Cornelli Et Al. - 2013 - On Pythagoreanism

On 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 5
On Pythagoreanism
Edited by
Gabriele Cornelli, Richard McKirahan,
and Constantinos Macris
The book has been supported by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level
Personnel (CAPES) of the Ministry of Education of Brazil.
Ouvrage publié avec le concours de l’EPHE (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris).
ISBN 978-3-11-031845-6
e-ISBN 978-3-11-031850-0
ISSN 1869-7143
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Contents
Introduction I
1 Historiography
Gabriele Cornelli
Pythagoreanism as an historiographical category: historical and
methodological notes 3
Christoph Riedweg
Approaching Pythagoras of Samos: Ritual, Natural Philosophy and
Politics 47
2 Pythagoras and Early Pythagorean traditions
Livio Rossetti
When Pythagoras was still Living in Samos (Heraclitus, frg. 129) 63
Johan C. Thom
The Pythagorean Akousmata and Early Pythagoreanism 77
Marcus Mota
Pythagoras Homericus: Performance as Hermeneutic Horizon
to Interpret Pythagorean Tradition 103
Alberto Bernabé
Orphics and Pythagoreans: the Greek perspective 117
Francesc Casadesús Bordoy

On the origin of the Orphic-Pythagorean notion of the immortality of the
soul 153
3 Fifth and Fourth Century Pythagoreanism
Richard McKirahan
Philolaus on Number 179
Luc Brisson
Archytas and the duplication of the cube 203
VI Contents
4 Reception by Plato, Aristotle and the Early Academy
Carl Huffman
Plato and the Pythagoreans 237
Beatriz Bossi
Philolaus and Plato on method, measure and pleasure 271
Fernando Santoro
Epicharmus and the plagiarism of Plato 307
Leonid Zhmud
Pythagorean Number Doctrine in the Academy 323
Giovanni Casertano
Early Pythagoreans in Aristotle’s account 345
5 Hellenistic and Late Antique traditions
André Laks
The Pythagorean Hypomnemata reported by Alexander Polyhistor in Diogenes
Laertius (8.25 – 33): a proposal for reading 371
Mauro Bonazzi
Eudorus of Alexandria and the ‘Pythagorean’ pseudepigrapha 385
Dominic O’Meara
Pythagoreanism in late antique Philosophy, after Proclus 405
6 Pythagorean heritage in Renaissance and modern times
Thomas M. Robinson
Ficino’s Pythagoras 423
Edrisi Fernandes
A modern approximation to Pythagoreanism:
Boscovich’s “point atomism” 435
Curricula 483
Index of Topics 489

Contents VII
Index locorum 499
Index nominum 517

Introduction
Controversy regarding the history of modern scholarship on Pythagoras and his
movement still continues. Confronting both the dilemma between excessive
skepticism and excessive faith in the sources and the attempt to obtain a single
hermeneutical key to decide the “Pythagorean question”, the International Semi-
nar On Pythagoreanism held at the University of Brasília from August 22– 26, 2011
aimed to follow the Pythagorean traditions throughout history, as moments of a
historical route resulting in a polyhedral image of one of the most significant in-
tellectual phenomena in Western culture. The present book constitutes the pro-
ceedings of that seminar.
The seminar brought together scholars from all over the world who have
dedicated themselves to studying this field during the last 30 years, in order
to define the status quaestionis for the new wave of research on Pythagoreanism
currently taking place in the 21st century. It is not an exaggeration to say that this
was a historic meeting, considering the number and caliber of specialists gath-
ered to discuss so multifaceted a subject with all its fascinating details and no-
torious difficulties.
The conception and initiative for the seminar’s organization came from the
research group Archai: The plural origins of Western thought (Ἀρχαί: as origens do
pensamento ocidental)¹ and its coordinator, Gabriele Cornelli, Professor of An-
cient Philosophy at Brasilia University. This meeting constituted the 8th Interna-
tional Archai Seminar and celebrated ten years of the existence of the research
group, which enjoys the honor of being included in the worldwide web of
UNESCO Chairs – the one and only UNESCO Chair in the field of philosophy
in Brazil.
The focus on the Pythagorean tradition was a natural choice indeed, not
only because it is Professor Cornelli’s field of specialization but also and
above all because of the general approach of the Archai UNESCO Chair, which
tries to reach a historical perspective of the origins (cf. the Greek archai) of
the scientific and cultural ideas which currently guide Western thought. Such
an approach has become drastically relevant in an international, political and
intellectual context of crisis which challenges the cultural paradigms related
to the tradition of the European matrix. This tradition, in turn, has been chal-
lenged to rediscover the “treasures” of its mutating identities through an open
 http://www.archai.com.br/; cf. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/brasilia/about-this-office/

single-view/news/unesco_chair_in_archai_the_plural_origins_of_western_thought/#.UjTMmH_
9Wao.
X Introduction
and enriching dialogue with “other” traditions, and in this process a diachronic
examination of the Pythagorean heritage seemed an appropriate undertaking.
To cover the totality of scholarship on Pythagoreanism or to propose a treat-
ment of all relevant aspects of the subject in a systematic way was certainly not
our purpose in planning the Seminar. Nonetheless all contributors suggested
original and fruitful approaches to most of the major issues pertaining to Pytha-
gorean beliefs and practices, philosophy and science, from the archaic period to
the late 18th century, and some of them shared with us their views on more ob-
scure or relatively neglected figures, doctrines or periods of the history of Pytha-
goreanism and its reception and Nachleben.
The succession of chapters in the volume at hand reflects the articulation of the
different subjects and approaches as they were presented in Brasilia in August
2011. An earlier, draft version of all the papers – what the Ancients (and especial-
ly the Pythagoreans, according to some traditions) would have called ‘notes’ or
‘notebooks’ (ὑπομνήματα) – was elegantly printed and sent to the participants a
few months before the seminar. The purpose of this initiative was to facilitate ex-
changes and to allow the seminar to be dedicated to substantial discussion after
each presentation, thus maintaining its high standards². Most if not all of the pa-
pers included in this volume benefited enormously from those open and friendly,
but also at times passionate and uncompromising debates, and some of them
have changed considerably thanks to suggestions and criticisms made during
or after the seminar.
Our first section, “Historiography”, introduces the twofold background of the

current interest in Pythagoras and his heritage – on the one hand strictly schol-
arly and scientific treatments of the place of Pythagoreanism in the history of an-
cient Greek religion, philosophy and science; on the other, a more general intel-
lectual and cultural fascination with the continuing presence and adaptation of
Pythagorean ideas through the ages.
In Chapter One, Pythagoreanism as a historiographical category: historical
and methodological notes, Gabriele Cornelli traces the history of the interpreta-
tions of Pythagoreanism over the past two centuries and proposes a new meth-
odology for studying the phenomena. The author recommends that we consider
Pythagoreanism not as a fixed reality, but as a continuous process of construc-
 The exact reference of these provisional conference pre-Acts – which are probably destined to
become a bibliographical rarity of sorts! – is: Gabriele Cornelli and Jonatas Rafael Alvares (eds.),
Pythagorean hypomnemata. Notes for the VIII International Archai Seminar “On Pythagoreanism”
(Universidade de Brasília, August 22nd–26th, 2011), Brasília: Annablume, 2011, 402 p.
Introduction XI
tion of a historiographical category, from Antiquity until modern times³. To un-

derstand this process in its richness and fluidity requires an approach that is in-
terdisciplinary, diachronic and synchronic.
Chapter Two, Approaching Pythagoras of Samos: Ritual, Natural Philosophy
and Politics, is conceived by Christoph Riedweg as an introduction to Pythagoras’
principal contributions to thought and culture from Antiquity to the present day.
This study begins with a general account of the cultural milieu in which Pytha-
goras grew up and a presentation of the most significant aspects of his person-
ality, activity and thought. Special emphasis is given to ritual, natural philoso-
phy, education and politics, and to the notions of kosmos (= ordered whole)
and harmony. The second part of this chapter stresses Pythagoras’ manifold pres-
ence in the cultural memory of the West and the importance of his insights for us
today in such diverse fields as the social and natural sciences, music, mathemat-
ics, politics and economics.
The remainder of this volume examines specific aspects of the Pythagorean tra-
dition as it developed diachronicallly. The second section, “Pythagoras and early
Pythagorean traditions” contains a series of studies that focus on the figure of
Pythagoras himself and on the earlier strata of the history and the legend envel-
oping him, as well as on the ‘society’ he founded in Croton. Quite unexpectedly,
though, and refreshingly, the first paper of this section (Chapter Three, When Py-
thagoras was still Living in Samos [Heraclitus, fr. 129 DK], by Livio Rossetti), dis-
cusses the almost entirely unknown beginnings of Pythagoras in Samos. Dealing
extensively with one of the earliest testimonies on Pythagoras, Heraclitus’ well
known and much disputed fragment 129, where Pythagoras is sharply criticized
for the eclectic and derivative character of his wisdom and of his writing(s), the
author suggests that this testimony concerns the early years of Pythagoras, i. e.
the Samian, pre-Crotonian period of his life, when he probably wrote a ‘book’
deeply rooted in the Ionian type of research of his time.
In Chapter Four, The Pythagorean Akousmata and Early Pythagoreanism,
Johan C. Thom, who is currently working on a large-scale project dealing with
editing and commenting on the collections of (purportedly) original sayings of
Pythagoras called symbola (‘tokens’) or akousmata (‘things heard’), aims to un-
cover the character and purpose of those sayings, some of which appear bizarre
and others banal. Taking into account the diverging positions of Walter Burkert
(1972) and Leonid Zhmud (1997 and 2012) about the character and origin of the
first collections of them, as well as Carl Huffman’s (2008) interpretation of Her-
 This is also the main argument of his recent book on Pythagoreanism (Cornelli 2013).
XII Introduction
aclitus’ fr. 129 DK as referring to the collecting of such material by Pythagoras

himself, the author proposes a compromise: that from the beginning, the akous-
mata were of heterogeneous nature, some of them being followed by explana-
tions and some not, and that the moral precepts and prohibitions among
them could be either obeyed literally or be interpreted symbolically. Later, the
juxtaposition of akousmata with and akousmata without explanation(s) within
the same collection caused hermeneutical pressure to provide symbolic explan-
ations for all.
Scholars working on the so-called Presocratic thinkers know very well how
profoundly indebted to ‘Homer’ their imagery, thought patterns and modes of ex-
pression can be – especially in the case of poet-philosophers like Parmenides or
Empedocles. Marcus Mota follows this path in his research, but from the point of
view of performance. In Chapter Five, Pythagoras Homericus: Performance as
Hermeneutic Horizon to Interpret Pythagorean Tradition, he focuses on the simi-
larities and differences between the Pythagorean and the Homeric tradition. In
both of them procedures are found proper to a performative culture that perme-
ates both the acts of composition or memory transmission and the formation of
group identity through the creative appropriation of the tutelary figure and the
effort to imitate it. The author puts particular emphasis on the testimony of Pla-
to’s Republic X (600b-c), where the educators Homer and Pythagoras are com-
pared as regards the emotional bond linking them with their followers, and
the re-performance within a group of the way of life they inaugurated.
With the following ‘twin’ chapters, conceived as a kind of diptych by their
authors, a remarkable effort is made to disentangle Orphism and Pythagorean-
ism – two (primarily) religious traditions that often go together not only in the
layman’s, but also in the specialist’s mind, and which permeated many aspects
of the beliefs and practices of the ancient Greeks as far back as the classical
times. In the first of the two (Chapter Six, Orphics and Pythagoreans: the Greek
perspective), Alberto Bernabé, to whom we are grateful for an authoritative edi-
tion of the Orphic material in three impressively learned and exhaustive volumes
(2004– 2007), offers a critical review of the most important ancient Greek sour-
ces on the Orphics and Pythagoreans, focusing on their cosmological doctrines,
their belief in the immortality of the soul and in transmigration, their respective
ways of life, and the practice of vegetarianism. The author discusses the shared
doctrines, similarities, differences and peculiar characteristics of the two groups
or traditions, and points out that in some cases the two labels appear inter-
changeable or confused, while in other cases the sources attempt to establish
the priority of one tradition over the other.
Francesc Casadesús’ study (Chapter Seven, On the origin of the Orphic-Pytha-
gorean notion of the immortality of the soul) focuses on what is perhaps the most
Introduction XIII
substantial, but also the most controversial point of this complicated dossier, try-
ing to distinguish between the Orphic and Pythagorean conceptions of the soul’s
immortality and metempsychosis. The author suggests that initially the Pythagor-
ean view on this matter was devoid of moral connotations, simply focusing on
the fact that the soul continues to exist after death and goes through successive
cycles of transmigration. But later (as far back as the 5th century BC; see Philo-
laus, fr. 14 DK) Pythagoreanism absorbed the Orphic idea that the soul is buried
in a body because of an offense committed in the past, thus leading to the Or-
phico-Pythagorean (con)fusion. However, it seems quite clear that the myth
from which this conception of reincarnation as expiating some ‘original sin’ is
derived, i. e. the myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus’ body by the Titans,
never found a place among the more ‘Apollinian’ Pythagoreans.
Section three, “Fifth and fourth century Pythagoreanism”, takes us away from re-
ligion, to the scientific-mathematical domain. It deals with the two major figures
of the pre-Platonic phase of development of the Pythagorean movement, of
which we have some authentic fragments: Philolaus (a contemporary of Socra-
tes) and Archytas (a contemporary of Plato). In the last decades our knowledge
of these two early Pythagoreans has been greatly improved thanks to the exhaus-
tive monographs devoted to them by Carl Huffman (1993 and 2005). So in Chap-
ters Eight and Nine we do not have broad synthetic treatments of their contribu-
tions to philosophy and/or science, but either new suggestions and insights
about specific points of doctrine (Richard McKirahan, Philolaus on Number) or
a re-examination of the evidence concerning the date and paternity of one of
the major achievements of ancient Greek mathematics (Luc Brisson, Archytas
and the duplication of the cube). McKirahan recognizes in Philolaus a great inno-
vator, marking a third stage in early Pythagorean thought about numbers: thanks
to his understanding of the closely linked realms of harmony, number, knowl-
edge and reality, Philolaus successfully overcame previous difficulties and, by
seeing the harmonic intervals as related by a system of ratios of whole numbers
that can be added and subtracted, he updated Pythagorean thought about num-
bers to include ratios of numbers as a kind of number in their own right. Most of
the paper focuses on Philolaus’ analysis of the octave in fr. 6a DK, and on its im-
port for his philosophical system at large. As for Brisson, after a critical review of
the oldest testimonies concerning Archytas and his profile as a philosopher and
Pythagorean (testimonies coming from Plato, Aristotle and Aristoxenus), he dis-
cusses Archytas’ involvement in the attempts to solve the problem of the dupli-
cation of the cube. Although the author considers likely that Archytas was in-
deed interested in this problem, he levels criticism at Carl Huffman’s (2005) re-
cent acceptance of the late testimonies of Eutocius, Proclus and Eratosthenes
XIV Introduction
which attribute to Archytas a complex solution that presupposes knowledge of

the theory of conics, which was not fully developed until much later. Conse-
quently, what Archytas could have proposed is only a very primitive mechanical
solution.
The “Reception” of Pythagorean ideas “by Plato, Aristotle and the early Acade-
my”, the subject of section four, is one of the most controversial areas in Pytha-
gorean studies. There is much space for polyphonic interpretation and διαφωνία
here, especially because of the very scanty primary evidence for pre-Platonic Py-
thagorean philosophy, and of the fragmentary preservation of Aristotle’s and
other early Academics’ works on the Pythagoreans. Given that it is very difficult
to find scholars who agree with each other on topics related to this issue (be it in
the big picture or in matters of detail), the organizers of the Brasilia Seminar
opted for an open attitude, trying to create conditions for a fertile dialogue
among participants with diverging views and approaches.
In Chapter Ten, Plato and the Pythagoreans, Carl Huffman offers a thorough
and nuanced treatment of Plato’s indebtedness to the Pythagorean philosophy of
his time. After a careful and balanced examination of many passages of Plato’s
dialogues where Pythagorean influence has often been recognized and accepted
in the past, the author comes to the conclusion that substantive Pythagorean in-
fluence is limited to only a few narrowly defined aspects of Plato’s philosophy
rather than being pervasive. More precisely, it is argued that when Plato appeals
to mathematics in order to explain the natural world or when he sets out a myth
about the fate of the soul that implies metempsychosis – two strands in Greek
thought which Pythagoras and Pythagoreans also emphasized – he is not, in
most cases, drawing specifically on the Pythagoreans, whom he sometimes
seems even willing to criticize and correct, but on the mathematical knowledge
of his own time and on mystery cults respectively.
Passing from the general picture to more specific topics, Chapter Eleven, Phi-
lolaus and Plato on method, measure and pleasure, by Beatriz Bossi, attempts to
demonstrate how Plato’s use and reshaping of Pythagorean and especially Phi-
lolaic doctrines that were operative as the background of the Philebus do not
concern only the method of dialectic, but also provide a firm ontological foun-
dation justifying Plato’s long-held thesis that limit, measure and number are
the keys to making pleasure of the senses something good to humans. Moreover,
it is argued that the adoption of this doctrine is not restricted to the Philebus
alone or to Plato’s late period, but constitutes a pattern that occurs constantly
in Plato’s treatment of many subjects, and in particular with pleasure, from
the time of the Gorgias and the Protagoras, thus suggesting a Philolaic/Pythagor-
ean background to his philosophy already present from his early years.
Introduction XV
A quite different, more oblique, way of approaching the problem of Plato’s

relation with the Pythagoreans is to examine the ancient rumors concerning
his alleged plagiarism of the comic poet Epicharmus, who belongs to the earliest
thinkers associated with the Pythagoreans in Antiquity. This is the subject of
Chapter Twelve, which Fernando Santoro chose to entitle, in an intentionally
playful and ambiguous way, Epicharmus and the plagiarism of Plato. Through
a careful examination of the controversial testimony of the 4th-century BC histor-
ian Alkimus reported by Diogenes Laertius, the author tries to assess the accu-
sation of plagiarism formulated against Plato, both from a doctrinal point of
view and by taking into consideration the choice of the dialogue form. Santoro
remains open to admitting the authenticity of the Epicharmus passages quoted
by Alkimus, which are often considered spurious (Pseudepicharmea). Having re-
course to the notions of influence, imitation and emulation in an agonistic con-
text rather than to that of plagiarism, he poses the question of Pythagorean in-
fluence on Plato in an indirect way. By doing so he also opens the discussion
about the real character of ancient Pythagoreanism, which in his view appears
more like a fluid and diffuse assemblage of ideas endowed with a Pythagorean
lineage, and is not confined to a strict and well defined doctrinal corpus.
But what happened to the reception of Pythagorean ideas after Plato, by his
pupils and successors? Walter Burkert’s (1972) well known and extremely influ-
ential theory is that in Classical times there were two fundamentally divergent
tendencies in the interpretation of ancient Pythagoreanism, the Academic and
the Aristotelian, of which only the latter can be historically correct. The aim of
Leonid Zhmud in Chapter Thirteen, Pythagorean Number Doctrine in the Acade-
my, is to raise serious doubts about this theory. According to the author, on the
one hand, the discussion of the Pythagoreanizing immediate successors of Plato
in the Academy (Speusippus, Xenocrates and Heraclides of Pontus) shows that
there is no reliable evidence that they equated the Platonic doctrine of the
One and the indefinite Dyad with the wisdom of Pythagoras. On the other
hand, it is argued that the Pythagorean number ontology and metaphysics as de-
scribed and criticized by Aristotle do not reflect the reality of ancient Pythagor-
eanism, but presuppose Platonic conceptions about principles and ontological
priority, and are understandable only in the context of the discussions that
took place within the early Academy.
The Early Pythagoreans in Aristotle’s account is the subject of Chapter Four-
teen, by Giovanni Casertano. According to the author, two features are prominent
in the picture Aristotle presents of Pythagorean doctrines: a) that they are plural-
istic (with a variety of positions, and no fixed dogmata), and b) that they do not
pertain to religious cult, but to mathematical and scientific matters. Concerning
the first principles, Aristotle’s Pythagoreans disagreed on whether they are to be
XVI Introduction
identified with a set of opposites or with ‘numbers’, materially conceived. Specif-

ically on the last point, Casertano stresses how Aristotle’s methodology and
frame of mind, so different from the Pythagorean ones, explain his criticism of
the Pythagorean approach to number as ‘expressing’ phenomena, and points
to his possible twisting of the very meaning of the doctrines he transmits.
Section five, “Hellenistic and late antique traditions”, groups together studies on
very different texts and authors, all of which illustrate, in various ways, the on-
going interest in Pythagoreanism after the time of Plato and Aristotle – even if
this interest does not necessarily imply that Pythagoreans enjoyed a continuous
existence, either as separate individuals or in organized communities. The dates
of the texts examined in this section range from an unspecified point within the
quite obscure Hellenistic period through the beginnings of the Pythagorean re-
vival in Alexandria and Rome in the 1st century BC to the later Neoplatonists
of the proto-Byzantine period.
In Chapter Fifteen, The Pythagorean Hypomnemata reported by Alexander
Polyhistor in Diogenes Laertius (8. 25 – 33): a proposal for reading, André Laks re-
visits an exceptional document from the Hellenistic period – clearly post-Aca-
demic but also pre-Neopythagorean – which most scholars have dissected and
‘atomized’ in distinct units of heterogeneous provenance in an effort to demon-
strate its eclectic character, and the mingling of Presocratic, Academic, Aristote-
lian, Stoic, and medical doctrines in it. Contrary to previous scholarship, Laks
first isolates possibly pre-Platonic, genuinely Pythagorean material (even if it
is expressed in updated, late formulations and terminology), and tries to evalu-
ate its credentials as well as the arguments that have been employed to defend
its Pythagorean origin. Secondly, he takes the text as it stands, namely, as a well-
rounded whole presenting a set of Pythagorean doctrines in the guise of an ex-
haustive system. Significantly, this elaborate metaphysical, cosmological and
psychological construction that begins with the One and ends with the soul is
followed by ritual precepts and moral recommendations with practical concerns
for which the preceding doctrinal part plays the role of an explicative account –
in just the same way as the explanations accompanying the oldest of Pythagor-
ean acousmata.
The time of Alexander Polyhistor roughly coincides with the Pythagorean re-
vival of the 1st century BC, which produced a great number of texts written under
the names of Pythagoras and/or of other Pythagoreans, real or imagined – the
so-called Pseudopythagorica. Chapter Sixteen, Eudorus of Alexandria and the ‘Py-
thagorean’ pseudepigrapha, by Mauro Bonazzi, investigates the ‘strategic conver-
gence’ between some of the texts belonging to this peculiar kind of literature,
mainly attributed to Archytas of Tarentum and Timaeus of Locri, and testimonies
Introduction XVII
on Eudorus of Alexandria (and other Platonists of the early Roman Empire) on

such important issues as the doctrine of principles, God, the creation of the uni-
verse and the categories. This convergence can possibly give us hints both for the
dating of these Pythagorean pseudepigrapha, whose appearance seems to be
concomitant with the renewed attention given to Aristotle in the 1st century
BC, and for the milieu in which they might have been produced. The author in-
vestigates the purpose for which these texts were composed, and suggests that
they provided a textual basis for internal debates among Platonists rather
than for Pythagorean groups. On this view, these texts are seen to be a further
chapter in the history of the Platonic-Academic appropriation of Pythagorean
ideas rather than in the history of Pythagoreanism itself.
In the next chapter, a considerable jump in time brings us to the 5th and 6th
centuries AD, when Neoplatonism became indisputably the ‘philosophical reli-
gion’ of most cultivated pagans. The author of Chapter Seventeen, Dominic
O’Meara, who in his 1989 monograph Pythagoras Revived thoroughly studied
the assimilation of Pythagorean ideas by later Platonism from Iamblichus to Pro-
clus, comes back to the same subject more than twenty years later in order to
pursue his research on Pythagoreanism in late antique Philosophy, after Proclus.
This time he focuses mainly on Damascius, Olympiodorus, and the Neoplatonic
commentators of Aristotle. What emerges clearly from his study is that the image
of Pythagoras and of Pythagorean philosophy in this period as well as the sour-
ces for both, do not seem to have changed essentially, or to have lost in impor-
tance, as compared to what we find in earlier Neoplatonists.
Neoplatonism had a long life in Western intellectual history, and the same is true
of Pythagorean (or, rather, Neo-Pythagorean) ideas that went hand-in-hand with
it. The last section, “The Pythagorean heritage in Renaissance and early modern
times”, amply demonstrates this in the case of Renaissance Italy while remind-
ing us that there were also other, more scientific channels for the transmission of
this extraordinary heritage.
Chapter Eighteen, Ficino’s Pythagoras, offers a new look at the Renaissance
humanist Marsilio Ficino (1434– 1499), well known for his affinities with the Neo-
platonic tradition. Thomas M. Robinson points out that in this context the great
man also came to know and adopt the Pythagorean way of life (and the grounds
on which it rested), as well as some philosophical views which he took to be cen-
tral to Pythagorean belief, and even to the beliefs of Pythagoras himself: the im-
mortality of the soul, and the role and status of a transcendental ‘One’ in the uni-
versal world order. The author deals in detail with these two Pythagorean tenets,
and gives an account of the reasons why Ficino held them.
XVIII Introduction
Three centuries later, at the dawn of modernity, Pythagorean ideas of a quite

different kind were still inspiring people in Europe. Edrisi Fernandes brilliantly
illustrates this by focusing on a rather neglected figure of the 18th century: the
astronomer, physicist and mathematician Ruder Josip Boscovich (1711– 1787).
In Chapter Nineteen, A modern approximation to Pythagoreanism: Boscovich’s
‘point atomism’, he shows convincingly that the work of Boscovich bears clear
marks of Pythagorean influence both in terms of content and in the way his
ideas are presented, with statements on physics expressed by means of mathe-
matics and vice versa. The author explores Boscovich’s Pythagorean connec-
tions, his ancient sources (including Zeno of Elea) and his indebtedness to pre-
vious thinkers such as Vico and Leibniz. Particular attention is given to his con-
ception of physical reality as originating from the dynamics of point-centers scat-
tered in a vacuum and possessing the characteristics of the Pythagorean monad,
and to his understanding of the commencement of materiality from a dyad of
point-centers, which resembles the doctrine of the Neopythagorean Numenius
of Apamea.
At this point it is impossible not to underline the kairós of holding the seminar
On Pythagoreanism in the city of Brasilia, which the great Portuguese poetess So-
phia de Mello Breyner Andersen defined in 1961 as being “designed by Pythago-
ras”:
Brasília
Designed by Lúcio Costa, Niemeyer and Pythagoras
Logical and lyrical
Greek and Brazilian
Ecumenical
Proposing to people of all races
The universal essence of the just forms
Brasília naked and lunar

Like the soul of a very young poetess
Clear as Babylon
Slender as that pillar, the palm tree
Over the smooth page of the plateau
Architecture has written its own landscape
Brazil has emerged from the Baroque and found its number
In the heart of Artemis’ kingdom
– Goddess of unspoiled nature –
Introduction XIX
In the end of the Candangos’⁴ path

In the end of the Candangos’ nostalgia
Athena made rise her city of cement and glass
Athena made rise her city, as ordered and clear as a thought
And the skyscrapers have the delicate fineness of a coconut palm.
Brasilia, Pythagoras’ daughter, is, then, partly Greek.

It is tempting to make an exegesis of the poem to show how much there is in
fact of Greek and ancient, of Athens and Rome in the project of Brasilia. We will
limit ourselves to demonstrating this by evoking the memory of the Pythagorean
mathematician, architect and philosopher Hippodamus of Miletus, from the 5th
century BC. His urban plans in “Hippodamian grids” had large and straight
roads intersecting at angles of 45 and 135 degrees. He organized his ideal city
in a tripartite system: the territory was divided into regions designated for reli-
gious observances, public matters and private matters; the city was organized
in separate sections designated for artisans, farmers and soldiers. A certain
other city is brought to mind…
But let us end here by giving acknowledgements to the institutions that helped in
organizing the 2011 Brasilia Seminar and in preparing this book:
The Seminar On Pythagoreanism would not have been possible were it not
for the effective and generous support of both research financing agencies
which operate at a national level in Brazil: Escola de Altos Estudos / CAPES
from the Ministry of Education and CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa)
from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
Special thanks are also due to the Department of Research and Graduate
Studies of the University of Brasilia for the organization of the seminar, as
well as to the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris), for its support in the in-
itial phase of the publishing process.
Finally, the editors wish to thank the authors for their papers, and the edi-
torial team at De Gruyter for their competent work.
Brasília, August 2013 Gabriele Cornelli

Richard McKirahan
Constantinos Macris
 Candango is the name given to those who worked in the construction of Brasilia. Today it is
commonly used to refer to people born and raised in the city.
1 Historiography
Gabriele Cornelli
Pythagoreanism as an historiographical
category: historical and methodological
notes
Introduction
In the labyrinthine confusion of the tradition of Pythagorean wisdom and society that
largely has been transmitted by later naive writers and compilers, as if hidden by a sacred
darkness, the fragments of Philolaus were always a sparkling point to me. (Boeckh 1819:3)¹
Thus Boeckh, in 1819, began the work that inaugurates the prehistory of modern
scholarship on Pythagoreanism. A highly significant incipit, especially when
considered in perspective, in the light of the two centuries of interpretation
that have succeeded his study and that have traced the winding route of the his-
tory of the modern understanding of Pythagoreanism. A beginning that reveals
precisely two major loci of hermeneutic criticism: on the one hand, the expres-
sion labyrintischen Gewirre, a memorable reference to the difficulty inherent in
the task of finding one’s way through the ancient evidence on Pythagoreanism;
on the other hand, the immediate identification of a lichter Punkt, a “sparkling
point” somewhere in the labyrinth (usually corresponding to an author or a spe-
cific theme) that can illuminate the darkness of the historiographic labyrinth: a
thread of Ariadne, which allows one to get out of the “confusion” with which the
historian of Pythagoreanism is confronted.
The perception of that same difficulty is not unique to modern criticism: Al-
ready Iamblichus, early in his On the Pythagorean Way of Life (De vita pythagor-
ica), appealed to the gods for assistance 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 doctrines of the symbols, and on the other
I would like to thank Richard McKirahan for the final revision of the English version of my paper.
Parts of this article, slightly modified, have been already published in my recent book In Search
of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (De Gruyter, ).
 “In dem labyrinthischen Gewirre der Überlieferungen über die Pythagorische Weisheit und
Pythagorische Gesellschaft, welche grossentheils durch späte und urtheilslose Schriftsteller und
Zusammenträger wie in heiliges Dunkel gehüllt zu uns herübergekommen sind, haben des
Philolaos Bruchstücke sich mir immer als ein lichter Punkt dargestellt”.
4 Gabriele Cornelli
the large number of spurious and forged writings on Pythagorean philosophy

that had been circulated (Iambl. VP: 1).
From the dawn of writing about Pythagoreans, therefore, a sense of labyrin-
thine panic seems to attend the historian’s encounter with Pythagoreanism. At-
tending it also is an immediate attempt to leave the maze, to find order in the
chaos, to identify something certain that allows the historiographical discourse
to achieve some hermeneutic stability.
The two centuries that followed the inaugural work of Boeckh on Philolaus
constitute the main object of this paper.² The intention is to monitor the con-
duct – not always calm and reasonable – of criticism, knowing beforehand
that this will result in a history in which every fact and every witness shall be
brought into the discussion, except perhaps the very existence of the so-called
Pythagoreans: “In the scholarly controversy that followed scarcely a single fact
remained undisputed, save that in Plato’s day and then later, in the first century
B.C., there were Pythagoreioi” (Burkert 1972: 2).
We will note the continuity of a lectio of Pythagoreanism that will deliver it
to history with the characteristics of a particular, complex movement that is dif-
ficult movement to interpret within the panorama of normal (in the Kuhnian
sense) studies of pre-Socratic philosophy.
1 Zeller and Diels: the skepticism of the

beginnings
Obviously, Pythagoreanism shares the starting point of the modern history of its
criticism with the rest of ancient Greek philosophy. In this case, the precursor is
certainly Zeller, who in his Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen
Entwicklung (1855) lays the foundations for the modern historiography of ancient
philosophy. Significantly, Zeller’s first page on the chapter devoted to Pythagor-
eanism puts itself in continuity with the previously cited texts of Iamblichus and
Boeckh, indicating a particular difficulty for the study of Pythagoreanism in the
mixture of fables and poetry that covered up the philosophical doctrine (Zeller
 It should be noted that most commentators (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 scholarship on Pythagoreanism, preferring to make it begin more traditionally with
the work of Zeller (1855, citations to this work will be made from the Italian edition, comple-
mented and annotated by Mondolfo, in 1938).
Pythagoreanism as an historiographical category 5
and Mondolfo 1938: 288).³ Zeller faces the problem without wax, so to speak, im-
mediately wondering about the very possibility of a Pythagorean philosophical
system: “one could raise the question whether it is possible to speak of a Pytha-
gorean system in general as a scientific and historical complex” (Zeller and Mon-
dolfo 1938: 597).⁴
The question is potentially paralyzing, because it calls into question the very
possibility of approaching Pythagoreanism in those histories that one might con-
sider Histories of Philosophy. As Zeller sees it, the danger is that, deep down, Py-
thagoreanism 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 respect to the Pythagorean philosophy, despite all the diver-
gences of subordinate determinations, coincides completely in its basic features”
(1938: 599).⁵ That is, there is something philosophical in Pythagoreanism that can
be saved for future systematization.
To accomplish this in principio salvation of Pythagoreanism, however, Zeller
historiographically must operate in a decidedly developmental, not to say posi-
tivist, manner, imposing a rigid historicist scheme on that movement, with the
surgical precision of the nineteenth century German scholar. For this scheme
to work Zeller needs to create various hermeneutical gaps, multiple controlled
and accurately and clearly marked fractures. In fact, one can see in the Zellerian
strategy of saving Pythagoreanism the operation of three particular fractures: a)
between early materials on Pythagorean philosophy, which are few, and late,
largely Neopythagorean materials, which constitute the majority of the source
material, b) between philosophical and scientific doctrines and other, largely
mythical and religious pronouncements; c) between Greek and Eastern culture, –
with the result that Pythagoreanism is held to be a genuinely Greek movement.
Thus, to solve the problem raised by the sources, Zeller proposes the famous
theory of the expansion of tradition, which looks at how, over time, the sources
on Pythagoreanism, increased rather than decreasing – as one would have ex-
pected (Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 299).⁶ Zeller can thus conclude that “the al-
 “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”.
 “Si potrebbe sollevare la questione se sia il caso di parlare in genere del sistema pitagorico
come di un complesso scientifico e storico”.
 “Tutto ciò che ci è riferito della filosofia pitagorica, pur fra tutte le divergenze di determi-
nazioni subordinate, coincide tuttavia nei tratti fondamentali”.
 “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
6 Gabriele Cornelli
leged Pythagorean doctrine that is not known from the oldest testimonies is Neo-
pythagorean” (1938: 300).⁷ That is, using a somewhat circular argument, and re-
fusing to take care to identify possibly early material within the late Pythagorean
literature, Zeller claims to establish what is Pythagorean solely on the testimo-
nies he considers the oldest ones. Among them, Zeller will privilege Aristotle
and the fragments of Philolaus that, in the wake of Boeckh, he considers collec-
tively as authentic.⁸
A consequence of this choice is that the most relevant material for the his-
tory of Pythagoreanism is that which associates it with the other pre-Socratic sys-
tems, especially with regard to the philosophy of nature (Zeller and Mondolfo
1938: 585).⁹ Based on these thematic criteria, therefore, Zeller, using a circular
argument, ends up determining which testimonies are valid for a history of
the origins of Pythagoreanism. Similarly, excluding parti pris the consideration
of mythical doctrines of Pythagoreanism, Zeller cannot but declare his unrestrict-
ed adherence to Aristotle and his judgement on the Pythagoreans:
There cannot be taken into account here the mythical doctrine of the transmigration of
souls and the vision of life founded on this: these religious dogmas, moreover, were not
exclusive to the Pythagorean school, and were 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. (Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 585 – 587)¹⁰
More specifically, even if one cannot see precisely how much of fifth century BC
Pythagoreanism (Philolaus, Archytas) can be referred to Pythagoras himself, Zel-
proporzione tanto più taciturna a misura che ci avviciniamo cronologicamente al suo oggetto
medesimo”.
 “la pretesa dottrina pitagorica, che non è conosciuta dai testimoni più antichi, è neopitago-
rica”.
 Cf. Zeller’s extensive discussion at p. 304 n. 2. On that note, however (p. 307), Zeller stands
apart from Boeckh regarding the authenticity of the fragment about the soul-world (44 B21 DK),
considering un-Philolaic the theory that the soul is divided into several parts, as we find in the
Platonic-Aristotelian tradition. Burkert (1972: 242– 243) and Huffman (1993: 343) will concur with
him. Cf. Cornelli (2002) for a more extensive discussion of the Zellerian theory of expanding the
tradition.
 “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”.
 “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”.
ler suggests that its main doctrines derive directly from him: in primis, the doc-
trine that “all is number”, “which is the most general differentia of Pythagorean
philosophy” and which can be summarized in the statement that “number is the
essence of all things, i. e., everything in its essence is a number” (Zeller and Mon-
dolfo 1938: 435).¹¹ Likewise, the doctrines of harmony, the central fire and the
theory of the spheres should be attributed to Pythagoras: all of them are present
in fragments of Philolaus, which – as we have seen – were deemed authentic by
Zeller.
In the same vein, Zeller, despite demonstrating knowledge of both the an-
cient evidence and the German Oriental studies of his time, the same person
who linked Greek philosophy in general, and Pythagoreanism in particular, to
the traditions of Egyptian, Persian and Indian thought, nevertheless entitles
the chapter devoted to this theme Against the Eastern Origin. Zeller immediately
declares the improbability of an Oriental origin of the doctrines (Zeller and Mon-
dolfo 1938: 602– 606) and instead favors a Greek origin of Pythagoreanism and
asserts that it is possible to “understand it perfectly based on its own character-
istics and on the conditions of culture of the Greek people in the sixth century
BC.” (Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 607).¹² Pythagoreanism is therefore to be under-
stood as part of a larger movement of religious and moral reform, to which be-
long such figures as Epimenides, the gnomic poets and the seven sages, even
though it rises above these others by “the polyhedricity and power with which
he [Pythagoras] embraced within himself the whole substance of the culture
of his time, the religious, the ethical-political, and the scientific element”
(1938: 607).¹³
Zeller’s effort to separate Pythagoreanism from possible 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” (1938: 609);¹⁴ so as to deny any influence of the native Ital-
ian peoples, whom without any reluctance he calls Barbarians (1938: 610 – 611).¹⁵
This chimes with Zeller’s insistence on the existence of a deep relationship be-
 “che constituisce il carattere differenziale più generale della filosofia pitagórica” e “il nu-
mero sia l’essenza di tutte le cose, ossia che tutto di sua essenza sia numero”.
 “comprender[lo] perfettamente sulla base delle caratteristiche proprie e delle condizioni di
cultura del popolo greco nel VI secolo a. C.”.
 “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”.
 “agli studi matematici, difficilmente poteva a quel tempo essere introdotto da qualcun
altro”.
 And yet, Mondolfo, in his note, remembers the figure of Mamercus and a possible center of
the culture of mathematics in Italy previous to Pythagoras (Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 359).
8 Gabriele Cornelli
tween Magna Graecia and what Zeller calls the “Dorian character”, which de-
pends on the institutions of the Doric Achaean cities that were among the loca-
tions of Pythagoras’ activities (1938: 607).¹⁶ With a markedly Hegelian (see, in
this sense, his Lessons on the History of Philosophy) historiographical voice
like this, the conclusion 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 Grecia is that that is where philosophy
arose: “the land that philosophy found for itself in the colonies of Magna Graecia
was so favorable. The success it was able to achieve is proof of that” (1938: 611).¹⁷
Thus emerges what appears as a Leitmotiv of the entire history of philosoph-
ical, and not only pre-Socratic, scholarship: one always gets the impression that
a historian finds in any given great philosopher an anticipation of himself or of
his chosen views. The privilege granted by Zeller to the Aristotelian lectio of the
Pythagoreans became, throughout the history of modern scholarship, a predom-
inant historiographical tropos. Likewise, both the clear rift between early Pytha-
goreanism and Neopythagoreanism as well as a nearly absolute contempt for the
political dimension of the Pythagorean koinonía decidedly influenced later stud-
ies.
Examples of the influence of Zellerian skepticism are certainly the lessons
about the pre-Platonic philosophers that his friend Nietzsche taught in Basel be-
ginning in 1872. The thesis that Nietzsche defends in his lesson on Pythagoras is
significant:
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
 Zeller lists as examples of this nature, among others: aristocratic politics, ethical music,
enigmatic wisdom, female participation in education and society, a strong moral doctrine which
is based on measure, and which knows nothing higher than the subordination of individuals as
a whole, respect for parents, authority and old age (1938: 608 – 609). The first formulation of this
distinction was that of Boeckh, who distinguished between the Ionian Sinnlichkeit, which mirrors
philosophical materialism, and the Doric Volk, which refers to the search for order (1819: 39 – 42).
It is important to remember, moreover, that Boeckh was a disciple of Schleiermacher, who first
postulated this model of the ethnic division of philosophy into various geopolitical trends, and
evolutionary forms, in his 1812 lectures posthumously published under the title Ethik 1812/3
(Schleiermacher, 1990).
 “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”.
remarkable influence, not on philosophy but on philosophers (Parmenides, Empedocles).

