 f., 72, 77, Zhmud, L. J. 3, 13 f., 40, 49, 55 – 57, 62, 77 –
154 f., 158 79, 81, 111, 113, 122, 138, 140, 143, 147 –
Thomas, H. W. 9, 113 149, 185
Thrasyllus 127 Zoroaster 29
Thucydides 20 Zosimus of Panopolis 47
Timaeus of Locri 152 Zucconi, M. 31
Timon 152 Zuntz, G. 45, 98
Timon of Phlius 90
Timycha 57, 74

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Gabriele Cornelli

Herausgegeben von / Edited by

Pythagoreanism As an Historiographical Category

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek

© 2013 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

for Cissa Dani, Bibi and Dante

reconstruction of the history of Pythagoreanism and that enable us to under-

 History of criticism: from Zeller to Kingsley 7

 Pythagoreanism as a historiographical category 52

 Immortality of the soul and metempsýchōsis 86

.. Hierarchy of incarnations 106

Index of Topics 214

Index of Passages 219

Index of Names 224

The first advantage of the historiographical approach to Pythagoreanism is thus

3 The term “proto-Pythagoreanism” is introduced here as a new term because it is necessary to

It is the identification of the category of “Pythagoreanism” that particularly

5 Huffman 2008b: 225.

thors to favor one or another image and so conditioned their interpretations of

of a proto-Pythagorean theory of the immortality of the soul will be found in Ar-

1.1 Zeller: the skepticism of the beginnings

Significantly, the first page of Zeller’s chapter devoted to Pythagoreanism follows

The very possibility of speaking of Pythagoras within the history of philosophy is

1.2 Diels: a Zellerian collection

Diels organizes his selection of fragments and testimonies on the Vorsokratiker

The introduction to his chapter on Pythagoras, clearly demonstrates his depend-

The influence of Vorsokratiker on all studies of Pythagoreanism is unquestiona-

32 Zhmud 1989: 273.

1.3 Rohde: the reaction to skepticism

To demonstrate significant independence in such a shameful level, to the point of prepar-

Notwithstanding Rohde’s repeated criticisms about the ruthless arbitrariness of

the reconstruction of Pythagoreanism according to the tradition that Diels calls

1.4 Burnet: the double teaching of acousmatics and

influence of Pythagorean ideas.⁴¹ Therefore, it is a mistake to agree with the

The most powerful method of purification is the pursuit of disinterested science,

41 Burnet 1908: 89.

is how much of that post-Aristoxenus vision is attributable to Pythagoras him-

1.5 Cornford and Guthrie: in search of unity between science

46 Burnet 1908: 107– 108.

This division between mysticism and science in Pythagoreanism is only superfi-

Thus, Pythagoras can be simultaneously understood as both a religious reformer

52 Cornford 1922: 138.

totelian testimony, without which any attempt to build a historical discourse on

In discussing this methodological approach, whose stated intention is to un-

1.6 From Delatte to De Vogel: Pythagoreanism and politics

Special attention has been dedicated to the political dimension of Pythagorean-

59 Guthrie 1962: 147.

Consequently, Delatte identifies the key element of the pro-democratic, anti-Py-

osophically important, but rather should be attributed to the personal choices,

Pythagoreanism, as a movement, ruled over many cities in Magna Graecia. It is

The Italian appropriation of Pythagoreanism had its origins in Roman times. A

71 Aristoxenus’s testimony about Pythagoras’ Etruscan father is located, among others, in

ones”.⁷⁵ Augustine joined Tertullian and Lactantius, in recognizing the primary

In another work, Pythagoras again appears in a genealogy of ancient philosophy,

The idea of Pythagoras as a priscus philosophus, placed within a larger tradition,

The solution proposed by Musti is to consider that the cultural conditions in

Antisthenes’ solution presupposes a genealogical understanding of the lógos and

84 Schol. In Hom. Odyss. I, 1: 50 – 63.

reinforces Rostagni’s arguments (which are supposedly based on Thesleff’s 1961

A historically reliable original nucleus, inclusively confirmed by a few hints in Croton’s

Following in Rostagni’s footsteps, De Vogel certainly helps to the discussion of

1.7 Aristotle’s unique testimony and the uncertain Academic