Only on these terms one should be talking about him. (Nietzsche 1994: 39 – 40)
The very possibility of including Pythagoras within the history of philosophy is

thus put in serious doubt, for his contribution to it is reduced to a view of a gen-
eral way of life, deprived of philosophical content. Consequently Nietzsche’s po-
sition reveals a fairly radical skepticism.¹⁸
Diels organizes his selection of fragments and testimonies on the Vorsokra-
tiker according to the Aristotelian-Zellerian premise that a Pythagorean is some-
one who speaks of numbers (Diels 1903; Diels-Kranz 1951). The initial annotation
to Chapter XIV on Pythagoras cannot be more indicative of his dependence on
Zeller:
Before the time of Philolaus there were no writings of Pythagoras and there was only an
oral tradition of the same school, therefore there was no doxography. […] Cf. the testimonies
of Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Ion on Pythagoras. (Diels 1903: 22)¹⁹
The influence of the Diels collection on all subsequent studies of Pythagorean-

ism is unquestionable.²⁰ De Vogel (1964: 9) rightly shows that Diels includes
from the later tradition about Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans only what is di-
rectly related to Aristoxenus and his Pythagorikai apophaseis (D), the Acusmata
and Symbola (C), the Aristotelian and Peripatetic testimonies (B) and some lim-
ited references to the Pythagoreans of Attic Middle Comedy (E). Even the revision
of the collection made by Kranz for the sixth edition of that work (1951) main-
 Bechtle (2003) unprecedently entitles his chapter on Pythagoras with the question ‘Py-
thagoras Philosophus?’. The same skepticism seems to be alive and well in the recent collection
of texts from Graham’s The Texts of Presocratic Philosophy (2010): the author does not confine
himself to asserting that “Pythagoras remains a riddle about whom only tentative reconstruc-
tions can be made” (2010, II, 906), but – without any explanation – removes him from the list
and the usual order of the study of pre-Socratic philosophers, relegating him to an appendix at
the end of the final volume of the work.
 “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 [21 B7], Heraklit [12 B40.129(?)], Empedokles [21 B129], Ion [25 B4(?)] über P. s.
bei diesen!” In the revised sixth edition, Kranz (1951) will qualify as “entscheidend wichtigen”,
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
arbitrarily inserting at the end two doxographic testimonies (A 20 and 21) about the discovery of
the identity of the stars Hesperus and Lucifer and about calling tó hólon a kósmos. Cf. for this
Burkert (1972: 77, 307).
 For an exhaustive review of the development process of the collection, cf. Calogero (1941).
10 Gabriele Cornelli
tains Diels’ arrangement: Kranz indeed decided to insert in the chapter on Pytha-
goras, Porphyry’s testimony (14 A8a) on Pythagoras’ political discourse at Croton
(VP: 18 – 19). However – De Vogel notes – he “hardly took it seriously” (1964: 9),
as is shown by the omission of the corresponding speeches in Iamblichus (VP:
37– 57), as well as the parallel passages in Pompeius Trogus. The few testimonies
that Diels and Kranz collect – 14 A13 on the marriage of Pythagoras and 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 cited there, which relates
directly to Pythagoras, is carefully kept quite apart from it, which means that
Kranz’s lectio wants to separate this material from authentic Pythagorean philos-
ophy.²¹
It is important to remember that the arbitrary choices of Diels-Kranz will be
the basis of all studies that will review throughout the twentieth century, at each
and every point, this collection.²²
2 Rohde: the reaction to skepticism

The first reaction to Zeller’s frank skepticism regarding Pythagorean sources did
not take long to appear: its points of departure are two articles that Rohde pub-
lished in Rheinisches Museum on the sources of Iamblichus’ On the Pythagorean
Way of Life (De vita pythagorica) (Rohde 1871; 1872) during the second half of the
nineteenth century. This was precisely the aspect of Iamblichus’ work about
which the first questions arose concerning the view that the later sources are
ipso facto unreliable. Rohde showed through a thorough analysis that Iambli-
chus’ text is based not on the parallel life of Porphyry, as was commonly be-
lieved at the time (Porphyrius, 1884: x), but on Neoplatonic sources, specifically
 It is noteworthy, however, that in a 1890 article, Diels had suggested attributing to Py-
thagoras himself some Pythagorean texts from the Hellenistic period, especially among them the
Kopídes, a rhetorical writing reconstructed from a reference to Heraclitus, and the Paideutikón,
Politikon, Physikón, actually written in the second century BC, in the Ionic dialect, in order to
make it appear older than the Doric Peri Physios of Philolaus. For the texts, see the collection of
Thesleff (1965).
 Philip (1966: 38) is categorically fatalistic in saying that the sections on Pythagoreanism are
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
(1958 – 1962) collection 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’”.
Nicomachus and Apollonius, dating from the first and second centuries AD,
therefore earlier than Porphyry. Rohde based this “mechanical theory of the
two sources” (Burkert, 1972: 100) on the idea that both Porphyry and Iamblichus
wrote their texts as an exercise of cutting and pasting, that was not always sty-
listically successful. His confidence in his theory extended to the point where
he ridiculed the “divine Iamblichus” for his “poverty of mind and sluggish
soul” (Rohde, 1872: 60), also he accuses Iamblichus of:
Demonstrating significant independence to such a shameful degree that he prepared a mul-

ticolored mixture of clippings from his lectures, while the chaotic ordering and the impro-
vised connective passages would be his own contribution to the work. (Rohde, 1872: 48)²³
Despite repeated criticisms about its ruthless arbitrariness in treating of Iambli-

chus’ procedure, in fact, Rohde’s work paved the way for a lengthy Quellenfor-
schung: Bertermann’s study of the sources of Iamblichus’ De vita pythagorica
(1913) and Deubner’s edition of the text (1937) largely depend on Rohde’s re-
search as well as on the studies of Corrsen (1912), Lévy (1926) and Frank
(1923).²⁴ Likewise, commentators who followed this path could then detect textu-
al references to authors of the fourth century BC, such as Aristoxenus, Di-
caearchus, Heraclides Ponticus and Timaeus.²⁵ Among them, surely we should
consider, in primis, Delatte, who in his work on Pythagorean literature (1915),
and later on Diogenes Laertius’ Life of Pythagoras (1922b), collected in a broad
chronological and interdisciplinary spectrum the most diverse sources of this
work, taking his inspiration from the methodology begun by Rohde. Von Fritz’s
work (1940) on the Pythagorean politics relies on the same methodological ap-
proach, one that seeks to identify materials that could be referred to Aristoxenus,
Timaeus and Dicaearchus.
 “Hier zeigt Jamblich eine bei einem so elenden Stoppler schon bemerkenswerthe Selb-
ständigkeit, indem er meist aus Brocken seiner Lektüre ein bunter Allerlei herstellt, an dem
wenigstens die unruhige Unordnung der Reihenfolge und die das Einzelne nothdürftig ver-
knüpfenden Betrachtungen sein eigenes Werk sind”.
 It is significant to note that in 1868, only four years before the publication of Rohde’s first
article, in the same journal (Rheinisches Museum für Philologie), Friedrich Nietzsche had pu-
blished an article 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 (Favorinus and Diocles of Magnesia) the sources of scattered biographical in-
formation in Diogenes’s work. Thus, Rohde’s work should be understood, alongside the efforts
of other distinguished colleagues, as part of a broad effort to validate the later sources through
the study of the Traditionsgeschichte.
 Cf. Burkert (1972: 4). For a critique of the articulation of Rohde’s arguments in the two
articles cited, cf. Norden (1913) and later Philip (1959).
Therefore there began to appear as benchmarks, in modern scholarly litera-

ture, authors almost as early as Aristotle for studies of Pythagoreanism at its
birth. It should be noted, in this sense, that the Doxographi Graeci, by Diels
(1879), already identifies Theophrastus as the ultimate source of much of the ma-
terial reported by the doxographic tradition: thus, from here onward the tradi-
tion that Diels calls the old Peripatetic tradition (58 B DK) plays a central role
in the reconstruction of Pythagoreanism.
3 Burnet: the double teaching of acousmatics and

mathematicians
Initiator of a brilliant tradition of Anglo-Saxon scholars who have devoted them-
selves to the study of the origins of ancient philosophy, Burnet, in his Early Greek
Philosophy (1908), is still in debt to Zeller’s lectio: in fact, Burnet develops his
theory with the presupposition of a clear separation of the religious dimension
of Pythagoreanism from the subsequent development of the movement, as well
as of a certain distance between the political concerns and the scientific ones of
the Pythagorean koinoníai. Based on this common denominator, Burnet prepares
his own lectio, based on the celebrated distinction within the Pythagorean move-
ment, between acousmatics and mathematicians. ²⁶ It should be noted that, al-
though the successive uses of this initial distinction tend to emphasize the
gap between the two groups, deep down that same distinction does not imply,
in the initial intentions of Burnet – as well as in the previously mentioned Lives –
a definitive separation between two sides of the same original Pythagoreanism.
Rather, Burnet identifies contact points in two places: a) in the complex figure of
Pythagoras himself, who would be at the origin of both didaskalíai (Burnet 1908:
107), b) on the concept of katharsis, of purification, which connects the religious
and the scientific aspect, since science itself also becomes an instrument of pu-
rification (Burnet 1908: 89).²⁷
 This distinction will become traditional in the history of scholarship and separates, on the
one hand, the interest of some in the traditional taboos of an archaic religiosity (the akoúsmata
and sýmbola), and on the other, the clear dedication to the investigation of scientific principles,
especially mathematical ones. A distinction, in short, already present in the sources related to
didaskalia ditton, to the double teaching of Pythagoras discussed by Porphyry and the di-
stinction between Pythagoreioi and Pythagoristai (the latter are followers of the former, which
would correspond to acousmatics) in Iamblichus (Porph. VP: 37, Iambl. VP: 80).
 “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’. Science too was a ‘purifi-
So it is not possible to agree with the somewhat summary accusation of De

Vogel, whereby “Burnet had no eye for the ethical-religious character of the bíos
founded by Pythagoras and for the essential connection of this aspect with the
so-called scientific principles” (1964: 11). Instead, it is precisely through the con-
cept of purification that this connection is affirmed and understood in its theo-
retical depth, beyond the concrete historical reality of the movement.²⁸
However, Burnet’s a formal a priori approach to the sources is certainly wor-
thy of criticism: on this approach, everything archaic will be religious, while all
that is newer is scientific. Thus, the original Pythagoreanism will be linked to
primitive modes of thought, easily detectable in the tradition of akoúsmata and
sýmbola (Burnet 1908: 106).²⁹
The turning point in the sources becomes, in Burnet, the mathematician Ar-
istoxenus, who inaugurates the distinction between the enlightened and the su-
perstitious groups of Pythagoreans, the latter of which are – from here on –
are considered heretical (Burnet 1908: 106).³⁰
However, Burnet does not fail to notice that the big question is how much of
that post-Aristoxenus vision is attributable to Pythagoras himself:
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. (Burnet,1908: 107– 108)
From this point on, the core problem in studies of the complex and multifaceted
phenomenon of Pythagoreanism becomes the question of how to bridge the gap
between the two Pythagorases, the man of science and the religious teacher. At
the same time as Burnet declares the need to overcome this gap, in order to find
cation’, a means of escape from the ‘wheel’. This is the view expressed so strongly in Plato’s
Phaedo, which was written under the influence of Pythagorean ideas”.
 Burnet cites (1908: 98 n3) and develops here the intuition that science and religion are
unified by katharsis, which had already been made by Döring (1892).
 “It would be easy to multiply proofs of the close connection 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 transmigration all
hang together and form a perfectly intelligible whole”.
 “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 represents
Pythagoras himself in so different a light from both the older and the later traditions; 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”.
in Pythagoras the origin of the two strands, he is presupposing its existence, al-
though the assumption that there is a distance to be overcome between scientific
and religious thought, whether in antiquity or today, is no more than an un-
proved albeit widespread hermeneutic prejudice. So, in conclusion to his chapter
on Pythagoreanism, Burnet admits to having elaborated his reconstruction of the
figure of Pythagoras by having “simply assigned to him those portions of the Py-
thagorean system which appear to be the oldest” (Burnet, 1908: 123). However,
the definition of what is the oldest constitutes practically the entire problem
that has to be faced.
In summary, Burnet’s effort to hold together the various traditions about Py-
thagoras is crucial for the history of interpretation of Pythagoreanism from Corn-
ford to Guthrie, which focused on the effort to trace the composition of the di-
verse traditions which surround both the figure of Pythagoras and the subse-
quent development of the movement.
4 Cornford and Guthrie: in search of unity

between science and religion
In an article published in two successive parts, in Classical Quarterly (in 1922 and
1923), significantly titled Mysticism and Science in the Pythagorean Tradition,
Cornford addresses the issue, in a way left open by Burnet, of how to approach
the relationship between the religious and scientific interests of Pythagoreanism,
in a way that avoids reductionism and anachronism³¹
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” (Cornford, 1922:
137). While all contemporary hermeneutic attempts of his time try to articulate
the two systems into a coherent picture of the movement, Cornford acknowledg-
es that there is some confusion between the two systems. This confusion is al-
ready perceptible in Aristotle’s works and will need to be unraveled. The solution
 The two articles closely follow Cornford’s historiographic perspective previously found in his
inaugural work on the complex relationships between myth and history in Thucydides, Thu-
cydides Mythistoricus (1907), whose goal is to depart from the trends of modern history, which
fall victim to the typical “modernist fallacy”, of projecting onto the work of the Athenian
historian scientific notions derived in their rationale from Darwinian biology and contemporary
physics. For a broader analysis of this work, as well as Cornford’s historiographical position, cf.
Murari (2002).
proposed by Cornford is to distinguish, within Pythagoreanism, two different and

successive historical moments, whose turning point – in the early fifth century
BC – was the Eleatic challenge to the derivation of the multiplicity of the reality
from a single arché. Cornford summarized as follows the image of Pythagorean-
ism that results:
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’. (Cornford, 1922: 137)
Cornford, only apparently in continuity with the separation between religion and
science, proposes this chronological division between mysticism and science in
Pythagoreanism. Indeed, immediately after indicating the separation described
above, Cornford notes that there is a third moment of Pythagoreanism, that of
Philolaus, which also belongs to the mystical side, but that 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. (Cornford, 1922: 137)
The most significant point here is the subtle shift in perspective – within the his-
tory of criticism – that Cornford’s division represents: by locating the source of
the distinction between the two sides of Pythagoreanism in the historical debate
with Eleaticism, he avoids Burnet’s apriorism that presupposes the precedence
of religion over science. Indeed, when describing the mystical side of the move-
ment, Cornford says with a certain British tone:
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. (Cornford, 1922: 138)
With an openly anti-evolutionist argument, Cornford argues, therefore, that un-

like the first Ionian phase of philosophy in its origins, in which the religious el-
ement had been left aside, in this second Italian moment the religious dimension
of philosophical life is recovered (Cornford, 1922: 138 – 139).³²
 “It is obvious that the Italian tradition in philosophy differs radically from the Ionian in
respect 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.
Thus, the figure of Pythagoras can be understood simultaneously as that of a

religious reformer and a man of science. The split between these two sides is
found only afterwards, resulting from the Eleatic challenge, in particular from
Zeno’s arguments. However, this account, as Cornford himself recognized (al-
though he did not discuss it), fails to account for Philolaus’s position in the tra-
dition. 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” (Raven, 1948: 9).
Closely following Cornford’s arguments and the coherent and plausible
image that results from them, Raven set about the task of checking whether
Cornford’s conclusions are the only possible ones. For the problem is not so
much – according to Raven – to find a coherent vision of the movement, but,
rather, to find one that “tallies with all our available evidence”, beginning
with the Aristotelian testimony without which any attempt to build a historical
discourse on Pythagoreanism is, in his words, a house built upon sand (Raven
1948: 6).³³
This is exactly the reading suggested by Guthrie (1962).
Guthrie refers directly to Cornford’s studies of 1922 and 1923 and then to his
disciple Raven, to illustrate what he calls an “a priori” method of the pre-Socratic
history of philosophy. The method mainly consists of putting aside, for a mo-
ment, the direct and indirect testimonies and to try to imagine what such philos-
ophers might or might not have said, given their historical circumstances. Gu-
thrie says the following about the presupposed theoretical concepts of such a
method:
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. (Guthrie,
1962: 172)
Pythagoras was both a great religious reformer, the prophet of a society united by reverence for
his memory and the observance of a monastic rule, and also a man of commanding intellectual
powers, eminent among the founders of mathematical science”.
 It is worth stressing that Cherniss (1977), by supporting Raven’s effort, manages to diminish
the impact of Cornford’s division on 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” (1977: 376).
These assumptions lead one thus to postulate the existence of two schools of
philosophy at the time of its birth: the Ionian and the Italian.³⁴ All authors, in
some way, are to be theoretically positioned on one side or the other. The apri-
oristic method is evident: perhaps that is why, even while sympathizing with it,
Guthrie suggests “using it with extreme caution” (1962: 172). But, with this warn-
ing ends the methodological concern aimed at controlling the obvious risk of cir-
cularity.³⁵
In this methodological approach, with the stated intention of wanting to un-
derstand pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism, without which, he maintains, Plato him-
self cannot be understood, Guthrie affirms the unity of the former (1962: 147).³⁶
Again, as with Cornford, a chronological distinction is recognized within
pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism.in order to guarantee the theoretic-doctrinal unity
of the movement, at least within its various historical phases.
While, probably influenced by the achievements of the great histories of phi-
losophy of the twentieth century, subsequent scholars were concerned to under-
stand that same unity and therefore sought to give accounts of Pythagorean phi-
losophy as a whole, there also began to appear works dedicated to particular
topics in Pythagoreanism and specific problems of Quellenforschung. Thus we
have studies of Pythagorean politics, the relations between Pythagoreanism
and Plato and on the relations between Pythagoreanism and the religious
world around them. Unfortunately – one has to say – after the Second World
War, these two types of literature ceased to enter into to dialogue among them-
selves: the handbooks on the history of philosophy continue following, for the
most part, the Zellerian line while monographs on Pythagoreanism reveal com-
plexities unknown to the former.
 It is also worth noting that this division goes back to the classic division between Ionian and
Italian philosophy in Diogenes Laertius (Vitae I. 13). The δύο ἀρχαί, the two beginnings of
philosophy, are identified by Diogenes Laertius, on one hand in Anaximander for the Ionian
strand, to which Anaximenes, Anaxagoras and Archelaus and finally, Socrates belong, and on
the other hand, in Pythagoras, the inventor of the term φιλοσοφία, for the Italian strand,
followed by his son Telauges, then Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Leucippus and Democritus
down to Epicurus (D. L. Vitae I. 13 – 14). For a more detailed discussion of the historiographical
models of the origins of ancient philosophy, cf. Sassi (1994).
 For a vehement critique of this methodological apriorism regarding Pythagoreanism, cf.
Kahn (1974: 163 n6).
 “This pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism can to a large extent be regarded as a unity. 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 chronologically to allow
the separate treatment of earlier and later phases”.
5 From Delatte to De Vogel: Pythagoreanism and

politics
In the history of scholarship special attention has been dedicated to the political
dimension of Pythagoreanism beginning in 1830, when Krische’s monograph as-
serted, peremptorily, the eminently political character of the Pythagorean soci-
etas: “The scope of the Society was purely political, not only to restore the
lost power of the aristocrats, but to enhance and amplify it” (Krische 1830: 101).³⁷
In the early twentieth century archaeological studies of the numismatic evi-
dence had already revealed the dominance of Pythagorean cities throughout
Magna Graecia, which was confirmed by Kahrstedt’s study of coins minted by
Croton and spread throughout the region, especially after the defeat of Sybaris
in 510 BC (Kahrstedt 1918: 186).³⁸
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: both tending to
lead most commentators to consider the issue of Pythagorean politics as simply
accidental (Centrone, 1996: 196).
It is necessary to agree with the view that the relationship between philo-
sophical thought and political practice (reformist or otherwise) in the history
of Pythagoreanism has challenged the ingenuity of classicists (D. S. M. 1943:
79), who if left to their own devices would have preferred to reject, on the
basis of the a priori argument that a man like Pythagoras could not be involved
in this type of activity (Minar 1942: 15), the possibility of a political dimension of
Pythagoreanism.
Therefore, the problem of the political involvement of the Pythagoreans pres-
ents a multifaceted framework of issues: not only because of difficulties in un-
tangling the complex relationships between earlier and later sources, and prob-
lems raised by the uncertain chronology of the domination (and subsequent de-
 “Societatis scopus fuit mere politicus, ut lapsam optimatum potestatem non modo in pri-
stinum restitueret, sed firmaret amplificaretque”.
 Cf. also Seltman (1933), De Vogel (1957: 323) and May (1966). Croton’s domination over the
rest of the Dorian city-states of Magna Graecia confirms the reports of Pythagorean political
influence: in fact, most of the coins brought in evidence have Pythagorean symbols. Cf. Seltman
(1933: 76 – 80, 100, 118, 144) and May (1966: 157, 167), especially coin n. 28 (Seltman, 1933: 144),
which represents a bearded man with the inscription puthagores and could be a portrait of
Pythagoras himself (Guthrie used it as such on the cover of the first volume of his History of
Greek Philosophy (1962)). Philip (1966: 194) is, however, skeptical about the possibility that the
image represents the real face of Pythagoras.
feat) of the Pythagoreans in Magna Graecia and by uncertainties about the influ-
ence of Pythagoras on the form this political activity took, but also and perhaps
mainly because of the theoretical difficulty commentators have found in articu-
lating the relationship between philosophy and politics which, starting with Ar-
istotle, began to be seen as inappropriate.
The fundamental work of Delatte (1922a), Essai sur la politique pythagorici-
enne, follows this hermeneutic path. It contains an exhaustive study of the sour-
ces for Pythagorean politics, which leads Delatte to accept the plausibility of suc-
cessful political activity in Croton by the earliest Pythagoreans. Delatte refers the
testimonies that describe the intertwining of this activity with the main lines of
philosophical thought to a successive period, especially the fourth century BC,
the century of Archytas and Aristoxenus. Until then, Delatte argues, the first Py-
thagorean koinoníai sought, more directly, “inner peace”, refraining from reform-
ist activity or in general from serious involvement in the political institutions of
their cities: “the Society wants only the inner peace that will secure its own
peace of mind and keep the existing institutions, of which it became the keeper”
(Delatte 1922a: 21).³⁹
Moreover, even if it is true that the Pythagorean community was somehow
involved in political activity, it is not necessarily correct to think that Pythagoras
himself was directly involved in such activities (Delatte 1922a: 18).⁴⁰
Consequently, Delatte explains the central fact of the democratic anti-Pytha-
gorean revolts as resulting not so much from political compromise in the Pytha-
gorean community in a conservative and aristocratic direction (which may more
appropriately be considered as a moral force), but rather from the attitudes of
some individuals who abused their prestige and ended up dragging the com-
munity into the conflict in response to attacks, and therefore under the form
of self-defense (1922a: 19 – 20).
Jaeger (1928), in turn, supports the thesis, in fact originally due to Zeller, that
Pythagorean political policy boils down to a projection of the late ideal of prac-
tical life proposed by authors like Aristoxenus and Dicaearcus: Jaeger’s Pythago-
ras, in line with Delatte, was an educator, a master of an education based on
music and mathematics.
Then Von Fritz (1940) wonders whether indeed we can say that the ancient
Pythagorean community had direct political control over the cities of Magna
 “la Société désire seulement la paix intérieure, qui lui assure sa propre tranquillité, et le
maintien des instituitions existantes, dont elle est devenue maîtresse”.
 “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 réformes”.
Graecia. Through an “austere investigation of the sources” (Tate, 1942: 74), he

identifies in Aristoxenus the most reliable witness for a reconstruction of the po-
litical trajectory of the Pythagorean communities, and concludes skeptically that
there was no early evidence of such Pythagorean power (Von Fritz 1940: 95).⁴¹
Von Fritz’s position therefore, does not differ substantially, from that of his
predecessors: the Pythagoreans’ political commitment is something that should
be attributed to the personal (sometimes religiously motivated) choices of a few
isolated members of the koinonia, not a philosophical action of the group as
such.
It is only Minar (1942), who in his work dedicated to early Pythagorean pol-
itics first shows himself aware of all the dangers and historiographical precon-
ceptions inherent in understanding Pythagoreanism’s political aspect.⁴²
Minar does not hide the fact that several ancient authors explicitly claim that
the Pythagoreans (and even Pythagoras himself) formally exercised political
control in Croton and other cities (Minar, 1942: 16): Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry,
Iamblichus, and Cicero, among others.⁴³ Thus, he opposes the argument of his
predecessors that political activity was restricted to some individual Pythagor-
eans. He cites on the one hand, the highly centralized nature of the community
and on the other the historical fact that the revolt was directed against the com-
munity as a whole. Both traditions make it very unlikely that political activity
was limited to the marginal activity of a few members (Minar, 1942: 18).⁴⁴
Pythagoreans were therefore the true ruling power in many cities of Magna
Graecia. It is then the task of modern historians, who are unaccustomed to find-
ing so close a relationship between philosophy and politics, to understand the
 “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”.
 In the preface to this work, he declares immediately a wish to face what he considers the
paradox represented by a school of thought involved in political activities. “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 eva-
luation of the facts” (Minar, 1942: v).
 D. L. Vitae VIII. 3; Porph. VP: 20, 21, 54; Iambl VP: 30, 130, 249, 254; Cicero. Tuscul. 5.4.10.
 “The highly centralized character of the Society, which von Fritz recognizes, makes it unli-
kely 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”.
intertwining of the two dimensions – Minar calls them respectively theoretical

and practical – of Pythagoreanism in a dynamic unity.⁴⁵
It is obviously no accident that many Italian scholars have been interested in
Pythagoreanism, especially in its political dimension: without going to Cappar-
elli’s chauvinistic extremes (1941), several authors, starting with Rostagno
(1922) and Mondolfo’s revision of Zeller’s work (1938), sought to link the two di-
mensions, mystical and scientific, in a complex historiographical scheme in
which the political dimension plays a central role.⁴⁶
The Italian appropriation of Pythagoreanism had its origins in Roman times.
Based on the ambiguity of the term “Italian philosophy”, and using a variation of
the legends about Pythagoras, by which he would be the son of a Tyrrhenian,
i. e., an Etruscan, Pythagoras was considered one of the forefathers of Rome’s
political, philosophical and religious culture.⁴⁷ The Samian philosopher thus
ends up being included in the lists of Roman citizens (Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXIV
26) and being believed to be the teacher of king-priest Numa Pompilius (Plu-
tarch, Numa 8).⁴⁸
 The least convincing part of Minar’s reading is probably his attempt to link these two parts
together, mainly by giving the doctrinal component of the Pythagorean political philosophy
much less importance than one would have expected (Minar, 1942: 95 – 132), by reducing Py-
thagoras and his movement to a political society marked by some degree to opportunism and
pragmatism. One must agree here with De Vogel (1966: 13) when he 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 role 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”.
 The meaning of this tradition can be understood precisely by the definition that opens
Ferrero’s classic work, Storia del Pitagorismo nel mondo Romano (1955: 21): “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 permanente 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”.
 Aristoxenus’s testimony about Pythagoras’ Etruscan father is, among others, in Plutarch
Quaest. Conv. VIII, 7, 1.
 Significantly, Cicero, while he wants to dispel the error of the patent anachronism of Numa’s
discipleship, ends up confirming the patriotic tradition from which it derives: “Quin etiam
arbitror propter Pythagoreorum admirationem Numam quoque regem Pythagoreum a post-
erioribus existimatum. Nam cum Pythagorae disciplinam et instituta cognoscerent regisque eius
aequitatem et sapientiam a maioribus suis accepissent, aetates autem et tempora ignorarent
The scope of this paper will not allow us to follow more closely this Italian
interpretation of the Pythagorean tradition.⁴⁹ What is most relevant for our pres-
ent purpose is that modern Italian historians recover this tradition of emphasis
on Pythagorean politics in their archaeological and historical studies on Magna
Graecia, as is the case of Prontera (1976, 1977), Mele (1982:2000, 2007) and Musti
(1990). However, this is also true for historians of philosophy. Amongst them, be-
sides the aforementioned Ferrero (1955), the studies of Casertano (1988 and
2009) and the sober chapters devoted to the topic by Centrone (1996) stand
out in this regard.
6 Aristotle’s unique testimony and the uncertain

academic tradition
Pythagorean scholarship dedicated itself, from the beginning, to the analysis of
the image of ancient Pythagoreanism which results from indirect sources, that is,
both from the alleged anti-Pythagorean complaints of contemporary authors,
and from Pythgorean influence on later writers and references to Pythagoreans
by writers that came after the end of the movement (Zeller and Mondolfo
1938: 313 – 364).
In such a search, Tannery’s work (1887b) is certainly the first step: his main
thesis is that the doxa section of Parmenides’ Poem is a refutation of Pythagor-
ean cosmology. Tannery starts with the observation that in the early section of
the doxa, in the Poem, Parmenides could only be referring to the Pythagoreans,
because they were the only ones who could be considered scientists (1887b Tan-
nery: 226).⁵⁰
propter vetustatem, eum, qui sapientia excelleret, Pythagorae auditorem crediderunt fuisse”
(Cicero. Tusc. Disp. IV: 1– 2).
 It is useful to follow the path traced by Casini (1998), among others. For the influence of
Pythagoreanism on Renaissance Europe art and architecture, cf. now the extensive monograph
of Gaugier-Joost (2009), which agrees with the Italian primacy on the Pythagorean revival des-
cribed above: “the enlivening inspiration of Pythagoreanism spread primarily from Italy, where
interest in ancient works was at first most intense, to the rest of Europe” (2009: 240).
 “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 paraît digne d’attention. Parménide veut faire con-
naître la science telle que la professaient ses contemporains; mais, en Italie, seuls les py-
thagoriciens 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”.
Likewise, Zeno’s target (as well as that of Xenophanes previously) was the
Pythagorean theory of numbers, because it “drew brand new consequences, par-
ticularly those that have to do with the unity, continuity, and the immobility of
the universe that contradict the doctrines of the Pythagoreans” (Tannery 1887b:
250).⁵¹ The central point of disagreement was found in the definition of point
(Tannery 1887b: 250, author’s emphasis).⁵²
This Pythagorean position came to be called numerical atomism and it finds
several connections to the atomism of the fifth and fourth centuries BC.⁵³
According to Tannery (1887b: 251), Zeno’s success was so overwhelming that
the Pythagoreans did not make any attempt to respond to it.⁵⁴ The problem is
that this reconstruction is has no historical merit. Certainly, we must agree
with Burkert when he suggests that the image of a dialogue – wholly pre-Socrat-
ic – between Pythagoreanism and other schools, although very tempting, has no
solid textual basis (Burkert 1972: 278).⁵⁵
Indeed, although it is quite likely that Pythagorean thought strongly influ-
enced other thinkers from Magna Graecia, a solid historical approach cannot
be based on plausibility, because “only meticulous study of the internal and ex-
ternal evidence can raise this possibility to a probability – to say nothing of cer-
tainty” (Burkert, 1972: 280).⁵⁶
 “il tirait des conséquences toutes nouvelles, et notamment celles sur l’unité, la continuité,
l’immobilité de l’univers contre-disaient les doctrines pythagoriciennes”.
 “Quel était donc le point faible reconnu par Zénon 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 pythagoriciens, le point est l’unité 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 […]”.
 For a more general discussion of the relationship of Pythagoreanism with Democritus and
atomism, cf. Mondolfo and Zeller (1938: 332– 335), Alfieri (1953: 30 – 54); Gemelli (2007a: 68 –
90).
 Both Cherniss (1935: 215) and Lee (1936: 34.104) follow the main lines of Tannery’s inter-
pretation of the Zenonian controversy.
 “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 interaction of
the Eleatics and Pythagoreans, in particular, becomes a living dialogue. Parmenides, the apo-
state 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”.
 Cf. Casertano (2007b: 4) for an example of discussion of Pythagorean influence on Par-
menides.
And yet, though marked by the aforementioned inaccuracies, this first step
made it possible not only to bring several more ancient texts into the discussion
of the Quellenforschung, but also to begin questioning the presumption of Aris-
totle’s unique testimony. Nevertheless, because of the importance of Tannery’s
thesis, most commentators accepted the existence of a dialogue between Eleati-
cism and Pythagoreanism, using as evidence the older sources.⁵⁷
Mention has just been made of the presumption that Aristotle’s unique tes-
timony is valid. A central role in the reassessment of the Aristotelian testimony
about the pre-Socratic philosophers was played by the works of Cherniss
(1935, 1944). Through an acute examination of the sources, still unsurpassed
in my view, Cherniss comes to the conclusion, already in 1935, that:
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. (Cherniss, 1935: xii)⁵⁸
Cherniss, therefore, analyzes Aristotle’s historiographical procedures, in search

of a solution to the central problem that the Aristotelian corpus constitutes for
the reconstruction of pre-Socratic philosophy: although his reconstruction of
the theories of the early philosophers is unreliable since it contains contradic-
tions, omissions, errors and misunderstandings, Aristotle is still the main, if
not the only source for the study of the pre-Socratics (1935: 347– 350). Thus, it
will be fitting to take what Cherniss calls “the greatest care” in analyzing the Ar-
istotelian material.
To that end, Cherniss develops a methodology to approach the text that al-
lows him to develop procedures for a kind of bias control (to use a statistical ter-
minology). He identifies confusing factors, in order to determine a correct (i. e.,
adequate from a historiographical point of view) way to make use of the corpus.
Thus, he identifies two types of omissions, seven common sources of mistakes
etc. (1935: 351– 358).
Two mistakes are particularly important in shaping the critical history of the
pre-Socratics. The first one concerns the Aristotle’s conception that there was es-
 Cf. Diels-Kranz (1951: Mondolfo and Zeller (1938: 326) – in the note on Mondolfo’s sources
because Zeller, as well as Gomperz (1893), did not agree with it, Burnet (1908: 183), Rey (1933:
183); 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 meta-
physics of Parmenides.
 Cf. also Cherniss (1935: 349 – 50, 356– 357). Now Burnet (1908: 56) had begun to distrust
Aristotle’s editorial choices, speaking of this habit of his of “putting things in his own way,
regardless of historical considerations”.
sentially one problem to which the Pre-Socratics dedicated their research, i. e.,
identifying the matter that constitutes everything that is. Rather, looking more
carefully (Aristotle himself would not deny this), it is possible to recognize
that the pre-Socratics were committed to the attempt to understand and describe
various natural processes and to solve specific problems. The second mistake de-
pends on the first, since it is the reason why Aristotle wanted to restrict the rich-
ness 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 fundamental distinction in nature is one be-
tween matter and form. And if Plato is seen as an exaggerated supporter of the
formal cause, he is so exactly for opposing himself to the Pre-Socratics, to which
he was the antithesis. By pitting each against the other, Aristotle saves for him-
self the comfortable work of synthesis, a philosophical result of the agon of two
moments that preceded him.⁵⁹
It is certainly worth noting, finally, that Cherniss’ contribution to the histor-
iography of the pre-Socratics is unquestionable; since his time and because of
him, Pre-Socratic studies have become a constant struggle with Aristotle, though
certainly not against him.
In the wake of Cherniss, many commentators might agree that “Aristotle is
utterly alien to the modern conception of the history of philosophy” (Reale 1968:
I, 151): his evidence must be taken into account, but it needs to be treated with
all possible care.⁶⁰ Laks sums up the historiography of pre-Socratic philosophy
after Cherniss as a process of “de-Aristotelization of the writing on the origins
of Greek philosophy” (2007: 230).⁶¹ The scope of this paper does not allow me
to go further into the issue of the validation of the Aristotelian evidence and
the consequences of this topic for the historiography of philosophy in its origins.
Indeed, in his Metaphysics, Aristotle seems not only to want to treat the Py-
thagoreans somewhat separately from the other Pre-Socratics (985b 23 ff.), but
also in keeping with his ubiquitous hostility to Platonism, he constantly com-
pares them to the latter (Met. 987a 29 ff., 989b 27 ff., 990a, 996a 4 f.): thus, Pytha-
 Cherniss (1935: 349) does not fail to note the dependence of Aristotle’s aporetic and agonal
method on his teachers: Socrates indirectly, but, above all, Plato.
 “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 rudimentary beginnings of the hi-
storiography of Greek philosophy may be dated to the period of the Sophists” (Mansfeld 1990:
27).
 “désaristotélisation de l’écriture des débuts de la philosophie grecque”.
goreanism becomes another chance to attack Platonic arguments (Met 1083b

8 ff., 1090a 30) more than a subject of interest per se. ⁶²
Because this approximation of Pythagoreanism to Platonism is part of a pre-
cise anti-Platonic strategy, scholars, even while attempting to validate the indi-
rect sources on Pythagoreanism, have tried to explore the relations between the
Pythagoreans and Plato. Beyond the historical relations with the philosopher
king Archytas of Tarentum, testified by the Seventh Letter (339d) and other sour-
ces, a longstanding attempt to evaluate the Platonic dialogues as reliable histor-
ical sources led some to find Plato very dependent on the Pythagoreans. Both
Burnet (1908) and Taylor (1911), considering the Platonic dialogues as actual his-
torical testimony, make many of them directly dependent on Pythagorean influ-
ence: thus, in the Phaedo Socrates turns out to be a Pythagorean, an advocate of
metempsychosis and anamnesis (Taylor, 1911:129 – 177); while the Timaeus will
appear as a work almost entirely informed by Pythagoreanism (Burnet 1908:
340 ff.).⁶³
Obviously the results of the study of the indirect sources are far from univer-
sally accepted. Indeed, Frank (1923) – totally contrary to the aforementioned
views, and in some ways, in a more radical Zellerian skepticism – already con-
sidered it impossible to access the Pythagorean tradition before Plato. His work
is significantly entitled Plato und die sogenannten Pythagoreer, as it emphatically
supports his interpretation of Aristotle’s repeated reference to those kaloúmenoi
Pythagoreans: according to Frank, Aristotle was referring to Pythagoreans of the
fourth century BC, such as Archytas, as well as to the Academics themselves,
among them Speusippus (Frank 1923: 77). The general assumption is that
Frank cannot imagine scientific thought in the Greek world before Anaxagoras
(1923, 144).⁶⁴
 The value of the Aristotelian lectio obviously depends on an evaluation of each piece of
Aristotle’s testimony. In this connection, recall Aristotle’s comments on the scientific doctrines
of the Pythagoreans, as well as at Metaphysics 986a 12 where he refers to a more accurate
discussion about these. The references are to two famous (lost) books he devoted specifically to
Pythagoreanism. For the sources of this tradition and a comprehensive historiographical dis-
cussion of these, cf. Burkert (1972: 29).
 Likewise, Cameron’s doctoral thesis (1938) suggests a Pythagorean basis for the theory of
anamnesis.
 “Anaxagoras formuliert zuerst das Prinzip der modernen Wissenschaft, indem er das un-
mittelbare subjectiv-psycologische Weltbild in seinen optischen Forschungen von der objektiven
Anschauung eines ideellen, absoluten Beobachters unterscheidet”.
Thus, all that concerns the scientific thought of the Pythagoreans should be
considered an invention by Speusippus and the early Academics.⁶⁵ Consequent-
ly, both Philolaus’ fragments and every mathematical theory associated with the
Pythagoreans should be assigned to the period after the foundation of the Acad-
emy.⁶⁶
Throughout the historiographical journey in search of indirect sources on
Pythagoreanism, the lectio communis appears to have been exactly that of a
parti pris skepticism, which reveals on one hand the influence of scholars of
Plato and Aristotle, who tend to assume that those two philosophers invented
of almost any idea that appeared before them, and on the other hand, it reveals
a certain laziness in researching the origins of Greek thought, so that we find a
tendency to repeat handbook clichés rather than to engage in the laborious effort
required by normal research practices.
 The debate that has marked attempts to answer this radically skeptical stance in Frank’s
interpretation of the expression οἱ καλούμενοι Πυθαγóρειοι (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 Πυθαγóρειοι (should be understood as “designations in the currently designated
sense” (Cherniss 1959: 38).
 The hypercriticism of philologists like Frank is vehemently confronted by Santayana 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 dependence upon his unaccep-
table alternative”. (Santayana and Pitts 1951: 112). The alternative to which the authors refer,
which constitutes one of the key points of Frank’s arguments, is between a Greek and an
Egyptian origin of mathematics: Frank opted for the latter. Consequently: “relying on Frank,
these authors have dismissed the entire tradition about early Greek mathematics, and sup-
planted it either with a most improbably late transference of Babylonian mathematics to Greece
in the Vth century” (Santayana and Pitts 1951: 112). For a review of this issue, cf. Salas (1996).
Thesleff (1961, 45) complains about Santillana’s and Pitts’ vehemence, because of the “irreverent
mockery” of Frank by both authors which led them to say that, if we want to be consistent with
Frank’s hypercriticism (1951: 116), “we may begin to suspect Frank himself of being an imaginary
character in the lost dialogues of George Santayana”.
7 From Burkert to Kingsley: third way and

mysticism in the Pythagorean tradition
A true third way of criticism, one between Zellerian skepticism (in Frank’s ex-
tremist version) and an excessive reliance on sources that always ravages the
least suspecting scholars of Pythagoreanism, is formed by Walter Burkert’s
Weisheit und Wissenschaft, a later revision of which was translated by Minar
into English and published in a revised edition as Lore and Science in Ancient
Pythagoreanism (Burkert, 1972). As an obligatory reference point ever since for
a critical survey of the study of Pythagoreanism, Burkert’s work, in the very proc-
ess of its making, reveals the difficulties of validating the sources of Pythagorean
philosophy. In the foreword to the first edition of Weisheit und Wissenschaft, in
1962, Burkert adopts a skeptical stance regarding the contribution of Pythagor-
eanism to ancient Greek mathematics, noticeably in connection with the issue
of the irrational, referring the knowledge of Pythagorean numbers to a pre-scien-
tific intellectual environment (Burkert, 1972: Foreword to the German edition).⁶⁷
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”.⁶⁸
For Burkert, in regard to mathematics, there was a profound gap between the
activity of the Pythagoreans of the fifth century BC – which he relegated to the
world of acusmata and numerology (even if one should prefer, in an academic
scope, the term arithmology, as observed by Delatte, 1915) – and that of Ionian
mathematicians like Hippocrates of Chios. Thus, for Burkert (1972), the kind of
mathematics of the early Pythagoreans, including that of the fifth century BC
(and therefore Philolaus) in no manner matched the kind of rigorous deductive
exercise of contemporaries like Hippocrates of Chios and Theodorus of Cyrene.
 “In that twilight period between old and new, when Greeks, in a historically unique ach-
ievement, were discovering the rational interpretation of the world and quantitative natural
science, 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.”
 It is not our intent, at present, to account for the broad critical tradition about the con-
tribution of Pythagoreanism to mathematics and on the development of the theory of numbers
within the Pythagorean philosophy. Classical studies on the issue are those by Tannery (1887th,
1887b), Becker (1957), Von Fritz (1945) and especially Van der Waerden (1947– 1949). More re-
centwork includes Huffman (1988, 1993, 2005), Zhmud (1989, 1992, 1997), Centrone (1996), Salas
(1996) and Casertano (2009).
On the contrary, we have to do with a cult of numbers, in the context of the acus-
mata, of which the tradition continuously reminds us, which may be more easily
associated with the numerology of primitive cultures than with the mathematics
of Hippocrates.⁶⁹
Burkert says that the two concerns, the scientific-mathematical one and the
numerological one, are radically distinct (Burkert 1972: 466).⁷⁰ We must note
here that something very significant happens in Burkert’s argument. Skepticism
of a Zellerian type continues to guide Burkert’s treatment of the sources: a care-
ful and precise deconstruction of the doxographic material locates the origin of
much of it within the Academy, thus discrediting it as a direct source for early
Pythagorean thought. Pythagorízei Platon (“Plato pythagorizes”) is the funda-
mental maxim that accompanies doubts about the whole tradition (since
Met. 987a: 29).⁷¹ Thus the difficulty in admitting that the Pythagoreans contrib-
uted significantly to the progress of mathematics in the fifth century BC. This
pars denstruens of source criticism, is followed in Burkert by a hermeneutical ac-
count which, admirably linking anthropological studies of religion with a solid
philological and historiographical approach, leads to the unprecedented rescue
of the historical Pythagoras and proto-Pythagoreanism⁷² in its whole primitive,
 There was no shortage of critical reviews of Burkert’s skeptical stance about the sources on
the Pythagorean contribution to mathematics. As von Fritz wisely observes in his review of
Weisheit: “It is not a 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
happened” (von Fritz 1964: 461).
 “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 mathematics 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 certain influence. No one
could overlook the fact that this kind of thing was present in Pythagoreanism; Aristotle names
first of all, among the homoiomata which the Pythagoreans thought subsisted between numbers
and things, the equation of certain numbers with dikaiosûne, psychê kai nous and kairós
(Met. 987b:27ff), and only with a “furthermore” goes on to add the mathematical theory of
music”.
 The saying is conveyed by Eusebius of Caesarea: Πλάτων πυθαγορίζει (Euseb. Prep.
Evang. 1903:15, 37, 6).
 The term proto-Pythagorean is introduced here, in an unprecedented manner because it is
considered necessary to distinguish between this firstphase, the founding of Pythagoreanism,
and a second phase, the (still “Pre-Socratic”) development of Pythagoreanism during the fifth
century BC, which produced written texts and corresponds to the stage of the immediate sources
of Plato and Aristotle. For the uses and meaning of the analogous term proto-philosophy, cf. Boas
(1948: 673 – 684).
pre-rationalistic component: Pythagoras was a magician and shaman (though a

scientist too, at least in his own way), employing his scientism in order to take
what for Burkert is “a step beyond”. This step beyond, which places Pythagoras
inside the world of primitive magic and thaumaturgy, can be detected, for exam-
ple, in the presence of notions like kathársis and anamnésis in the oldest testi-
monies (1972: 211).
In the tension between skepticism and faith in the sources in which every
philologist is forced to move (“The very life of philology is the struggle between
the tendencies toward faith in the tradition and skepticism of it,” [⁷³], Burkert
clearly acknowledges), there ultimately arises a middle road, a third way, as I
put it, which, while radically skeptical of the Academic sources, nevertheless
manages to draw a historically coherent and methodologically effective picture
of the sources of Pythagoreanism and its founder. ⁷⁴
Unmistakable signs of the central impact of Burkert’s work on the history of
scholarship are the replies that it prompted and the attention that it has received
ever since its publication. It was his skepticism more than the reconstruction of
an originally shaman Pythagoras, which suffered the most precise criticisms.
Huffman suggests initially that the attribution to Philolaus of a mathematics
that is exclusively theologico-numerological, as suggested by Burkert, is moot
(Huffman 1988: 3). Huffman reopened the case with his own monograph on Phi-
lolaus (Huffman 1993), conversely giving Philolaus a prominent role, not in
mathematics, but in the philosophy of ancient mathematics: “Philolaus deserves
a prominent place in the history of Greek philosophy as the first thinker self-con-
sciously and thematically to employ mathematical ideas to solve philosophical
problems” (Huffman, 1988: 2).
Huffman, unlike Burkert, primarily on the basis of fr. 4 (44 B4 DK), attributes
to Philolaus an epistemological stance, which employed numbers to understand
reality (Huffman 1993: 64 ff.) since the latter is knowable only because of its
arithmo-geometric relations.
On another front, Minar himself, Burkert’s translator, complains about the
absence of any treatment of the social and political issues (Minar 1964: 121),
which if early – as the above discussion developed on the theme suggests –
 Burkert, 1972: 9.
 Certainly, Burkert’s work, with the advantage of the double stance sketched above, is a
cornerstone for the history of criticism, as is 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 reconstruction of the thought and
the doctrines of Pythagoras himself” (Von Fritz 1964: 459).
should play a central role in the reconstruction of the philosophy of the early Py-
thagoreans.
Conversely, it is precisely the distance that Burkert establishes between the
traditions of proto-Pythagoreanism and the Pythagoreans in touch with the
Academy (especially Archytas) that, in a certain way, leaves the field of Pythagor-
ean politics available for studies of proto-Pythagoreanism as a relatively inde-
pendent phenomenon 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.⁷⁵ 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 (Detienne, 1962: 95).⁷⁶
The thesis of a Pythagorean theological reading of the archaic poets is re-
trieved by Detienne in relation to studies on the demonological interpretation
of verses from Hesiod’s Works and Days. Detienne (1963) devotes an entire
work to the notion of daímon in ancient Pythagoreanism, which, in line with
his immediately preceding work, considers that Pythagoreanism stabilized the
concept of daímon, previously extremely vague, to refer to the mediation be-
tween men and gods. In the Pythagorean exegesis, therefore, the concept ac-
quires a theological-philosophical consistency it lacked previously.⁷⁷ Detienne’s
 For the mature synthesis of the anthropological and comparative approach to the ancient
world of Detienne, see especially his latest Comparer l’incomparable (2000).
 “Le travail de construction que suppose le dialogue entre Homère, Hésiode et Pythagore s’est
défini de plus em plus, nous l’avons vu, sur le plan de la pensée religieuse. […] C’est essen-
tiellement 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), that Pythagoras was
initially trained through homeric poems. Pythagoras had been a disciple of Hermodamas, who
belonged to a traditional family of Homeric rhapsodes, the Creophylians. 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 Feldman 1963: 16 and
Pollard 1964: 188.
 The work was preceded by at least two articles in which the author opened this approach
and defined its fundamental lines (Detienne, 1959a and 1959b). For a critique of Detienne’s
reading, cf. Kerferd (1965), who notes how the concept of daímon is, in all probability, an
successive studies, dedicated to the dietary prescriptions of the Pythagoreans

(1970, 1972), follow the same theoretical line of considering them fundamentally
an expression of their understanding of the relationship with the gods, in the
theological sense (1970: 162).⁷⁸ Grounded in the refusal to cause the death of
the animal for sacrifice, the spirituality of the Pythagorean diet seeks to establish
a commensality with the gods, which thus eliminates the clear separation of di-
vine and human food that underlies the traditional Olympic sacrifice, producing
an inversion in theological anthropology (1970: 152).⁷⁹
Major historians and archaeologists of ancient religion leave behind Deti-
enne’s theologizing interpretations in their investigations into Pythagoreanism.
Among them Cumont1942a and 1942b and Carcopino 1927 and 1956 engage in
the reception of the Pythagorean tradition by Roman funerary symbolism; sever-
al 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 recognize in the reception
of Pythagorean motifs within the expressions of orientalizing Hellenistic religios-
ity, a continuity between ancient and late Pythagoreanism with regard to reli-
gious matters, thus making one think of a sort of underground river of religious
traditions attributed to Pythagoreanism flowing over a thousand years (Burkert
1972: 6).⁸⁰
Platonic addition to early Pythagoreanism (1965: 78), which if true destroys Detienne’s thesis of a
proto-Pythagorean origin of the original theological concept. A warm reception of Detienne’s
thesis, audacious in its treatment of the sources, is proposed by Vidal-Naquet (1964).
 “Le système des nourritures fourni par les principales pratiques alimentaires des Py-
thagoriciens apparaît donc comme un langage à travers lequel ce groupe social traduit ses
orientations et révèle ses contradictions”.
 “D’un sacrifice à l’autre, non seulement les offrandes changent… 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, emphasizing the process of theological ratio-
nalization, Detienne will interpret the Pythagorean dietary information on the use of a special
type of lettuce, which they called eunuch. This was especially suitable for the summer period,
because its properties decreased sexual desire, considered harmful to health in that season,
because of the debilitation caused by extreme heat. Use of myth is evident here, in this case the
group of myths relating to the gardens of Adonis, for ethical-theological ends (Detienne 1972:
125 – 130).
 Of great historical interest, and an unequivocal sign of erudition and the wide range of
research to which Levy was dedicated, is the posthumous collection of his Recherches essé-
niennes et pythagoriciennes (1965): a series of essays in which the author attempts to discover
possible non-Jewish influences, most notably Pythagorean ones, in the Jewish religious move-
A special chapter in the relationship of Pythagoreanism with the religious

world is found in the dangerous liaisons of Pythagoreanism with the world of rit-
uals and myths that came to be grouped together under the title of Orphism. The
connection of Pythagoreanism with Orphism, beyond sterile petitiones principii
that assert a total separation between philosophy and mysticism, is probably
linked to specific themes and experiences, such as the immortality of the soul,
metempsychosis or cosmology. It would obviously be impossible to even begin
to discuss the most recent literature on the subject. I refer those interested on
it to the excellent work by Bernabé (2000, 2011).
With this reference to Orphism, we conclude this overview of the history of
criticism, which, as announced in the title of this section, ends with Kingsley’s
newest works. Indeed, Kingsley’s works are a special case and the escape
point, not only of this line of interpretation of Pythagoreanism as an intellectual
movement deeply marked by the relations with the religious world of his time,
but also with a great number of the central questions raised here regarding
the critical history of Pythagoreanism. His works offer a resolution of most of
these issues, which presents itself in quite an unusual way.⁸¹ Kingsley is indebt-
ed, at the same time, to three of the most significant hermeneutic contributions
of the twentieth century: on one side, to Cherniss’ skepticism (1935) regarding
the value to be given to Aristotelian testimony; on another, to the tradition –
of authors such as Detienne and Festugière – of placing the birth of philosophy
within the religious traditions of his time; and thirdly, to applied Oriental stud-
ies, which have had a decisive influence on fundamental notions of ancient phi-
losophy.⁸²
The articulation of these important traditions, coupled with his expertise in
history, archaeology and anthropology of religion, in their turn accompanied by
careful philological homework, allows Kingsley to go down an extremely bold
path to eliminate the obstacle posed by the Aristotelian doxography. Although
his work is not entirely original in each of its parts, it is undoubtedly unique
ment of the Essenes, believed to be the custodians of the famous library of Qumran, near the
Dead Sea.
 Kingsley is devoted to a consciously original and controversial rereading of the assumptions
underlying the critique of the traditions of the philosophers of Magna Graecia: his first mo-
nograph, dedicated to the Pythagorean Empedocles (1995), and the following two, dedicated to
the Pythagorean Parmenides (1999, 2003), represent a “radical hermeneutic reversal” within the
panorama of commentators (Gemelli 2006: 657).
 For an example of this Orientalist brand in Kingsley’s lectio, see his highly critical review of
Huffman’s monograph (1993) on Philolaus and his thesis about the epistemological perspective
of the latter (Kingsley 1994). It is also significant, in that sense, that Kingsleys’ doctorate at
Oxford was supervised by Martin West (Stroumsa 1997: 212).
in the conscious articulation of them. Its novelty consists in the use of texts not
previously considered which present an alternative to the ones that have previ-
ously formed the basis of interpretation. These new texts for the most part come
from the Arabic tradition of interpreting ancient philosophy and from alchemical
and hermetic literature. In addition Kingsley employs the writings of the Neopy-
thagorean and Neoplatonic traditions.⁸³
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 conventional historiographical ap-
proach to pre-Socratic philosophy, and instead offers several instruments and
novel perspectives, many of them waiting to be explored.⁸⁴
Second, as Gemelli rightly has seen, Kingsley produces
A questioning not only of the interpretative criteria commonly used to address these texts,
of the enormous weight given to the reassuring strength of “rationality”, the very concep-
tion of philosophy as an intellectual exercise, but also and above all, of the ethos polýpeiron
that guides our lives. (Gemelli 2006: 670 – 671)⁸⁵
In step with an understanding of ancient philosophy that basically seeks to ach-

ieve some kind of bíos, i. e., a philosophy designed primarily as an exercise in the
service of attaining a better life, Kingsley brings back not only Pythagorean phi-
losophy, but also the history of its scholarship, to the path towards a wisdom
 It is worth emphasizing that the recent discovery of several verses ascribed to Empedocles, in
the famous Strasbourg Papyrus (Martin and Primavesi, 1998), discovered in the Egyptian city of
Akhmîn, seems to confirm Kingsley’s main thesis, that there was an independent circulation of
Pre-Socratic texts within the Alchemical writers.: This is certainly true as regards the tradition
that is referred to Zosimus of Panopolis (i. e. the City of Akhmîn), a Gnostic with Alchemical
interests, and the important Alchemical work Turba Philosophorum, which saw the light in the
same city. Both traditions relate, independently of the conventional doxographic tradition, to
Empedocles and the Pythagorean tradition (Kingsley, 1995: 56 – 67). Cf. also Nucci (1999). For the
latest collection of Zosimus’ work, cf. the volume by Mertens (1995) of Les alchimistes grecs. For a
recent discussion of the relationship between alchemy and ancient philosophy, cf. Viano (2005).
 Rather than treating the later Pythagoreans, as usual, as a magical-theurgic perversion,
Kingsley claims that:”the later Pythagoreans were simply remaining true to the initial impetus of
Pythagoreanism. […] Historically, of course, the significance of the accord between early and
later Pythagoreanism is further underlined by the evidence already considered of Pythagorean
and related traditions passing directly from southern Italy and Sicily into Hellenistic Egypt”
(Kingsley 1995: 339).
 “una messa in discussione non solo dei criteri interpretativi comunemente adottati per
affrontare questi testi, dell’enorme peso attribuito alla forza tranquillizzante della ‘razionalità’,
della concezione stessa di filosofia come esercizio intellettuale, ma anche e soprattuto dell’éthos
polýpeiron che guida la nostra vita”.
which, by articulating mysteries and magic, healing and diet, wants to contribute
to a better life.⁸⁶
Not coincidentally, adopting a manner that consciously departs from stan-
dard academic style, Kingsley himself presents the goal of his monograph on
Parmenides and the dark places of wisdom as follows: “And what is it that we
long for? That’s what this story is about” (1999: 4).⁸⁷ 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” (Kingsley 1999: 5). A style of writing, Kingsley’s, which corresponds to
a style of historiography that breaks the unspoken rules of academic acceptabil-
ity and marginalizes itself as an alternative approach, which the author seems to
pursue with a satisfaction he does not make a point to hide.⁸⁸
Obviously, Kingsley’s proposal faces a variety of difficulties and it has pro-
voked much opposition. Some are internal to the author’s own argumentative
system, as to how to satisfactorily account for such divergent joint testimony
and bring it together to develop a vision of pre-Socratic philosophy and Pytha-
goreanism in a distinct and coherent way, at least from a historiographic stand-
point. One has to agree with Morgan (1997: 1130) that once in a while, “he does
not tie the pieces together”, and it is not clear what would be precisely the his-
torical configuration of proto-Pythagoreanism, both from a social and doctrinal
standpoint, that ranges far beyond a vague reference to magic, mysteries and
healing. Commentators who do not accept the new methodological path of
Kingsley raise other objections.⁸⁹ Probably the next few years will show whether
the path he has revealed will have many followers.⁹⁰
 Cf. along the same lines the synthesis of Hadot (1999) of philosophy brought back to its
origins primarily as a lifestyle.
 The mention of the dark places of wisdom is a reference to the title of Kingsley’s work (1999):
In the dark places of wisdom.
 This is certainly the case for his most recent monograph (2010) on Pythagoras, which aims to
bring new documentary, dramatic and revolutionary evidence, as he puts it. Notably in regard to
the connection of Pythagoras with the figure of Abaris, the Hyperborean priest of Apollo, who
arrives in Greece with all probability from the Mongolian plateau, in Tibet, as the god himself, as
purifier, and delivers to Pythagoras his magic arrow. Although, as usual, filled with notes and
references of wide scope, Kinsgley’s work maintains a rhythm and style very far from calm and
sober historical-philological arguments. Just think of its title: A Story Waiting to Pierce you:
Mongolia, Tibet and the Destiny of the Western World.
 For all, cf. the dry review of O’Brien (1998).
 Both in the most recent monograph dedicated to Pythagoras (Riedweg 2007) and in the
chapter on Pythagoras in the issue of Vorsokratiker by Tusculum (Gemelli 2007b), Kingsley
begins to leave his hermeneutic mark.
8 Pythagoreanism as an historiographical
category
Between hermeneutic circularities and historiographic panics, the brief history
of modern criticism on Pythagoreanism I have outlined has resulted in a narra-
tive in which each fact and each testimony has been subjected to discussion, cre-
ating controversy and mutual refutations. The Zellerian fear that in the case of
Pythagoreanism we are facing an intricate fabric of traditions scarcely relevant
to a serious history of philosophy surreptitiously follows most of the attempts
at interpreting Pythagoreanism.
This brief overview, here summarized through its chief authors and their mo-
tivations, results in a contradictory and multifaceted picture of Pythagoreanism.
There emerges, thus, my central proposal for understanding Pythagoreanism:
that it should be considered as a unique historiographical category. On this
view, we are in a methodological position that allows us to surpass the hope
of reaching a single understanding. Instead, consciously, one must follow the
paths of different interpretations and different strata of tradition, in search of
an image that is sufficiently pluralistic to allow us to understand Pythagorean-
ism in all the diversity with which it still presents itself for interpretation.
The Zellerian suspicion, shared, as we have seen, by many commentators
who followed him, introduces the chief problematics involved in dealing with
the variety of experiences and doctrines that tradition has gathered under the
umbrella of historical-theoretical Pythagoreanism. More precisely, this means
asking to what this historiographical category which tradition has agreed upon
calling Pythagoreanism corresponds.
The discovery of the historical and theoretical scope of this category involves
two key dimensions of the problem: one dimension, which will be called dia-
chronic, while another will be identified as synchronic. Although complementary,
each of the two dimensions defines a distinct field of investigation.
Describing the historiographical category as Pythagoreanism in its diachron-
ic dimension implies following the process of its construction through the histo-
ry of the tradition, from Plato and Aristotle to Neoplatonic literature, in search of
forms and contents that may indicate continuity and even a possible homogene-
ity.
It presupposes that we cannot ultimately reach an historical Pythagoras, or
an original Pythagoreanism, because the tradition on these topics is virtually
nonexistent. Therefore, this will be a question of, in Burkert’s words, interpreting

interpretations (Burkert 1972: 11).⁹¹
The effort of categorizing Pythagoreanism diachronically will be a matter of
unraveling the different strata of the tradition. This task, to be sure, is now much
easier than it was in Zeller’s time, especially thanks to the advances of studies on
the Academic and Peripatetic traditions.⁹²
The goal of this effort to categorize Pythagoreanism should not be to try to
eliminate its basic feature as an extremely controversial philosophical movement
(Huffman 2008: 225). Instead, the proposed methodology aims to understand
how, in the intertwining of diachronic and synchronic dimensions, the category
of Pythagoreanism survived the predictable dilution of a multifaceted movement
which is not only radically and extensively diverse in its authors and subjects,
but that in addition, survived diachronically through over a thousand years of
history of Western thought. Thus, the challenge for research into its originality
and unique place in the of the history of Pre-Socratic philosophy lies in the
fact that Pythagorism never actually died, which further complicates the job of
articulating the information preserved in the tradition. For the archaeologist of
ancient philosophical thought, as a city that has remained continuously inhab-
ited, Pythagoreanism presents, indeed, a special difficulty (Burkert 1972: 10).⁹³
In order to make the path through the traditions on Pythagoreanism travers-
able, there arises the need to draw an original methodological route – a rule of
Lesbos, of Aristotelian memory – that suits the nature of the object to be
searched (Burkert 1972: 12).⁹⁴
 “The first task must be, since the original phenomenon cannot be grasped directly, to
interpret 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”.
 I refer to Jaeger’s (1934) proofs of the existence of Academic and Peripateric projections onto
Pythagoreanism of their own ideals; also to Wehrli’s studies (1944– 1960) on Dicaearchus (1944),
Aristoxenus (1945), Clearchus (1948), Heraclides (1953) and Eudemus (1955). One also should not
forget the fundamental contributions to understanding the relationship between Platonism and
Pythagoreanism which arise from the work of the so-called Tübingen-Milan school of the doc-
trine of principles in Plato and the Ancient Academy: cf. Krämer (1959), Gaiser (1963), Szlezák
(1985) and Reale (1991).
 “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”.
 “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 tracing
the course of single paths of development, with no thought of the way in which these may
converge with other, equally important lines”.
The commentator is forced to make a methodological choice, that is, either

to understand Pythagoreanism as a multifaceted and complex historiographical
category, designed to accommodate both the long course of the history of its tra-
dition and the relationship of such a history with the intellectual world of phi-
losophy that arose between the sixth and fifth centuries BC, or to abandon the
hope of understanding it at all.
One consequence of this is that the approach must necessarily be interdisci-
plinary: the conventional (though debatable) division of labor in classical stud-
ies, among historians, archaeologists, philologists and philosophers does not
seem to work very well in the case of Pythagoreanism (Burkert 1972: 12).⁹⁵
The importance of an articulation of archaeological information and the an-
thropological approach, on the one hand, with philological analysis, appears
evident, certainly in the case of the problem of the relations between Orphism
and Pythagoreanism in Magna Graecia in the sixth and fifth centuries BC, and
in the crucial project of articulating the history of philosophy with the history
of ancient science, which is especially important in treating the alleged crisis
of the incommensurable or irrational lógoi.
A methodological polymathía (pace Heraclitus) will therefore be the proper
path so that the historiographical category of Pythagoreanism may emerge from
the mists, both from the complex history of its tradition and from the identifica-
tion of what philosophy was in its origins.⁹⁶
This last identification introduces the second dimension of Pythagoreanism,
the synchronic dimension. To synchronically understand Pythagoreanism will
mean to make it fit within the categories in terms of which we usually describe
ancient philosophy, and especially Pre-Socratic philosophy or even Late Ancient
Philosophy. Categories such as Pre-Socratic, school, science, religion, politics, or
even philosophy (when distinct from other intellectual and literary activities)
are commonly used to understand the place of early Pythagoreanism. Obviously,
none of these standard categories can be applied tout court to Pythagoreanism.
Rather, even within the limits of the project developed here, this research aims to
point out the need for adjusting the methodological approach to pre-Socratic
philosophy normally in use, so that this methodology has consequences that
 “It can happen that the historian of science builds his reconstruction on a philologically
inadequate 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”.
 Heraclitus appears to criticize the πολυμαθίη of Pythagoras in fragments 40 and 129 (22 B 40,
129 DK).
can easily be applied beyond the narrow scope of studies on ancient Pythagor-
eanism.⁹⁷
In the case of Pythagoreanism, it will be necessary to overcome the rigid di-
chotomies of a historiography too accustomed to distinguish, for example, be-
tween science and magic, writing and orality, Ionian and Italian. For none of
these, alone, can deal with the complexities which characterize the Pythagor-
eans’ social organization and their doctrines.
The two dimensions, both synchronic and diachronic, appear strongly inter-
woven throughout the papers of this book, operationalizing the definition of a
historiographical category, that of Pythagoreanism, which includes the breadth
and diversity of tradition in an image that is as consistent as possible.
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Christoph Riedweg
Approaching Pythagoras of Samos: Ritual,
Natural Philosophy and Politics
The following paper adopts a rather peculiar three-step approach: Starting from
general notions about Pythagoreanism and from the impact which Pythagorean
ideas have had through the centuries to this day, it then tries to cautiously recon-
struct at least some hypothetically authentic traits of the elusive Samian sage
and his movement, interpreting the all too scanty evidence against the back-
ground of its contemporary Ionian natural philosophy and of modern sociolog-
ical concepts. Finally, a bold attempt is made to elucidate Pythagoras’ bewilder-
ing personality from comparable phenomena in today’s society which are char-
acterized by a similar blend of rational and irrational elements.
I Pythagoras in the Occidental Cultural Memory

Who would not know him, Pythagoras of Samos? Like an Orpheus, Plato or Ar-
istotle he undoubtedly belongs to those figures from Antiquity that have become
stock ingredients of our cultural memory, and about whom everybody has at
least some vague ideas.
Hearing his resounding name, one cannot help thinking of a2+ b2 = c2, the
famous theorem which indeed is fundamental for mathematics and according
to which “in a right-angled triangle the [square of the] hypotenuse is equal to
the [squares of the] other two sides” (Diog. Laert. 8,12).¹
As for me, however, I arrived at Pythagoras less through mathematics than
through music. For Pythagoras is also supposed to have discovered the numer-
ical value of the basic consonances (octave, fifth, fourth) and to have applied
this important insight to the entire cosmos. A fascinating concept – the world
as a well-ordered whole (that’s what the Greek word κόσμος means), which is de-
signed along the same construction principles as the musical consonances, and
which therefore produces a magnificent harmony.²
 As modern research has evinced, it was already practised by the Babylonians even if it seems
not to have been formulated explicitly as a theorem; see Burkert 1972, p. 428 f.; Pichot 1995,
p. 80 – 85 and 360 f.; Riedweg 2008, p. 90; cf. in general now also Hoehn & Huber 2005 and Maor
2007.
 Cf. Aristot. Met. 986a2 s.; Xenocr. fr. 9 Heinze = 87 Isnardi. General treatments of Pythagorean
cosmology include Burkert 1972, p. 465 ff.; Kahn 2001, p. 24 ff.; Riedweg 2008, p. 27 ff. and 110 ff.
48 Christoph Riedweg
No wonder the Pythagorean idea of the Harmony of the Spheres has been
inspiring the human imagination throughout the centuries, from the Middle
Ages all through the Renaissance and the early modern period up till today.³
For sure, such an idea may already go beyond the realm of ‘hard’ sciences,
although one should not forget that someone like Johannes Kepler, the founder
of the classical natural sciences, was driven by a genuinely Pythagorean enthu-
siasm when he discovered the third law of planetary motion: He wanted nothing
else than to track down the harmony that resounded at the very moment of the
divine creation of the world.⁴
Incidentally, the notion that at least some stars produce a kind of cosmic
music gets support from recent astronomical discoveries: according to the two
Swiss astronomers François Bouchy and Fabien Carrier,⁵ the surface of the sun-
like star Alpha Centauri A in the galaxy is vibrating periodically (as the sun has
for long been known to do it). The vibrations are caused by sound waves in the
star’s interior which owe their origin to nuclear reactions and which, upon hit-
ting the surface, make it vibrate like a tambourine. We are unable to hear this
starry music, because the waves cannot spread out into interstellar space; more-
over, the frequency would be out of our audible range. These observations show
some striking parallels to Pythagorean teachings: as Aristotle reports, the Pytha-
goreans were convinced that stars, being swiftly moving massive bodies, must
necessarily produce a sound, and since they revolve at distances and speeds pro-
portional to each other and in keeping with the proportions of the musical har-
monies, the revolution of the stars produces a harmonious sound.⁶ Whereas we
ordinary human beings, due to the limits of our nature, are unable to hear this
harmony, Pythagoras, extraordinarily gifted as he was, would have perceived the
overall harmony of the spheres and transmitted it as much as possible to his pu-
pils, using instruments and his voice.⁷
Kepler at any rate has been termed “the German Pythagoras” for good rea-
son. From him, a line may be drawn through Leibniz to Harmonical Pythagor-
eanism – a movement of the 20th century, whose main protagonist was Hans
Kayser, a pupil of Humperdinck and Schönberg, who emigrated with his Jewish
 Harmony of the Spheres: Burkert 1972, p. 350 ff.; on the tradition, cf. Heninger 1974; Ferguson
2008, p. 215 ff.
 Cf. Kahn 2001, p. 161 ff.; Bialas 2004, p. 144 ff.; Schaffer 2004, p. 65 ff.
 Bouchy and Carrier 2002 (cf. Vonarburg 2001).
 Aristot. De cael. 290b12– 29 and 291a7– 9, as well as fr. 162, p. 414a, 3 – 16 Gigon.
 Porph. VPyth. 30 = Nicom. FGrHist 1063 F 1; Iambl. VPyth. 65 f. Cf. O’Meara 2007.
Approaching Pythagoras of Samos: Ritual, Natural Philosophy and Politics 49
wife into Switzerland in 1933.⁸ I originally came to know about the Harmonical
Pythagoreanism thanks to my music teacher at the boarding-school in Einsie-
deln, P. Daniel Meier, a pupil of Hindemith, who enthusiastically shared Kayser’s
view that the proportions of the harmonics are essential in explaining the growth
of crystals as well as in quantum theory. As part of this movement may be count-
ed also an interesting Swiss architect, André Studer, who used to design his
buildings by means of the monochord.⁹
Be that as it may, other fascinating ideas seem to definitely place Pythagoras
in the corner of esoteric arts. As examples, one might mention his ban on eating
beans or the assumption that all living beings are kindred and that the human
soul may enter even animal organisms. Vegetarianism results naturally from such
an assumption, and in fact the vegetarian movement still refers to Pythagoras as
an ancestor.¹⁰
No doubt, to this day Pythagoras as an idea, as a cultural construct, keeps
cropping up in various refractions. His name is not missing in any dictionary of
musicology, mathematics and astronomy – not to mention dictionaries of antiq-
uity, freemasonry and esotericism.
II À la recherche du Pythagore perdu

But who really was he, Pythagoras of Samos, who radiates such a lasting fasci-
nation? What can we actually know about him and his teachings today? And
how may the different facets of this peculiarly sparkling figure be reconciled?
Questions like these appeared when I started researching on Pythagoras in
the late nineties. For a Hellenist, a literary approach imposes itself, and modern
tools like the TLG and the PHI latin texts decisively facilitate the labour of col-
lecting and interpreting all the relevant passages in Greek and Roman literature.
Yet, the literary transmission is quite tricky to deal with, as everybody
knows. The sources become richer and richer the more we move away from Py-
 Cf. Kayser 1968 and 1984. Other articles of Hans Kayser have been published in the ‘Schriften
über Harmonik’ series edited by the ‘Kreis der Freunde von Hans Kayser’ at Bern. See in general
Riedweg 2008, p. 173 f.; D’Anna 2010, p. 228 ff.
 Studer 1976; 1977, p. 16 ff.; 1991, p. 12 f.; on Harmonical Pythagoreanism in architecture also
Haase 1986. For the earliest references to the monochord in Greek literature see now Creese
2010, p. 97 ff.
 Cf. the proceedings of a conference (originally entitled “Vegetarisch in das neue Jahrtau-
send – das Vermächtnis des Pythagoras und die Zukunft der vegetarischen Idee”): Linnemann
and Schorcht 2001.
thagoras’ life-time (Pythagoras must have been born around 570 BC and may
well have lived down into the eighties of the 5th century BC). The only continu-
ous accounts that have come down to us from Antiquity date from the 2nd/3rd
cent. AD, i. e. roughly 800 years after Pythagoras, a fact that nurtures scepticism
about their documentary value. Moreover, they often contain diverging, if not
plainly contradictory evidence.
To take vegetarianism as an example, some sources point to a rigid absti-
nence from eating meat. The brilliant mathematician Eudoxus of Cnidus (c.
390–c. 340 BC) exaggerates Pythagoras’ eagerness for ritual purity and his rejec-
tion of bloodshed and those who caused it, to the point of claiming that Pytha-
goras not only abstained from eating animate beings, but also avoided any con-
tact with cooks and hunters.¹¹ In contrast to this, there are witnesses, of virtually
the same period and of no less weight (Aristotle for instance) who attribute to
Pythagoras and his followers only the prohibition of eating certain parts of ani-
mals, such as the womb and the heart, as well as several kinds of fish.¹² Still
more bewildering is another document that presents Pythagoras sacrificing on
the spot an ox or even a hecatomb of oxen to the Muses in his delight at his dis-
covery of the mathematical theorem.¹³ How does this agree with vegetarianism?
And yet another odd piece of information: the story goes that Pythagoras also
served as a sports coach and recommended an all-meat diet – with overwhelm-
ing success, for the “Samian athlete Eurymenes, although he was small in body,
was able, thanks to Pythagoras’ wisdom, to defeat many larger [opponents] and
won a victory in Olympia” (Porph. VPyth. 15) …
It is more than obvious, then, that the literary tradition about Pythagoras is
extraordinarily polyphonic and dissonant. This uncomfortable situation may, at
least partly, be caused by some sociological and historical peculiarities:¹⁴
a) The Pythagorean community seems to have been sworn to secrecy.¹⁵ The pu-
pils were entitled to share the tenets of Pythagoras’ doctrine only amongst
themselves; and, in fact, at least in the beginning, little seems to have leaked
out from the inner circles. The space left empty by this rigid observance of
secrecy could easily – and disparately – be filled by outsiders.
b) From the earliest period expressions of the highest admiration for Pythago-
ras as a teacher are accompanied by extremely disparaging statements about
 Eudox. fr. 325 Lasserre; on Pythagorean vegetarianism in general, cf. Kahn 2001, p. 9;
Riedweg 2008, p. 36 f.
 Cf. Aristot. fr. 157 ff. and 177 Gigon; Burkert 1972, p. 181 ff.; Riedweg 2008, p. 67– 71.
 Apollodorus (of Cyzicus?), FGrHist 1095 F 1c.
 Cf. also Riedweg 2008, p. x.
 Cf. Burkert 1972, p. 178 f.
his personality, which again renders it difficult to make a fair assessment of

the Pythagoras phenomenon.
c) The legendary idealization of Pythagoras’ life, though visible already in early
reports, seems to have been continuously enhanced over the centuries, so
that it becomes in the end an almost impossible task to separate ‘historical
reality’ from legends.
d) Pythagoras has repeatedly been monopolized and exploited by different par-
ties over time. A particularly tricky aspect of the whole tradition resides pre-
cisely in the fact that the great philosopher Plato was without any doubt pro-
foundly influenced by Pythagoras with regard to central tenets of his think-
ing (this was clearly stated by Plato’s pupil Aristotle).¹⁶ Since Plato was a
towering and extraordinarily creative thinker, it was his variant of philoso-
phy that in the end won out, with devastating consequences for the old tra-
dition about Pythagoras. The genuine Pythagorean heritage was increasingly
overlaid with Platonic ideas, which in retrospect makes it virtually impossi-
ble to decide with certainty whether individual elements of the transmission
indeed go back to Pythagoras himself or rather originated with Plato.¹⁷
To sum up, an attempt at a scholarly approach to Pythagoras encounters many

serious obstacles that are quite hard to overcome. In order not to get completely
lost, it seemed absolutely indispensable, when I started writing down the intro-
duction to Pythagoras, to systematically take into consideration also the contem-
porary cultural and intellectual environment.¹⁸
Indeed, Pythagoras was born in a time when intellectually astonishing
things were happening in the neighboring city of Miletus, where Ionian natural
philosophy was being developed. And on his home island Samos architectural
and technical masterpieces were being realized, such as the tunnel of Eupalinus,
which is still hailed as an “unsurpassed feat of engineering”.¹⁹ This tunnel, 1’036
meters long and devised to guarantee a long-term water supply, was dug from
both ends in order to shorten the construction time – a venture which required
substantial mathematical and technical skills, particularly since problems with
the stability of the rock and an influx of water had to be dealt with (the problem-
 Arist. Metaph. A6, 987b11 ff.

 For a general view see Boyancé 1966; Burkert 1972, p. 83 ff.; Kahn 2001, p. 14 f.; 49 – 62;
Riedweg 2008, p. 20 ff. and 116 ff.; Périllié 2008, with in particular Szlezák 2008, and now
Huffman in this volume.
 Riedweg 2008, p. 44 ff.
 On this tunnel, cf. Hdt. 3,60; Kienast 1995, p. 187; now also Grewe 2010, p. 144 ff. On Samos in
general, see Shipley 1987, p. 74 ff.
atic zone in the mountain was bypassed with an aqueduct tunnel in the shape of
an isosceles triangle).
Another city with flourishing culture and civilization was Croton in southern
Italy, where Pythagoras moved around 530 BC – allegedly because he wanted to
escape Polycrates’ tyranny. We read about extremely successful Crotonian doc-
tors, and hardly any other town produced as many Olympic champions as Cro-
ton.²⁰
Well, this cultural-historical context of a prospering, highly advanced society
casts doubts on the image still widespread in the history of philosophy which
tends to see Pythagoras almost exclusively as a kind of Guru or Shaman, as
an archaic-prescientific sage and religious cathartic priest.²¹ To be sure, there
is no doubt that Pythagoras possessed all these qualities too: after his arrival
in Croton he quickly started gathering followers and founded a politico-religious
community, whose influence spread beyond Croton and which was caracterized
by a great number of dietary and behavioral rules that scrupulously regulated
the daily routine (some of them are elsewhere known from mystery rites).²²
Not everyone was easily admitted to that group; on the contrary: applicants
had to undergo various tests and selection procedures.²³ From today’s point of
view, the Pythagorean community, which in the modern age has served as a
model for the freemasons, displays the typical features of a ‘sect’ (in the neutral
sense of modern sociology of religions).²⁴ The Pythagoreans, like all sects, have
been characterised by a) a charismatic founder, b) clear organizational struc-
tures, c) a high degree of spiritual integration, d) elitist feeling (‘us’ against
‘them’), e) measures against apostates.²⁵
Yet for all this, it would be one-sided to deny a priori that there was any ‘sci-
entific’ element in Pythagoras’ thought. On a close analysis of the texts, his
thinking – as far as we may gather it from the fragmentary transmission – rather
shows the typical traits of the progressive philosophy of nature of his time. Like
the Milesians Anaximander and Anaximenes as well as other ‘Presocratics’, he,
too, seems to have been driven by an indomitable desire to know (ἱστορία),²⁶ and
 Giangiulio 1989, p. 99 – 130; Mann 2001, p. 164– 191; Kahn 2001, p. 6 f.

 Cf. Burkert 1972, p. 162 ff.
 Cf. Iambl. VPyth. 138; Burkert 1972, p. 177 f.
 Cf. also Iambl. VPyth. 71 f.
 For these features, see Wilson 1970 and Rudolph 1979.
 Cf. Burkert 1982; Kahn 2001, p. 83; Riedweg 2008, p. 100 – 104.
 Cf. Heraclitus 22 B 129 D.-K. On the importance of the term ἱστορία in Ionian cultural context
see Burkert 1972, p. 210. Huffman (2008) is, of course, right in arguing that the term as such is
not limited to natural philosophy, but “is a general word for enquiry that does imply an active
curiosity and desire to know things” (p. 23; he, however, strangely didn’t notice that Riedweg
in particular to discover the primordial beginnings, the principles (ἀρχαί, princi-

pia) of all things.²⁷ But instead of air, ‘water and earth’, fire or the (materially
conceived) ‘infinite’ (ἄπειρον), it was, interestingly enough, ‘number’ that in
the school of Pythagoras was proposed as ‘principle’ or as the (still materially
understood) primary substance: from number originated everything in this
world (even heaven itself), and out of number it will continue to exist – that’s
how the basic assumption runs, an assumption that hasn’t lost any of its fasci-
nation even today (“to number everything resembles”, ἀριθμῷ δέ τε πάντ’
ἐπέοικεν).²⁸
That said, the method of natural philosophical explanation – and this again
strikes us as rather strange – remains tightly connected with mystical tendencies.
Numbers are partly equated with divinities and thus venerated almost religious-
ly. To give an example, the number 7 is identified with Athena,²⁹ since 7 can be
considered something like a parthenogenetic prime number: it cannot be gener-
ated from any of the first 10 numbers, nor does it produce any of them.³⁰ It is
obvious that structural analogies between numbers and things were decisive
for such identifications. The Pythagoreans seem to have attributed to numbers
occult active forces. A central position was occupied by the ‘Fourthness’ (τετρα-
κτύς), i. e. the series of the first four numbers.³¹ Adding 1, 2, 3 and 4, one arrives
at the number 10, which was considered to be the ‘perfect’ number;³² and visual-
ized by pebbles, the ‘Fourthness’ builds the “perfect isosceles triangle”:
[2008, p. 50] is saying the same thing: “the kind of curiosity that characterized the Ionian
natural philosophers as well as the first ‘historians,’ who acquired their knowledge by traveling
and questioning local informants”; see also Riedweg 1997, p. 81 f. and 2004, p. 162– 172, and
Thom in this volume).
 Cf. Arist. Metaph. A8, 990a3 – 5.
 Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. 7,94; Theo Sm. 99,16; Plut. De an. procr. 1029 f.; Iambl. VPyth. 162 (= OF
317 Kern = 705 Bernabé). Cf. Burkert 1972, p. 55; 401 ff.; Riedweg 2008, p. 80 ff.
 Similarly already in Babylon, see Pichot 1995, p. 92 f.; in general Burkert 1972, p. 470.
 Cf. Arist. fr. 162 Gigon (from Aristotle’s lost treatise on the Pythagorean philosophy, parts of
which are quoted by Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Commentary on the Metaphysics, p. 39 Hayduck).
 Iambl. VPyth. 162; Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. 7,94. On the tetraktys in general, cf. Delatte 1915,
p. 249 – 268; Burkert 1972, p. 72 ff.; Kahn 2001, p. 31– 36; Riedweg 2008, p. 82 f. and 86 f.
 Cf. Arist. Metaph. A5, 986a8 f.
Moreover, the ‘Fourthness’ also contains the proportions of the basic musical
consonances (2 : 1, 3 : 2, 4 : 3). In an old Pythagorean saying the ‘Fourthness’ is
thus equated with the harmony of the Sirens, which means: with the harmony of
the spheres, for also in Plato the Sirens which have been allotted to the individ-
ual stars are responsible for the cosmic harmony.³³
It might well be that it was this peculiar combination of natural philosophy
and mythico-religious explanation of the world that caused irritation as early as
with Pythagoras’ contemporaries. Natural philosophers such as Xenophanes and
Heraclitus ridiculed Pythagoras’ views (amongst other things in particular his
conviction that a human soul may be reincarnated in a puppy dog) and denigrat-
ed him in general as a nasty charlatan.³⁴
In a completely different mood were the male and female followers, whom
Pythagoras must soon have acquired not only in Croton, but also in Metapontum
and other cities of southern Italy: according to Aristotle, they attributed to their
master a super-human status,³⁵ and to confirm this they referred to his many
miracles (amongst other things, Pythagoras is said to have predicted earth-
quakes and to have been able to communicate with animals, as well as to
heal friends from their diseases, etc.).³⁶
The reactions of those around him were obviously quite contradictory. He
thus turns out to be a typical charismatic as defined by the German sociologist
Max Weber. For it is characteristic of charismatics that they meet with more or
less flat rejection amongst outsiders, or, to quote a modern dictionary of sociol-
ogy: “We usually do not remain indifferent to a leader whose charisma we do not
recognise, but we are inclined to adopt a hostile or contemptuous attitude: we
consider him either an imposter or a madman”³⁷ – that is more or less how Her-
 Plat. Rep. 10, 617b-c.

 Cf. Xenophanes 21 B 7 D.-K.; Heraclitus 22 B 129 D.-K.; cf. Burkert 1972, p. 209 f.; Riedweg
2008, p. 48 ff.
 I.e., intermediate between humans and god: Arist. fr. 156 Gigon; cf. Riedweg 2008, p. 71 ff.
 Cf. Porph. VPyth. 23 – 25; 27 f.; Riedweg 2008, p. 2– 5.
 Boudon and Bourricaud 1992, p. 60.
aclitus felt about Pythagoras.³⁸ On the other hand, followers of a charismatic

leader ascribe to him special, unusual abilities (“Gnadengaben”, χαρίσματα).
In Pythagoras’ case, one may think of the many reports about miracles, which
surround him from the earliest times and which often represent him as closely
connected to Apollo, the most Greek of all gods, if he is not actually considered
to be his incarnation.³⁹ According to Max Weber’s analysis charismatics always
appear to their followers to be super-natural, super-human or at least far from
ordinary,⁴⁰ and their charismatic teachings illuminate and give sense to the ex-
istence of their followers in many respects.⁴¹ This again can be amply illustrated
with Pythagorean examples: it is sufficient to refer to vegetarianism and the var-
ious dietary taboos, but there is also the community of property practised within
the group, the importance of friendship, of music and eschatological teachings,
etc.
III Today’s Pythagoras

No doubt, from a modern point of view Pythagoras and his teachings strike us on
the whole as a bewildering phenomenon. The strange combination of rational
and irrational explanation of the whole world hardly corresponds to our own ex-
perience of life, to the way we tend to see and assess ourselves. And yet, to bold-
ly breach the gap between Pythagoras and our own reality: does the situation
present itself so differently in our days? Take modern politics and economics⁴²
as examples: the ruling classes are regularly forced to take decisions with far-
reaching implications under conditions of uncertainty. They therefore take refuge
in consulting companies which operate with pragmatic instructions and patterns
of solutions that often are far from being exclusively rational, but also – and nec-
essarily – include emotional, if not downright esoteric elements. This is not to
depreciate the booming consultant business (whose protagonists, by the way,
may strike the observer as a kind of Pythagorean network⁴³), but to become
 See above, p. 54, with n. 34.

 Cf. Iambl. VPyth. 135; 140.
 Weber 1922, p. 140.
 Cf. Lipp 1995, p. 33 f.; Macris 2003.
 Rolf Dobelli 2010 has recently unearthed interesting structural analogies between astrolo-
gical and economical expertise; cf. also Vogl 2010.
 It is my impression that at the turn of the Millennium McKinsey people, at least in Swiss
economics, assumed a role which earlier had been played by the army, Rotarians or Freemasons
(as mentioned above, the latter in fact used to refer to Pythagoras as one of their founding
fathers).
aware of parallels like these and others – which include modern ‘mathemagi-
cal’⁴⁴ beliefs in the power of algorithms that, according to enthusiasts like Pier-
giorgio Odifreddi, should soon enable us to calculate even human behaviour⁴⁵ –
could preserve us from hasty arrogance.
I for one am quite convinced that Pythagoras would fare rather well in our
society⁴⁶. The sources, indeed, explicitly confirm that he was extremely success-
ful as a political adviser: having arrived in southern Italy, he is said to have deep-
ly impressed the local population with his charismatic appearance and his ethi-
co-political teachings. The town council of Croton straight-away handed over to
him all the different social groups of citizens to be morally educated, and the
surrounding cities too are said to have sought Pythagoras’ advice.⁴⁷ (According
to legend, Pythagoras’ teaching even influenced Roman legislation through
Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome)⁴⁸.
The advice which Pythagoras is said to have imparted to the Crotonian elite
contains much that remains worth considering to this very day. A leading idea of
his political thinking seems to have been the concept – corroborated by number-
philosophy and cosmology – of ἁρμονία among the various social groups, i. e.
the means by which they could ‘harmonically’ be joined together, in order to
guarantee social cohesion. This ἁρμονία finds symbolical expression in the ad-
vice given to the political ruling class to first of all erect a sanctuary dedicated
to the Muses, for the nine Muses form a homogeneous, ‘harmonic’ body of
equals, who achieve among themselves perfect concord.⁴⁹ The Muses therefore
act as warrants of the consonance and harmony of all things, and the politicians
are invited by Pythagoras to follow their example. Against this background it is
hardly surprising that later on Plato is said to have erected a sanctuary to the
Muses in his Academy,⁵⁰ and that Archytas of Tarentum, a particularly successful
Pythagorean politician and friend of Plato, explicitly states that the right meas-
ure (λογισμός) stops quarrel, furthers concord and also bridges the gap between
poor and rich.⁵¹
 Cf. the illuminating title of the historical novel by Karim El-Koussa (2005), Pythagoras: The
Mathemagician.
 Cf. Odifreddi 2010. Much more critical Kuri 2010.
 It seems symptomatic to me that his name appears on the cover of a modern sourcebook for
counselling and psychotherapy: Howard 2000.
 Cf. Dicaearch. fr. 40 Mirhady; Kahn 2001, p. 7 f.; Riedweg 2008, p. 12 ff. and 60 ff.; also de
Vogel 1966, p. 70 ff.
 Cf. Aristox. fr. 17 Wehrli = fr. III 2 10 Kaiser; Diod. 8,14 etc.; Riedweg 2008, p. 12 and 124.
 Cf. Iambl. VPyth. 45; Riedweg 2008, p. 13 f. and 61.
 Cf. Boyancé 1966, p. 105 f.; Sassi 1988, p. 571 f.
 47 B 3 D.-K. = fr. 3 Huffman.
Let me add a few other suggestions from Iamblichus’ Pythagorean way of life
which might be still of some use for politicians and business people. According
to this ‘Pythagoreanizing’ Neoplatonist, Pythagoras gave among others the fol-
lowing pieces of advice (46 – 49):
– To regard the state as a common pledge, which the leaders have received
from the mass of the citizens;
– To be like one’s fellow citizens in every way, and to be superior to them only
in justice;
– To manage one’s own household in an exemplary way, so that it is possible
to draw conclusions from this regarding one’s political attitude;
– To be a model of discipline and temperance for all, and to avoid sluggish-
ness in action (there is nothing more important than the right moment [και-
ρός] for each thing);
– It is the worst injustice to tear asunder children and parents;
– One who seeks honor should emulate the successful runner who does no
harm to his opponents, but [only] strives himself to win;
– Everyone should cling to truly good repute and be as he wants to appear to
others, etc.
As to the practical conduct of life, one may similarly find useful suggestions in
the Pythagorean tradition. A later collection of Pythagorean maxims has not
without good reason been labelled the Golden Verses: it is a booklet which en-
joyed great popularity already in antiquity and has been repeatedly reprinted
in modern times.⁵² Among other things it contains a kind of mental training
(27 ff.): the reader is exhorted to deliberate about everything before acting and
“to take thought before the deed⁵³” (39 λογίσαι δὲ πρὸ ἔργου). One should more-
over carry out only things that one really understands and learn all that is nec-
essary, “and thus you will lead a most enjoyable life” (30 f.). Memory training is
recommended in the form of recollecting the events of the day before going to
sleep, an exercise which clearly resembles the Christian examination of con-
science: “Where have I transgressed? What have I accomplished? What duty
have I neglected?” (42)
It’s time to cut short our little tour through the rich tradition about Pythagoras. I
hope it has become evident how a combination of cultural-historical overall per-
spective with philologically painstaking analysis of texts and modern sociologi-
 Cf. in general Thom 1995.

 Translation: Thom 1995.
cal categories can shed new light on a figure who has lost none of his fascination
to this day and who is but one example of how rewarding the intensive study of
Antiquity may still prove to be. Pythagoras invites us to ponder over our own so-
ciety and, multifaceted as he apparently was, he seems particularly apt to bring
together the humanities, social and natural sciences, and even politics and eco-
nomics.
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2 Pythagoras and Early Pythagorean traditions
Livio Rossetti
When Pythagoras was still Living in Samos
(Heraclitus, frg. 129)
1 Not necessarily in the light of Croton

Can we come to form an idea of what sort of person Pythagoras was when he was
still living in Samos, i. e. before installing himself in Croton? And what precisely
does Heraclitus fragment 129 tell us about the sort of person he was in the Sa-
mian period of his life? Many scholars from Burkert to Huffman (see esp. Huff-
man 2008) incline to deny that, when in Samos, Pythagoras may have been a re-
markably different person from what he was (or became, and in any case was
known to be) once installed in Croton. According to this line of thought, during
the Samian period of his life, Pythagoras must have cultivated, basically, the
same interests – in religion, rituals, and perhaps cosmogonies – that marked
his circle in Croton, and “it is possible that … a collection of brief maxims of Py-
thagoras promulgating ritual taboos had been recorded in writing and were cir-
culating” (Huffman 2008, 42).
To assume that they ‘were circulating’ may not be enough, especially if “the
symbola were used as passwords intelligible only to those initiated into the Py-
thagorean way of life” (Huffman 2008, 41 f.). First of all, their circulation cannot
be identified with the circulation of any other famous book (be it a poem or an-
other sort of writing): it could have been in circulation only if one or more dev-
otees brought it with them with the conscious aim of ‘exporting’ Pythagoras’ ver-
bum, engaging in proselytism, and undertaking to decode the symbola in order
to make them intelligible to a given audience. But is there any evidence of the
existence of devotees in Ephesus (or at least in Samos, or generically in Ionia)
at the time of Heraclitus?
But there is more. In frg. 129 Heraclitus does not speak of a collection of
“maxims promulgating ritual taboos” and other obscure teachings prepared
for the benefit of a foreign community (in Southern Italy, which – we may as-
sume – was scarcely known in Ionia) and, in any case, ostensibly different
from every other text familiar to him. He treats Pythagoras as a well known per-
son who, in the past, distinguished himself by his extensive (or deep) enquiries,
and who was (still) relatively well known precisely because of them, rather than
because of a different and controversial writing of his. The frame of reference is
quite different.
64 Livio Rossetti
Different to begin with is the authorship of the work or works under scrutiny.
The maxims that originated in Croton were ascribed to Pythagoras, though not
necessarily made public by him, and could well have been assembled in his
name by some followers, possibly at a later time (there is no certainty that
they became a book when the ‘prophet’ was still alive). On the contrary Heracli-
tus (a) is speaking about a text that is clearly related to other texts, all being
rather easily available and comparable, (b) therefore postulates an identified
community of writers,¹ and (c) deals with an intellectual who was known to
have undertaken a very promising investigation and then wrote a rather disap-
pointing ‘book’². These specifications are not compatible with what may be pre-
sumed about the Pythagorean symbola (or Akousmata). There is a sharp differ-
ence, in particular, between a person treated as a revered prophet or saint and
a writer accused of being a sort of epigone (a writer whose compilation has
been judged clearly inferior to that of his sources). The Pythagorean community
(or hetaireia, or sect) was notoriously an elitist community, with strong “submis-
sion to the authority of a charismatic leader” and hostile to divulgation of its
doctrine.³ Moreover, for the Pythagoreans, Pythagoras was a great initiator,
and they had no idea of a period of formation, education or incubation that oc-
curred to him in Samos or elsewhere, nor could they admit any criticism of him,
or identify models that were well or badly exploited by him. His authority (reli-
gious, moral, political) was not conceived as suitable to be analyzed or com-
pared (or evaluated). Therefore, the wisdom which formed the core of his public
image, once he installed himself in Croton and then elsewhere in Southern Italy,
was in no way suitable to be examined or judged.
All these features have little or nothing in common with the very distinguish-
ed person, and the tireless investigator Heraclitus seems to evoke. Just consider
that Heraclitus comments upon a work which was suitable to be understood,
compared, and evaluated rather freely by other independent learned people,
thus something foreign to secrecy. He actually speaks as one who refers to some-
thing rather well known to him (and probably to the most learned of his contem-
porary hearers/readers), i. e. to a typical product of a polis, while nothing sug-
gests that he alludes to the revered man now living in Southern Italy, or to his
‘Crotonian’ teachings.
 A caution should be entered here. As will shown below (§ 3), an alternative interpretation of
Heraclitus’ remarks about who may have written all these sungraphai is at least conceivable.
 I provisionally write ‘book’ because of the perplexities raised by Gemelli Marciano and
Huffman (below, § 2).
 See Cornelli 2010, passim (while here I quote from Cornelli 2011, 232).
A passage by Diogenes Laertius is worth mentioning at this point. In VIII 6

he writes that according to some sources, Pythagoras left no book at all, and
commented: diapaizontes, for Heraclitus has the contrary claim. The counter-evi-
dence adduced by Diogenes Laertius against what is repeatedly stated by our
sources (that Pythagoras wrote no sungramma) prompts the following question:
if a ‘book’ by Pythagoras existed and was known at least to Heraclitus, why does
it seem that nobody in Croton suspected its existence? As a matter of fact, the
existence of a textual unit written by Pythagoras (or compiled in his name) is co-
herently denied by our sources, and for a long time the Pythagoreans practiced
only the initiation of individuals expected to become members of the commun-
ity. Therefore, it is simply inconceivable that a text originating in the Pythagor-
ean community of Southern Italy could have reached Ionia just few decades
after its birth. One should also consider that Pythagoras’ emigration from
Samos to Croton was an irreversible event; he never returned to Samos (even
a for short visit).
The important consequence of the previous discussion is that Pythagorean
symbola and akousmata are of no help for a correct understanding of frg. 129,
even assuming that they were compiled well before Heraclitus’ death. Therefore,
what Heraclitus refers to must be the output of Pythagoras the Samian, i. e. what
was currently known about a distinguished (though rather controversial) sophos
who was no longer living in Samos, whatever his subsequent life, teachings or
writings may have been: a learned person who had been active in Samos few
decades earlier, and nothing else.
What I therefore propose to reconsider is a marginal, but not very marginal,
chapter of Pythagoras’ life and work, a chapter upon which a great silence has
fallen, especially after the seminal book of Walter Burkert. As a matter of fact,
what Pythagoras learned and wrote when still in Samos may well be judged of
modest import for his ‘second life’ in Croton, but in likewise manner his ‘second
life’ has very little to say about what occurred during his ‘first life’. The scanty
information that survives about the Samian period of Pythagoras’ life fails to re-
veal the least awareness, on the part of Heraclitus, of the sort of public image
which came to be established in Croton and elsewhere, once Pythagoras was sur-
rounded by a group of devotees.
66 Livio Rossetti
2 A number of pieces of information concentrated

in frg. 129. The sungraphai
If so, as to the Samian Pythagoras, we’re left with just one substantial piece of
information (Heraclitus’ frg. 129) and little more (frg. 40, the context in Diogenes
Laertius’ quotation, another small detail in D.L. and a ‘tale’ attributed to Di-
kaiarchos⁴). Let us read this fragment:
Πυθαγόρας Μνησάρχου ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα πάντων καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ταύ-
τας τὰς συγγραφὰς ἐποιήσατο ἑωυτοῦ σοφίην, πολυμαθίην, κακοτεχνίην.
This is a declarative sentence, which does not offer just a negative evaluation of a
certain ‘book’: it evokes other ‘books’ which could have served as models or
sources, and has something to say about Pythagoras-the-researcher. What emerg-
es is indeed a comprehensive framework in which a definite place is assigned to
a number of elements:
(a) an investigator,
(b) a classification of his investigation (historiē),
(c) a comparison with everyone else,
(d) a number of related sungraphai, i. e. the written work of a whole group of
‘colleagues’ of Pythagoras,
(e) the output due to Pythagoras himself, and the sort of use he may have made
of the work of his ‘colleagues’ (eklexamenos),
(f) an idea about how one could come to be (wrongly) considered a sophos,
(g) a neologism indicating – we are often told – a multifarious competence (po-
lumathiē),
(h) another neologism (kakotechniē) worth careful investigation,
(i) a potential contradiction between true and false excellence.
All that in explicit relation to Pythagoras the son of Mnesarchus.

Clearly, we have to do with a complex, well-structured and enlightening sen-
tence where each element has been put into a definite relation with each of the
others. Here a lot is said both about persons and abilities, and about the intel-
lectual milieu within which the whole output (investigations and ‘books’) occur-
red. That a rather coherent frame of reference does emerge – a world where var-
 Diogenes Laertius I 118 states that Pherecydes was buried in Delos by Pythagoras; according
to Porphory (V. Pyth. 18) Dikaiarchos has something to say about the fame that accompanied
Pythagoras’ arrival at Croton and the admiration with which he was immediately surrounded
(14.8 and 14.8a D.-K. respectively).
ious intellectuals are undertaking their researches and writing ‘books’ more or
less accessible to each-other, and where the evaluation of Pythagoras-the-re-
searcher is quite well distinguished from the evaluation of Pythagoras-the-writ-
er – seems clear. That this sentence is totally asymmetrical with respect to what
is known about early Pythagoreanism in Southern Italy should go without say-
ing. That it is largely compatible with what may have characterized the Samian
milieu is a point to be argued just below, while now it is time to decide whether
Heraclitus is saying something about books or not.
According to Gemelli Marciano (2007, 392 ss.), a sixth century sungraphē
could well collect textual units of various kinds: portions of poems as well as
teachings to be found in prose writings, traditional as well as ‘modern’ ideas, ex-
hortations as well as myths, and so on. According to Huffman, sungraphai “need
not be treatises” (2008, 41) and therefore it should be almost impossible to estab-
lish what sort of writings Heraclitus was alluding to. (However, Huffman infers
that the young Pythagoras may have written “a mythical cosmology”.) Moreover,
the frame of reference is such as to evoke a community of intellectuals and a
competition among them, thus some structured and rather professional writings,
each transcribed on pieces of tanned leather, suitable not only to be copied as
well as read aloud, but also to be somehow studied, compared, commented
and criticized. Otherwise Heraclitus could not remark that Pythagoras exploited
the syngraphai of other sophoi in order to acquire the reputation of sophos for
himself too, in all likelihood by setting up a sungraphē of his own (that which
is the object of his sharp criticism).
Can all these writings be labelled books? For the times of Pythagoras and
Heraclitus I see no serious objection, all the more since, as Gemelli Marciano
pointed out (2007, 411), comparable ‘Sammlungen’ set up by Onomacritus, Heca-
taeus and the same tyrant Hipparchus (plus, one would say, Acusilaos) are there
to suggest a rather pertinent context, while “weder Wundermänner noch Kathar-
tai gehören … zu Heraklits Verzeichnis von Polymatheis” (2007, 420). Admittedly,
we are referring to a time where the very notion of book was young and still rel-
atively indeterminate, but one should consider that the usage of writing some ex-
tended treatises peri physeōs was already established (we know with certainty at
least that Anaximander and Anaximenes wrote each a Peri Physeos, Hecataeus
two different ‘treatises’ and Xenophanes a Peri Physeos in hexameters plus
other poems) and continued with other books bearing the same title.⁵ Therefore,
even assuming that pre-Pythagorean poetry could raise the admiration of an in-
vestigator, it seems reasonable to consider on the one hand the ‘Sammmlungen’
 See also Rossetti 2010, and § 4 below, on Acusilaos.

68 Livio Rossetti
of the same period, on the other hand the new prose ‘treatises’ as kinds of prose
writings which were already established, known, appreciated.
That said, it is time to restrict the area to what may have been significant for
Heraclitus, and also the sort of persons Heraclitus identifies by name: Homer,
Hesiod, Archilochus, Hecataeus, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Hermodoros and
Bias (eight learned people). Besides, other writers happen to be mentioned at
least implicitly: Thales (not only the papyrus fragment on the new moon –
POxy 3710 – counts as evidence, but also, in all likelihood, fr. 3 on the supposed
measures of the sun⁶), and perhaps Anaximenes (because of fr. 6, on the sun
which is new every day), Alcaeus and Pittacus (Diog. Laert. I 76 = frg. 142 Mour-
aviev). So a dozen people, not to consider the eventuality that other intellectuals
may have been mentioned elsewhere, in the portions of Heraclitus’ book which
are no more (or not yet) available to us. That so many people were explicitly
mentioned (and commented upon, indeed, often severely criticized) is a great in-
novation not just because of the lack of known antecedents, not just because to
mention so many learned people means that Heraclitus acknowledges the exis-
tence of a circle of highly reputed persons of which he is proud to be a member,
but also because he is pleased – and able – to give his own judgment upon each
of them, and presumes that his potential audience may appreciate that. Second-
ly, Heraclitus mentions only people well known in the Ionian area or, at least, in
the Greek colonies of the so-called Asia Minor. Some celebrated poets put apart,
the books which drew his attention were of Ionian or, at least, Aeolian origin, but
those he discusses are for the most part Ionian. Finally, Heraclitus is rather crit-
ical towards poets, rituals and at least some elements of the Olympian religion.
On matters of admiration, it is noteworthy that Professor Burkert, though
speaking of the “insubstantiality of all the inferences drawn from the passage
of Heraclitus”, argued that “Heraclitus, as well as Herodotus and Sophocles,
had heard of a ritually enacted katabasis of Pythagoras” and that, when Heracli-
tus speaks of the sungraphai Pythagoras availed of, in order to set up his own, he
may have obliquely referred to some Orphic texts (Burkert 1972, 210, 161, 131;
opinion shared i.a. by Marcovich 1967, 69; Riedweg 2008, 50 – 52; Huffman
2008, 45). But if Heraclitus did show some genuine admiration for Pythagoras
(at least for his askēsis), this ought to have nothing to do with a katabasis or any-
thing comparable. And unless we take it as ironical, such admiration is still wait-
ing for a plausible explanation, if only because of its exceptionality. Therefore,
the coexistence of admiration and severe criticism which is so prominent in
frg. 129 deserves our attention.
 More on this conjecture in Rossetti 2013, 46 – 50.

All that strongly suggests, although does not prove, that Pythagoras’ book
too was (or at least was acknowledged by Heraclitus as) Ionian in character.
Had it been of another kind, Heraclitus would possibly have not mentioned it
at all. What is more, in the second part of frg. 129 Heraclitus notes not a basic
difference, or a degree of originality or eccentricity, but the opposite feature: a
disappointing lack of originality. Had he not noted the existence of the previous
sungraphai, as well as the points of analogy between them and the new sungra-
phē, he could not establish this sort of relation and stress that Pythagoras’ writ-
ing was ostensibly dependent on some other sungraphai. Summing up, Heracli-
tus’ way of dealing with these persons and their sungraphai is appropriate for a
sophos being well introduced in the ‘community’ of Ionian sophoi and with safe
access to at least three different textual units (the ‘book’ by Pythagoras and at
least two further ‘books’ he is said to have somehow exploited), each being rath-
er extended and complex. It follows that Heraclitus saw in Pythagoras not an
outsider, but a sophos easily comparable with the others, one of them, all the
more since, instead of criticizing his excessive originality, he deplores his
being epigonal, even too much (or unexpectedly) epigonal.
3 Admiration and contempt in frg. 129. Tautas as a

riddle
Interpreters have often concentrated upon polumathiē and kakotechniē, but this
runs the risk of being open to a misleading interpretation. True, Heraclitus con-
cludes his note with severe expressions of contempt, but his opening words go in
a completely different direction,⁷ for they state that Pythagoras ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν
ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα πάντων. To write pantōn means that here he is praising him
much more than everyone else: more than Hermodoros, who distinguished him-
self only among the Ephesians; more than Homer and Hesiod, whom he sharply
criticizes despite their indisputable celebrity.
The reason for such high praise is clearly stated: it is historiē, investigation, a
rare and pretty ‘modern’ (and almost exclusively Ionian) kind of excellence
 Mouraviev 2006 (vol. III.3.B/iii), 151 s. maintains that frg. 129 is marked by intentional am-
biguity or polyphony, but is this sure? What we have are rather plain statements about certain
deeds of Pythagoras. For the same reason, I cannot see why we should interpret the whole
fragment in the light of its very last word, kakotechniē, as various scholars suggest, in order to
infer a global attitude of rejection or indignation on the part of Heraclitus. The distinction
between two different pieces of information coexisting in the extant fragment deserves to be
acknowleged.
70 Livio Rossetti
which happens to be frankly credited to Pythagoras. Heraclitus tells us that he

felt a genuine admiration for him because of the impressive efforts and the suc-
cessful achievements reached in a field here called historiē. This way we are
clearly told that, probably during his early adult age, when still in Samos, and
possibly after more than one trip outside Samos, Pythagoras did reach some
form of genuine excellence (and justifiable celebrity) by acquiring a great com-
petence in historiē.
But what does the word historiē mean here? The context gives some help.
First the words ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν evoke a serious investigation, a tireless effort
(askēsis) which hardly could be directed towards poetry or rituals. Now, the mas-
ters of Miletus – Anaximander, for instance – certainly deserve to be qualified as
prominent in historiē. This remark should be combined with the already noticed
emphasis on a group, or community, of writers. Moreover, we should consider
that when Pythagoras was still living in Samos, no third group of writers, in ad-
dition to the poets and the Milesians, was known to be active in the same area. It
follows that Pythagoras, not unlike a contemporary of his, Xenophanes, and a
younger intellectual, Heraclitus, probably found his main interlocutors in the
masters of Miletus. If so, it is likely that Pythagoras undertook comparable inves-
tigations and gained a considerable reputation for that, and not only in the eyes
of Heraclitus.
Heraclitus begins by speaking as if he were well acquainted with Pythago-
ras-the-researcher and able to form definite ideas about his competence, much
as if his admiration had been aroused before he had access to his book and
then experienced a deep sense of disappointment. Why on earth? A viable con-
jecture seems to be the following one: Heraclitus, being aware of Pythagoras’ ad-
mirable askēsis, could only form great expectations about the sungraphē he was
probably preparing but, once delivered, his sungraphē raised a deep sense of dis-
appointment, contrary to all expectations. It is really amazing to see that for Her-
aclitus it was important to acknowledge in the most manifest way the merits of
Pythagoras-the-researcher. Should we presume that the output of these creative
investigations was left somehow unpublished and is not to be identified with the
sungraphē?
Uncertain, if not unlikely, essentially because of the word tautas. As a matter
of fact, the second sub-unit of the sentence, καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγρα-
φὰς, has the power to prepare a great surprise. It is enough to ask to what tautas
may refer. It would have been perfectly clear that Pythagoras is said to have
somehow exploited the writings of certain ‘colleagues’ of his if our passage
had καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ἐνίας συγγραφὰς. But we don’t have enias, we have tautas,
a word meant to refer to something recently mentioned. Shall we understand
that Heraclitus wants to refer to Pythagoras and his own writings? Or is there an
alternative?
The first option is syntactically attractive, but scarcely plausible. Just sup-
pose one was commenting upon Isocrates’ Antidosis. It would have been plausi-
ble for a commentator to note that Isocrates had composed the Antidosis out of a
selection of his own writings: not a scandal, just an exaggeration. But here we
have to interpret a sentence whose concern is Pythagoras, and he lived in a pe-
riod not yet marked by a great proliferation of writings. So to imagine that he
could have been the author of several books before leaving Samos for Croton
seems too much, although Hecataeus wrote two substantial books, while Hesiod
and Xenophanes even more. However, in frg. 40 Pythagoras is taken to have
something in common with Xenophanes, Hecataeus and Hesiod, all authors of
different writings, because of his polumathiē, and this sort of privilege is judged
negatively (“all four writers know many things, but lack deep understanding”).
For, in principle, it is certainly possible that polumathiē means more than to be
acknowledged as a competent person in more than one field: perhaps it means
to be the author of ‘many’ books. And it is at least conceivable that Heraclitus,
auctor unius libri, was against those who write many books (or just more than
one).
If so, can Pythagoras be treated not as the author of a sungraphē which got
lost, but of several (two, three) different sungraphai? Before exploring an alterna-
tive conjecture, it is worth considering that the excellence acknowledged in Py-
thagoras would be more understandable if witnessed by an admirable published
writing of his. Otherwise, Heraclitus’ admiration would remain seemingly un-
grounded and merely subjective. So, to suppose that here Heraclitus refers to
an admirable book by Pythagoras is at least attractive. Save that tautas suggests
more than just a single book.
Let us now consider the (perhaps only) available alternative. Nothing pre-
vents tautas from referring to something placed before the very first word of
frg. 129 (not necessarily frg. 40). Therefore, it is certainly possible to imagine
that, once he had proclaimed his disapproval of all four celebrated intellectuals,
Heraclitus continued with some remarks on two or three of them and then with
further remarks on Pythagoras: those we can still read in frg. 129. If so, tautas
would allude to some of the works mentioned ten to fifteen words before, there-
fore not necessarily to writings authored by the same Pythagoras. Not unlikely, I
would say.
72 Livio Rossetti
4 Eklexamenos. Pythagoras author of a sort of

second-order writing?
Let us now concentrate upon eklexamenos, a word that has attracted little atten-
tion so far.⁸ I begin by another tentative identification of what Heraclitus precise-
ly tries to tell us here:
(a) he assumes that the existence of a book written by Pythagoras is a well-
known fact;
(b) he assumes that there is a certain group of writings to which it is reasonable
to append the label of sungraphai;
(c) he undertakes a comparison; his main claim is that Pythagoras was scarcely
original, since there are some works (at least two) by other authors from
which relevant materials have been clearly borrowed;
(d) he adduces the fact of having borrowed from the work of other writers as a
good ground for his severe evaluation of the output;
(e) he speaks of polumathiē and kakotechniē, which may well evoke other mes-
sages of some value and interest.
Several questions arise.

A point I should mention immediately is that Heraclitus seems to have been
creative as a commentator of the writings of other authors. Who before him had
explored Homer and Hesiod and gone in search of individual sentences suitable
to be criticized? Xenophanes too made some criticisms, but his remarks are clear-
ly made for the purpose of his own doctrine on the gods; moreover, they deal
generically with the poetic portrayal of the gods and offer rather generic or ob-
vious criticism, while Heraclitus picked up individual passages and his com-
ments are far from obvious. But for his audience it may not have been easy to
come to understand why, according to him, Homer or Hesiod should be incorrect
when they treat peace as different from war, or day from night. Moreover, a de-
manding search ought to be started in order to discover whether there is really a
passage where they say what Heraclitus criticizes, and where precisely these pas-
 Mouraviev 2006 (vol. III.3.B/iii), 151 noticed that “ταύτας τὰς συγγραφὰς peut être complé-
ment ou d’ἐκλεξάμενος ou d’ἐποιήσατο”. Just in principle, for to combine ταύτας τὰς συγγραφὰς
with ἐποιήσατο would imply that the object of the choice are σοφίην πολυμαθίην κακοτεχνίην.
But it is hardly conceivable that one chooses sophia or polymathia. Besides, when translating,
Mouraviev treats the expression as related to ἐκλεξάμενοι.
sages are to be found.⁹ In other words: an uncommon and almost unexpected

sort of excellence lies behind Heraclitus’ samples of ‘literary criticism’.
This invites us to consider very carefully the possibility that the evaluations
made in frg. 129 are no less competent and pertinent.
It may be tempting to object that it is unlikely, for a writer of the middle or
late sixth century, to look for portions of already available books in order to se-
lect them and give rise to a ‘new’ book of his own. But at least one pertinent par-
allel is available. It deals with Acusilaos. In the Suda he is said to have composed
the most ancient miscellaneous work (sungraphē, 9 A 3 D.-K.), while Clement of
Alexandria tells us that both Eumelos and Acusilaos wrote a prose equivalent of
Hesiod’s works (plural: ta de Hēsiodou, 9 A 4 D.-K.). The analogy is remarkable.
Heraclitus presumes to know that Pythagoras has composed his own sungraphē
by basing it on several previous sungraphai written by other learned people, and
that his own sungraphē looks rather composite, much as if it were still possible
to identify traces of individual portions of these other books. In other words, cer-
tain text units are said to be somehow recycled and wisely (but also astutely:
with kakotechniē) combined together. The comparison with the scanty evidence
concerning Acusilaos¹⁰ seems therefore to militate in favor of a prima facie reli-
ability of what we read in this portion of frg. 129.
Whatever the facts evoked, Heraclitus may well have done, and have been
aware of doing, something remarkably new: he was creating a new mode of ex-
ploring poems and other books, he was the very subtle literary critic we are dis-
covering, a critic prepared to speak competently about other books and teach us
how to become sensitive readers and preserve one’s autonomy of judgment (thus
assuming that the authority of Homer or Thales does not imply that one should
subscribe to what they were teaching). The intrinsic value of this advance seems
to me outstanding. It should be remarked. In the meanwhile the whole passage
becomes more and more credible not because we can presume that it is not over-
ly tendentious, but because it enables us to see how penetrating Heraclitus’ re-
marks are.
It is a mere corollary to conclude that Heraclitus really ‘studied’ a sungraphē
by Pythagoras and found it scarcely original. Therefore, what the author of
frg. 129 has in mind should be a particular book by Pythagoras, and probably
not the same book that has aroused his admiration (if identical, the same
book would have been the object of both admiration and contempt). Besides a
 Cerri 1999, 42 f. comes in fact to identify at least one of these passages: Theog. 748 – 754.
 The information concerning Eumelos of Corinth may not be reliable since he should have
authored only verses (see Pórtulas-Grau 2011, 67 s.).
74 Livio Rossetti
kai is there to connect the main sub-units of frg. 129, and the paratactic link is
compatible with such an eventuality.
The conclusion is rather paradoxical: according to this testimony, Pythago-
ras-the-Samian is said to have written more than one book, including a sort of
second-order one, this being stated not by a later source, but by a younger, in-
formed and distinguished contemporary. Therefore, he must have written not
just one, but two different books (at least two, out of the very few dozens of
verse or prose books written by about 540 B.C.), one admired and another de-
spised. I confess I see no way out of so remarkable a paradox.
Let me conclude this section with two further corollaries.
(A) Ascribed to Pythagoras by some sources is also a particular discovery, the
identity of Hesperos and Phosphoros.¹¹ Now this claim too depends on the reli-
ability of what Heraclitus states in frg. 129, and may count as the only surviving
detail related to Pythagoras’ ‘scholarly’ work, thus to the Samian period of his
life. Once more, it is the frame of reference that counts: such a discovery, whether
truly or falsely ascribed, supposes an effort to ‘rip secrets’ out of the cosmos,
thus a typical Milesian education, while it hardly could have aroused the enthu-
siasm of the adepts in Croton because there it would have been devoid of an ap-
propriate context.
(B) Aristoxenus, in turn, is said to have ascribed to Pythagoras the introduc-
tion of weights and measures (Diog. Laert. VIII 14), i. e. a definite line of ration-
alization in the field. Whichever the value of the report, it is interesting to note
that it supposes, once more, a Pythagoras still devoted to investigation, not Py-
thagoras the prophet.
So, it should come as no surprise if the Pythagorean tradition, rooted in the
post-Samian period of his life, has nothing to say about these two claims. That
modern scholarly literature fails to acknowledge – and to account for – their
‘Ionian’ features is another question.
5 Polumathiē and kakotechniē

These two words too deserve some attention. As to polumathiē, a connection
with the fact of writing (or having to do competently with) more than one
book has been already pointed out. Not unlike those who write several books,
 Gostoli 2004 – the only recent study devoted to this particular detail – mentions not just
Diogenes Laertius IX 23 and VIII 14, but also An. Ox. III 413.15 Cramer (= Ibycus, fr. 331 Page-
Davies), where the poet, a native of Rhegion and approximately contemporary of Pythagoras, is
said to have been the first to claim that we have to do with a single star (with two names).
also a writer who wisely combines portions of books to give rise to a new book
could have been considered a polumathēs. This, at least, is what frg. 129 and
frg. 40 strongly suggest.
The other word, kakotechniē, is much more sophisticated. The key point lies,
I would say, in that the accusation of kakotechniē, as well as the words of admi-
ration, are in no way generic. They are qualified evaluations, and therefore sup-
pose a certain competence on the part of the evaluator. Indeed, both the ‘scholar’
and the ‘book’ appear to be evaluated by somebody speaking as a connoisseur.
Kakotechniē suggests, in fact, a perverse qualification combined with the ac-
knowledgement of some sort of excellence (recall Descartes’ evil genius!), much
as if Heraclitus wanted to say the following: at first sight this work may well pass
for a sustained and respectable work, but upon a more careful inspection several
weaknesses do emerge, and their being aptly concealed authorizes us to postu-
late a certain cleverness on the part of the writer, thus a sort of deceptive rhet-
oric.
6 Concluding remarks
A long journey has brought the present investigation from Croton back to Samos
and from a community of initiates back to the relatively open society of Ionia,
where a wealthy citizen could devote himself to investigation, account for his
‘discoveries’ in one or more books and establish solid contacts with the other
sophoi of the Ionia, if not of other areas too. This way we come to discover
some unsuspected tracks of Pythagoras’ early work as a sophos, and thus
some features of his ‘first life’ in Samos. That, once installed himself in Croton,
Pythagoras decided to ‘sacrifice’ his own book – or books – with a view toward a
different sort of success, seems a necessary corollary. In the meanwhile, Heracli-
tus’ frg. 129 begins to uncover a number of interesting small ‘secrets’.¹²
Bibliography
Burkert, W. 1972. Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, Cambridge MS.
Cerri, G. (ed.) 1999. Parmenide di Elea, Poema sulla natura, Milano.
Cornelli, G. 2010. O pitagorismo como categoria historiográfica, São Paulo.
 A special thanks to Giovanni Cerri, with whom many points have been discussed, and
Gabriele Cornelli for having devised and steered the Brasilia conference so well. Also my col-
league Patrizia Liviabella Furiani deserves to be mentioned with gratitude here.
76 Livio Rossetti
Cornelli, G. 2011. “A comunidade pitagórica: tipologia identidade”, Hypnos 27, p. 230 – 245.
Gemelli Marciano, M. L. (ed.) 2007. Die Vorsokratiker, Band I, Düsseldorf.
Gostoli, A. 2004. “Tradizione astronomica a Samo (Pitagora e Ibico)”, in E. Cavallini (ed.),
Samo. Storia, letteratura, scienza, Roma, p. 159 – 165.
Huffman, C. A. 2008. “Heraclitus’ Critique of Pythagoras’ Enquiry in Fragment 129”, Oxford
Studies in Ancient Philosophy 35, p. 19 – 47.
Marcovich, M. 1967. Heraclitus, Mérida.
Mouraviev, S. N. 2006. Heraclitea, vol. III.3.B [in three tomes], Sankt Augustin.
Pórtulas, J. and Grau, S. 2012. Saviesa grega arcaica, Barcelona.
Riedweg, Chr. 2008. Pythagoras. His Life, Teaching, and Influence, Ithaca NY.
Rossetti, L. 2010. “Peri physeos”, in P. Radici Colace (dir.), Dizionario delle scienze e delle
tecniche di Grecia e Roma, Pisa-Roma, p. 815 – 818.
Rossetti, L. 2013. “Cominciare a misurare il cosmo. La precisione di cui fu capace Talete e il
Sole ‘largo quanto un piede umano’ (Eraclito)”, Babelonline 13, p. 35 – 52.
Wöhrle, G. (ed.) 2009. Die Milesier: Thales, Berlin-New York.
Johan C. Thom
The Pythagorean Akousmata and Early
Pythagoreanism
The importance of the akousmata (also known as symbola) for the history of
early Pythagoreanism is widely accepted. In view of the fragmentary nature of
our sources for early Pythagoreanism, any material that may derive from the
time of Pythagoras himself or at least from the early Pythagorean period is ob-
viously of great significance for our understanding of the origins of Pythagorean-
ism. Most scholars would agree that at least some of the extant akousmata can
be traced back to the earliest period, but the nature and extent of the akousmata
collection and their role within early Pythagoreanism remain debated issues.¹
Before we consider these, let us first rehearse the evidence.
Given the state of our sources about early Pythagoreanism, it is very difficult
to determine which akousmata formed part of the earliest collection and what
the format of the early collection was. We find a wide range of forms and topics
amongst these sayings, which makes it difficult to compile a comprehensive and
definitive list. Some have a catechism-like form with questions and answers, oth-
ers are commands or prohibitions, while still others are statements. Some akous-
mata have to do with ritual and cult, some with dietary matters, some with the
sciences; some are concerned with cosmology and myth, others with moral is-
sues. This diversity makes it difficult to give a precise description or definition
of what an akousma was, which means that we have to rely on ancient authors’
identifications of particular sayings as akousmata. About seventy sayings are ex-
plicitly cited as akousmata, or by the synonymous terms symbola and ainigmata,
but again as many sayings may probably be included in the list on the basis of
their similarity in form and content, or their proximity to known akousmata in
ancient texts.²
 Collections of the akousmata may be found in Diels (1951– 1952, vol. 1, p. 462– 66) (= DK 58C);
Timpanaro Cardini (1958 – 1964, vol. 3, p. 240 – 47); Mansfeld (1987, p. 190 – 97); Dumont (1988,
p. 584– 93, 1406 – 11); Giangiulio (2000, p. 132– 49); Gemelli Marciano (2007, p. 120 – 31) (alt-
hough it is not clear which texts should be included among the akousmata). None of these
collections is complete, however. Possible additional sayings to be included are discussed by
Hüffmeier (2001, p. 38 – 41).
 Between them, Boehm (1905), Delatte (1915, p. 271– 312), and Burkert (1972, p. 166 – 92) have
extended our collection to about 120 akousmata, but none of them has exactly the same col-
lection. In addition to the sayings from the first two types (see below), Zhmud (1997, p. 98) refers
to “beinahe hundert ‘pythagoreischer’ Tabus.” Hüffmeier (2001, p. 38 – 41) suggests that the list
of akousmata can easily be expanded to c. 200.
78 Johan C. Thom
The suggestion that the akousmata functioned as a collection was first ad-
vanced by the Belgian scholar Armand Delatte in an extensive essay titled “Le
catéchisme des acousmatiques.”³ Because many akousmata have a question-
and-answer format, he proposed that the akousmata formed an early Pythagor-
ean catechism which introduced students to the religious and moral doctrines of
the Pythagorean movement.⁴ Although the genre of a catechism is probably
anachronistic, many subsequent scholars, notably Walter Burkert, accepted
the suggestion that the akousmata collection completely determined the world
view and especially the way of life of the early Pythagoreans.⁵
Collections of akousmata must have begun to circulate and become available
to non-Pythagoreans sometime during the fifth century, since commentaries on
the sayings make their appearance from the end of the century.⁶ The first known
commentary is a work by Anaximander the Younger of Miletus from c. 400 BCE
titled An Explanation of Pythagorean Symbola (Συμβόλων Πυθαγορείων
ἐξήγησις).⁷ Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE), too, had access to such collections, which
he discussed in his now lost works On the Pythagoreans. ⁸ He is our most impor-
tant early source on the akousmata, and we will return to him in a moment. Di-
odorus of Aspendus (first half of the 4th cent. BCE),⁹ a Cynic-like Pythagorean, is
reported to “have published the Pythagorean sayings” (διέδωκε τὰς Πυθαγορεί-
ους φωνάς, Iambl. VP 266), which may perhaps be identified with the akousma-
ta. ¹⁰ A commentary On the Symbola (Περὶ συμβόλων) by Philochorus (c. 340 –
263/2 BCE) is known by title only; according to Jacoby this dealt with the Pytha-
 Delatte (1915, p. 271– 312).

 The suggestion regarding a catechism is accepted by e. g. Kirk, Raven and Schofield (1983,
p. 229).
 Burkert’s position is described in more detail below.
 Vítek (2009, p. 260 – 68), however, is sceptical of the tradition regarding Anaximander the
Younger (see below); according to him, the first collection of akousmata was prepared by one of
the Peripatetics, perhaps Aristoxenus, at the end of the 4th century BCE.
 Suda, s.v. Ἀναξίμανδρος, α 1987 Adler = FGrH 9 T 1 = DK 58 C 6. For the identity and date of
Anaximander, see Schwartz (1894); Burkert (1972, p. 166 n. 2). According to Philip (1966, p. 148 n.
3), Anaximander must be dated to the earliest part of Artaxerxes Memnon’s reign (405 – 359
BCE). See also Zhmud (2012, p. 171).
 Our sources refer to at least two such works, On the Pythagoreans and Against the Py-
thagoreans, but it is not possible to assign individual fragments to one or the other. Fragments of
these (two) works have been collected by Rose (1886, frgs. 190 – 205), and to a large extent
reprinted by Ross (1955, p. 129 – 43, frgs. 1– 17); the most recent edition is by Gigon (1987, p. 408 –
19).
 For his date, see Burkert (1972, p. 202).
 Thus Burkert (1972, p. 203). For the evidence for Diodorus as an “akousmatic” Pythagorean,
see ibid., 202– 4.
gorean sayings rather than symbols used in divination.¹¹ A work by Androcydes,

called On the Pythagorean Symbola (Περὶ Πυθαγορικῶν συμβόλων), may have
been in existence as early as the fourth century, but was definitely in circulation
by the first century BCE.¹² Alexander Polyhistor (c. 110 – c. 40 BCE) also wrote a
book On the Pythagorean Symbola. ¹³ The Neoplatonist philosopher, Iamblichus
of Chalcis (c. 245 – c. 320 CE), devotes the final chapter of his Protrepticus to a
commentary on thirty-nine akousmata. ¹⁴ Here and in his earlier work On the Py-
thagorean Life Iamblichus refers to another book of his On the Symbola (Περὶ
συμβόλων); this is unfortunately lost or was perhaps never written.¹⁵ In addition
to these commentaries, there are also quotations and discussion of akousmata in
authors such as Plutarch, Athenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus of
Rome, Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and later authors, all of
whom probably depend on one of the earlier collections.¹⁶
Two basic approaches to the akousmata are found in the extant commenta-
ries: the first, attributed to Aristotle, is to explain the akousmata as far as pos-
sible in terms of cult; the second approach, represented by Androcydes and Iam-
blichus, interprets the akousmata as symbolic utterances with a moral meaning.
 See FGrH 328 T 1, with the commentary by Jacoby, FGrH IIIb (Supplement), 380; Burkert
(1972, p. 167 n. 6); Struck (2004, p. 107– 10).
 Androcydes has been identified with a 4th-century physician by Corssen (1912), but the
identification is dubious; see Burkert (1972, p. 167); Centrone (1994, p. 197– 98). The earliest
citation of Androcydes’s commentary is in Tryphon Trop. p. 193 – 94 Spengel, which may provide
a terminus ante quem of the 1st century BCE, but scholars differ about whether the latter text is
rightfully attributed to Trypho (cf. Forbes and Wilson 1996; Baumbach 2002, p. 885), which
makes the terminus itself less certain. Androcydes’s commentary is on the other hand probably
used by Demetrius of Byzantium (ap. Athenaeus 10.77) which confirms the 1st-century BCE
terminus ante quem. The commentary is first cited by name in [Iambl.] Theol. ar. p. 52.8 – 9 de
Falco; Iambl. VP 145.
 According to Clem. Al. Strom. 1.15.70.1 = FGrH 273 F 94; see Hölk (1894, p. 20); Burkert (1972,
p. 166 n. 2). Alexander does have a section on the akousmata in his excerpts of the Pythagorean
Notes (Πυθαγορικὰ ὑπομνήματα) preserved in D.L. 8.24– 36 and it may be that Clement is
referring to this work. There is still no consensus on the date and sources of the Pythagorean
Notes. Dates vary from the 4th to the 1st century BCE, but a good case has been made for a 3rd
century date; see Burkert (1961, p. 23, 25 – 27). For a brief survey of scholarly positions see
Centrone (1992, p. 4193 – 96).
 Iambl. Protr. 21, p. 104.26 – 126.6.
 Iambl. VP 186; Protr. 21, p. 112.2. Both references are in the future tense; maybe Iamblichus
planned such a work, but never wrote it. The evidence for the existence of a work by Iamblichus
called Περὶ συμβόλων is discussed by Dalsgaard Larsen (1972, p. 60 – 61). He also refers to
Hieron. c. Rufin. 3.39. See further Dillon (2000, p. 834).
 The history of traditions of the akousmata collections has been analyzed by Hölk (1894), but
is in need of revision; cf. already the criticism by Delatte (1915, p. 286).
80 Johan C. Thom
Scholars are inclined to view these approaches as mutually exclusive and chro-
nologically sequential: the former, literal interpretation of the sayings derives
from early Pythagoreanism, while the latter approach comes from a later, more
enlightened period when the literal meanings were no longer intellectually ac-
ceptable.¹⁷ As we shall see, however, the situation is more complex than this
view suggests.
As noted earlier, the sayings included in the collection display a variety of
forms and contents. In a passage in Iambl. VP 82– 86 that in all probability de-
rives from Aristotle,¹⁸ a three-fold distinction is made, namely, into akousmata
expressing what something is, what the highest form of something is, and
what must or must not be done (πάντα δὲ τὰ οὕτως 〈καλούμενα〉 ἀκούσματα
διῄρηται εἰς τρία εἴδη· τὰ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν τί ἐστι σημαίνει, τὰ δὲ τί μάλιστα, τὰ
δὲ τί δεῖ πράττειν ἢ μὴ πράττειν; VP 82). Although this division may not be orig-
inal, it will serve as a basic typology of the sayings.
The first type (τί ἐστι) comprises “definitions” identifying mythemes or reli-
gious items with natural phenomena. Only two examples are given in Iambl. VP
82 (“What are the Isles of the Blest? Sun and moon”; and “What is the oracle of
Delphi? The tektraktys [unit of four], which is the harmony in which the Sirens
are”), but Aristotle provides several more in other fragments, for example:
“The sea is a tear of Cronus.” “The Bears [the Great Bear and the Little Bear]
are the hands of Rhea.” “The Pleiades are the lyre of the Muses.” “The planets
are Persephone’s dogs.” “The sound coming from bronze when it is struck is
the voice of one of the daimones trapped in the bronze.” “An earthquake is noth-
ing but a meeting of the dead.” “A continuous ringing in the ears is the voice of
Higher Powers.”¹⁹ These sayings appear to give allegorical “decodings” of
mythological elements in terms of Pythagorean cosmology, although some of
the sayings go in the other direction, interpreting natural phenomena in terms
of myth. Riedweg suggests that these sayings are the result of interpreting and
elaborating Orphic material.²⁰
 See Burkert (1972, p. 174– 75).

 Aristotle is nowhere mentioned in this passage, but extensive overlap with other known
fragments makes an Aristotelian provenance plausible; see Rose (1863, p. 202– 4); Rohde (1901,
p. 138 – 40); Hölk (1894, p. 31– 35); Burkert (1972, p. 167 n. 5). Although they accept the general
Aristotelian provenance of the passage, Philip (1963, p. 190; 1966, p. 148 n. 3) and Zhmud (1997,
p. 96, 101; 2012, p. 197 n. 110) remain cautious about the details, some of which may be due to
Iamblichus or an intermediary.
 Arist. fr. 196 Rose (ap. Porph. VP 41; Ael. VH 4.17).
 See Riedweg (2007, p. 99 – 103; 2008, p. 73 – 76).
Other sources preserve various definitions without any connection to myth,

for example, “Old age and every decrease are similar; increase and youth are the
same”; “Health is the continuance of the [human] form,²¹ disease its destruction”
(Arist. ap. D.L. 8.35);²² “Virtue is harmony, and so are health and all good and
God himself”; “Friendship is harmonious equality” (Alex. Polyh. ap. D.L.
8.33).²³ Such definitions are somewhat similar to sayings of the Seven Sages
and may be analogous compositions.²⁴
The second type, identifying the superlative form or degree of something (τί
μάλιστα), is based on a saying form popular in the sixth and fifth century. Sev-
eral examples are given in Iambl. VP 82: “What is most just? To sacrifice.” “What
is the wisest thing? Number; and in the second place, giving names to things.”
“What is the strongest? Insight.” “What is said most truly? That men are evil.”
Aristotle observes that this form is similar to the wisdom ascribed to the
Seven Sages, and that the akousmata seem to “follow” (μετηκολουθηκέναι)
such wisdom (VP 83). The attempt to discover the superlative form of things
can indeed be traced back to the time of the Seven Sages.²⁵ A similar type of
question, namely, “Who is the most pious, the happiest, the wisest?,” is promi-
nent in anecdotes about the Delphic oracle going back to the sixth century BCE.²⁶
 Cf. Burkert (1972, p. 168 n. 18): “The suspicious word εἶδος, in true pre-Socratic fashion,
means nothing more than the shape of the body.”
 For the Aristotelian provenance of D.L. 8.35 see Delatte (1915, p. 277; 1922, p. 239); Burkert
(1972, p. 168 n. 18). It now forms part of Arist. fr. 157 Gigon. Contra: Zhmud (2012, p. 171 n. 4).
 D.L. 8.33 derives from the Pythagorean Notes; see n. 13 above.
 Cf., e. g. Thales ap D.L. 1.36: τί τὸ θεῖον; τὸ μήτε ἀρχὴν ἔχον μήτε τελευτήν; Solon ap. D.L.
1.53: τὸν λόγον εἴδωλον εἶναι τῶν ἔργων; Pittacus ap. D.L. 1.7: πρὸς τοὺς πυνθανομένους τί
εὐχάριστον, ‘χρόνος,’ ἔφη· ἀφανές, ‘τὸ μέλλον’· πιστόν, ‘γῆ’· ἄπιστον, ‘θάλασσα.’ The fact that
Pythagoras is included among the Seven Sages in some lists may be due to the fact that his
sayings were similar to theirs. See the discussion below on further possible influence by the
Seven Sages.
 For parallels to the akousmata in VP 82, cf. e. g. Thales ap. D.L. 1.35: κάλλιστον κόσμος·
ποίημα γὰρ θεοῦ; ἰσχυρότατον ἀνάγκη· κρατεῖ γὰρ πάντων; σοφώτατον χρόνος· ἀνευρίσκει γὰρ
πάντα; Pittacus ap. D.L. 1.77: τί ἄριστον; τὸ παρὸν εὖ ποιεῖν; Cleobulus ap. D.L. 1.93: μέτρον
ἄριστον; Bias ap. D.L. 1.88: οἱ πλεῖστοι ἄνθρωποι κακοί; Chilon ap. Stob. 3.21.13: τί χαλεπώτατον;
τὸ γιγνώσκειν ἑαυτόν; Thales ap. Plut. Mor. 153d: τί ῥᾷστον; τὸ κατὰ φύσιν, ἐπεὶ πρὸς ἡδονάς γε
πολλάκις ἀπαγορεύουσιν. Most of these have been noted by Delatte (1915, p. 285). For more
examples of the use of the superlative, cf. Thales ap. Plut. Mor. 153cd; D.L. 1.35 – 36. Burkert
(1972, p. 169) gives extensive references to the Seven Sages and further cites the Certamen, the
Aesop legend, Sapph. fr. 27 D. and the beginning of Pi. O. 1. To these we may add Thgn. 1.255 – 56:
κάλλιστον τὸ δικαιότατον· λῷστον δ’ ὑγιαίνειν· / πρᾶγμα δὲ τερπνότατον, τοῦ τις ἐρᾷ, τὸ τυχεῖν,
cited as “the Delian inscription” by Arist. EN 1.8.14.1099a27; EE 1.1.1214a5.
 See Herzog (1922); Wehrli (1931, p. 30 – 60); Joly (1956, p. 17). For the connection between the
early tradition of the Seven Sages and the Delphic oracle see Rösler (1991, p. 361– 62).
82 Johan C. Thom
It is very likely that Pythagoras collected such sayings, adapted them, and com-
posed his own by analogy. Pythagorean composition is particularly apparent in
sayings such as “The most beautiful of shapes are a sphere among solids, and a
circle among plane figures” (Arist. ap. D.L. 8.35).²⁷
Most of the extant akousmata belongs to Aristotle’s third type, sayings pre-
scribing what should be done or should not be done (τί δεῖ πράττειν ἢ μὴ πράτ-
τειν). A few of these are again similar to the moral wisdom sayings of the Seven
Sages: “One must beget children, for it is necessary to leave behind people to
worship god”; “Do not help remove a burden (for one should not be responsible
for someone’s not working), but help put it on”; “Do not have intercourse with a
woman with gold to beget children”; “One should never give advice to someone
except with the best intent; for advice is sacred”; “It is good to die when endur-
ing and receiving wounds in the front, and vice versa” (Iambl. VP 83 – 85). Once
again, it seems reasonable to assume that these sayings were modelled on say-
ings in general circulation.
Other precepts relate to religion and cult, and are similar to cult rules found
elsewhere: “One should sacrifice and enter the temple barefoot.” “One should
not turn aside to a temple; for one should not make god something incidental”
(Iambl. VP 85).²⁸
Several precepts concern dietary prescriptions: “One should only eat of an-
imals that may be sacrificed, in whose case eating is fitting, but of no other an-
imal” (Iambl. VP 85); “Don’t eat the heart”; “Abstain from beans”; “Don’t touch
fish that are sacred” (Arist. fr. 194, 195 Rose; fr. 174, 157, 158 Gigon; ap. Ael. VH
4.17; D.L. 8.19, 34).
A considerable number of precepts seem to be based on superstitious ta-
boos: “Don’t talk without light”; “Don’t break a bread” (Iambl. VP 84, 86).
Such precepts were frequently provided with a figurative interpretation, as in
Porph. VP 42, where it is called “another type of symbola” (ἄλλο εἶδος τῶν
συμβόλων): “Don’t step over a yoke, that is, don’t be greedy.” “Don’t stir fire
with a knife, which is, don’t excite someone swelling with anger with sharp
words.” “Don’t walk on the highways, that is, don’t follow the opinions of the
many, but exchange them for the opinions of the educated few.” “Don’t receive
swallows into your house, that is, don’t live under the same roof with talkative
people who cannot curb their tongue.” This report may perhaps also derive
from Aristotle, although its source is a contentious issue.²⁹ Elsewhere such pre-
 Burkert (1972, p. 169 n. 23) gives the probable original form of the saying.
 For some comparative material with other cult rules, see Burkert (1972, p. 177– 78).
 It is included in Arist. fr. 159 Gigon. Rohde (1901, p. 139 n. 1) however argued that Iambl. VP
82– 86 and Porph. VP 42 cannot both be attributed to Aristotle, because in the Iamblichus
cepts are often associated with the tradition transmitted by Androcydes, but they
already form part of the collection used by Anaximander the Younger of Miletus.
I conclude this brief overview with the reported division of early Pythagor-
eans into akousmatikoi and mathematikoi. ³⁰ According to this account, the
akousmatikoi were only taught the basic principles, but not the reasoning behind
them, while the mathematikoi were also given “proofs” (ἀποδείξεις). Suprisingly
enough, the akousmatikoi claimed to be the “real” Pythagoreans and refused to
acknowledge the mathematikoi as such, while the latter accepted the akousma-
tikoi as Pythagoreans, but claimed that they themselves were even more so. Wal-
ter Burkert interprets this account as reflecting a later historical development,
when the Pythagorean movement split into a conservative, literalist group and
a more rationalistic group. In keeping with his view that the akousmata were rit-
ualistic precepts (see below), he thinks the akousmatikoi represented the original
followers of Pythagoras, while the mathematikoi were those who interpreted the
akousmata symbolically at a later stage when the literal meaning was no longer
acceptable.³¹
Two rather extreme interpretations have been offered of the evidence out-
lined above. The first scenario, as formulated by Burkert,³² is still the majority
consensus.³³ Although he allows for the possibility of later omissions and addi-
passage the akousmata are given literal, religious explanations, while in Porph. VP 42 we find
symbolic, moralising interpretations, a clear indication of two different sources. It is hard to see
why the introductory statement in Porph. VP 42 with its reference to “another type [ἄλλο εἶδος]”
cannot derive from Aristotle, since we find the same kind of language in Iambl. VP 82, where
Aristotle speaks of “three types [τρία εἴδη]” of akousmata. The classifying and systematising
approach that we find in both the Porphyry and the Iamblichus passages seems typical of
Aristotle. This point is well-argued by Philip (1963, p. 189 – 90) in his criticism of Rohde’s thesis.
The Aristotelian origin of VP 42 is also accepted by des Places (1982, p. 155 n. 4) and Giangiulio
(2000, vol. 1, p. 147). It is however rejected in the recent dissertation by Hüffmeier (2001, p. 240 –
41).
 For a discussion of the division of early Pythagoreans see von Fritz (1960); Burkert (1972,
p. 192– 208). The accounts are found in Iambl. VP 81 and 87 (pp. 46.24– 47.4 and 51.12– 14
Deubner), as well as in Comm. math. 25 p. 76.17– 77.2. Burkert’s explanation (1972, p. 193 – 95) of
the discrepancy between the two accounts is generally accepted. See now the extensive dis-
cussion by Zhmud (2012, ch. 5).
 Zhmud (1997, p. 93 – 104; cf. 2012, p. 186 – 192) however thinks this whole tradition is an
unreliable late invention.
 See Burkert (1972, p. 166 – 92).
 Cf. e. g. Hüffmeier (2001, p. 6 n. 17) in one of the most recent publications on the akousmata:
“Burkert … hat m. E. die Bedeutung der Symbola/Akusmata für (den historischen) Pythagoras,
seine Schule und den Stellenwert seiner auf dieser Spruchweisheit aufbauenden Philosophie in
der Geschichte der Philosophie am besten erfaßt und am einprägsamsten beschrieben.”
84 Johan C. Thom
tions,³⁴ Burkert seems to accept most of the transmitted akousmata as potentially

authentic and includes in his discussion even precepts not explicitly identified
as akousmata or symbola but similar in form and content to known akousmata
(e. g. the precepts cited by Hermippus ap. Josephus Ap. 1.164 and D.L. 8.10 as
well as the cult rules listed in Iambl. VP 153 – 56).³⁵ Burkert devotes much of
his discussion to “the rules and prohibitions regarding daily life,” which, as
he points out, “attracted most attention in ancient times.”³⁶ Of the two kinds
of interpretation found in ancient accounts, namely literal and allegorical inter-
pretation, Burkert contends that the former was the original; allegorical interpre-
tation only arose at a later time when the literal meanings seemed absurd, as
“the necessary means of adapting ancient lore to new ways of thinking, and
thus preserving its authority.”³⁷ All the precepts were thus understood literally
and obeyed to the letter by the early Pythagoreans. These include the dietary pre-
cepts requiring abstention from beans and from certain meats or animal parts as
well as superstitious taboos such as “Don’t walk on the highways” or “Don’t stir
fire with a knife.”³⁸ Despite ancient attempts to interpret these taboos figurative-
ly, “there can be no doubt … that the acusmata are, rather than simple, common-
sense wisdom in abstruse form, ancient magical-ritual commandments.”³⁹ In
this scenario the akousmata as a collection completely determined the world
view and especially the way of life of the early Pythagoreans. According to Bur-
kert, the akousmata required that the adherents lived their daily lives in a state of
ritual purity otherwise expected only of participants in religious festivals, cult rit-
uals, incubations, and initiations:
To take the acusmata seriously means an almost frightening constriction of one’s freedom
of action in daily life. Whether a Pythagorean gets up or goes to bed, puts on his shoes or
cuts his nails, stirs the fire, puts on the pot, or eats, he always has a commandment to heed.
He always is on trial and always in danger of doing something wrong. No more carefree
irresponsibility! Everything he does is done consciously, almost anxiously. The mythical ex-
pression of this attitude to life is a world full of souls and daemons, which affect every mo-
 Burkert (1972, p. 188 – 89).

 Burkert (1972, p. 173).
 Burkert (1972, p. 173).
 Burkert (1972, p. 174– 75) (quotation from p. 175).
 Burkert here follows the work done by Boehm (1905).
 Burkert (1972, p. 177). He refers int. al. to Rohde (1901, p. 109) (“Ritualgesetze, gestützt auf
alten … Aberglauben”); Burnet (1930, p. 96) (“genuine taboos”); Nilsson (1967– 1974, vol. 1,
p. 703 – 8) (“derselbe Geist erfüllt alles, besonders ist die enge Anlehnung and volkstümliche,
abergläubische und kultische Vorschriften ganz allgemein”; p. 706).
ment of a person’s life. Everywhere are rules, regulations, and an ascetic zeal for discipline;
life is πόνος, which must be endured.⁴⁰
Burkert finds evidence for Pythagoreans who lived a strict life based on the
akousmata in Iamblichus’s accounts of the akousmatikoi,⁴¹ in the references to
the “Pythagorists” lampooned in Middle Comedy,⁴² as well as in the scant bio-
graphical details of the Cynic-like Pythagorean Diodorus of Aspendus who
lived in the first half of the fourth century.⁴³
An alternative interpretation is proposed by Leonid Zhmud.⁴⁴ He finds no
credible evidence that any of the early Pythagoreans obeyed the superstitious ta-
boos literally.⁴⁵ The references to the “Pythagorists” in Middle Comedy make no
mention of the superstitious ritualism presupposed by the first scenario, which,
if it ever existed, is inexplicable given the potential comic value of these primi-
tive taboos. The Pythagorists are indeed depicted very much like the disciples of
Socrates in Aristophanes’s Clouds (i. e., dirty, going around barefoot, hungry,
wearing shabby and torn clothes) except that they also abstain from wine and
meat. They therefore do not appear much different from other philosophers lam-
pooned in comedy.⁴⁶ According to Zhmud the original collection of sayings com-
prised mainly of the first two types identified by Aristotle (ap. Iambl. VP 82), be-
cause many of these are clearly based on Pythagorean ideas. The collection prob-
ably also contained the identifications of concepts with numbers (e. g. “What is
justice? Four.” “What is marriage? Five”). To this original kernel may also be
 Burkert (1972, p. 190 – 91) (quotation from p. 191). Very similar views of the regulating
function of the akousmata are expressed by Nilsson (1967– 1974, vol. 1, p. 707): “Regeln … nach
welchen das ganze Leben einzurichten war”; Kirk, Raven and Schofield (1983, p. 229): “a ca-
techism of doctrine and practice”; Centrone (1996, p. 80): “Seguire letteralmente tutti gli
akousmata implicherebbe evidentemente una transformazione radicale della propria vita in
senso puritano”; Riedweg (2007, p. 92; 2008, p. 67): “The life of the Pythagoreans was thoroughly
ritualized by means of countless prohibitions and obligations”; also Giangiulio (2000, vol. 1,
p. 148 – 49).
 See my summary above.
 Burkert (1972, p. 198 – 202).
 Burkert (1972, p. 202– 4).
 Zhmud (1997, p. 93 – 104). See also ch. 5 of his recently published book (2012). In this book
Zhmud revised several of his earlier positions, but I unfortunately received the book only after
completing this article, and were unable to make full use of it.
 Cf. Zhmud (1997, p. 93, 96 – 97, 98). Aristotle (ap. Iambl. VP 82– 86) apparently thought that
the precepts were taken literally, but it is uncertain whether he reached this conclusion because
he knew of any Pythagoreans who did follow them literally, or because he was dissatisfied with
the explanations given to them by outsiders (Zhmud 1997, p. 96).
 Zhmud (1997, p. 93 – 95).
86 Johan C. Thom
added some of the precepts related to metempsychosis (such as the dietary pre-
scriptions and the command to bury the dead in white clothes). The superstitious
taboos that were given a symbolic interpretation were, however, not part of the
original collection; they were probably added later by some Sophist such as
Anaximander the Younger of Miletus who collected taboos and superstitions
and who published them with the original akousmata. ⁴⁷ These precepts therefore
do not provide historical evidence for a ritualistic Pythagorean βίος. Such a view
of the Pythagorean life is instead based on a literary tradition:
[D]ie Vorstellung vom pythagoreischen Ritualismus ist vielmehr aus einer literarischen Tra-
dition der Deutung pythagoreischer symbola entstanden, die auf Anaximander von Milet
zurückgeht… Genauso wie die Figur des Pythagoras Legenden auf sich gezogen hat, die
mit dem Philosophen ursprünglich gar nicht verknüpft waren, so sind auch die anfängli-
chen symbola der Pythagoreer zum Kern für eine in der Folge immer mehr ausufernde
Sammlung geworden.⁴⁸
In Zhmud’s view the distinction between akousmatikoi and mathematikoi also

does not refer to a schism in early Pythagoreanism, but is probably a late inven-
tion associated with the revival of Pythagoreanism at the turn of the era.⁴⁹ For
the same reason the term akousmata should also be considered a later invention,
since it is derived from the term akousmatikoi rather than vice versa.⁵⁰
These two interpretations are to a large extent in agreement about the role of
the first two types of akousmata; the major points of debate concern the third
type, the precept material. Burkert accepts most of the precepts as authentic
in principle (while allowing for some later accretions) and he maintains that
all precepts were obeyed literally, including those interpreted allegorically at a
later stage. From this he infers that the early Pythagoreans followed a strict, rit-
ualistic daily regimen. Zhmud, on the other hand, contends that only those pre-
cepts that have a clear association with known Pythagorean doctrines (especially
on metempsychosis) are original; the rest are later additions by outsiders. He em-
phasizes that we have in any case no evidence that these other precepts (in par-
ticular the taboos that received an allegorical interpretation) were ever taken lit-
 Zhmud (1997, p. 98 – 100) and more recently (2005, p. 147– 51).

 Zhmud (1997, p. 99).
 Zhmud (1997, p. 100 – 4). The two groups are first mentioned in Clem. Al. Strom. 5.9.59.1 and
in Porph. VP 37. Zhmud’s views on the akousmata has found some support in Bechtle (2000,
p. 50 – 51).
 Zhmud (1997, p. 101). See also Vítek (2009, p. 258). For some criticism of Zhmud’s suggestion
about the origin of the term akousma see Hüffmeier (2001, p. 13 n. 40).
erally by any known Pythagorean. He is therefore sceptical of the ritualistic βίος

proposed by Burkert.
In my view, neither of the two scenarios is completely convincing. Problem-
atic in both is the way they deal with the precepts that were usually explained
symbolically. Burkert assumes without adequate proof that these instructions
were performed literally, while Zhmud dismisses them out of hand as not part
of the Pythagorean tradition and therefore not observed by early Pythagoreans.
From a comparison of these two approaches two basic questions thus emerge.
The first question is how to explain the fact that the ritualistic and superstitious
precepts were included as part of the akousmata collection. The second concerns
the way such precepts were viewed within early Pythagoreanism. In what follows
I will therefore explore a third approach that accepts the authenticity of these
precepts but without assuming that they all were taken literally.
A key piece of evidence on Pythagoras that should be brought into the dis-
cussion on the akousmata is the testimony by his younger contemporary Heracli-
tus. The latter provides an intriguing description of Pythagoras’s work as part of
a polemical attempt to demarcate his own philosophy from that of other contem-
poraries:⁵¹
Πυθαγόρης Μνησάρχου ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα πάντων καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ταύ-
τας τὰς συγγραφὰς ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ σοφίην, πολυμαθίην, κακοτεχνίην.
Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus practiced enquiry most of all men, and, by selecting these
compositions, produced his own wisdom, a learning of many things, a fraud [or: and, hav-
ing made a selection, produced these compositions as his own wisdom, a learning of many
things, a fraud]. (Heraclit. ap. D.L.8.6 = DK 22 B 129)
The construal and meaning of almost every part of this fragment are open to de-
bate, but since Carl Huffman has recently discussed the fragment in detail,⁵² I
will first give a summary of his findings before adding some observations of
my own. Huffman suggests the following translation for the fragment:
 Malcolm Schofield, in an unpublished paper, “Pythagoras the Plagiarist,” delivered on

Samos in 2005, argues that Heraclitus’s criticism of Pythagoras was due to the fact that he
perceived him as a direct competitor. I am grateful to Professor Schofield for kindly sending me a
copy of his paper. Schofield’s view is cited with approval by Huffman (2008, p. 45); cf. also
Bechtle (2000, p. 53 – 54): “ironische Kollegenkritik.” For the role of polemics among the Pre-
socratics, see Gemelli Marciano (2002).
 See Huffman (2008). A good survey, with references to the secondary literature, is also to be
found in Riedweg (1997, p. 78 – 87). See further Marcovich (1967, p. 67– 70); Kirk, Raven and
Schofield (1983, p. 217– 18); Mansfeld (1990).
88 Johan C. Thom
Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, engaged in enquiry most of all men and, by selecting
these things which have been written up, made a wisdom of his own, a bunch of things
learnt from others, an evil conspiracy.⁵³
Huffman argues persuasively that the term ἱστορίη by itself did not in this period
refer to Ionian science,⁵⁴ but was used for enquiry in general; it often had the
connotation of collecting the opinions of others. Such enquiry could focus on
natural phenomena, but was more frequently concerned with myth and religious
practices.⁵⁵ Huffman also shows that συγγραφή need not refer to a prose treatise
as is often assumed, but could be used for both prose and poetic compositions,
and indeed for any written record, including “relatively brief written texts of
pieces of information or short utterances such as oracles.”⁵⁶ Huffman thus trans-
lates ταύτας τὰς συγγραφάς as “these things which have been written up.”⁵⁷ The
pronoun ταύτας can refer to (a) texts Heraclitus mentioned elsewhere in his
work; (b) “the writings Pythagoras consulted in his enquiry”; or (c) compositions
well known to Heraclitus’s readers. Huffman finds (a) unsatisfactory because
Heraclitus’s fragment “seems otherwise self-contained.”⁵⁸ Option (b) is problem-
atic when taken together with the normal meaning of ἐκλεξάμενος: it does not
make sense for Pythagoras to “select” all the writings he consulted.⁵⁹ Huffman
therefore prefers the last option and suggests that “these things which have
been written up” refer to the famous Pythagorean sayings called symbola or
akousmata. ⁶⁰
Although most scholars translate ἐκλεξάμενος in this context as “selecting
from”⁶¹ there is no clear evidence that ἐκλέγομαι with the accusative can have
this meaning; for such a meaning the genitive or the preposition ἐκ followed
by a genitive is required. Huffman therefore takes ταύτας τὰς συγγραφάς to be
a straight object of ἐκλεξάμενος.⁶² Another possibility, not discussed by Huff-
man, is that ἐκλεξάμενος is used in an absolute sense, i. e. “having made a se-
 Huffman (2008, p. 20).

 Contra e. g. Kahn (2001, p. 17); Riedweg (2008, p. 78).
 Huffman (2008, p. 22– 33). He discusses 5th- and 4th-century evidence, in particular the
usage of Herodotus.
 Huffman (2008, p. 35 – 41) (quotation from p. 40).
 Huffman (2008, p. 20, 42– 43).
 Huffman (2008, p. 34).
 Huffman (2008, p. 34– 35). Schofield ([2005]) considers this less of a stumbling block.
 Huffman (2008, p. 35, 41– 42).
 Cf. e. g. Kahn (1979, p. 39): “choosing what he liked from these compositions”; Gemelli
Marciano (2007, p. 293): “indem er eine Auswahl aus diesen Schriften machte.”
 Huffman (2008, p. 34– 35).
lection,” and that ταύτας τὰς συγγραφάς functions as the object of ἐποιήσατο.⁶³
In this case σοφίην, πολυμαθίην, κακοτεχνίην are used predicatively (see my al-
ternative translation above). Scholars have rejected this possibility in the past,
because Pythagoras was known not to have produced any writings. If one inter-
prets τὰς συγγραφάς not as formal treatises but as informal notes or compila-
tions such as Huffman suggests, the force of this objection is weakened.⁶⁴
Huffman suggests that the three phrases Heraclitus uses to criticize Pytha-
goras’s enquiry, namely ἑαυτοῦ σοφίην, πολυμαθίην, and κακοτεχνίην, are neg-
ative counterparts of the positive values “wisdom” (σοφίη), “learning” (μάθησις),
and “skill” (τέχνη).⁶⁵ According to my own understanding, the three terms form a
climactic sequence: the “wisdom” that Pythagoras produced is criticized as “a
learning of many things” (πολυμαθίη), that is, as a mere compilation without
real understanding, a reproduction without insight,⁶⁶ and therefore a “fraud”
(κακοτεχνίην).⁶⁷
We can now draw some provisional conclusions from this fragment. In doing
so it is important to bear in mind that Heraclitus’s description of Pythagoras’s
activity should be seen for what it is: a highly polemical depiction by a compet-
ing colleague. The following nevertheless appears to be clear:
1. Pythagoras had a marked reputation for practicing ἱστορίη (“enquiry”).
2. His enquiry entailed collecting and selecting material and creating “his own
wisdom” (ἑαυτοῦ σοφίην), that is, a new synthesis expressing his own un-
derstanding of the material.
3. The material itself and the resulting end product were probably of a diverse
nature, which would account for the term πολυμαθίη.
4. Pythagoras’s enquiry involved writings of some sort, either as the object of
his selection or as the product of his research.
 This seems to be the way Diogenes Laertius understood this fragment.

 Huffman (2008, p. 42) too quickly passes over the question of whether Pythagoras himself
wrote the συγγραφαί: “The fact that Heraclitus does not make Pythagoras the subject of a verb
like συγγράφω at least leaves open the question of who did the writing, and rather implies that it
was someone else.” The question of whether Pythagoras wrote anything is discussed in detail by
Riedweg (1997), who concludes that the evidence in this regard is inconclusive. Schofield
([2005]) also suggests that Heraclit. fr. 129 makes better sense if Pythagoras had indeed written a
composition (although one now lost).
 Huffman (2008, p. 43 – 45).
 Thus Gemelli Marciano (2002, p. 100).
 See Burkert (1972, p. 161) for a discussion of the meaning of κακοτεχνίη.
90 Johan C. Thom
ἱστορίη as a personal investigation of facts was characteristic of the intellectual

milieu of the second half of the sixth century.⁶⁸ Sages therefore undertook jour-
neys to gain firsthand experience of peoples, customs, and places. They were
not, however, only interested in gathering personal expressions, that is, their
own eyewitness reports; the research of this period included the collecting of
sayings, oracles, and various other forms of knowledge.⁶⁹ It is not unlikely
that Pythagoras too sought to make firsthand observations during the extensive
journeys legends attributed to him.⁷⁰ Although the details may be exaggerated,
such journeys were expected of a sage in the cultural milieu of his time.
Heraclitus’s testimony, however, points in another direction. According to
him, Pythagoras’s ἱστορίη consisted in selecting and compiling material. He
does not appear to call into question either Pythagoras’s reputation as an out-
standing enquirer,⁷¹ nor his method of enquiry. The thrust of Heraclitus’s criti-
cism does not concern the fact that Pythagoras made use of other persons’
work, but the eventual result of his research. This is clearly indicated by the rhet-
orical build-up of the sentence: the sting is in the tail. There is no overt criticism
up to σοφίην; even πολυμαθίην would probably have been understood as a pos-
itive term by most of Heraclitus’s audience. It is only when we get to κακοτεχνίην
that it becomes clear that σοφίην is meant sarcastically and that Heraclitus at-
taches a pejorative meaning to πολυμαθίην. Heraclitus, in keeping with the intel-
lectual climate of his time, indeed elsewhere also appears to emphasize the need
for a broad-based enquiry (χρὴ γὰρ εὖ μάλα πολλῶν ἵστορας φιλοσόφους ἄνδρας
εἶναι, “For men loving wisdom must be enquirers into rather many things”; DK
 Gemelli Marciano (2002, p. 92) See also Macris (2003, p. 251– 52); Granger (2004).
 See Gemelli Marciano (2002, p. 97– 98), who refers to the collections by Onomacritus
(oracles), Hecataeus (facts about peoples and places), and Hipparchus (gnomic sayings). In the
case of the latter, she points out that the description of Hipparchus’s activity in [Plato]
Hipp. 228c-e is remarkably similar to the description of Pythagoras’s research in Heraclit. 22 B
129; cf. esp. 228d: τῆς σοφίας τῆς αὑτοῦ, ἥν τ’ ἔμαθε καὶ ἣν αὐτὸς ἐξηῦρεν, ἐκλεξάμενος ἃ ἡγεῖτο
σοφώτατα εἶναι, ταῦτα αὐτὸς ἐντείνας εἰς ἐλεγεῖον αὑτοῦ ποιήματα καὶ ἐπιδείγματα τῆς σοφίας
ἐπέγραψεν…. Granger (2004, p. 238), citing recent research on the origin of ἵστωρ, concludes
that “the practice of historiê would not then be so much the pursuit of firsthand observation as
the adjudication of material gathered from firsthand and secondhand sources.”
 Cf. Isoc. Bus. 28; Str. 14.1.16; Hippol. Ref. 1.2.18; Clem. Al. Strom. 1.15.66.2; D.L. 8.2– 3; Porph.
VP 6 – 8; Iambl. VP 13 – 19. More extensive references to Pythagoras’s travels and foreign edu-
cation in Zeller (1919 – 1923, vol. 1, p. 384– 92); Delatte (1922, p. 105). See also Riedweg (1997,
p. 81– 2); Huffman (2009, par. 3): “a trip there [sc. to Egypt] seems quite plausible.”
 This does not mean that Heraclitus agrees that Pythagoras merited his reputation; he only
takes it as an accepted fact.
22 B 35),⁷² but he is critical of those whose enquiry only leads to “a learning of

many things,” instead of to a sound understanding of the world based on the
unitary λόγος.⁷³ Heraclitus therefore probably does not criticize Pythagoras for
committing plagiarism,⁷⁴ but for presenting a multifarious, ununified compila-
tion as “wisdom.”⁷⁵
Heraclitus’s reference to Pythagoras’s reputation for research and polymathy
receives support from other early testimonies as well. Ion of Chios (mid-5th cent.
BCE) refers to Pythagoras as a “truly wise man who above all others saw and
thoroughly learned the opinions [or: insights] of men” (ἐτύμως σοφὸς ὃς περὶ
πάντων / ἀνθρώπων γνώμας εἶδε καὶ ἐξέμαθεν; ap. D.L. 1.120 = DK 36 B
4.3 – 4).⁷⁶ Ion, like Heraclitus in DK 22 B 129, mentions the fact that Pythagoras
distinguished himself as researcher (σοφὸς … περὶ πάντων) and that his enquiry
focused on the ideas of others (ἀνθρώπων γνώμας) rather than on, for example,
historical events or facts about nature. Pythagoras’s personal involvement and
intellectual effort are emphasized by the verbs εἶδε καὶ ἐξέμαθεν; compare Her-
aclitus’s statement that Pythagoras produced his own wisdom. It is irrelevant for
our purpose whether Ion’s testimony is meant ironically or as a correction of Her-
 See Barnes (1982, p. 147); Kirk, Raven and Schofield (1983, p. 218). Granger (2004, p. 249 –
50), however, following the lead of Cornford and others, believes that Heraclitus’s use of
φιλοσόφους is ironical in 22 B 35 and that he had a negative view of ἱστορίη in general. Lesher
(1999, p. 234, 247– 48 n. 14) also thinks that “Heraclitus opted not to pursue ‘inquiry’ in the form
advocated and practised by his predecessors,” that is, in the form of a “‘fact-finding inquiry.’”
 πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει· Ἡσίοδον γὰρ ἂν ἐδίδαξε καὶ Πυθαγόρην, αὖτίς τε Ξενοφάνεά τε
καὶ Ἑκαταῖον, DK 22 B 40; cf. 22 B 57; 22 B 1, 2, 50.
 Pace Guthrie (1962, p. 157– 58); Mansfeld (1990, p. 230); Zhmud (1997, p. 36 – 37); Macris
(2003, p. 255); Granger (2004, p. 247– 48); Schofield ([2005]); Gemelli Marciano (2007, p. 346 –
47). We have too little evidence to conclude with Gemelli Marciano (2007, p. 178, 346 – 47)
(building on Burkert 1972, p. 161) that Heraclitus describes Pythagoras’s ἱστορίη as a “fraud”
because he pretends to have personal experience of καταβάσεις, other-wordly journeys. Huffman
(2009, par. 4.2) likewise suggests that Heraclitus’s description of Pythagoras’s wisdom as
“fraudulent art” “is most easily understood as an unsympathetic reference to his miracles.”
 See Marcovich (1967, p. 70): “I think we may remain rather on the level of a theoretical
polemic: Pythagoras’ σοφίη was no more than a πολυμαθίη, and a κακοτεχνίη as well…. Py-
thagoras’ teachings are but a lie and a cheat, because he has not reached the only Truth, which
is the universal Logos.” Cf. Robinson (1987, p. 164).
 Reading σοφὸς ὃς with Sandbach (1958 – 1959) instead of ὁ σοφὸς (codd.). For the transla-
tion, cf. Kirk, Raven and Schofield (1983, p. 218); Riedweg (2007, p. 73; 2008, p. 52); slightly
different Gemelli Marciano (2007, p. 105).
92 Johan C. Thom
aclitus’s sarcastic evaluation;⁷⁷ it still confirms that Pythagoras was well-known

for such enquiry.
Empedocles (c. 490 – c. 430 BCE) also seems to provide evidence for Pytha-
goras’s search for knowledge. In an apparent reference to Pythagoras, he says,
“And there was among them a man of surpassing knowledge, who had acquired
the utmost wealth of understanding, master especially of all kinds of wise
works” (ἦν δέ τις ἐν κείνοισιν ἀνὴρ περιώσια εἰδώς, / ὃς δὴ μήκιστον πραπίδων
ἐκτήσατο πλοῦτον, / παντοίων τε μάλιστα σοφῶν 〈τ’〉 ἐπιήρανος ἔργων; DK 31 B
129.1– 3).⁷⁸ Points of agreement with Heraclitus are Pythagoras’s reputation for
knowledge (περιώσια εἰδώς), the diversity of his knowledge (παντοίων τε μάλι-
στα σοφῶν 〈τ’〉 ἐπιήρανος ἔργων), and his efforts to attain it (μήκιστον πραπίδων
ἐκτήσατο πλοῦτον).
From the testimonies of Heraclitus, Ion of Chios, and perhaps also Empedo-
cles we may therefore conclude that Pythagoras indeed took pains to practice
ἱστορίη, that his enquiry covered a variety of subjects, and that he studied
and made use of the works of others.
We cannot determine with any certainty from DK 22 B 129 which writings are
meant by “these compositions” (ταύτας τὰς συγγραφάς). Most of the suggestions
by previous scholars are predicated on the assumption that συγγραφαί refers to
formal writings, whether poetry or prose.⁷⁹ As noted above, Huffman has howev-
er demonstrated that συγγραφαί could also be used for informal writings, that is
for any written record.⁸⁰ In this case ταύτας τὰς συγγραφάς may denote notes
Pythagoras made in the course of his enquiry, as Mansfeld suggested.⁸¹ ἐκλε-
ξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγραφάς ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ σοφίην can then be construed
to mean either “having selected these notes [made in the course of his enquiry]
he produced his own wisdom,” or “having made a selection [from the findings of
 Schibli (1990, p. 12), e. g., interprets it ironically, and Granger (2004, p. 247 n. 44) also
inclines in that direction. Riedweg (2007, p. 74, 76; 2008, p. 52– 53), on the other hand, sees in
Ion’s testimony a correction of Heraclitus.
 Using the translation of Kirk, Raven and Schofield (1983, p. 219), but without transposing
vv. 2 and 3 as they do. Although Pythagoras is not mentioned by name, a good case can be made
for identification with Pythagoras; see Burkert (1972, p. 137– 38, 209 – 10); Wright (1981, p. 256 –
57); Zhmud (1997, p. 33 – 34); Riedweg (2007, p. 75; 2008, p. 54); Trépanier (2004, p. 124– 25).
 See, e. g. Burkert (1972, p. 130 – 31, 210); Kahn (1979, p. 113 – 14); Centrone (1996, p. 99);
Riedweg (1997, p. 83 – 84; 2002, p. 70 – 72; 2005, p. 50 – 51); Zhmud (1997, p. 35 – 36); Giangiulio
(2000, vol. 1, p. 70); Schofield ([2005]); Gemelli Marciano (2007, p. 177).
 Huffman (2008, p. 35 – 41).
 Mansfeld (1979, p. 16; 1987, p. 249, 251). Along with many other scholars, he however in-
terprets ἐκλεξάμενος + acc. as “having selecting from”: “indem er eine Auswahl aus seinen
diesbezüglichen Notizen vornahm.”
his enquiry] he turned these notes [sc. the result of his selection] into his own
wisdom.” If, on the other hand, we take συγγραφάς to refer to compilations of
material resulting from Pythagoras’s enquiry, ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγρα-
φάς ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ σοφίην can be construed to mean “having made a selec-
tion [from the findings of his enquiry], he produced these compilations as his
own wisdom,” or “having selected these compilations [as point of departure],
he made his own wisdom.” The latter, as we have seen, is more or less Huffman’s
position, although he suggests that the compilation was made not by Pythago-
ras, but by his disciples. The state of the evidence makes it well-nigh impossible
to choose between the four alternatives laid out above. It is clear from Heracli-
tus’s testimony, however, that Pythagoras’s ἱστορίη entailed enquiry (i. e. “collec-
tion”), selection and production, and that it involved writing of some sort. Selec-
tion and production furthermore imply a specific “collection” rather than his
philosophy in general. I agree with Huffman that from what we know of the
early Pythagorean tradition, the akousmata collection is the most obvious candi-
date for such a production resulting from wide-ranging collection and selection
in which writing was involved as a medium, either during the process of collec-
tion or in order to preserve the collected material.
Although the akousmata have been cited as evidence of the wide-ranging
nature of Pythagoras’s πολυμαθίη in order to explain Heraclitus’s views of Pytha-
goras,⁸² they have only recently been identified as a possible product of Pytha-
goras’s ἱστορίη.⁸³ At the very least, Heraclitus’s testimony provides a reasonable
explanation for the fact that we find such heterogeneous material in the akous-
mata collection, including many sayings that are not specifically Pythagorean
 See Centrone (1996, p. 99): “Una sapienza del tipo di quella che si esprime negli akousmata
pitagorici può invece essere facilmente interpretata come una polymathia tendente al raggiro:
precetti e definizioni che investono un ambito molto ampio, esprimendosi sulle più svariate
materie, e che per il loro carattere criptico, quasi oracolare, possono far sospettare una volontà
ingannatrice”; also Granger (2004, p. 241, 247– 48).
 See, in addition to Huffman (2008), Mansfeld (1987, p. 116 – 17): Pythagoras took over various
cult rules and invented some of his own, a procedure agreeing with what we can deduce from
Heraclitus’s criticism [in DK 22 B 129]; these precepts the Pythagoreans called the akousmata;
Riedweg (2007, p. 101; 2008, p. 75): some of the akousmata may be explained as an interpretation
and elaboration of Orphic material; Thom (2004, p. 32): Pythagoras’s research may have entailed
collecting ancient cult rules and taboos and adapting them to his own views; Gemelli Marciano
(2007, p. 177): “Während die Quellen der Polymathia des Pythagoras nicht genau zu bestimmen
sind, kann man vermuten, dass ihr konkretes Ergebnis eine Sammlung von Weisheitssprüchen
verschiedenster Art wie die Akousmata war.”
94 Johan C. Thom
and that may even predate Pythagoras himself.⁸⁴ This evidence may therefore
serve as response to Zhmud’s criticism that much of what is contained in the
akousmata collection cannot be “original” because it is not specifically Pytha-
gorean.⁸⁵
I would suggest however that Heraclitus’s testimony goes beyond showing
that Pythagoras was a collector of diverse material; it also points to a possible
reworking or interpretation of such material. Let us therefore consider the evi-
dence for interpretation within the akousmata collection.
The account in Iambl. VP 82 describes “the philosophy of the akousmatikoi”
as “oral instructions without demonstration and without argument” (ἔστι δὲ ἡ
μὲν τῶν ἀκουσματικῶν φιλοσοφία ἀκούσματα ἀναπόδεικτα καὶ ἄνευ λόγου),
but this should not be taken to mean that the akousmata collection did not con-
tain or require explanations.
When we consider Aristotle’s first type of akousmata, those with a question-
and-answer format containing definitions or identifications, it is apparent that
the answer or definition often only evokes further questions, that is, it needs fur-
ther explanation before making sense.⁸⁶ A good example is the saying, “What is
the oracle of Delphi? The tetraktys, which is the harmony in which the Sirens
are” (Iambl. VP 82). Just about every term in this answer begs for further eluci-
dation.⁸⁷ A second example is the akousma, “Who are you, Pythagoras?” We are
not told what the original answer was, but Aristotle suggests the question refers
to speculations regarding the semi-divine status of Pythagoras, which in itself
would had to be explained at length (Arist. fr. 191 Rose; ap. Iambl. VP 140).
Even the cosmo-mythological definitions, such as “The sea is Cronus’s tear,”
“The Bears [the Great and the Little Bear] are the hands of Rhea,” and “The plan-
ets are Persephone’s dogs” (Arist. fr. 196 Rose; ap. Porph. VP 41), which seem to
be self-contained sayings, make more sense within a larger explanatory frame-
work in which mythological and cosmological ideas are interconnected.⁸⁸
 See Nilsson (1967– 1974, vol. 1, p. 703 – 7); Guthrie (1962, p. 183); Burkert (1972, p. 166, 176 – 78,
188 – 89); Philip (1966, p. 136 – 37); Granger (2004, p. 243). For similar material in various cult
rules, see Boehm (1905); Delatte (1922, p. 231– 32); Burkert (1972, p. 176 – 78); Parker (1983,
p. 291– 98).
 See Zhmud (1997, p. 98, 100).
 Cf. Zhmud (1997, p. 95): “Fast alle Akusmata der ersten Art setzen eine indirekte Deutung
voraus.”
 Cf. the lengthy explanation given by Burkert (1972, p. 187).
 Cf. Riedweg’s suggestion (2007, p. 99 – 103; 2008, p. 73 – 76) that these sayings are the result
of interpreting and elaborating Orphic material along the lines of the Derveni Papyrus.
As far as the third type, namely precepts, is concerned, it is clear from Aris-
totle’s account in Iambl. VP 86 that some form of interpretation was already
present from an early stage and that some interpretations were original:
In the case of some [akousmata], a reason why it is necessary is added; for example, one
must bear children in order to leave behind another in the place of oneself for the worship
of the gods. But for other [akousmata], no reason is added. And some of the reasons given
seem to have been attached from the beginning and others later;⁸⁹ for example, not to
break bread, because it is not advantageous for judgment in Hades. The probable reasons
given about such matters are not Pythagorean, but were devised by some outside the
school trying to give a likely reason, as, for example, that now mentioned, why one
ought not break bread; for some say that one ought not break up that which brings together
(for in the past, all who were friends came together in foreign fashion for one loaf of bread),
but others say that such an omen ought not be made at the beginning meal by breaking and
crushing (trans. Dillon and Hershbell, corrected).⁹⁰
It is clear from this account that whatever the “philosophy of the akousmatikoi”
entailed, some explanations were present in the akousmata collection known to
Aristotle. We find explanations attached to even straightforward religious pre-
cepts, for example, “One must beget children, for it is necessary to leave in
one’s place people to worship God”; “Pour libations to the gods from a drinking
cup’s handle … so that you do not drink from the same part”; “Do not wear a
god’s image as signet on a ring, so that it may not be polluted”; “One ought
not to turn aside into a temple, for one should not make god something inciden-
tal.” We also find explanations attached to moral precepts: “Do not help remove
a burden, for one should not become the cause of someone’s not working”; “One
ought not to drive out one’s wife, for she is a suppliant”; “Advise nothing short
of the best for one asking for advice, for counsel is sacred.” These explanations
all explain why the precept has to be done.
In the quotation above, however, Aristotle also refers to another type of ex-
planation, one that is based on a symbolic interpretation of the precept.⁹¹ The
 Burkert (1972, p. 174) translates ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς and πόρρω somewhat tendentiously with “ideally
suitable” and “far-fetched.”
 ἐπ’ ἐνίων μὲν οὖν ἐπιλέγεται τί δεῖ, οἷον ὅτι δεῖ τεκνοποιεῖσθαι ἕνεκα τοῦ καταλιπεῖν ἕτερον
ἀνθ’ ἑαυτοῦ θεῶν θεραπευτήν, τοῖς δὲ οὐδεὶς λόγος πρόσεστι. καὶ ἔνια μὲν τῶν ἐπιλεγομένων
δόξει προσπεφυκέναι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς, ἔνια δὲ πόρρω· οἷον περὶ τοῦ τὸν ἄρτον μὴ καταγνύναι, ὅτι πρὸς
τὴν ἐν ᾅδου κρίσιν οὐ συμφέρει. αἱ δὲ προστιθέμεναι εἰκοτολογίαι περὶ τῶν τοιούτων οὐκ εἰσὶ
Πυθαγορικαί, ἀλλ’ ἐνίων ἔξωθεν ἐπισοφιζομένων καὶ πειρωμένων προσάπτειν εἰκότα λόγον, οἷον
καὶ περὶ τοῦ νῦν λεχθέντος, διὰ τί οὐ δεῖ καταγνύναι τὸν ἄρτον· οἳ μὲν γάρ φασιν ὅτι οὐ δεῖ τὸν
συνάγοντα διαλύειν (τὸ δὲ ἀρχαῖον βαρβαρικῶς πάντες ἐπὶ ἕνα ἄρτον συνῄεσαν οἱ φίλοι), οἳ δ’
ὅτι οὐ δεῖ οἰωνὸν ποιεῖσθαι τοιοῦτον ἀρχόμενον καταγνύντα καὶ συντρίβοντα.
 See also Zhmud (1997, p. 96), for the two types of explanations found in this passage.
96 Johan C. Thom
precept for which such interpretations are cited in Aristotle’s account, namely
“Don’t break bread” (in some versions preserved in the form “Don’t eat from a
whole bread”),⁹² is also found in another account based on Aristotle (fr. 196
Rose = 157 Gigon; ap. D.L. 8.35) which lists even more such interpretations.⁹³
From these combined accounts we therefore cull the following interpretations:
(a) it is not advantageous for judgment in Hades; (b) one ought not break up
that which brings together; (c) in the past, friends used to come together around
one loaf of bread; (d) a meal should not start with an inauspicious omen by
breaking or crushing something; (e) bread causes cowardice in war; (f) the uni-
verse begins from an act of breaking. The account preserved in Diogenes Laertius
gives no evaluation of the various interpretations; they are all presented as if
equally valid and “Pythagorean.” The account in Iamblichus lists (b), (c), and
(d) as examples of interpretations devised by outsiders, but apparently considers
(a) as an interpretation attached to the precept “from the beginning.” It is not
clear whether Aristotle makes this distinction on the basis of his own knowledge
of Pythagorean sources or because he himself finds certain explanations more
satisfactory than others.⁹⁴ Be that as it may, it is significant that explanations
are given even for precepts that seem relatively straightforward and where
there is no doubt about how they should be obeyed. From the fact that many
of the precepts had explanations attached to them and from the explanatory
framework implied by the first type of sayings we may conclude that the akous-
mata collection apparently had a hermeneutical tendency, that is, it did not only
consist of sayings, but also attempted to provide explanations for this material.
Against this background (the heterogeneous nature of the sayings and the
different types of explanations found in the collection) the question may now
be asked whether it is impossible that the original collection also included say-
ings with non-literal interpretations such as those cited in Porph. VP 42. The in-
terpretations attached to such sayings are mostly based on obvious associations
and metaphors and some of them were probably never intended to be acted
upon literally. Boehm contends that “Don’t step over a yoke” (ζυγὸν μὴ ὑπερβαί-
νειν) expressed a superstition based on rural life (a yoke referring to the imple-
ment used to bind oxen together).⁹⁵ The term ζυγόν also, however, denotes the
 Cf. Suda s.v. Ἀναξίμανδρος; Hippol. Ref. 6.27.5.

 Burkert (1972, p. 172 n. 51) suggests the motivation for this precept is that “bread must be cut
with a knife, in a prescribed ritual manner,” while Boehm (1905, p. 43 – 44) refers to the apo-
tropaic effect of the metal used in cutting bread, but none of the interpretations mentioned by
Aristotle refers to such reasons.
 See Zhmud (1997, p. 96).
 Boehm (1905, p. 37– 38).
beam of a balance and ὑπερβαίνω is used metaphorically as early Heraclitus and

Pindar;⁹⁶ “not overstepping a balance” could therefore easily be interpreted as
not transgressing the requirements of fair distribution, that is, “don’t be
greedy.”⁹⁷ According to Boehm, the precept “Don’t stir fire with a knife” is
based on the belief that there are daimones in the fire that should not be pro-
voked.⁹⁸ One wonders, however, how often anyone would have considered pok-
ing in the flames with a knife. The figurative interpretation, “Don’t excite some-
one swelling with anger with sharp words,” provides a much more natural read-
ing based on obvious metaphors: “fire” corresponds to “swelling with anger”;
the “sharpness” of a knife gives rise to “sharp words.” Most of the other precepts
cited in Porphyry VP 42 and elsewhere can be explained in the same manner. The
question therefore is whether akousmata like these were originally viewed as lit-
eral taboos by early Pythagoreans, or whether they interpreted them figuratively
from the very beginning.⁹⁹
I do not wish to imply that all ritual precepts or taboos were moralised by
being given a symbolic or metaphorical meaning. We should rather envisage a
complex and diverse collection including cosmological, religious and moral def-
initions, religious and moral precepts, as well as wisdom sayings.¹⁰⁰ I also do not
want to exclude the possibility that some of the akousmata with metaphorical
interpretations can be traced back to superstitious taboos, although whether
the early Pythagoreans took them literally is a moot question.
Combining the evidence of Heraclitus’s testimony (fr. 129) and of the akous-
mata collection, we arrive at a picture of Pythagoras and the early Pythagoreans
rather different from those proposed by both Burkert and Zhmud. Pythagoras
emerges as not simply a religious leader whose followers had to obey all his pre-
cepts to the letter; like many other contemporary σοφοί he collected diverse say-
 Cf. LSJ s.v., 2.

 In other versions, e. g. D.L. 8.17, the explanation is “Don’t overstep the bounds of equity and
justice” (τὸ ἴσον καὶ δίκαιον).
 Boehm (1905, p. 40).
 Cf. also Kirk, Raven and Schofield (1983, p. 232): “These acusmata [sc. those found in Porph.
VP 42] … sound like proverbial wisdom, although they are so selected and interpreted as to point
to a more thoroughgoing puritan ethic than most Greeks would have been conscious of ac-
cepting. Such proverbs were obviously never meant to be taken literally, but some of the
meanings given (e. g. those about the laws and about life and death) reflect distinctively Py-
thagorean preoccupations: the maxims thus explained may originally have had a broader ap-
plication.”
 A similar case for a varied collection has been made by von Fritz (1960, p. 14– 17). It is
therefore unnecessary to assume that the akousmata were either “simple, commonsense wisdom
in abstruse form” or “ancient magical-ritual commandments,” as Burkert (1972, p. 176 – 77) does.
98 Johan C. Thom
ings and precepts from various sources which were then to some extent reworked
and adapted. The material thus collected included ritual prescriptions and pro-
hibitions, dietary precepts, taboos, and wisdom sayings, but also identifications
covering mythological, cosmological, numerological, and “scientific” topics. The
collection furthermore entailed not only the mere sayings, but also explanatory
material of varying kinds, all contributing to a greater or lesser extent to a larger
“Pythagorean” world view.
This was of course not a static collection. As is typical of collections of say-
ings, the collection grew and changed over time, so that it is difficult to pinpoint
what the precise format and contents at any given stage would have been, but I
agree with Burkert that the original collection must have contained all the differ-
ent types of sayings. There probably also was an increasing tendency to provide
interpretations or explanations for sayings: the juxtaposition of akousmata with,
and akousmata without, explanations within the same collection caused a her-
meneutical pressure to provide explanations for all.
It is a fair assumption that in the early Pythagorean community some people
were less interested in the explanations given for the akousmata, who may even
have taken them all as literal instructions, while others were more intensely in-
volved in the project to make sense of them. Such a bifurcation may later have
hardened into the division between akousmatikoi and mathematikoi. ¹⁰¹
Such a scenario is somewhat of a compromise between Burkert and Zhmud’s
positions, and as such less precise or clear-cut than either of them, but it is per-
haps for that reason also closer to the messiness of real life.
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Marcus Mota
Pythagoras Homericus:
Performance as Hermeneutic Horizon
to Interpret Pythagorean Tradition
In the reception of Pythagoras’s work, some characteristics render him close to
Homer. In the present paper I go beyond the incidental elements of characteriza-
tion to argue that the overlapping of both traditions, Homer’s and Pythagoras’s,
in fact reveals procedures proper to a performative culture that permeates the
acts of composition and memory transmission and of the identity of groups or
communities.¹
In order to put in evidence the impact of that performative culture, I will con-
fine myself to the question of reception itself, analyzing its two complementary
aspects: both as a set of acts of participation and building up of adherence to an
event and as the re-elaboration and continuity of interpersonal events.²
Consequently, some features common to Pythagoreanism and to Homeric re-
ception, such as authorship and biography, come to be redefined as a result of
the prerogatives of the performative culture.³ The Quaestio Homerica and the
Quaestio Pythagorica, therefore, manifest themselves as diverse and complemen-
tary modalities of performative culture in Antiquity. In other words, I intend to
clarify a common culture between Homer’ and Pythagoras’ followers by using
performative social bonds and not a specific genre of performance. For my argu-
ment, it is not important to define what particular kind of aesthetic acts Homer
and Pythagoras performed. As it is still unusual to propose arguments based on
performative contexts, it will be necessary to distinguish between cultural and
aesthetic appropriations and the transformation of intersubjective experiences.
My focus here is how group creative interactions share some aspects that enable
us to compare them.
I wish to express my gratitude to professor Gabriele Cornelli who introduced me to the world of
ancient Pythagoreanism.
 Riedweg 2008, Gentili 1990, Martin 1998.
 Goffman 1982, Goffman 1986,Mota 2009.
 See Nagy 1996, Kahane 2005, Calame & Chartier 2004, Nagy 2010, Nagy 2011.
104 Marcus Mota
I
The overlapping of the Homeric and Pythagorean traditions has a long history. In
Heraclitus one finds both already merged in refutation of polymathy (or Odys-
seus’s cunning), and is associated with public and performative contexts: both
Homer and Heraclitus know many things and deal with people.⁴ I will come
to Heraclitus further on in this paper.
However, it is Plato who, in Republic 600 b, extends and renders explicit the
parallels between Homer and Pythagoras, emphasizing their links with a com-
munity that receives, interprets and perpetuates them:
Ἀλλὰ δὴ εἰ μὴ δημοσίᾳ, ἰδίᾳ τισὶν ἡγεμὼν παιδείας αὐτὸς ζῶν λέγεται Ὅμηρος γενέσθαι, οἳ
ἐκεῖνον ἠγάπων ἐπὶ συνουσίᾳ καὶ τοῖς ὑστέροις ὁδόν τινα παρέδοσαν βίου Ὁμηρικήν, ὥσπερ
Πυθαγόρας αὐτός τε διαφερόντως ἐπὶ τούτῳ ἠγαπήθη, καὶ οἱ ὕστεροι ἔτι καὶ νῦν Πυθα-
γόρειον τρόπον ἐπονομάζοντες τοῦ βίου διαφανεῖς πῃ δοκοῦσιν εἶναι ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις;
But did Homer himself, during his lifetime, have the reputation of becoming an educational
leader in private, even if not in public, for some who, being pleased by their association
with him, bequeathed to later generations a certain Homeric way of life? Whereas Pythago-
ras himself was valued above others for his association, so that later disciples to this day
still following what they call the Pythagorean manner of life somehow seem to stand out
from everyone else?⁵
As in the critique of Heraclitus, Plato presents the parallel within a negative con-
text, opposing the lessons transmitted to their applicability. In the above cita-
tion, it is worth mentioning the near identity between the modes of knowledge
production and its viability and continuity through collective appropriation. At
the same time, Homer and Pythagoras are placed on equal footing with the
greatest educators of ancient Greece.⁶
In the passage quoted, Homer is depicted among a group of pupils who
make possible the survival of his teachings. Similarly for Pythagoras: he associ-
ates with his followers, who, after his death, make possible the continued refer-
ence to their leader.
Furthermore, the teaching and learning situation pointed out in Plato’s text
is connected to the interaction between the master and the group based on cha-
risma: the company of the master was very appreciated, so much so that his fol-
lowers were identified according to a mimesis, with a lifestyle homologous to
 See fr. DK B40, 92e.

 Graham 2010.
 Detienne 1962:26.
Pythagoras Homericus 105
that of the master whom they followed – they re-performed the acts of the mas-
ter. Homer’s followers and Pythagoras’s followers are similar thanks to the re-
ception processes: as audience, they surpass an assimilation of contents so as
to become their master, to share in all aspects of that to which they adhere.
And this process is not found only in the realm of ideas: what matters is to em-
ulate whatever Homer or Pythagoras did. Lifestyle is not reduced to reproducing
behavioral dictates: an existential attitude towards the master is linked to ena-
bling the extended duration of the community. Whereas the master projected
himself beyond his lifetime by means of the acts of his group, it is now the
acts of the group that project them beyond their existence. In other words, the
complex existential mimesis that takes hold in the community makes use of
the tension there is between maintenance and expansion of the image both of
the master and the members of the group as it is received and re-elaborated.
Thus, it is within the perspective of a collective experience shared by means
of performative acts that both Homer and Pythagoras resemble each other. To
gain a clear picture of that experience, it becomes necessary, therefore, to
raise questions about the performative acts that bring it to life.
To start with, in Plato’s text quoted above the effects become more evident
than the performative acts: the emotional bond between the master and his fol-
lowers and the existential mimesis. In what the community exercises itself be-
sides such affection is not made clear. Such silence as regards the acts reflects,
also, on the silence as to what the master’s teachings were. That which is taught
by the master is related to the effects they have on his followers. If one can ac-
cess the teachings of the master exclusively through the effects they have on the
followers, the conclusion is that not only the mode of knowledge transmission in
these communities was performative, but also that what was taught was per-
formatively oriented. In other words, both the interaction there was between
master and followers and that which was carried out collectively, both acts
and effects – everything was determined according to the performative situation
which integrated them.
Plato’s text presents a primary phenomenology of the performative situation,
bringing closer the contexts of interaction and the modes of knowledge produc-
tion. Plato makes the distinction between two instances of reception: that of the
circle immediately connected to the master and that of the transformation of that
experience into a celebratory ritual which replaces the physical absence of the
master by an existential mimesis. Therefore, through a set of well characterized
acts, the two reception groups become distinct and connected to each other: first-
ly, replacement: the absent master is actualized by the acting community; sec-
ondly, condensation: the life of the master merges into the lives of his followers;
thirdly, amplification: the single voice of the master is amplified in the chorus of
106 Marcus Mota
his followers.⁷ The process, as a whole, is that of complementarity between the

absence of the leader and the collective experience of the group.
As a result, the master is not the only one to lead the group: the group gives
a new dimension to both the master’s teachings and his image. A reception com-
munity may be understood by the continuous reprocessing of its founding im-
pulse.⁸ Paradoxically, what is in play is the community’s survival, rather than
its master’s survival. That’s why in Plato’s text one finds reference more to the
reception than to the tutelary figure. For the reception community is based, ex-
actly, on the sharing of the acts of the master’s afterlife, of a renewed transfor-
mation of the tutelary figure.⁹
Another aspect which had a contribution to the emphasis on the groups’ cre-
ativity in their appropriation and transformation of memory is the lapse of
time.¹⁰ The distance in time unfolds the difference there is between a group
that shares in their master’s intimacy and another group that shares in their mas-
ter’s absence. Once the master is dead, a double movement is put in effect: the
continuous reference of the present moment to a past in continuous remission.
The attempt to signal present events through knowledge of past narratives leads
to the procedure of retro-projection: one re-elaborates that which went beyond
the time of the fact, extending its duration, making the connection between
events situated in different occasions in time. Thus, Homer’s and Pythagoras’s
images are continuously reconstructed and broadened by their followers. The in-
creasing temporal distance of successive communities brings an intensification
of this process because the retro-projection is cumulative: each group connects
partially and selectively with the group that preceded it. Accumulation is both
of limited appropriations and of renewed changes.
In the diagram below, Plato’s description is decomposed
 This flexibility of the figure finds its counterpart in the ancient metric theory: “for the School
of Pergamo (Caessus Bassus, Varro, Terentianus Maurus) which spoke of the derivation (der-
ivatio) of all existing verses from two long verses, the dactylic hexameter and the iambic tri-
mester through the process of addition, subtraction, combination and permutation (permutation,
adiectio, contraction, concinnatio) of their elements” (Kazazis 2007:1033).
 This continuous reprocessing is increased by recurrent sound stimulus. See Iamblichus V.P.
XV, XXV.
 Auerbach 1984: 11– 78.
 Auerbach 1984:53: “Figural interpretation establishes a connection between two events or
persons, the first of which signifies not only itself, but also the second, while the second
encompasses or fulfills the first. The two poles of a figure are separated in time, but both, being
real events or persons, are within time, within the stream of historical life “.
Time Members Reception
Proto-situation Leader, group. Based on direct (face to

face) interaction.
New moment Leader is dead, group manages to survive. Based on previous ex-
periences
and memories
Retroprojection Leader’s new presence: he’s a model, a way of life. Group’s identity is con-
Group manipulates this virtual presence of the nected to the model.
leader.
II
Such transformative appropriations are better understood from the point of view
of performative situations, as shown in the Parry-Lord hypothesis. In their re-
search about parallels between Homer and the narrative singers in the Balkans,
Parry and Lord aimed “to comprehend the manner in which they (singers) com-
pose, learn, and transmit their epics. It is a study in the processes of composition
of oral narrative poetry.”¹¹ From the situation itself of presenting oneself to dif-
ferent audiences, the singer would make changes in his material in order to nar-
row the distance between performer and audience. This way, “for the oral poet
the moment of composition is the performance. (…) composition and perform-
ance are two aspects of the same moment. (…) An oral poem is not composed
for but in performance.”¹² The complementarity between composition and per-
formance outlines the acts by the performer and the interaction with the audi-
ence: the situation of interaction between performer and audience is the occa-
sion for creatively exploiting interpersonal contact. “The variability and instabil-
ity of audience” demands abilities from the performer in changing his repertoire
fitting himself to the performance event.
The broad dimension of activities and the impact that the narrative singers
have over their audience is better understood through the performer’s education-
al stages. The upbringing of these singers consisted in a long process of exposure
to other narrative singers and to different audiences. According to Lord, there are
three stages: 1 – the learner chooses someone with more experience in the art, a
 Lord 2000, preface xxxi

 Lord 2000:12
108 Marcus Mota
master, so as to learn from him; 2 – by emulation, the learner absorbs the rep-
ertoire of techniques for keeping an audience’s attention on the demonstration
of the performer’s abilities; 3 – the learner develops these techniques within con-
crete situations of performance, for which the repertoire and the abilities are di-
versified as a result of contact with other performers and with new audiences.¹³
In such way, imbedded in an expressive tradition which manifests itself in
the forms of keeping an attachment with the audience, the narrative singer be-
comes a creative performer: he “never stops in the process of accumulating, re-
combining and remodeling formulas and themes. (…) he moves toward refining
what he already knows and toward learning new songs.”¹⁴ This recreation of
what he has heard and seen establishes the continuity of this activity. The crea-
tive mediation between audience and performer displaces the centrality of the
performative acts to the moment of the face to face interaction.
Pythagoras shares in these various attributes of narrative singers. According
to Antisthenes, he was able to speak to different audiences:
ούκ ἐπαινεῖν φησιν Ἀντισθένης Ὅμηρον τὸν Ὀδυσσέα μᾶλλον ἢ ψέγειν, λέγοντα αύτὸν
“πολύτροπον” […]. διὰ τοῦτό φησι τὸν Ὀδυσσέα Ὅμηρος σοφὸν ὄντα πολύτροπον εἶναι,
ὅτι δὴ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἠπίστατο πολλοῖς τρόποις συνεῖναι. οὕτω καὶ Πυθαγόρας λέγεται
πρὸς παῖδας ἀξιωθεὶς ποιήσασθαι λόγους διαθεῖναι πρὸς αύτοὺς λόγους παιδικοὺς, καὶ
πρὸς γυναῖκας γυναιξὶν ἁρμοδίους, καὶ πρὸς ἄρχοντας ἀρχοντικοὺς, καὶ πρὸς ἐφήβους ἐφη-
βικούς. τὸν γὰρ ἑκάστοις πρόσφορον τρόποντῆς σοφίας ἐξευρίσκειν σοφίας ἐστίν· ἀμαθίας
δὲ τὸ πρὸς τοὺς ἀνομοίως ἔχοντας τῷ τοῦ λόγου χρῆσθαι μονοτρόπῳ.
Antisthenes states that Homer neither praises nor criticizes Odysseus, calling him polytro-
pos […]. That is why, he gave Odysseus the epithet of polytropos: because he knew how to
talk with human beings in many different manners. Thus, it is told, invited to make
speeches to children, Pythagoras composed childish speeches (lógoi paidikói) for them;
and for women, still others that were fit for women; and for the archons, archon speeches;
and for the ephebes, ephebic speeches. For it is proper to wisdom to find the type of wis-
dom suitable to each group. The opposite, that is, making use of one single form of speech
(montrópos toû lógou) for those who hold different kinds of dispositions, is a sign of igno-
rance.¹⁵
Pythagoras’s profile as regards his interaction with diverse audiences brings him
closer to the narrative singers, the rhapsodes. That which is in play here is not
only the content of the speeches, but the fact that, in the situation of perform-
ance, the metamorphoses of the performer are connected to the particularities
 Lord 2000: 19 – 29. All stages exploit recurrent acts in an aural context connecting performers
to improvisation. See Mota 2010.
 Lord 2000:26
 Schol. In Hom. Odyss. I, 1: 50 – 63. Dindorf. V. Cornelli 2010.
of the audiences – up-to-date acts demand adjustments and changes from the
performer. The group attached to Pythagoras did not absorb only intellectual
content: it had a start on assimilation and learning by means of performative
procedures. Still according to Antisthenes’s text, reference to the multi-skilled
Odysseus merges with the figure of Pythagoras. Acting like Odysseus, Pythagoras
becomes a new Odysseus. Like the Homeric hero, Pythagoras invests himself
with characteristics inherited from his model and bases his authority on a selec-
tion of traits of the Homeric figure, which he makes identifiable during his inter-
action with the audience. As he appropriates Homer, Pythagoras establishes the
horizon by which his own skills are developed, perceived and emulated. In being
like Odysseus, Pythagoras transfers to the realm of his community actions proper
to heroes and to the celebration of model figures. As a result, he enables himself
and the others to be celebrated and heroicized like Odysseus, entering the rep-
ertoire of model figures.
This way, the everyday life of the Pythagorean community becomes similar
to that of a Homeric audience: to enjoy the acts of the sung and celebrated fig-
ure. The dynamics of transformation of Pythagoras as performer, however, are
not restricted to the figures of the imaginary.
III
As a consequence, comparisons between the Homeric and the Pythagorean tra-
ditions also offer a glimpse into their intrinsic differences: if appropriation of the
Homeric performances by the Pythagorean followers ends up by defining certain
composition and reception processes of the community’s self-image, the differ-
ence in the mode of assimilation and transformation makes such processes ex-
plicit. To begin with, there is the reception question. While Homeric reception,
according to a more common proto-narrative, expanded from a local group of in-
terpreters from Ionia, from a community of professional performers (The Homer-
idae) to the whole of Greece, the Pythagorean tradition evolved within a com-
munity with rules and routines intended to initiate and form its members, and
which later dissolved. As such, the Homeric community is exogamic, with moti-
vation for establishing contact with different communities, whereas the Pytha-
gorean community was predominantly endogamic: at its first moment Pythagor-
ean community was more directed toward exchange between master and follow-
ers.
Such profiles of the preliminary stages of reception reprocess the profile it-
self of their tutelary figures: Homer is said to have travelled in order to perform
his works to audiences in various towns. On the other hand, Pythagoras’s trav-
110 Marcus Mota
eling is associated with his upbringing, with his coming in contact with knowl-
edge-producing international centers for the later establishment of communities
in MagnaGraecia. Although both of them take up transactional practices which
present themselves through inter-subjective contacts, roaming is remodeled in
Pythagoras due to the change in the manner in which the relationship with
the audience is achieved: instead of having a different audience in each place,
the procedure is to form an ideal audience, in a continuous activity of explora-
tion of its limits by a series of noetic experiences and restraints. The Pythagorean
option makes the functions and the reception interaction more radical: it is not a
matter of entertaining oneself with what the other does – the performer. Adher-
ence of the group to the acts of leadership is complete and comprehensive: the
audience starts to perform too. Besides that, the time of the performative event
and the time of daily life overlap: in the case of Homer, performance occasions
were specific, within ritualistic and competitive contexts. In face of the non-or-
dinary and exceptional time of Homeric performance, the Pythagorean group
posits the ritualisation of daily life: every hour of the day, every moment, be-
comes the situation of performing what reception demands. The broadening of
the time of performance and reception results in concentration within the imme-
diate space: the Pythagorean reception is not found, initially, everywhere, but in
the space of the community, which is the space-time of the acts that define it.
Following the scattering of the proto-Pythagorean group, one moves from the
community physically gathered to the imagined community, to the retro-projec-
tion of this full time, of this time that endures in the dialectic of restriction and of
possibilities. However, it is still the time of the actions, of a serialization of mo-
ments and activities.
It is clear, therefore, that the transformation of the relationship between the
performer and the audience is at the base of the modifying appropriation of the
Homeric tradition on the part of the Pythagorean tradition. And this transforma-
tion that took place in the realm of the Pythagorean community brought on a re-
newed notion of the performative acts: their time densification. If the performa-
tive act is a correlate of its time effectiveness – of the instant, of the right now –
the Pythagorean heritage, as it proposes rules for all the activities of the group,
ends up correlating all the events to a full time, or to a time without measure, a
time that projects itself beyond time. Because all the acts happen within per-
formative contexts, as the time dimension is broadened, performance is general-
ized as the horizon for all the events. The densification of time, in the measure of
all the activities, is complementary to the generalization of the performative ho-
rizon.
IV
The groups practice their continuity through creative re-definitions of their col-
lective memory. Within a performative culture, this creativity is realized in several
moments throughout the whole chain of reception.¹⁶ Every act of group specifi-
cation is, in the end, selective acts, well characterized transformation and appro-
priation. The productivity of these procedures is found marked in references to
the way Pythagoras attained his erudition.
According to Heraclitus, Pythagoras’s multifaceted erudition was the result
of appropriating the work of various researchers:
Πυθαγόρης Μνησάρχου ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα πάντων καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ταύ-
τας τὰς συγγραφὰς ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ σοφίην, πολυμαθίην, κακοτεχνίην
Pythagoras, the son of Mneserchus, engaged in enquiry most of all men and, by selecting
these things which have been written up, made a wisdom of his own, a bunch of things
learnt from others, an evil conspiracy.¹⁷
Despite the negativity found in the fragment (κακοτεχνίην), Heraclitus tells us,
partly, about the Pythagorean method of knowledge production: it is in the rela-
tionship with existing works (ταύτας τὰς συγγραφὰς) that Pythagoras develops
his own wisdom (ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ σοφίην).
In the course of the fragment, this method is elaborated: first, there is the
selection of written works (ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγραφὰς); secondly, the
creation of his own wisdom (ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ σοφίην). As may be inferred,
the act of selecting expresses the study and investigation of a larger amount
of works than those remaining at the end of this stage. Pythagoras would
have gathered a reasonable number of available writings so as to later extract
from this set of writings that which seemed best to him.
In other words, it is not a matter of sheer accumulation of knowledge to be
later transferred without any change. The extent of this primary textual assem-
blage determines the extent itself of the scope of Pythagorean activity: Pythago-
ras engaged himself in achieving more knowledge than all the men (ἱστορίην
ἤσκησεν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα πάντων), for he got in touch with a great number
of texts (ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγραφὰς).
Therefore, the dichotomy between the moments of knowledge production
shows us the parts that belong to a single process: the elaboration of Pythagor-
as’s work would not take place only after the selection, ἐκλεξάμενος, but would
 De Masi 2003.
 Huffman 2008.
112 Marcus Mota
have taken place during the action of gathering and choosing the materials for
his investigation. More than mere appropriation of pre-existing contents, it is the
intervention in these contents, ἐποιήσατο, it is its transformation what really
matters. Therefore, to compose his work ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ σοφίην, Pythagoras
would start from the study and re-elaboration of existing works, ταύτας τὰς συγ-
γραφὰς. In fact, Pythagoras’s work starts when he gathers, evaluates and selects
other works.
Thus, the polymathy (πολυμαθίην) assigned to Pythagoras finds its defini-
tion: it is defined not only in terms of the variety of its themes, but also in
terms of its relationship to its sources, texts written by others, in the preliminary
work of subject selection. What Pythagoras learnt from others, polymathy, estab-
lishes what he presents as his own production. His work is, in fact, the disclosure
of the process of collecting and selecting works, of establishing relationships
among works.
As may be seen, the emphasis of the fragment lies in characterizing Pytha-
goras’s activity as an exercise of appropriating pre-existing material. This ab-
sorptive profile comes near to practices that take into account knowledge trans-
mission through interactive face to face situations, as Lord made clear in his
comparison between Homeric epic and oral tradition in the Balkans. The
mode of knowledge production effected by Pythagoras finds, in Lord’s descrip-
tion of the narrative singers, an enlightening context. “Compositon in perform-
ance” is understood as creative appropriation.¹⁸
V
This way, by means of bringing together the Quaestio Homerica and the Quaestio
Pythagorica, the performative perspective which defines them renders intelligi-
ble the procedures for the education of the Pythagorean community. To start
with, one puts emphasis on the creative activity of the groups concerned with
community memory production. Although linked to their tutelary personalities,
the groups do not restrain themselves to mere reproduction without changes to
the knowledge passed down: the relationship between learning and knowledge
production take place in inter-individual situations prone to the active participa-
tion of the members. The notion of ‘Composition in performance’, as explained
in Parry-Lord Hypothesis, points out to the complementarity between performer
and audience: in a performative situation, the acts of the performers are in an
 Hutcheon 2006, Sanders, 2005.

intimate connection with the acts of reception – the mode of transmission is the
situation of contact itself. In this way, knowledge learnt through participation
imposes the co-creativity between the performer and the audience.
The distinction between the Pythagorean community and the Homeric com-
munity is found in the repertoire of updated myths. If the Homeridae, due to
their roaming, could count on a richness of motives and characters, one finds
in the Pythagorean community an amalgam of narratives and figures centered
on Pythagoras. The same way as with an open work, new stories and features
are assigned to him. In Heraclitus, one finds the ambivalent testimony that over-
laps extreme values: the most knowledgeable, the best deceiver. Pythagoras is
not himself: he appears to be several different things. The Pythagorean tradition
solves such ambivalence as it goes from “making hero” to “making divine” (or
deification) of its tutelary character. In the course of time, the importance attach-
ed by the critical reception to the figure of Pythagoras as a model of all actions
increased exponentially. The more the questions concerning all realms of human
life expand, the more Pythagoras is found as motivator and originator of all dis-
coveries. Things are discovered and created with and by Pythagoras. Retro-pro-
jection reaches its goal.
In this sense, it is extremely difficult to make use of explanatory causalities
as definitory of a uniform biographic narrative, with the determination of what,
in fact, Pythagoras did. Because the Pythagorean community is a radicalization
of the relations between performer and audience, whether by time densification
or by retro-projection, actions and effects are linked, which causes a difficult dis-
tinction between authorship and repertoires. Those activities which are attribut-
ed to Pythagoras are the common property of the community. The survival of this
proto-experience is directly linked not to performance of authorship, but to up-
dating of authority, of the creative appropriation of the tutelary figure. And the
perspective for such proto experience is that of the face to face interpersonal sit-
uation.
The ritualization of everyday life in its turn binds acts which are separated in
time, bringing them together in the larger time of all the instants. Once each ac-
tivity, each moment is registered, the Pythagorean community may expand the
tutelary figure’s repertoire as well as its own duration as a group. In this case,
it is not a matter of a linear expansion of something already done in a remote
past that is updated without changes at different moments in time. The Pythagor-
ean temporal geometry does not align itself to a line: because full time is that of
repetition, of accumulation of planes one on top of the other, such verticality of
time manifests itself in the tetraktys: clusters of forms achieved through an in-
creasing addition of elements.
114 Marcus Mota
Pythagoras intensifies the proximity between Classics and Performance

Studies. It is, in this case, an exciting interpretative situation for the scholar
who confronts in the Homeric epics a performative tradition for which there re-
mains the script and in the Pythagorean material another tradition for which
there are no texts: only fragmentary indications about its performative practices.
Hence, an examination of Pythagoras reveals some aspects both of the extent of
the Homeric performance and of the performative culture which includes both
the Pythagorean and the Homeric traditions.
For instance: after discussing what she sees as inconsistencies in modern at-
tempts to determine who was Homer and what he composed, Barbara Graziosi
argues that specific audiences from different places assigned to the poems val-
ues and references as a result of their own existences.¹⁹ Thus, there is a displace-
ment in the attempt of solving limitless lacks of definition and contradictions
about authorship and repertoire so as to follow the dispersive logic of construc-
tions and representations centered on Homer. The focus now is on how Homer
was imagined, how there developed, according to various manners and in sev-
eral places, the construction of his figure, his reception.
However, this solution transfers the attempt to the plane of mentalities, to
something diffuse which could be called ‘historic imagination’. In the case of
the reception of Homer and subsequently in that of Pythagoras, this reception
took place within effective practices of appropriation and transformation of ex-
isting materials which became comprehensible within a performative culture.
Reception itself, as a constitutive role of the performative activity, shares in
the procedures of the performer. Therefore, a performative event may be defined
as an explicitation of the procedures that interconnect audience and performer.
As a result, the redefinition that the Pythagorean community introduces as re-
gards the Homeric tradition may be seen as an experiment on the possibilities
of such connections, accomplishing a new moment in the History of Performa-
tive Events. After all, the ‘historic fact’ of Pythagoras, a young Greek from
Samos, having initiated himself in the rhapsodic procedures through contact
with the Homeridae, is not confined, as proposed by Detienne, to the exercise
of a mnemonic technique for passing on lessons or learning forms of poetic com-
position for a sacred discourse.²⁰ Neither the fiction of Graziosi, nor the poetic
theology of Detienne seems to point to the implication of taking into account
performative contexts in order to think about the differences in the respective re-
ceptions for the re-elaboration of the model figures.
 Graziosi 2002.
 Detienne 1962: 98.
Bibliography
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Alberto Bernabé
Orphics and Pythagoreans: the Greek
perspective
1 Introduction
1.1 The Label “Orphic-Pythagorean”
In modern research, the term “Orphic-Pythagorean” is frequently used to desig-

nate a set consisting of two elements which are, in principle, quite different. “Or-
phic” tends to refer to a religious group whose members were loosely related.
They followed the teachings they found in poems that were ascribed to a figure
of myth and their fundamental goal was to attain salvation in the Beyond. “Py-
thagorean,” on the other hand, refers to a well-structured philosophical sect
whose members followed rules of a historical character, even though over
time the group adopted other goals, such as the pursuit of political power (Bur-
kert 1982). I have pointed out that the term is frequently used, but we may even
say that it is used in excess, as it is rightly or wrongly applied – without further
explanation – to a varied set of ideas about the soul, like the belief in immortal-
ity and transmigration, and to a varied series of attitudes and practices, such as
vegetarianism and the desire for purification.
1.2 The Ancient situation
The situation was not very different in Antiquity. Several authors mention Or-
phics and Pythagoreans together, as if they belonged to the same category,
and they present the relations between Orphics and Pythagoreans in different
ways. Sometimes Orpheus is mentioned first, since he was traditionally consid-
ered more ancient. Sometimes it is specified that Pythagoreans adopted some of
his doctrines. Sometimes, they are mentioned together, with no indication of the
direction of the influence. On other occasions, works or doctrines that we think
belong to one of the two groups are ascribed to the other. Thus, for instance,
This paper is part of the Research Project FFI – , funded by the Spanish “Ministerio
de Ciencia e Innovación”. I am very grateful to Zoa Alonso for the translation of this paper into
English and to Richard McKirahan for his helpful suggestions.
118 Alberto Bernabé
some sources attribute to Pythagoras a famous Orphic verse which we know in

two versions and which is considered to be a “seal” of the Orphic works:¹
I will speak for those entitled: close your doors, ye profane.
On the other hand, there are references to a group of lost short poems in the Or-
phic corpus that compare the world to everyday objects, like a robe, a ball or a
lyre that seem to have been written by Pythagoreans (see below §§ 3.1– 2). In a
similar way, an evidently Pythagorean Hymn to Number is ascribed to them,
but Orpheus is considered its inspiration or source (see below § 3.2). On the con-
trary, a clearly Orphic work, such as the Rhapsodies, is occasionally attributed to
the circle of the Samian’s followers (see below § 3.2).
Some authors try to establish an Orphic or a Pythagorean origin of certain
doctrines. Thus, some of the oldest (fifth century B.C.) sources give priority to
the Pythagoreans, notably Herodotus, who attributes to them the origin of the
taboo against wearing woollen clothing,² and Ion of Chios, who testifies that Py-
thagoras ascribed some of his works to Orpheus himself.³ There is every indica-
tion that there was a group of ancient authors who did not consider Orpheus to
be the author of the works attributed to him: in the fourth century B.C. Androtion
considered that, as a Thracian, Orpheus did not know how to write, while Aris-
totle doubted the authenticity of the writings ascribed to the Thracian poet.⁴ Au-
thors holding this point of view may have inferred that the poems attributed to
Orpheus, since they were modern and spurious, were written by those who pro-
fessed similar theories. These people could be none other than the Pythagoreans.
On the contrary, Timon of Phlious, who lived in the fourth and third centu-
ries B. C., accused Pythagoras of getting closer to the γόητας and their doc-
trines:⁵
Pythagoras, inclined to witching works and ways,

Man-snarer, fond of noble periphrase.
 Bernabé 2004– 2007, fr. 1 (from now on OF), Plu. fr. *202 Sandbach and Stob. Flor. 3.41.9 (III
759.3 Hense): ἀείσω ξυνετοῖσι· θύρας δ᾽ ἐπίθεσθε, βέβηλοι; cf. Bernabé 1996, p. 71 and 1998,
p. 60.
 Hdt.2.81; cf. § 2.6 and n. 40.
 Ion fr. 116 Leurini (D. L. 8.8 and Clem. Al. Strom. 1.21.131.4), cf. § 4.2.
 Androtion 324F 54a Aelian. VH 8.6 (OF 1028), Phlp. in de An. 186.24– 26 = Arist. fr. 7 Rose, Cic.
ND 1.38.107 = Arist. fr. 7 Rose.
 Timo SHell. 831 Πυθαγόρην τε γόητας ἀποκλίνοντ᾽ ἐπὶ δόξας / θήρῃ ἐπ᾽ ἀνθρώπων, σεμνη-
γορίης ὀαριστήν. Transl. by R. D. Hicks.
The word γόης has many meanings. Doctrines assigned to these people (γόητας
… δόξας) can easily correspond to the practices of the μάγοι mentioned in the
Derveni Papyrus;⁶ γόητας might well be a translation for μάγοι.⁷ Centuries
later, the Neoplatonists, who tried to demonstrate that the Platonic tradition
had its roots in the earliest Greek tradition, gave priority to Orpheus and held
that Pythagoras was initiated by an Orphic priest, a certain Aglaophamus.⁸
Apart from the interchangeability of Orphics and Pythagoreans that we have
seen and the conflicting attempts to establish priorities between them, we know
that the two movements were frequently confused with one another. Some sour-
ces draw no clear border between the two groups. Most sources present them as
associations rather than as individuals. The two groups were frequently treated
as equivalent and were often mistaken for each other.
1.3 Aim of the paper
This question is the subject of two contributions to this conference, Francesc Ca-
sadesús’ and mine, and we have agreed to deal with different aspects of it. In my
paper, I will offer a critical review of the ancient sources on the Orphics and Py-
thagoreans, in an attempt to discover ancient opinions on this issue without in-
quiring into their historical accuracy. Francesc Casadesús will deal with this sec-
ond subject.
When I say that I will review the ‘sources on Orphics and Pythagoreans’ I am
not proposing to discuss all the evidence about the Orphics and about Pythagor-
eans (which would far exceed the reasonable limits of this paper). Rather, I am
going to analyse the passages in which both groups are identified, or are con-
trasted with one another or related to one other in other ways. In later sections
I will try to delimit the contexts were these situations occur.
 P.Derv. col. II 3, 6, and 9.

 Cf. Aeschin.3.137 μάγος καὶ γόης.
 Cf. the Neoplatonic testimonies collected in OF 507, and § 4.10.
2 Documentary attribution of a similar way of life

2.1 Orphic abstention from eating meat
I will start with the sources that are related to dietary taboos among the Orphics
and the Pythagoreans. Orphics refrained from eating meat, probably as the con-
sequence of a more general prohibition on shedding the blood of living beings.
This is testified by Plato,⁹ who distinguishes between food derived from things
endowed with soul (ἔμψυχα), which was prohibited, and food derived from
other sources (ἄψυχα), which was allowed. We have early (fifth century) docu-
ments that attribute to Orpheus precepts of this kind: the prohibition on shed-
ding blood is referred to in a passage of Aristophanes’ Frogs ¹⁰ as is the exclusiv-
ity of an ἄψυχον diet in the Hippolytus of Euripides.¹¹ In another fragment of the
same author, from the Cretans, ¹² the chorus of holy Cretan men declares, among
many other Orphic rules,¹³ their abstention from eating ἔμψυχα. In a fragment of
the lost comedy Orpheus, ¹⁴ Antiphanes speaks about “vegetable bites”,¹⁵ proba-
bly referring to the Orphic diet. Plutarch criticises this ban of “the ancient Or-
pheus”:¹⁶
But to refrain entirely from eating meat, as they record of Orpheus of old, is rather a quib-
ble than a way of avoiding wrong in regard to food.¹⁷
On the other hand, Hieronymus stresses that Orpheus, in a poem, rejects the
consumption of meat.¹⁸ It seems that this poem is the one we know in which
the end of the consumption of meat and the adoption of a vegetable diet are re-
 Pl. Lg.782c (OF 625)

 Ar. Ra. 1032, followed by Hor. AP 391 f. (OF 626).
 E. Hipp. 952 f. (OF 627). Theseus attributes also to his son the βακχεία, an activity which is not
Pythagorean (Jiménez San Cristóbal 2009).
 E. Fr. 472 Kannicht (OF 567).
 Cf. Casadio 1990; Bernabé 2004.
 Antiphan. fr. 178 Kassel-Austin (OF 631) βύστραν τιν᾽ ἐκ φύλλων τινῶν.
 About meaning of βύστρα, cf. Phot. s. v. βύστρα, Hsch. s. v. βύστραι.
 Plu. Sept. sap. 159C (OF 629) τὸ δ᾽ ἀπέχεσθαι σαρκῶν ἐδωδῆς, ὥσπερ Ὀρφέα τὸν παλαιὸν
ἱστοροῦσι, σόφισμα μᾶλλον ἢ φυγὴ τῶν περὶ τὴν τροφὴν ἀδικημάτων ἐστί. Transl. by F. C.
Babbitt.
 Cf. Pinnoy 1990, p. 204, Bernabé 1996, pp. 65, 83 and 92.
 Hieronym. adv. Iov. 2.14 Orpheus in carmine suo esum carnium penitus detestatur.
lated to the origin of law and culture.¹⁹ The beginning of this poem has been pre-
served to us:
There was a time when every man lived by devouring his fellow
cannibal-wise, and the stronger man did feast on the weaker
fishes and beasts of the wild and the winged ravens and vultures
devoured each other, for justice exists not among them.²⁰
2.2 Pythagorean abstention from meat
The same ideas and, what it is even more interesting, the use of the technical
terms ἔμψυχα and ἄψυχα, are repeatedly ascribed to the Pythagoreans, espe-
cially by the comic poets, Alexis, Antiphanes and Mnesimachus.²¹ Aristophon
points out that Pythagorising followers are the only people who are seated at
the table of Hades as a reward for their piety, that they eat only vegetables and
drink only water and he adds that they are dirty and lousy.²² Philostratus too
uses the term ἔμψυχος when he says that Apollonius of Tyana emulated Pytha-
goras by keeping his stomach pure and without the stain of any living food.²³
Callimachus ascribes to the Samian the doctrine of not eating breathing beings
(ἐμπνεόντων). It seems that the author uses the expression ‘breathing beings’
as a “secular” translation of the more usual term ‘endowed with soul’ (ἔμψυ-
χος).²⁴ Alexis affirms that this is the doctrine of someone he considers a
 OF 641– 644, where the attribution to a specific poem is discussed. The poem is imitated by
Critias TrGF I 43 F 19 and by Moschion TrGFr I 97 F 6 (cf. OF 644 and Bernabé 2004a, pp. 115 –
116).
 OF 641, transmitted by S. E. Math. 2.31. Transl. by R. G. Bury.
 Alexis fr. 223.1 ff. K.-A. οἱ πυθαγορίζοντες γάρ, ὡς ἀκούομεν, /οὔτ᾽ ὄψον ἐσθίουσιν οὔτ᾽ ἄλλ᾽
οὐδὲ ἓν / ἔμψυχον, οἶνόν τ᾽ οὐχὶ πίνουσιν μόνοι. Antiphan. fr. 133, 1 f. K.-A. πρῶτον μὲν ὥσπερ
πυθαγορίζων ἐσθίει / ἔμψυχον οὐδέν, Mnesimach. fr. 1 K.-A. ὡς Πυθαγοριστὶ θύομεν τῷ Λοξίᾳ, /
ἔμψυχον οὐδὲν ἐσθίοντες παντελῶς.
 Aristophon fr. 12 K.-A. ἔφη καταβὰς εἰς τὴν δίαιταν τῶν κάτω / ἰδεῖν ἑκάστους, διαφέρειν δὲ
πάμπολυ / τοὺς Πυθαγοριστὰς τῶν νεκρῶν· μόνοισι γὰρ / τούτοισι τὸν Πλούτωνα συσσιτεῖν
ἔφη / δι᾽ εὐσέβειαν. [Β.} εὐχερῆ θεὸν λέγεις / εἰ τοῖς ῥύπου μεστοῖσιν ἥδεται συνών./ ἔτι ἐν τῷ
αὐτῷ·/ ἐσθίουσί τε / λάχανά τε καὶ πίνουσιν ἐπὶ τούτοις ὕδωρ· /φθεῖρας δὲ καὶ τρίβωνα τήν τ᾽
ἀλουσίαν /οὐδεὶς ἂν ὑπομείνειε τῶν νεωτέρων.
 Philostr. VA 6.11.
 Call. fr. 191.62 Pf. κἠδίδαξε (Euphorbus-Pythagoras) νηστεύειν /τῶν ἐμπνεόντων.
‘wise man’ although he does not identify who he is.²⁵ Finally, there is a prob-
lematic fragment of Porphyry:²⁶
(The theologian) says that no being endowed with soul is to be sacrificed but that first-fruits
are to be offered from meal and honey, and the vegetable products of the earth; he adds
that fire is not to be enkindled on a hearth defiled with gore.
The unsolved question here is who is the θεολόγος who suggests this sort of life-
style: the fact that some authors, like Haussleiter (1935, p. 323) believe he is Py-
thagoras contradicts the traditional designation of Orpheus as ὁ θεολόγος.
2.3 Meat abstention in Empedocles
What I find most interesting is that the pair of terms ἔμψυχον/ἄψυχον are com-
pounds from ψυχή and the conception of animals as endowed with ψυχαί pre-
supposes a religious idea that can be none other than transmigration. This is
clearly seen in another author who also refers to this taboo: Empedocles associ-
ates blood sacrifices with the possibility of killing a member of one’s own family
(that is, a living being embodying the soul of a relative).²⁷ The prohibition on eat-
ing meat is linked, then, to the belief that souls transmigrate and that the body of
an animal might host a soul that was previously hosted in a human body. In De
esu carnium, Plutarch connects the non-consumption of meat with the texts of
Empedocles and mentions the Orphic myth of Dionysus and the Titans;²⁸ he
is, thus, convinced of the Orphic origin of this taboo.
2.4 The taboo on eggs
Meat was not the only dietary taboo that Orphics and Pythagoreans shared; eat-
ing eggs was banned as well. Plutarch points out that Orphics and Pythagoreans
 Alexis fr. 27 K.-A. ὁ πρῶτος εἰπὼν ὅτι σοφιστὴς οὐδὲ εἷς /ἔμψυχον οὐδὲν ἐσθίει, σοφός τις
ἦν.
 Porphyr. De abst. 2.36 (OF 635) φησὶ δὲ (sc. ὁ θεολόγος) ἔμψυχον οὗτος θύειν μηδὲ ἕν, ἀλλ᾽
ἄχρις ἀλφίτων καὶ μέλιτος καὶ τῶν ἐκ γῆς ἀκροδρύων τῶν τε ἄλλων ἀνθέων ἀπάρχεσθαι· μηδὲ
ἀφ᾽ ᾑμαγμένης ἐσχάρας ἔστω τὸ πῦρ.
 Emp. fr. 120 Wright (139 D.-K.), 118 W. (128 D.-K‐), 122 W. (136 D.-K.), 124 W. (137 D.-K.), cf. OF
637– 640.
 Plu. De esu carnium 996B (OF 318 II).
shared this prohibition²⁹ even though a little later he mentions only Dionysiac
rites (τοῖς περὶ τοῦ Διονύσου ὀργιασμοῖς).³⁰ There is also an inscription from
Smyrna that seems to have an Orphic inspiration and mentions this ban within
a Bacchic environment (this is not characteristic of Pythagoreans but of Or-
phics).³¹ On the contrary, Alexander Polyhistor attributes this taboo to the Pytha-
goreans.³²
2.5 The taboo on beans
Orphics and Pythagoreans also shared the taboo on beans. This is not the time to
go into the complicated series of explanations that have been proposed in order
to justify this precept.³³ For our purpose it suffices to say there is a verse (“for it is
the same to eat beans or the head of our ancestors”) that is attributed either to
an Orphic Hieros Logos or to Pythagoras.³⁴
2.6 The prohibition on wearing wool
Herodotus, when telling of the Egyptian prohibition against wearing woollen gar-
ments in temples, affirms that “the so-called Orphic and Bacchic (practices) are,
in fact, Egyptian and Pythagorean”.³⁵ Euripides,³⁶ Apuleius³⁷ and Philostratus³⁸
 Plu. Quaest. conv. 635E (OF 645 I).

 Plu. Quaest. conv. 636Ε (OF 646), cf. also Macrob. Sat. 7.16.8 (OF 646 II).
 OF 582 (s. II d. C.).
 Alex. Polyh. ap. D.L. 8.33 (OF 628).
 Cf. commentaries to OF 648.
 OF 648 ἶσόν τοι κυάμους τε φαγεῖν κεφαλάς τε τοκήων; attributed to Pythagoras by Luc.
Gal. 4, Lyd. Mens. 4.2, Clem. Al. Strom. 3.3.24.1. Elias in Porph. Is. 14.30 Busse; to Orpheus by
Geop. 2.35.8 (φέρεται δὲ καὶ Ὀρφέως τοιάδε ἔπη), cf. Greg. Naz. Or. 27.10 (τοῦς κυάμους τοὺς
Ὀρφικούς), and to δόγμασιν Ὀρφικοῖς ἢ Πυθαγορικοῖς by Plu. Quaest.conv. 635E. there are
ambiguous references such as οἱ δὲ ἱερὸν λόγον φασίν (Sch. Il. 13.589 [III 513 Erbse]), τὸν
ποιητὸν φάναι (Heracl. Pont. fr. 41 Wehrli), οἱ φιλόσοφοι, φάσκοντες (Ath. 65 f). See also cf. other
taboos in OF 647.
 Hdt. 2.81 (OF 650) ὁμολογέει δὲ ταῦτα τοῖσι Ὀρφικοῖσι καλεομένοισι καὶ Βακχικοῖσι ἐοῦσι δὲ
Αἰγυπτίοισι, καὶ Πυθαγορείοισι.
 E. Cret. fr. 472.16 Kannicht.
 Apul. Apol. 56 (OF 651) quippe lana, segnissimi corporis excrementum, pecori detracta iam
inde Orphei et Pythagorae scitis profanus vestitus est.
 Philostr. VA 6.11.
refer the same prohibition.³⁹ This practice probably supports the doctrine of the
soul’s transmigration that I will discuss later on.
3 Hesitation in the attribution of works

3.1 Short cosmological poems
We find several examples where an Orphic passage or even a work is ascribed to

Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, where Pythagorean works or passages are as-
cribed to Orpheus or where both names are simply mentioned together. I will
start with the testimonia about the short poems on the constitution of the
world or on the physical world which claim that these poems were ascribed to
Orpheus although in fact they were written by prominent Pythagoreans:⁴⁰
They say that the Crateres of Orpheus are works of Zopyrus of Heraclea …
Epigenes, in his book About the Poems of Orpheus, says that the Descent to
Hades and the Sacred Discourse were the work of Cecrops the Pythagorean;
but the Peplus and the Physics were written by Brontinus.⁴¹
He (sc. Orpheus) wrote … The Crateres are said to be the work of Zopyrus, … the Peplus and
the Net some authors attribute to Zopyrus of Heraclea but according to others these are the
work of Brontinus. And the Physics, they say, is the work of Brontinus.⁴²
3.2 The Lyre, the Rhapsodies and the Hymn to Number
Varro says that another poem, the Lyre, which is ascribed to Orpheus in the scho-
lia on the Aeneid,⁴³ says that ‘souls cannot ascend without a lyre’.⁴⁴ This claim
 However, Diogenes Laertius 8.19 affirms that Pythagoras wore woollen garments because
there was not linen yet in those regions, something which is weird. This seems to contradict
other authors claiming that he used linen garments.
 Testimonies are collected and commented in OF 403 – 405; cf. West 1983, pp. 7 ff., Brisson
1990, 2925 f., Kingsley 1995, pp. 140 f., Zhmud 1997, p. 118, and Bernabé 2008, pp. 394– 400.
 Clem. Al. Strom. 1.21.131.3 τὸν Κρατῆρα δὲ τὸν Ὀρφέως Ζωπύρου τοῦ Ἡρακλεώτου (sc. εἶναι
λέγουσι) … Ἐπιγένης δὲ ἐν τοῖς Περὶ τῆς εἰς Ὀρφέα ποιήσεως Κέρκωπος εἶναι λέγει τοῦ
Πυθαγορείου τὴν Εἰς Ἅιδου κατάβασιν καὶ τὸν Ἱερὸν λόγον, τὸν δὲ Πέπλον καὶ τὰ Φυσικὰ
Βροντίνου.
 Suda s. v. Ὀρφεύς ἔγραψε … Κρατῆρας· ταῦτα Ζωπύρου φασί· … Πέπλον καὶ Δίκτυον· καὶ
ταῦτα Ζωπύρου τοῦ Ἡρακλεώτου, οἱ δὲ Βροτίνου· … καὶ Φυσικά, ἃ Βροτίνου φασίν.
 Schol. Verg. Aen. 6.119 ap. Cod. Par. Lat. 7930 (prim. ed. Savage, TAPA 56, 1925, 235 = OF 417,
cf. 418 – 420); cf. Nock 1927, pp. 169 ff. and 1929, pp. 60 f., Keydell 1942, col. 1336, Ziegler 1942,
coincides with a testimony mentioned by Aristides Quintilian, according to

which Pythagoras asked his fellows to play the lyre at the moment of his death.⁴⁵
Even the longest poem ever ascribed to the Orphics, the so-called Rhapso-
dies, is attributed to a Pythagorean:
This Orphic poem (the Rhapsodies) is said to be the work of a Pythagorean, a
certain Cercops.⁴⁶
He (sc. Orpheus) wrote … Sacred Discourse in Twenty-four Rhapsodies, they say it was writ-
ten by Theognetus the Thessalian, but others say it was written by Cercops, the Pythagor-
ean.⁴⁷
This may explain the fact that, as I mentioned above, Plutarch and Stobaeus⁴⁸
ascribe to a Pythagorean a verse that can be considered as the ‘seal’ of the Or-
phic poems.⁴⁹ Nothing could be more appropriate than using the σφραγίς of
the mythical singer.⁵⁰
Finally, Lydus and the author of the Theologoumena arithmetica consider
that the Pythagorean Hymn to Number is inspired by or taken from Orpheus.⁵¹
col. 1412, Cumont 1942 [1966] add. to p. 18, Burkert 1972, p. 357, West 1983, pp. 29 ff., Lambardi
1986, pp. 125 ff., Paterlini 1992, Bernabé 2008, pp. 399 – 400.
 Negantur animae sine cithara posse ascendere.
 Ar. Quint. De mus. 3.2. διὸ καὶ Πυθαγόραν φασὶ τὴν ἐντεῦθεν ἀπαλλαγὴν ποιούμενον
μονοχορδίζειν τοῖς ἑταίροις παραινέσαι κτλ., cf. Burkert 1972, p. 357 n. 37.
 Cic. ND 1.107 OF 889 I: hoc Orphicum carmen Pythagorei ferunt cuiusdam fuisse Cercopis. West
1983, p. 250 considers this attribution a mistake.
 Suda s. v. Ὀρφεύς ἔγραψε … Ἱεροὺς λόγους ἐν ῥαψῳδίαις κδʹ· λέγονται δὲ εἶναι Θεογνήτου
τοῦ Θεσσαλοῦ, οἱ δὲ Κέρκωπος τοῦ Πυθαγορείου.
 Plu. fr. *202 Sandbach and Stob. Flor. 3.41.9 (OF 1 I and IV).
 ἀείσω ξυνετοῖσι· θύρας δ᾽ ἐπίθεσθε, βέβηλοι ‘I will speak for those entitled: close your doors,
ye profane’.
 Bernabé 1996, p. 71, 1996a, p. 22, 1998, p.60. Cf. other interpretations in Lobeck 1829, p. 452,
Nauck after Iamblich. VP 238 (fr. XVIII), Hense ad Stob. loc. III 151, West 1983, p. 83, n. 29.
 Io. Lyd. De mens. 2.12 33.8 Wünsch (OF 700 I) οἵ γε μὴν Πυθαγόρειοι τῷ ἡγεμόνι τοῦ παντὸς
τὴν ἑβδόμην ἀνατίθενται … καὶ μάρτυς Ὀρφεὺς κτλ., Theol. Arithm. 48.6 De Falco (OF 697) ὅτι
τὴν ἑξάδα ὁλομέλειαν προσηγόρευον οἱ Πυθαγορικοὶ κατακολουθοῦντες Ὀρφεῖ, cf. 78.6 De Falco
(OF 701) Κουρήτιδα δὲ ἰδίως καὶ Ὀρφεὺς καὶ Πυθαγόρας αὐτὴν τὴν ἐννεάδα ἐκάλουν.
4 Attribution of the doctrines

4.1 Doctrines on the physical world
Obviously, if there are works that are indifferently attributed to Orpheus or to Py-
thagoras it is because the doctrines they contain were also considered character-
istic of both the Orphics and the Pythagoreans. However, besides the cases men-
tioned in the previous section, we have a great number of documents speaking of
specific doctrines that were also ascribed to both Pythagoreans and Orphics.
a) Starting with the doctrines on the physical world, the use of the term ῥί-
ζωμα, a vegetal metaphor to designate the ‘roots’ of the things, that is, ‘the con-
stituent elements of reality’, is employed by Empedocles as well as by the Or-
phics and the Pythagoreans.
The four roots of all things hear first.⁵²
(Aither) root of all things.⁵³
The tetractys, source and root of ever-flowing nature.⁵⁴
However, this meaning is not documented in other writings, a fact that leads us
to consider the existence of a relationship between the aforementioned authors.
b) The idea that every star is a piece of earth surrounded by air is ascribed to
both Orphics and Pythagoreans
Heraclides and the Pythagoreans think that each of the stars is a kosmos and
that the earth is surrounded by air in the infinite ether. This view is to be found
in the Orphic poems since they turn every star into a single world.⁵⁵
c) In line with the previous idea, Proclus compares several Pythagorean and
Orphic theories on the earth and the moon:⁵⁶
 Emp. fr. 7 Wright = 6 D.-K. τέσσαρα τῶν πάντων ῥιζώματα πρῶτον ἄκουε. Transl. by D.
Graham.
 Procl. in Pl. Tim. I 428.4 Diehl (OF 116): (Αἰθήρ) πάντων ῥίζωμα.
 Pythagor. 58 B 15 D.– K. τετρακτύν, παγὰν ἀενάου φύσεος ῥίζωμά τ᾽ ἔχουσαν.
 Galen. Hist. phil. 56 (OF 30 II) Ἡρακλείδης δὲ (fr. 113c Wehrli) καὶ οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι (I p. 404 n. 2
D.-K.) ἕκαστον τῶν ἀστέρων κόσμον εἶναι νομίζουσι γῆν περιέχοντα καὶ αἰθέρα ἐν τῷ ἀπείρῳ
ἀέρι. ταῦτα δὲ τὰ δόγματα ἐν ἐνίοις Ὀρφικοῖς φέρεσθαι λέγουσι κοσμοποιοῦσι τῶν ἀστέρων
ἕκαστον. Cf. Aët. Plac. 2.13.15, etc. (OF 30 I), Plu. De plac. philos. 888F, Stob. Flor. 1.24.1 I 204.21
Wachsm. (= Doxogr. 343.7), Euseb. Praep. Ev. 15.30.8.
 Procl. in Pl. Tim. II 48.15 Diehl (OF 155 I) οἱ δὲ Πυθαγόρειοι ἔλεγον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ θεωρεῖσθαι
τὰ στοιχεῖα διχῶς, ἄλλως μὲν πρὸ ἡλίου, ἄλλως δὲ μετὰ ἥλιον. γῆ μὲν γὰρ αἰθερία ἡ σελήνη cf. III
172.20 (OF 157) τοῦτο μὲν οὖν καὶ ὁ θεολόγος εἴρηκε σαφῶς (OF 155)·
The Pythagoreans said that, in the sky, the elements could be noticed in two different ser-
ies; the first one is before the sun and the other behind the sun.⁵⁷ In fact, in the ether the
moon is the earth;⁵⁸ the theologian (i. e. Orpheus) said that clearly (OF 155):
And he contrived another vast earth: Selene
the immortals call it, but men on earth Mene.
Many mountains it has, many cities, many halls (Transl. M. L. West).
These could be ancient verses, since they may come from the Derveni theogony,
where it is said that Zeus ‘contrived the Earth and the Sky’⁵⁹ and we know of later
references to the moon.⁶⁰
d) Through Clement we know that Epigenes (an obscure author and proba-
bly the commentator on some Orphic poems) reported the existence of several
coincidences between the Orphic references to the moon’s phases and the Pytha-
gorean tradition.
Epigenes claims that Orpheus called the phases of the moon ‘Moirai’ and
that he called the spring ‘the flowering’ … these things were said by the theolo-
gian (Orpheus). Also the Pythagoreans spoke allegorically about such things.⁶¹
4.2 Theory of the transmigration of souls
This theory is systematically attributed to Orphics, Pythagoreans or to both

groups at the same time and it is considered a hallmark of the two movements,
since before Plato there is no evidence of this concept in other authors except
Pherecydes: two testimonies state that he had held that the soul is immortal
and was the teacher of Pythagoras.⁶²
μήσατό τ᾽ ἄλλην γαῖαν ἀπείριτον, ἥν τε σελήνην

ἀθάνατοι κλῄζουσιν, ἐπιχθόνιοι δέ τε μήνην,
ἣ πόλλ᾽ οὔρε᾽ ἔχει, πόλλ᾽ ἄστεα, πολλὰ μέλεθρα.
 Cf. Festugière’s note ad loc. p. 78.
 Cf. Procl. in Ti. III 172.20 καὶ γὰρ οὐρανίαν {καὶ} 〈γῆν〉 τὴν σελήνην Ὀρφεὺς προσηγόρευσε.
 OF 16 [μήσατο δ᾽αὖ] Γαῖάν [τε καὶ] Οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν [ὕπερθεν], / μήσατο δ᾽ Ὀκεανοῖο μέγα
σθένος εὐρὺ ῥέοντος. Cf. West 1983, p. 92.
 Col. XXIV.
 Clem. Al. Strom. 5.8.49.3 (OF 407 I) Ἐπιγένης … φησι … Μοίρας … τὰ μέρη τῆς σελήνης, …
καλεῖν τὸν Ὀρφέα … πάλιν ἄνθιον … τὸ ἔαρ κτλ…. λέγεσθαι παρὰ τῷ θεολόγῳ. τοιαῦτα καὶ οἱ
Πυθαγόρειοι ᾐνίσσοντο κτλ., cf. Plu. de Iside 364 A τὸ ὑπὸ τῶν Πυθαγορικῶν λεγόμενον κτλ.
and Porphyr. VP 41.
 Cic. Tusc. 1.16.38 = Pherecyd. fr. 7 Schibli (Pherecydes Syrius primus dixit animos esse ho-
minum sempiternos, … hanc opinionem discipulus eius Pythagoras maxime confirmavit). The
source seems to be Posidonius of Apamea; cf. other testimonies in Schibli 1990, 105 n. 2; Suda, s.
Aside from these references to Pherecydes, the sources standardly attribute

the doctrines of the immortality and transmigration of the soul to the Pythagor-
eans or to the Orphics, but they disagree about the origin (some hold that the
doctrines were Orphic in origin and others hold that the Pythagoreans invented
them). Among modern authors we observe a similar situation: some consider
that the Orphic doctrine of the transmigration was taken over by Pythagoras.⁶³
whereas others claim that it was a Pythagorean idea that was adopted by the Or-
phics.⁶⁴ Casadesús (2008) has recently dealt with this question and he has
reached a less drastic and much more convincing interpretation. Following my
original purpose, though, I will focus here on the ancient points of view.
Regarding Pythagoras, the oldest testimony comes from Xenophanes:⁶⁵
And they say that once he was passing by when a puppy was being beaten,
and he felt compassion and said this:
‘Stop, don’t beat it, since in truth it is the soul of a friend
which I recognized upon hearing it cry out’.
There is general agreement that the passage implies that Xenophanes knew
about a Pythagorean theory of metempsychosis and that there is a clear touch
of humor, but the question here is whether this is a mockery of the theory as
such or if it has to do, as Lesher (1992, pp. 78 – 79) says, with Pythagoras’ arro-
gance when he boasts of his own wisdom.
I have already mentioned that according to Ion of Chios,⁶⁶ Pythagoras him-
self attributed some of his own writings to Orpheus. In this way,⁶⁷ we can say
v. “Pherekydēs” = Pherecyd. fr. 2 Schibli (πρῶτον τὸν περὶ τῆς μετεμψυχώσεως λόγον
εἰσηγήσασθαι).
 Rathmann 1933, passim, Nilsson 1935, pp. 212ff; 1967, pp. 701 f., Linforth 1941, pp. 38 ff., 156 f.,
Jaeger 1947, p. 105; 1959, pp. 135– 147, Guthrie 1935, pp. 216 ff., cf. also Bluck 1961, pp. 61 ff. and
274 ff.
 Lobeck 1829, pp. 247 ff., 330 f. and 350 f., Festugière 1936, p. 307, Wilamowitz 1959, p. 185, but
cf. the arguments by Casadio 1991, pp. 119 ff., cf. also Claus 1981, pp. 111 ff., Zhmud 1997,
pp. 117 ff., Tortorelli Ghidini 2000, pp. 16 f., Brisson 2000, pp. 247 ff., Bremmer 2002, pp. 23 f.
 Xenophan. 7 Lesher καί ποτέ μιν στυφελιζομένου σκύλακος παριόντα / φασὶν ἐποικτῖραι καὶ
τόδε φάσθαι ἔπος· / ῾παῦσαι μηδὲ ῤάπιζ᾽, ἐπεὶ ἦ φίλου ἀνέρος ἐστίν / ψυχή, τὴν ἔγνων φθεγ-
ξαμένης ἀίων’. Transl. by J. H. Lesher.
 Ion fr. 116 Leurini, cf. § 1.2 n. 7.
 Burkert 1972, p. 129: “what Ion meant was that the real author of certain poems circulating
under the name of Orpheus was Pythagoras”, cf. Zeller 1889, p. 990, Tannery 1897, pp. 190 ff.,
Wilamowitz 31959, p. 191 n. 1, Kranz 1935, p. 114, Rathmann 1933, p. 43, Linforth 1941, pp. 110 ff.,
Turcan 1956, pp. 136 f., Graf 1974, pp. 92 f., West 1983, pp. 7 f., Leurini ad loc.; Riedweg 2008, p. 53,
Casertano 2000, p. 211, Brisson 2000, p. 246.
that Ion believed that Pythagoras was the author of certain poems that circulated
under the name of Orpheus. There are reasons to believe that the Orphic poems
contained several doctrines that have been considered Pythagorean, especially
the theory of soul transmigration.⁶⁸
In his verses, Empedocles not only connects this doctrine of transmigration
with the non-consumption of meat, as we have already seen.⁶⁹ He also mentions
Pythagoras:⁷⁰
There was a man among them of extraordinary knowledge [sc. Pythagoras]

who had earned the greatest wealth of wit,
of every sort of especially wise works the master.
For whenever he reached out with all his wits,
easily did he behold each of all existing things
for ten or even twenty generations of men.
This is why the Christians and the Neoplatonists considered Empedocles an ‘Or-
phic and a Pythagorean’:
Since he is a Pythagorean, how could Empedocles ever reject the Orphic principles or the
Pythagorean ones?⁷¹
Since (Empedocles) is an Orphic and a Pythagorean.⁷²
In a famous passage of his second book, Herodotus refers to those who hold the
theory of transmigration:
Moreover, the Egyptians were the first to teach that the human soul is immortal, and at the
death of the body it enters into some other living thing then coming to birth; and after pass-
ing through all creatures of land, sea, and air (which cycle it completes in three thousand
years) it enters once more into a human body at birth. Some of the Greeks, early and late,
have used this doctrine as if it were their own; I know their names, but do not here record
them.⁷³
 Zhmud (1997, p. 118): ‘daraus läßt sich schließen, daß zu Lebzeiten Ions … orphische
Dichtungen zirkulieren, die die Lehre von der Seelenwanderung enthalten’.
 Cf. § 2.3.
 Emped. fr. 129 D.-K. in Porphyr. VP 30 – 31. Transl. by D. Graham.
 Syrian. in Arist. Met. 11.35 Kroll (OF 1108 II) ἐπεὶ καὶ Πυθαγόρειος ὢν Ἐμπεδοκλῆς πῶς ἂν τὰς
Ὀρφικὰς ἢ τὰς Πυθαγορείους ἀρχὰς ἠθέτησεν;
 Epiph. Const. Haer. 43.11 Kroll (OF 111 III, 1108 III) ἀλλὰ γὰρ Πυθαγόρειον ὄντα καὶ Ὀρφικὸν
(sc. Ἐμπεδοκλέα) κτλ.
 Hdt. 2.123.1 ἀρχηγετεύειν δὲ τῶν κάτω Αἰγύπτιοι λέγουσι Δήμητρα καὶ Διόνυσον. πρῶτοι δὲ
καὶ τόνδε τὸν λόγον Αἰγύπτιοί εἰσι οἱ εἰπόντες, ὡς ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴ ἀθάνατός ἐστι, τοῦ σώματος
δὲ καταφθίνοντος ἐς ἄλλο ζῷον αἰεὶ γινόμενον ἐσδύεται· ἐπεὰν δὲ πάντα περιέλθῃ τὰ χερσαῖα
Herodotus knew well the Orphics and the Pythagoreans, who were undoubtedly
active at Thurii, the city that hosted him as a citizen. Among the hypothesis pro-
posed by modern authors regarding the identity of these Greeks,⁷⁴ I consider Bur-
kert’s the most acceptable. According to it, Herodotus is referring to Empedocles
and the Pythagoreans, thinking, however, that the Pythagoreans were the same
as the Orphics. Moreover, in refusing to name the Greeks who accept the doc-
trines in question he is probably practicing the practice of silence enjoined on
initiates who must not reveal what is said at the mysteries.
Plato also writes several passages on the theory of the soul’s immortality
and transmigration but he never mentions the Pythagoreans and rarely the Or-
phics.⁷⁵ Instead, he uses more complex and obscure expressions.⁷⁶
This is the case for a passage of the Meno: ⁷⁷
For I have heard from wise men and women who told of things divine … they were certain
priests and priestesses who have studied so as to be able to give a reasoned account of their
ministry; and Pindar also and many other poets endowed with heavenly gifts … they say
that the soul of man is immortal, and at one time it comes to an end, which is called
dying, and at another it is born again, but never perishes.
It has been discussed who are the men and women experts in the divine, the
priests and priestesses who are interested in giving an account of what they
do and who proclaim the immortality and reincarnation of souls referred to by
the philosopher. It seems to me most likely that “priests and priestesses” fits bet-
καὶ τὰ θαλάσσια καὶ τὰ πετεινά, αὖτις ἐς ἀνθρώπου σῶμα γινόμενον ἐσδύνειν· τὴν περιήλυσιν δὲ
αὐτῇ γίνεσθαι ἐν τρισχιλίοισι ἔτεσι. τούτῳ τῷ λόγῳ εἰσὶ οἳ Ἑλλήνων ἐχρήσαντο, οἱ μὲν πρότερον,
οἱ δὲ ὕστερον, ὡς ἰδίῳ ἑωυτῶν ἐόντι· τῶν ἐγὼ εἰδὼς τὰ οὐνόματα οὐ γράφω. Transl. A. D.
Godley. Cf. also Zographou 1995, p. 187, Sorel 1995, p. 81 n. 1, Casertano 2000, p. 204 f., Brisson
2000, pp. 251 f.
 a) Orphics and Pythagoras: Zeller 1889, p. 993, Nilsson 31967, I p. 701, Montégu 1959, p. 83,
Morrison 1956, p. 137, Casadio 1991, pp. 128 ff., Zhmud 1997, pp. 118 f; b) Orphics and Empedocles:
Rathmann 1933, pp. 48 ff., not rejecting a; c) Pythagoras and Empedocles: Long 1948, pp. 22,
Kirk, Raven & Schofield 21983, pp. 210 f.; d) Pythagoras and Empedocles, but for Herodotus
Orphics and Pythagoreans are the same cf. 2.81 = OF 650, sec. Burkert 1972, p. 126 n. 38,
Bernabé, OF ad loc.
 The Orphics are alluded as ‘Orpheus and his followers’ in Cra. 400c, cf. infra.
 Cf. Bernabé 2011, pp. 19 – 47.
 Men. 81a OF 424 ἀκήκοα γὰρ ἀνδρῶν τε καὶ γυναικῶν σοφῶν περὶ τὰ θεῖα πράγματα … οἱ μὲν
λέγοντές εἰσι τῶν ἱερέων τε καὶ τῶν ἱερειῶν ὅσοις μεμέληκε περὶ ὧν μεταχειρίζονται λόγον οἵοις
τ᾽ εἶναι διδόναι· λέγει δὲ καὶ Πίνδαρος καὶ ἄλλοι πολλοὶ τῶν ποιητῶν ὅσοι θεῖοί εἰσιν…. φασὶ γὰρ
τὴν ψυχὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου εἶναι ἀθάνατον, καὶ τοτὲ μὲν τελευτᾶν – ὃ δὴ ἀποθνῄσκειν καλοῦσι –
τοτὲ δὲ πάλιν γίγνεσθαι, ἀπόλλυσθαι δ᾽ οὐδέποτε. Transl. by W. R. M. Lamb.
ter with the Orphics and that Plato’s description perfectly matches other forms of
analysis, such as the one that is shown by the Derveni commentator.⁷⁸
In another passage, Plato points out:⁷⁹
Let us consider it by asking whether the souls of men who have died are in the nether world
or not. There is an ancient tradition, which we remember, that they go there from here and
came back here again and are born from the dead.
In this case, Plato is not clear about his source, even if the ‘ancient tradition’ is
probably a way to allude to the Orphics. Damascius and Olympiodorus assert
that the source is both Orphic and Pythagorean.⁸⁰ Finally, the ‘ancient and sa-
cred discourse’ is mentioned again in Letter VII,⁸¹ which refers the immortality
of the soul and the possibility of punishments in the Beyond.
Heraclides Ponticus⁸² affirms that Pythagoras knew all his reincarnations, a
fact that reveals an ancient attribution of the metempsychosis theory to his cir-
cle.
Diodorus Siculus also relates the Samian to this doctrine:
Pythagoras believed in the transmigration of souls and considered the eating of flesh as an
abominable thing, saying that the souls of all living creatures pass after death into other
living creatures.⁸³
 Cf. Rathmann 1933, pp. 66 f., Nilsson 1935, p. 213, Linforth 1941, p. 345, Guthrie 1952, p. 164,
Bluck 1961, pp. 275 ff., Boyancé 1974, p. 109, West 1983, p. 112, Casadio 1991, p. 130, Pugliese
Carratelli 1993, p. 26, Brisson 1999, pp. 23 ff.
 Pl. Phaed. 70c OF 428 σκεψώμεθα δὲ αὐτὸ τῆιδέ πηι, εἴτ᾽ ἄρα ἐν Ἅιδου εἰσὶν αἱ ψυχαὶ
τελευτησάντων τῶν ἀνθρώπων εἴτε καὶ οὔ. παλαιὸς μὲν οὖν ἔστι τις λόγος οὗ μεμνήμεθα, ὡς
εἰσὶν ἐνθένδε ἀφικόμεναι ἐκεῖ, καὶ πάλιν γε δεῦρο ἀφικνοῦνται καὶ γίγνονται ἐκ τῶν τεθνεώτων.
Transl. by H. N. Fowler.
 Olympiod. in Pl. Phaed. 10.6 (145 Westerink, OF 428 II) Ὀρφικὸς γάρ ἐστι καὶ Πυθαγόρειος,
Damasc. in Pl. Phaed. 1.203 (123 Westerink, OF 428 III) ‘παλαιὸς’ ὁ λόγος, Ὀρφικός τε γὰρ καὶ
Πυθαγόρειος.
 Pl. Ep. 7.335a πείθεσθαι δὲ ὄντως ἀεὶ χρὴ τοῖς παλαιοῖς τε καὶ ἱεροῖς λόγοις, οἳ δὴ μηνύουσιν
ἡμῖν ἀθάνατον ψυχὴν εἶναι δικαστάς τε ἴσχειν καὶ τίνειν τὰς μεγίστας τιμωρίας, ὅταν τις
ἀπαλλαχθῇ τοῦ σώματος.
 Heraclid. Fr. 89 Wehrli. According to Delatte (1922, p. 157), Heraclides’ notice comes from
Pythagoreans circles of 6th. to 4th. centuries. Cf. also Iamblich. VP 134.
 D. S. 10.6.1 ὅτι ὁ Πυθαγόρας μετεμψύχωσιν ἐδόξαζε καὶ κρεοφαγίαν ὡς ἀποτρόπαιον ἡγεῖτο,
πάντων τῶν ζῴων τὰς ψυχὰς μετὰ θάνατον εἰς ἕτερα ζῷα λέγων εἰσέρχεσθαι. Transl. by C. H.
Oldfather.
For the belief of Pythagoras prevails among them [the Gauls] that the souls of men are im-
mortal and that after a prescribed number of years they commence upon a new life, the
soul entering into another body.⁸⁴
Ovid puts into the mouth of Pythagoras both the theory of metempsychosis and
all the memories of his previous identities:⁸⁵
As for your bodies, whether the burning pyre or long lapse of time with its wasting
power shall have consumed them, be sure they cannot sufer any ills.
Our souls are deathless, and ever, when they have left their former
seat, do they live new abodes and dwell in the bodies that have received them.
I myself (for I well remember it) at the time of the Trojan war
was Euphorbus, son of Panthoüs.
Porphyry, in his Life of Pythagoras,⁸⁶ echoes that Pythagoras introduced for the
first time into Greece several opinions about the soul, including the doctrines of
its immortality and its transmigration to other species of living beings.
However, Diogenes of Oenoanda (2nd A. D.) attributes this theory to both the
Orphics and the Pythagoreans:⁸⁷
And let us not say that the soul transmigrated and did not perish as the Orphics and not
only Pythagoras, crazily suppose.
And two Orphic verses reaffirm the immortality of the soul:
The soul of all things is immortal, but their bodies are mortal.⁸⁸
The soul, immortal and insensitive to ageing, comes from Zeus.⁸⁹
 D. S. 5.28.6 = Posidon. fr. 169 (139.6 Theiler) ἐνισχύει γὰρ παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς ὁ Πυθαγόρου λόγος, ὅτι
τὰς ψυχὰς τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀθανάτους εἶναι συμβέβηκε καὶ δι᾽ ἐτῶν ὡρισμένων πάλιν βιοῦν, εἰς
ἕτερον σῶμα τῆς ψυχῆς εἰσδυομένης. Transl. by C. H. Oldfather.
 Ov. Met. 15.156ss. corpora, sive rogus flamma seu tabe vetustas / abstulerit, mala posse pati
non ulla putetis! / morte carent animae semperque priore relicta / sede novis domibus vivunt
habitantque receptae: / (ipse ego nam memini) Troiani tempore belli / Panthoides Euphorbus
eram. Transl. by F. J. Miller.
 Porphyr. VP 19.
 Diog. Oen. fr. 40 Smith [μηδὲ λέγωμεν ὅτι ἡ ψυχὴ] μ̣ε[ταβαίνουσα οὐκ ἀ]πώλλ[υτο, ὡς οἱ
Ὀρφεῖ]ο̣ι,̣ καὶ Πυθαγ[όρας οὐ] μόνος, μαιν[όμενοι δοκοῦσιν]. Transl. by M. F. Smith.
 Vett. Val. 317.19 Pingree (OF 425) ψυχὴ δ᾽ ἀθάνατος πάντων, τὰ δὲ σώματα θνητά.
 Vett. Val. 317.19 Pingree (OF 426) ψυχὴ δ᾽ ἀθάνατος καὶ ἀγήρως ἐκ Διός ἐστιν.
4.3 Mechanics of transmigration
There are also documents ascribing to one group or the other the mechanics of
transmigration, that is, the way the soul penetrates into a new living being.
On this subject, there is a curious double testimony of Aristotle who, in a
passage of De anima ascribes this doctrine to the Orphics:⁹⁰
The same objection lies against the view expressed in the ‘Orphic’ poems, for it says that
the soul comes in from the whole when breathing takes place, being borne in upon the
winds.
In contrast, a few chapters earlier, in the same work, he attributes a very similar
theory to the ‘Pythagorean myths’:⁹¹
As if it were possible, as in the Pythagorean myths, that any soul would be clothed in any
body.
In this case, Aristotle does not indicate the way in which a soul travels from one
body to another but the idea of an aleatory presence of any soul in any body sug-
gests that we are facing the same model as in the previous passage.⁹² This does
not surprise us since all the ancient sources seem to attribute a common field of
doctrine to the Orphics and the Pythagoreans.
In fact, there is an Orphic verse that asserts this idea:⁹³
When we breathe the air we collect the divine soul
Contrary to what it may seem, this “mechanical” explanation of the soul’s pen-
etration into a new body is not incompatible with the assertion that souls receive
rewards and punishments in the Beyond. In the Rhapsodies it is claimed that an-
imal souls do not go to Hades but fly in the air until another body receives them,
whereas human souls are taken to Hades by Hermes.⁹⁴ Gregory of Nazianzus, for
 Arist. De an. 410b 27 (OF 421) τοῦτο δὲ πέπονθε καὶ ὁ ἐν τοῖς Ὀρφικοῖς καλουμένοις ἔπεσι
λόγος· φησὶ γὰρ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐκ τοῦ ὅλου εἰσιέναι ἀναπνεόντων, φερομένην ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνέμων.
Transl. by J. A. Smith.
 Arist. De an. 407b 21 ὥσπερ ἐνδεχόμενον κατὰ τοὺς Πυθαγορικοὺς μύθους τὴν τυχοῦσαν
ψυχὴν εἰς τὸ τυχὸν ἐνδύεσθαι σῶμα. Transl. by J. A. Smith, cf. Nilsson 1935, 212.
 About body as clothing for the soul cf. Gigante 1973.
 Vett. Val. 317.19 Pingree (OF 422) ἀέρα δ᾽ ἕλκοντες ψυχὴν θείαν δρεπόμεσθα.
 OF 339.
his part, attributes the two beliefs to the same people, even if he does not specify
who they are:⁹⁵
I know of yet another account, though again not one I shall ever accept myself. For I could
not believe in some common soul separated into parts for me and everyone else, a soul
which wanders restlessly through the air. It would thus have to be the same for everyone,
breathed in and out.
(…)
This is the fantasy of foolish men, the kind of trifling found in books. These people allot to
the soul the fate of a constantly changing succession of bodies to correspond with their for-
mer lives, whether good or bad, either as a reward for virtue or as some form of punishment
for wrongdoing. It was as if in an undignified way they were changing a man’s clothes, ex-
erting themselves pointlessly in putting them on and taking them off. Dragging in some
wheel like the arch-sinner Ixion’s, they have concocted tales about a wild beast, a plant,
a mortal, a bird, a snake, a dog, and a fish. Often each state comes round twice, when
the cycle requires it.
In this case, we may explain the attribution to both Orphics and Pythagoreans if
we accept Gagné’s proposal according to which this idea was found in the poem
Φυσικά, that was ascribed to Orpheus but actually written by Bro(n)tinos, that is,
a Pythagorean.⁹⁶
4.4 σῶμα-σῆμα
However, there is an aspect of this theory in which we should give priority to the
Orphics, I mean, the idea of the body as a tomb for the soul, correlative to the
consideration of the earthly life as an unreal life, where the soul lies as if
dead while it is in the body.
In two different dialogues, Plato echoes the Orphic idea of the body as a
tomb of the soul:
 Gr. Naz. Carm. arcana 7.22– 25 y 32– 40 (34 Moreschini) (OF 421) οἶδα δὲ καὶ λόγον ἄλλον, ὃν
οὔ ποτε δέξομ᾽ ἔγωγε, / οὐδὲ γὰρ αὖ ξυνή τις ἐμοὶ καὶ πᾶσι μεριστὴ / ψυχὴ πλαζομένη τε δι᾽
ἠέρος. ὧδ᾽ ἂν ὁμοίη / πᾶσι πέλοι πνευστή τε καὶ ἔκπνοος· / (…) / οὐ πινυτῶν ὅδε μῦθος, ἐτώσια
παίγνια βίβλων, / οἳ καὶ σώματα πολλὰ βίοις προτέροισιν ὅμοια / ἐσθλοῖς ἠδὲ κακοῖς, ψυχῇ δόσαν
αἰὲν ἀμείβειν, / ἢ τιμὴν ἀρετῆς, ἢ ἀμπλακίης τινὰ ποινήν· / εἵμασιν ὥς τινα φῶτα μετενδύοντες
ἀκόσμως, / ἠὲ μετεκδύοντες, ἐτώσια μοχθίζοντες, / Ἰξίονος κύκλον τιν᾽ ἀλιτροτάτοιο φέροντες, /
θῆρα, φυτόν, βροτόν, ὄρνιν, ὄφιν, κύνα, ἰχθὺν ἔτευξαν. / πολλάκι καὶ δὶς ἕκαστον, ἐπὴν τὸ δὲ
κύκλος ἀνώγῃ. Transl. by C. Moreschini. Cf. Herrero de Jáuregui 2007 and 2010, pp. 213 ff.
 Cf. Clem. Al. Strom. 1.21.131.3, Suda s.v. Orpheus, quoted in § 3.1 and Gagné 2007.
For some say that it [the body] is a tomb of the soul which is conceived of as buried in our
present life … However it seems to me that the Orphics most of all originated this name
etc.⁹⁷
And we really, it may be, are dead; in fact I once heard one of our sages say that we are now
dead, and the body is our tomb.⁹⁸
Clement of Alexandria collects another reference to the same idea from the text
of Philolaos, a prominent Pythagorean:⁹⁹
It is worthwhile to mention the text of Philolaus as well. The Pythagorean says the follow-
ing: “The ancient theologians and seers also give witness that on account of certain pen-
alties the soul is yoked to the body and is buried in it as in a tomb”.
Aristotle’s provides important evidence for determining the authorship of this

theory:¹⁰⁰
Which of us, looking at these facts, would think himself happy and blessed? For all of us
are from the very beginning (as they say in the initiation rites) shaped by nature as though
for punishment? For it is an inspired saying of the ancients that the soul pays penalties and
that we live in a state of punishment for great sins. For indeed the conjunction of the soul
with the body is very like this.
Thus, the doctrine that Philolaos the Pythagorean attributes to “the ancient the-
ologians and seers” (not to Pythagoras!) and that is ascribed to “the initiation
rites” by Aristotle, cannot be other than Orphic, although there were still
many Pythagoreans interested in it, including Philolaos.
 Pl. Cratyl. 400c καὶ γὰρ σῆμά τινές φασιν αὐτὸ εἶναι τῆς ψυχῆς (sc. σῶμα), ὡς τεθαμμένης ἐν
τῷ νῦν παρόντι … δοκοῦσι μέντοι μοι μάλιστα θέσθαι οἱ ἀμφὶ Ὀρφέα τοῦτο τὸ ὄνομα κτλ. Transl.
by C. A. Huffman. Cf. Bernabé 1995 and 2011, pp. 115 – 143.
 Pl. Gorg. 493a καὶ ἡμεῖς τῷ ὄντι ἴσως τέθναμεν· ἤδη γάρ του ἔγωγε καὶ ἤκουσα τῶν σοφῶν
ὡς νῦν ἡμεῖς τέθναμεν καὶ τὸ μὲν σῶμά ἐστιν ἡμῖν σῆμα. Transl. by C. A. Huffman.
 Clem. Al. Strom. 3.3.17.1 ἄξιον δὲ καὶ τῆς Φιλολάου (44 B 14 D.-K., p. 402 ff. Huffman) λέξεως
μνημονεῦσαι· λέγει γὰρ ὁ Πυθαγόρειος ὧδε· “μαρτυρέονται δὲ καὶ οἱ παλαιοὶ θεολόγοι τε καὶ
μάντιες, ὡς διά τινας τιμωρίας ἁ ψυχὰ τῷ σώματι συνέζευκται καὶ καθάπερ ἐν σήματι τούτῳ
τέθαπται”. Huffman thinks that this fragment is spurious, following Burkert, Wilamowitz, Frank
and Bywater, but cf. Bernabé 2011, pp. 118 – 120.
 Arist. fr. 60 Rose, ap. Iamblich. Protr. 77.27 Des Places. τίς ἂν οὖν εἰς ταῦτα βλέπων οἴοιτο
εὐδαίμων εἶναι καὶ μακάριος, εἰ πρῶτον εὐθὺς φύσει συνίσταμεν, καθάπερ φασιν οἱ τὰς τελετὰς
λέγοντες, ὥσπερ ἂν ἐπὶ τιμωρίᾳ πάντες; τοῦτο γὰρ θείως οἱ ἀρχαιότεροι λέγουσι τὸ φάναι
διδόναι τὴν ψυχὴν τιμωρίαν καὶ ζῆν ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ κολάσει μεγάλων τινῶν ἁμαρτημάτων. πάνυ γὰρ ἡ
σύζευξις τοιούτῳ τινὶ ἔοικε πρὸς τὸ σῶμα τῆς ψυχῆς, cf. a similar reference in Augustin. c.
Pelag. 4 (15).78.
Nevertheless, the Orphics associated the idea of expiation that was implied
in the soul’s confinement in the body with the original crime of the Titans, a
myth of no interest to the Pythagoreans. Moreover, it seems that metempsycho-
sis, at least in the earliest expressions of the Pythagoreans, was not conceived as
a misfortune. In fact, Pythagoras was glad and proud to remember the ancestors
who had hosted his soul before.
4.5 κύκλος
The statement I have just made is also reflected in another feature that shows the
differences and similarities between the Orphic theory of transmigration and the
Pythagorean one. In both theories transmigration is described as a ‘cycle’ (κύ-
κλος), but the two groups view the cycle very differently. For the Pythagoreans,
the cycle is subject to necessity, probably because it is included in the regular
processes of the world order, as Diogenes Laertius asserts:¹⁰¹
He (sc. Pythagoras) was the first, they say, to declare that the soul, bound now in this crea-
ture, now in that, thus goes on a round ordained of necessity.
The Orphics, however, consider the cycle something terrible, for they interpret it
as the punishment the Titans received for their original crime. Thus, in a gold
tablet from Thurii a liberated soul proclaims:¹⁰²
I flew out of the painful cycle of deep sorrow,
whereas in a fragment of the Rhapsodies it is said that the followers of Orpheus

and Dionysus believe that Dionysus and Persephone were allowed¹⁰³
to cease from the cycle and enjoy respite from disgrace.
On the other hand, Gregory of Nazianzus’ mention of Ixion’s wheel¹⁰⁴ can be

seen, together with his two other references to the κύκλος, as a play on words,
 D. L. 8.14 πρῶτόν τέ φασι τοῦτον ἀποφῆναι τὴν ψυχὴν κύκλον ἀνάγκης ἀμείβουσαν ἄλλοτ᾽
ἄλλοις ἐνδεῖσθαι ζῴοις. Transl. by R. D. Hicks.
 Lam. Thur. (OF 488) 5 κύκλο〈υ〉 δ᾽ ἐξέπταν βαρυπενθέος ἀργαλέοιο.
 OF 348 κύκλου τε λέξαι καὶ ἀναψύξαι κακότητος.
 Cf. the verses by Greg. Naz. quoted in § 4.3 and n. 103.
since the term κύκλος also means ‘wheel’, that is, a well-known punishment in
the Antiquity.
4.6 Visions of the Beyond
According to the Orphics, after the expiation of the guilt inherited from the Ti-
tans, the soul obtains a happy destiny in the Beyond, which consists of a ban-
quet accompanied bywine. This is how we explain the reference in the tablet
from Pelinna, where wine is described as the “fortunate honor” of a man who
has just died.¹⁰⁵ Plato presents this perspective in a mocking way:¹⁰⁶
And Musaeus and his son have a more excellent song than these of the blessings that the
gods bestow on the righteous. For they conduct them to the house of Hades in their tale and
arrange a symposium of the saints, where, reclined on couches and crowned with wreaths,
they entertain the time henceforth with wine, as if the fairest meed of virtue were an ever-
lasting drunk.
Plutarch explains that Plato is talking about the followers of Orpheus:¹⁰⁷
Plato mocks the followers of Orpheus for declaring that for those who have lived rightly,
there is laid up in Hades a treasure of everlasting intoxication.
This vision of the Beyond was not shared by the Pythagoreans. Both the informa-
tion we obtain from Diogenes Laertius about Pythagoras calling drunkenness a
snare,¹⁰⁸ and the burlesque testimony of Aristophon, who presents the Pythagor-
eans in Hades as eating vegetables and drinking water (cf. § 2.2.), contradict this
vision.
But even in this field we may find some points of agreement between the Or-
phics and the Pythagoreans. This can be highlighted by comparing the testimony
 Lam. Pelinn. OF 485.6 οἶνον ἔχεις εὐδ〈α〉ίμονα τιμή〈ν〉.

 Pl. R.363c Μουσαῖος δὲ τούτων (sc. Hesiodi et Homeri) νεανικώτερα τἀγαθὰ καὶ ὁ ὑὸς
αὐτοῦ παρὰ θεῶν διδόασιν τοῖς δικαίοις· εἰς Ἅιδου γὰρ ἀγαγόντες τῷ λόγῳ καὶ κατακλίναντες καὶ
συμπόσιον τῶν ὁσίων κατασκευάσαντες ἐστεφανωμένους ποιοῦσιν τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον ἤδη
διάγειν μεθύοντας, ἡγησάμενοι κάλλιστον ἀρετῆς μισθὸν μέθην αἰώνιον. Transl. by P. Shorey. Cf.
Lobeck 1829, pp. 806 f.; 72; Tannery 1901, pp. 315 f.; Dieterich 21913; Nilsson 1935, pp. 209 ff.;
3
1967, p. 688, n. 4; Linforth 1941, pp. 85 ff.; Montégu 1959, p. 85; West 1983, pp. 23 f.; Velasco López
1992, p. 214; Casadio 1994, p. 85; Bernabé 1998, pp. 75 f.
 Plu. Comp. Cim. Luc. 1.2 (OF 431 II) Πλάτων ἐπισκώπτει τοὺς περὶ τὸν Ὀρφέα, τοῖς εὖ
βεβιωκόσι φάσκοντας ἀποκεῖσθαι γέρας ἐν Ἅιδου μέθην αἰώνιον. Transl. by B. Perrin.
 D. L. 8.9. τὴν μέθην ἓν ἀνθ᾽ ἑνὸς βλάβην καλεῖ.
of Alexander Polyhistor in Diogenes Laertius, the content of the Orphic gold tab-
lets and the interpretations of the Derveni commentator about the reason for the
Orphic teletai.
According to a note in Alexander Polyhistor, the Pythagoreans said about the
Netherworld:¹⁰⁹
Impure souls were not allowed to approach each other, much less to come close to pure
souls, since they were fettered in unbreakable bonds by the Erinyes.
There seem to be two points of similarity between Orphic and Pythagorean be-
liefs on this matter. a) Pure souls and impure ones have different destinies in
the Netherworld. This is why in the Orphic tablet from Thurii the soul declares
before Persephone “I come pure from among the pure”.¹¹⁰ b) The Erinyes take
an active part in the punishment of the impure.¹¹¹ The Column II of the Derveni
Papyrus states that there should be a propitiatory sacrifice to the Erinyes so that
the soul can receive a destiny of privilege in the Beyond.
The differences, however, between them are patently obvious: a) For the Or-
phics every soul goes to Hades, even if they stay in separate locations. The Py-
thagoreans, on the other hand, seem to lead some souls “upwards”. b) There
are no Pythagorean references to a different destiny for initiates, achieved
through a ritual system where, as in the case of the gold tablets, they only
need to know some passwords to be accepted in the privileged place. A special
position is occupied by the Derveni commentator because, even if he is an Or-
phic, he is in fact an educated Orphic who knows philosophy and who takes a
moral perspective into account.¹¹²
 D. L. 8.31 FGrHist 273 F 93 (= 58 B 1a D.-K.) καὶ ἄγεσθαι μὲν τὰς καθαρὰς ἐπὶ τὸν ὕψιστον,
τὰς δ᾽ ἀκαθάρτους μήτ᾽ ἐκείναις πελάζειν μήτ᾽ ἀλλήλαις, δεῖσθαι δ᾽ ἐν ἀρρήκτοις δεσμοῖς ὑπ᾽
Ἐρινύων. Transl. by R. D. Hicks.
 Lam. Thur. OF 448 – 490.1 (with slight variants) ἔρχομαι ἐκ καθαρῶν καθαρά.
 Tsantsanoglou 1997, 112 and n. 23 claims this function of the Erinyes is represented on vase
paintings in which the souls in the afterlife are punished and tortured, quoting Sarian 1986. In
fact, we can see an Erinys tying up a condemned soul in an Apulian vase from Ruvo, 1904 (360 –
350 B.C.), cf. Bernabé 2009, 109 – 110.
 Bernabé online.
4.7 Souls and daimones
There is evidence that the Pythagoreans shared a certain daemonological theory

with some Orphics. According to Alexander Polyhistor in D. L. 8.32¹¹³ Pythagoras
claimed:
The whole air is full of souls which are called genii or heroes; these are the ones who send
men dreams and signs of future disease and health, … and it is to them that purifications
and lustrations, all divination, omens and the like, have reference.
A similar identification of daimones with souls is postulated in column VI of the

Derveni Papyrus:
An incantation by magoi can dislodge daimones that have become a hindrance; daimones
that are a hindrance are vengeful souls.
Besides, Column III says that the daimones are the ‘god’s assistants’¹¹⁴ whereas
oracles and dreams are mentioned in col. V and in the first column there are sev-
eral references to daimones and the necessity of propitiating them. In De defectu
Plutarch mentions the Orphics – and not the Pythagoreans – among those who
can be the authors of the theory of daimones as intermediaries between gods
and men:¹¹⁵
But, as it seems to me, those persons have resolved more and greater perplexities who have
set the race of daimones midway between gods and men, and have discovered a force to
draw together, in a way, and to unite our common fellowship … whether this doctrine
comes from the wise men of the cult of Zoroaster, or whether it is Thracian and harks
back to Orpheus, or is Egyptian, or Phrygian.
 Alex. Polyh. ap. D. L. 8.32 εἶναί τε πάντα τὸν ἀέρα ψυχῶν ἔμπλεων· καὶ ταύτας δαίμονάς τε
καὶ ἥρωας ὀνομάζεσθαι· καὶ ὑπὸ τούτων πέμπεσθαι ἀνθρώποις τούς τ’ ὀνείρους καὶ τὰ σημεῖα
νόσους τε, … εἴς τε τούτους γίνεσθαι τούς τε καθαρμοὺς καὶ ἀποτροπιασμοὺς μαντικήν τε πᾶσαν
καὶ κληδόνας καὶ τὰ ὅμοια. Transl. by R. D. Hicks.
 The text is dubious, but the sequence [δ]α̣ίμονες οἱ κατὰ̣ [γῆς …] θ̣εῶν ὑπηρέται seems to be
clear.
 Plu. Def. orac. 415 A ἐμοὶ δὲ δοκοῦσι πλείονας λῦσαι καὶ μείζονας ἀπορίας οἱ τὸ τῶν
δαιμόνων γένος ἐν μέσῳ θεῶν καὶ ἀνθρώπων τρόπον τινὰ τὴν κοινωνίαν ἡμῶν συνάγον εἰς
ταὐτὸ καὶ συνάπτον ἐξευρόντες· εἴτε μάγων τῶν περὶ Ζωροάστρην ὁ λόγος οὗτός ἐστιν εἴτε
Θρᾴκιος ἀπ᾽ Ὀρφέως εἴτ᾽ Αἰγύπτιος ἢ Φρύγιος. Transl. by F. C. Babbitt, with minor changes.
But, in De Iside, he includes the Pythagoreans among the philosophers associ-

ated with this theory:¹¹⁶
Better, therefore, is the judgement of those who hold that the stories about Typhon, Osiris,
and Isis are records of experiences of neither gods nor men, but of demigods, whom Plato
(Sympos. 202e), Pythagoras (D. L. 8.32), Xenocrates (fr. 225 Isnardi Parente), and Chrysippus
(fr. 1103 [SVF II 320, 32 Arnim]), following the lead of early writers on sacred subjects (OF
509), allege to have been stronger than men … So, too, all the things which are always kept
away from the ears and eyes of the multitude by being concealed behind mystic rites and
ceremonies have a similar explanation.
It seems, thus, that for ancient authors there was an Orphic doctrine on dai-
mones similar to the Pythagorean one.
4.8 Ideas about the gods
In De monarchia, Pseudo-Justin transmits part of the so-called Testament of Or-

pheus, a hieros logos in which Orpheus declares a profession of monotheism.
Clearly, the text is a pseudepigraph, a forgery of an Orphic hieros logos made
by a Hellenized Jewish author (Riedweg 1993). This fact, however, is irrelevant
since all Orphic works are pseudepigrapha: as is well known, Orpheus did not
write anything for the simple reason that he did not exist. Anyway, there is
some logic in the fact that the anonymous Jew who wrote the hieros logos
chose to pass off the poem as the work of Orpheus. First, at that time Orpheus
was considered the most prestigious theologian among the Greeks; secondly, the
Orphic writings contained certain issues that clearly pointed towards monothe-
ism (Bernabé 2010). It is especially interesting in this context that Pseudo-Justin
adds that Pythagoras shared those ideas:¹¹⁷
 Plu. De Iside 360D βέλτιον οὖν οἱ τὰ περὶ τὸν Τυφῶνα καὶ Ὄσιριν καὶ Ἶσιν ἱστορούμενα μήτε
θεῶν παθήματα μήτ’ ἀνθρώπων, ἀλλὰ δαιμόνων μεγάλων εἶναι νομίζοντες, οὓς καὶ Πλάτων καὶ
Πυθαγόρας καὶ Ξενοκράτης καὶ Χρύσιππος ἑπόμενοι τοῖς πάλαι θεολόγοις ἐρρωμενεστέρους μὲν
ἀνθρώπων γεγονέναι λέγουσι … ὅσα τε μυστικοῖς ἱεροῖς περικαλυπτόμενα καὶ τελεταῖς ἄρρητα
διασῴζεται καὶ ἀθέατα πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς ὅμοιον ἔχει λόγον. cf. Isnardi Parente ad Xenocr. loc.;
Bernabé 1996, 66 n. 17; cf. also Casadio 1996, 201 ff.
 Ps.-Iustin. de monarch. 2.5 (90 Marc.) κοινωνεῖ δ᾽ αὐτῶι (sc. Orpheus OF 377) καὶ Πυθαγόρας
ἐν οἷς γράφει (p. 174 Thesleff)· / ῾εἴ τις ἐρεῖ Θεός εἰμι πάρεξ ἑνός, οὗτος ὀφείλει / κόσμον ἴσον
τούτῳ στήσας εἰπεῖν Ἐμὸς οὗτος· κτλ.᾽
Pythagoras agrees with him in what he writes:

‘If anyone, with the exception of the One, says “I am a god”,
he should create a world and say “This is mine”’. (p. 174 Thesleff).
In this respect, the testimony of Iamblichus is also interesting:¹¹⁸
In short, it is said that Pythagoras was an enthusiast of the interpretation of Orphic poems,
practices and beliefs, and that he honored the Gods in a very similar way to that of Or-
pheus; placing them in images and in bronze not resembling to our forms, but to divine
shrines, because they comprehend and provide for all things, being of a nature and form
similar to the universe. They say that he also promulgated purifications and mysteries,
as they are called, which contained the most accurate knowledge of the gods. And still,
it is said that he was the author of a synthesis of divine philosophy and worship, having
learnt some things from the Orphics, some from the Egyptian priests, some from the Chal-
deans and the Magi, some from the mysteries at Eleusis, etc.
4.9 Varia
To this series of well known parallels we may add some other issues, more scat-
tered and specific, that I will just mention briefly. Of course, the list is not ex-
haustive:
a) Many Orphic tablets begin with the indication ‘this is the work of Mnemo-
syne’ or simply refer to the goddess.¹¹⁹ Also, an Orphic hymn invokes her to keep
awake the initiates’ (mystai) memories of the telete and to remove forgetful-
ness.¹²⁰ In a similar way, Iamblichus informs us:¹²¹
They (the Pythagoreans) believed that everything they had learned and heard was sup-
posed to be retained and preserved in the memory… Hence memory was greatly honored.
 Iamblich. VP 151 ὅλως δέ φασι Πυθαγόραν ζηλωτὴν γενέσθαι τῆς Ὀρφέως ἑρμηνείας τε καὶ
διαθέσεως καὶ τιμᾶν τοὺς θεοὺς Ὀρφεῖ παραπλησίως, ἱσταμένους αὐτοὺς ἐν τοῖς ἀγάλμασι καὶ
τῷ χαλκῷ, οὐ ταῖς ἡμετέραις συνεζευγμένους μορφαῖς, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἱδρύμασι τοῖς θείοις, πάντα
περιέχοντας καὶ πάντων προνοοῦντας καὶ τῷ παντὶ τὴν φύσιν καὶ τὴν μορφὴν ὁμοίαν ἔχοντας,
ἀγγέλλειν δὲ αὐτῶν τοὺς καθαρμοὺς καὶ τὰς λεγομένας τελετάς, τὴν ἀκριβεστάτην εἴδησιν
αὐτῶν ἔχοντα. ἔτι δέ φασι καὶ σύνθετον αὐτὸν ποιῆσαι τὴν θείαν φιλοσοφίαν καὶ θεραπείαν, ἃ
μὲν μαθόντα παρὰ τῶν Ὀρφικῶν, ἃ δὲ παρὰ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων ἱερέων, ἃ δὲ παρὰ Χαλδαίων καὶ
μάγων, ἃ δὲ παρὰ τῆς τελετῆς τῆς ἐν Ἐλευσῖνι γινομένης, κτλ.
 OF 474.1,476.12 (probably also in a lost part of 475.1) μνημοσύνης τόδε ἔργον, OF 491.3
μνημοσύνης τόδε δῶρον.
 OH 77.9 f. ἀλλά, μάκαιρα θεά (sc. Μνημόσυνη), μύσταις μνήμην ἐπέγειρε /εὐιέρου τελετῆς,
λήθην δ᾽ ἀπὸ τῶν〈δ᾽〉 ἀπόπεμπε.
 Iamblich. VP 164 ᾤοντο δὲ δεῖν κατέχειν καὶ διασῴζειν ἐν τῇ μνήμῃ πάντα τὰ διδασκόμενά
τε καὶ φραζόμενα…. ἐτίμων γοῦν σφόδρα τὴν μνήμην.
In the same vein, in another anecdote transmitted by Heraclides Ponticus, Py-

thagoras’ earliest identity, Aethalides, son of Hermes, requested the privilege
of keeping in his memory both when alive and after his death everything that
happened to him.¹²²
b) The Orphics and the Pythagoreans shared a positive assessment of the
right, in opposition to the left. Several tablets instruct the soul to turn right
when it reaches the Netherworld¹²³, whereas Aristotle says as follows:¹²⁴
The Pythagoreans called right, above, and in front ‘good’, and they called
left, below and behind ‘bad’.
c) Also in the Orphic lamellae it is forbidden for those who arrive in the un-
derworld to go beside a white cypress tree near a fountain. The negative vision of
the cypress is also shared with the Pythagoreans since, according to Iamblichus,
Pythagoras:¹²⁵
He ordered that coffins should not be made of cypress, either because the
scepter of Zeus was made of this wood, or for some other mystical reason.
d) The use of σύμβολα is attributed to both the Orphics and the Pythagor-
eans but whereas the Pythagorean ones are precepts that concern our behaviour
in this world (some of them are practical, others symbolic,), the Orphic¹²⁶ σύμ-
βολα are “passwords” that the mystes who arrives in Hades uses in order to
enter the Garden of Persephone.
e) In later times certain medical ideas were attributed to both groups. In fact,
we suppose that neither group had anything to do with these ideas, which were
attributed to them because of their prestige. We mention as examples some state-
ments in Proclus on premature babies and embryology.¹²⁷
 Heraclid. fr. 89 Wehrli (D. L. 8.4) τοῦτόν φησιν Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικὸς περὶ αὑτοῦ τάδε
λέγειν, ὡς εἴη ποτὲ γεγονὼς Αἰθαλίδης καὶ Ἑρμοῦ υἱὸς νομισθείη· τὸν δὲ Ἑρμῆν εἰπεῖν αὐτῷ
ἑλέσθαι ὅ τι ἂν βούληται πλὴν ἀθανασίας. αἰτήσασθαι οὖν ζῶντα καὶ τελευτῶντα μνήμην ἔχειν
τῶν συμβαινόντων.
 OF 474.2, 475.4,477.1, 487.2.
 Aristot. fr. 200 Rose τὸ οὖν δεξιὸν καὶ ἄνω καὶ ἔμπροσθεν ἀγαθὸν ἐκάλουν (sc. οἱ Πυθα-
γόρειοι), τὸ δὲ ἀριστερὸν καὶ κάτω καὶ ὄπισθεν κακὸν ἔλεγον.
 Iamblich. VP 155 κυπαρισσίνην δὲ μὴ δεῖν κατασκευάζεσθαι σορὸν ὑπαγορεύει διὰ τὸ
κυπαρίσσινον γεγονέναι τὸ τοῦ Διὸς σκῆπτρον ἢ δι᾽ ἄλλον τινὰ μυστικὸν λόγον. Diogenes
Laertius informs us that the first explanation comes from Hermippus (fr. 23 Wehrli).
 Lam. Pher. (OF 493) σύμβολα‧ Ἀν〈δ〉ρικεπαιδόθυρσον. Ἀνδρικεπαιδόθυρσον. Βριμώ. Βριμώ.
εἴσιθ〈ι〉 ἱερὸν λειμῶνα. ἄποινος γὰρ ὁ μύστης, cf. Lam. Entell. (OF 475).
 Procl. in R. II 33.14 Kroll (OF 797) οἱ δὲ Πυθαγόρειοι προσίενται, ὡς καὶ Ὀρφεύς, καὶ τὰ
ἑπτάμηνα, καὶ φασὶν ἐν μὲν λεʹ ἡμέραις τὸ καταβληθὲν σπέρμα τύπον καὶ μορφὴν λαμβάνειν ἐπὶ
〈τῶ〉ν ἑ…
4.10 The Neoplatonic reconstruction
The Neoplatonists considered that Plato shared many doctrins with Orpheus and
Pythagoras. To be precise, Syrianus is credited with a work in ten books entitled
On the agreement between Orpheus, Pythagoras and Plato. ¹²⁸
The Neoplatonic circle even “makes up”¹²⁹ the story of how the Orphics
transmitted their knowledge to Pythagoras and then to Plato. Thus, after claim-
ing that the Pythagorean theology of number comes from Orpheus Iamblichus
asserts:¹³⁰
Nor is it to be doubted that when Pythagoras composed his treatise Concerning the Gods, he
received assistance from Orpheus, hence it is named ‘sacred’ … For he says ‘Pythagoras, the
son of Mnesarchus was instructed in what pertains to the gods when he celebrated orgies in
the Thracian Libethra, being therein initiated by Aglaophamus; and that Orpheus, the son
of Calliope, having learned wisdom … from his mother’, declared…
Proclus completes the account:¹³¹
All Greek theology is an offspring of the Orphic mysteries; first Pythagoras was taught the
divine mysteries by Aglaophamus, and then Plato obtained perfect knowledge of them from
the Pythagorean and Orphic texts.
In some extreme cases, Pythagoras appears to be like a second-in-command of

Orpheus, and some authors ascribe to him the mythical abilities of the Thracian:
 Cf. Suda s. v. Syrianos IV 478.25 Adler (= OF 677 III); s. v. Proklos IV 210.8 Adler (= OF 677 IX).
 Cf. Brisson 2000, 239 f.
 Iamblich. VP 146 (OF 507) οὐκέτι δὴ οὖν ἀμφίβολον γέγονε τὸ τὰς ἀφορμὰς παρὰ Ὀρφέως
λαβόντα Πυθαγόραν συντάξαι τὸν περὶ θεῶν λόγον, ὃν καὶ ἱερὸν διὰ τοῦτο ἐπέγραψεν, … λέγει
γάρ· λόγος ὅδε περὶ θεῶν Πυθαγόρα τῶ Μνημάρχω, τὸν ἐξέμαθον ὀργιασθεὶς ἐν Λιβήθροις τοῖς
Θρᾳκίοις, Ἀγλαοφάμω τελεστᾶ μεταδόντος, ὡς ἄρα Ὀρφεὺς ὁ Καλλιόπας … ὑπὸ τᾶς ματρὸς
πινυσθεὶς ἔφα κτλ.
 Procl. Theol. Pl. I 5 (I 25, 26 Saffrey-Westerink) ἅπασα γὰρ ἡ παρ᾽ Ἕλλησι θεολογία τῆς
Ὀρφικῆς ἐστὶ μυσταγωγίας ἔκγονος, πρώτου μὲν Πυθαγόρου παρὰ Ἀγλαοφήμου τὰ περὶ θεῶν
ὄργια διδαχθέντος, δευτέρου δὲ Πλάτωνος ὑποδεξαμένου τὴν παντελῆ περὶ τούτων ἐπιστήμην
ἔκ τε τῶν Πυθαγορείων καὶ τῶν Ὀρφικῶν γραμμάτων, cf. Procl. in Pl. Tim. III 168.9 Diehl
(Iamblich. in Pl. Tim. fr. 74 Dillon), III 161.1 Diehl (collected in OF 507). cf. Lobeck 1829, 721 ff.;
Rohde 1901, 154; Delatte 1915, 192 ff.; Linforth 1941, 250 ff.; Thesleff 1961, 18 f.; 107ff; 1965, 164 f.;
Burkert 1972, 128 f.; Graf 1987, 90; Brisson 1990, 2925; 2000, 237 ff.; Saffrey-Westerink ad loc.;
Riedweg 2008, 8 f.
Through such and similar occurrences, Pythagoras demonstrated that he

possessed the same dominion as Orpheus over savage animals, and that he al-
lured and detained them by the power of his voice.¹³²
5 Conclusion
5.1 Different criteria to define a situation
We have seen that there are a number of points of contact between the Orphics
and the Pythagoreans. Not only their particular ways of life but also their doc-
trines made them appear similar in the eyes of other Greeks, especially because
both the doctrines and the ways of life were very different from those that were
commonly observed in their time. Therefore, they tended to be identified as
groups and, moreover, as similar and even interchangeable groups. The reasons
why every author, once he noticed these similarities, decided to attribute them to
one group or another or to the ideological leaders (the mythical Orpheus and the
historic but mythicized Pythagoras), are conflicting.
a) The assumption that Orpheus was more ancient than Pythagoras (he is
dated before the Trojan war) is opposed to an equally strong postulate, ac-
cording to which there is doubt that the mythical character was the author
of the works that were traditionally ascribed to him, because Orpheus did
not exist.
b) The tendency to prefer an ancient and divine origin for the doctrines of im-
mortality and transmigration (Orpheus was not only reputed to have lived
centuries before the historical Pythagoras but he was also reputed to be
the son of a Muse) was countered by the strong desire of the Pythagoreans
to attribute these doctrines to their founder.
c) Other authors, prefering neutrality, merely reported the ideas or attitudes
that were common to both groups.
5.2 Conclusions about abstinence from eating meat
In this matter there is a clear tendency among ancient authors to combine the
two groups, but there is a curious distribution in the use of one name or the
 Iamblich. VP 62 (OF 508) διὰ τούτων δὴ καὶ τῶν παραπλησίων τούτοις δέδεικται τὴν
Ὀρφέως ἔχων ἐν τοῖς θηρίοις ἡγεμονίαν καὶ κηλῶν αὐτὰ καὶ κατέχων τῇ ἀπὸ τοῦ στόματος τῆς
φωνῆς προϊούσῃ δυνάμει, cf. Riedweg 2008, 8 f.
other. In Athens, the authors of comedies in their jokes speak mostly about Py-
thagoreans¹³³ (always considered as a group). Some reasons for this choice can
be, among many others, the following:
a) As a group, the Pythagoreans were more notorious in Athenian society. They
seem to be characterized – in the comic point of view – by their peculiar
dress, perhaps by their carelessness regarding their personal appearance
that could be interpreted as a lack of hygiene and by their ostentatious
diet. The Orphics, on the other hand, who had no sectarian cohesion and
pursued their religious practices in a more private way, were, indeed, less
notorious and offered no clear opportunities for mockery.
b) According to Athenian viewpoint, Orpheus was respectable, since he was
considered the founder of teletai and played a fundamental role in the
Attic propaganda in Eleusis.¹³⁴ Aristophanes offers a good example of this
attitude when he mentions him in Frogs as one of the greatest benefactors
of humanity.¹³⁵ That Plato shares this positive view is shown in his kindly
references to the “Orphic lives” and in his acceptance (but not without res-
ervations) of certain precepts of the teletai. ¹³⁶ An apparent exception is Euri-
pides, who criticises the behaviour of Theseus’ son and calls him Orpheus’
worshipper.¹³⁷ This exception can be explained partly because Euripides was
not able to put Pythagoras within the mythical time of Theseus and Hippo-
lytus (something that he was able to do by referring to Orpheus) and partly
because he did not intend to criticise Orpheus but his fake followers who, to
Theseus, were nothing but a group of hypocrites and pretenders. Instead,
and still according to the Athenian perception, Pythagoreans appeared as
a more “secular” human group, which comedians considered more appropri-
ate for their jokes.
Herodotus, for his part, attributes the taboo on wearing woollen clothing to the
Pythagoreans because he does not believe that the poems ascribed to Orpheus
were written by him.¹³⁸ Centuries later, the situation changes. Porphyry, who
speaks about a “Pythagorean life”, is not clear at all when he mentions the cre-
 A possible exception is Antiphanes, cf. § 2.1.

 Cf. Bernabé 2009a.
 Ar. Ra. 1030 – 1032 (OF 547 I).
 Pl. Lg. 782c (OF 625), cf. § 2.1 and. n. 13; Phd. 69c (OF 434 III).
 E. Hipp. 948 – 957 (OF 627), cf. § 2.1.
 Cf. Hdt. 2.53 οἱ δὲ πρότερον ποιηταὶ λεγόμενοι τούτων τῶν ἀνδρῶν (sc. Ἡσιόδου καὶ
Ὁμήρου) γενέσθαι ὕστερον, ἔμοιγε δοκέειν, ἐγένοντο ‘but those poets who are said to be older
than Hesiod and Homer were, to my thinking, of later birth’.
ator of the principle, called “the theologian” (cf. § 2.2). He does not seem to be
interested in using the name of Orpheus but he does not want to ascribe the prin-
ciple to Pythagoras either. However, Apollonius, in the text of Philostratus, open-
ly mentions the Samian (cf. § 2.2). For the later authors vegetarianism is, there-
fore, Pythagorean.
5.3 Divergences between the Orphic and the Pythagorean

ways of life
However, there are other features of the Orphic and the Pythagorean ways of life
that make them clearly different. If we oversimplify a question that Burkert an-
alysed in detail (Burkert 1982), we can conclude that the Pythagoreans were a
sect, with complex rules and precepts for their communal life, whereas relation-
ships between the Orphics were always less strictly defined. The aim of the Or-
phic life is totally linked to the Netherworld, whereas the Pythagoreans had prac-
tical aims as well, judging by their interest in politics and their attempts to seize
power. Besides, the Pythagoreans clearly had a hierarchical organization, where-
as the Orphics are characterized by an egalitarian attitude and by trying to find,
as well, an egalitarian approach to the Beyond; to reach it, the Orphics look for a
ritual purification at the teletai, whereas the Pythagoreans adopt a more philo-
sophical attitude where ethics predominates. The Orphic ethos is determined
by a pessimistic sense of guilt, something which the Pythagoreans lack (Bremm-
er 1999, 79; 2002, 24).
5.4 Conclusions on the attribution of works
The short ancient cosmological poems were probably written by Pythagoreans

who tried to take advantage of Orpheus’ antiquity and prestige. For the same rea-
son they even attributed to Orpheus at least the inspiration of the Hymn to Num-
ber, which is entirely Pythagorean. The Rhapsodies, on the other hand, are clear-
ly Orphic and it is a mistake to ascribe them to a Pythagorean (West 1983, p. 250).
5.5 On the doctrines
Concerning the doctrines, it is likely that the noticeable differences that marked
off both Orphics and Pythagoreans from the remainder of society, together with
the prejudice that is felt by outsiders against strongly homogeneous groups,
make it easy to identify the ideas of both groups, even if there are only a few
points of similarity. Thus, for example, the Pythagorean statement that every
star is a single world was wrongly identified with the Orphic belief that the
moon is inhabited and has houses (cf. § 4.1 b-c). Epigenes, for his part, detects
similarities where there is just an allegorical or metaphorical use of language (cf.
§ 4.1 d).
It is clear, however, that both groups believed that the soul is immortal and
that after death it transmigrates to another body. These beliefs and the precepts
they imply for how to live one’s life are the two pillars that supported the com-
mon misidentification of the Orphics with the Pythagoreans, even though the
two groups had very different ideas and very different ways of life.
The ancient and more constant tradition states that the theory of transmigra-
tion and the doctrine of the soul’s immortality originated in a Pythagorean envi-
ronment but they must have been adopted by the Orphics as well; as a conse-
quence of this, and taking into account that Orpheus was considered more an-
cient than Pythagoras, the Orphic sources gave primacy to Orpheus in the crea-
tion of the theory. It was probably the fact that they shared this doctrine that
gave rise to the tendency to confuse Orphics with Pythagoreans.
Nevertheless, none of the sources that attribute the doctrine to Pythagoreans
contain any reference to punishment or to a myth of original guilt. In his refer-
ences Plato is not at all clear, but he seems to refer these ideas more to Orpheus
and the sphere of the teletai: first, because references to a παλαιὸς λόγος or a
ἱερὸς λόγος vouch more for its antiquity and its sacred character, than would ref-
erences to the ideas of a mere mortal, even if that mortal were Pythagoras, and
second, because Platonic eschatology pays a great deal of attention to the dy-
namics of transmigration and to posthumous rewards and punishments. In
the eschatologies of the Republic and the Gorgias, for example, Plato shows
greater interest in the fear we feel here of punishment in the other life than in
the very idea of transmigration (Bernabé 2013).
Therefore, the couple “body-tomb” is not Pythagorean but Orphic. This is
what Plato says and, in a certain way, so does Philolaos who is interested in
this idea only because he wants to make it more antique (“the ancient theolo-
gians and seers also give witness”), even if he considers it is Pythagorean (cf.
§ 4.4).
On the contrary, Aristotle is more interested in the Orphic idea of the soul,
inhaled with thebreath, but he hesitates to attribute the doctrine to the Pythagor-
eans (cf. § 4.3).
The Orphics and the Pythagoreans seem to have used a similar terminology
but, often, with different meanings. For example, they share the term κύκλος but,
whereas for the Pythagoreans there is no negative feature, the Orphics consider it
as a punishment. The Erinyes, on the other hand, appear in texts written by both
groups, but for the Pythagoreans they are part of a celestial eschatology, whereas
for the Orphics they are part of a subterranean one. Finally, whereas Memory is
for the Pythagoreans an aid in this life, it seems to be, for the Orphics, an aid for
the afterlife.
They also seem to share a daemonological theory (cf. § 4.7), but this is just a
step in a wider process, extending from Hesiod on to the Derveni Papyrus, Plato,
the Stoics, Plutarch and the Neoplatonists (Cf. Bernabé online).
On the contrary, a monotheistic tendency has been tended to be ascribed to
the Orphics, but not to the Pythagoreans.
All the things we have discussed have permited us to sketch some general
guidelines. The situations presented by the individual texts are certainly more
complicated and nuanced. Thus, they require closer analysis, which must be
done case by case.
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Francesc Casadesús Bordoy
On the origin of the Orphic-Pythagorean
notion of the immortality of the soul
The introduction of the notion of the soul’s immortality into Greece and the con-
sequences that derive from that notion, have been attributed indifferently to Py-
thagoras and Orpheus. In fact, the novelty of this view, which conflicted with the
archaic scheme that did not contemplate it, contributed decisively to the prestige
and aura that surrounded both of these figures throughout Antiquity. As time
passed, the ascription of the notion of the immortality of the soul to one or an-
other of them led to the coining of the well-known expression “Orphic-Pythagor-
ean”. This expression has contributed to the impression that the idea of the
soul’s immortality is due to both Orphics and Pythagoreans. This, in turn, result-
ed in treating Orphism and Pythagoreanism as a unitary set.
This lax use of the term “Orphic-Pythagorean”, however, only reproduces the
vagueness of most sources, which tend to associate both currents. Undoubtedly,
the confusing information available to the ancient doxographers, explained by
the secrecy and mystery that enveloped both movements, contributed to dilute
their contours. The identification of Pythagoreanism with Orphism, or vice
versa, was due to the impossibility of defining each of the individual members
that constitute the pair. Indeed, if something bonds Pythagoreanism and Or-
phism from the beginning it is the vaporous and mysterious darkness that envel-
ops them. Faced with the difficulties inherent in profiling each of those concepts,
some scholars have preferred to maintain the expression “Orphic-Pythagorean”,
without explaining it, while others, like U. von Wilamowitz, have chosen to elim-
inate the term “Orphic”, arguing that what is known as Orphism is in actual fact
Pythagoreanism.¹
In this uncertain context, our aim is to introduce an analytical criterion that
enables us to determine whether both conceptions were originally as similar as
the expression “Orphic-Pythagorean” seems to suggest.
This paper is part of two broader projects,“Utilización del vocabulario mítico-religioso en la

formación de la terminología presocrática”, reference FFI2012-08162 and Cosmología y escatología
en la antigua Grecia. Influjos y paralelos, reference FFI2010-17047, financed by the Dirección
General de Investigación of the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of the Spanish Government.
 Wilamowitz 1932, pp. 180 – 205. The suppression of the term “Orphic” is consequent with
Wilamowitz’ strategy of rejecting the existence in Greece of any movement or doctrine that could
be qualified as such.
154 Francesc Casadesús Bordoy
Resorting to Orpheus’ authority

In addition to the nebula that surrounds both terms, their purported founders,
Orpheus and Pythagoras, are also shrouded in great uncertainty. The former is
a mythical figure, who had no historical existence. The Orphic movement was
given his name in virtue of the power of his music and his descent to Hades
in search of his wife Eurydice. The latter was mythicized with the passing of cen-
turies, as described in Porphyry’s, Iamblichus’ and Diogenes Laertius’ biogra-
phies, creating the figure of a thaumaturge with divine rather than human qual-
ities. With regard to the doctrinal movement allegedly initiated by both charac-
ters, it seems that what we call Pythagoreanism was articulated in southern Italy,
during the 6th century B.C., in the school, or sect, founded by Pythagoras, which
emphasized obedience to numerous prescriptions that are broadly and profusely
recorded in diverse sources. Conversely, because Orpheus did not exist, our igno-
rance about the origin of the Orphic movement is such that we can hardly say
anything, or even determine who the first Orphic might have been.
Moreover, it is likely that the origin of what we refer to as “Orphism” is due
to the enormous prestige attained by the figure of Orpheus. The name “Orpheus”
would have become a sort of wild-card used to introduce notions related to ex-
traordinary musical capacities. Orpheus’ power to captivate living beings with
his voice and the sound of the lyre, to the point that he persuaded the divinities
of the underworld to allow him to enter Hades in search of his wife Eurydice,
made him the ideal mythical character to whom to attribute all kinds of ritual,
magical, or eschatological practices.
In this context, it appears that the so-called followers of Orpheus, hoi amph’
Orphea, were individuals who were attracted by his mythical fame,² and attrib-
uted to themselves all kinds of powers and knowledge simply by the associations
of his name. These associations included a varied array of interests that ranged
from all kinds of magical practices to the postulation of religious and philosoph-
ical principles.
It is sufficient to cite some passages in Euripides’ tragedies to illustrate the
attractiveness of Orpheus as an authority that justified magical practices. For in-
stance, in the Cyclops Odysseus states:
I know an incantation of Orpheus so wonderful that the firebrand all on its own will march
up to his skull and set the one-eyed son of earth on fire.³
 Recall that the oldest testimony on Orpheus, by Ibycus, fr. 17 Diehl, uses the expression
onomaklyton Orphea, “Orpheus famous of name”.
 E. Cyc. 646 – 649.
On the origin of the Orphic-Pythagorean notion of the immortality of the soul 155
Likewise, the chorus appeals to the remedying power of Orpheus’ voice in the
Alcestis:
I have soared aloft with poetry and with high thought, and though I have laid my hand to
many a reflection, I have found nothing stronger than Necessity, nor is there any cure for it
in the Thracian tablets set down by the voice of Orpheus.⁴
As noted above, the culmination of Orpheus’ fame was the feat of entering the
depths of Hades in search of his wife Eurydice, after having placated the infernal
gods with his enchanting melodies. Orpheus thus definitively showed that he
possessed a supernatural power that allowed him to bend the will of the
gods, and to attempt to bring his wife back to life. As shown again by Euripides,
Admetus longed for that same power to bring his wife Alcestis back from Hades:
If I had the voice and music of Orpheus so that I could charm Demeter’s daughter or her
husband with song and fetch you from Hades, I would have gone down to the Underworld,
and neither Pluto’s hound nor Charon the ferryman of souls standing at the oar would have
kept me from bringing you back to the light alive.⁵
All of these examples demonstrate that Orpheus’ prestige attracted those who
yearned for his supernatural abilities in order to use them for their own benefit.
Orpheus thus became a guide, a pattern of action to be imitated, and even
feigned, to attain a goal. Euripides offers another example of this when Theseus
reproaches his son Hippolytus, who he believed had caused the death of his wife
Phaedra:
Continue then your confident boasting, take up a diet of greens and play the showman with
your food, make Orpheus your lord and engage in mystic rites, holding the vaporings of
many books in honor. For you have been found out. To all I give the warning: avoid men
like this. For they make you their prey with their high-holy-sounding words while they con-
trive deeds of shame.⁶
Euripides’ text cannot be more explicit. Theseus attempted to expose Hippolytus

by presenting him as someone who used the Orphic doctrine, “holding the va-
porings of many books in honor” and who abstained from eating meat, a char-
acteristic practice of Orphism. Theseus, however, underscores something that is
very important in the context of our presentation: he sees Orphism as an impos-
 E. Alc. 962– 970.

 E. Alc. 357– 362.
 E. Hipp. 952– 957.
ture, an illegitimate use of the figure of Orpheus and his doctrine. The Orphics
are thoughtless individuals who resort to Orpheus only in order to achieve
their own particular ends.
Plato seems to allude to similar characters in the Republic when he speaks of
charlatans and fortunetellers, agyrtai kai manteis, who go to rich people’s houses
convincing them that they have formidable powers bestowed by the gods, and
that if they or their ancestors had committed a crime, they could erase the injus-
tice with sacrifices and incantations. Moreover, the agyrtai kai manteis assured
these tycoons that if they wished, they could bring harm to an enemy for a
small fee, independently of whether the victim was just or unjust. They argued
that they could achieve this with the help of incantations, charms and binding
spells because, according to them, the gods obeyed them. In order to establish
the veracity of their words these individuals presented a pile, homadon, of
books of Musaeus and Orpheus. These were used to persuade not only individual
people, but whole cities too, that the ceremonies they called teletai, initiations,
could liberate men and purify them from injustice, redeeming them from possi-
ble harm in the afterlife. They also contended that terrible misfortune awaited
those who did not partake in these sacrifices.
All of these testimonies demonstrate that the name of Orpheus was used for
the particular purpose of increasing the credibility of magical practices. There-
fore, initially all those who invoked the name of Orpheus to satisfy their own in-
terests could be considered Orphics or “followers of Orpheus”.
The use of Orpheus’ name by Pythagoras and

Pythagoreanism
With regard to Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism, there are many indications that
suggest that the figure of Orpheus might have been absorbed together with its
doctrinal associations. In fact, two well-known fragments of Heraclitus’ work at-
test that Pythagoras usurped and used the wisdom of others, fraudulently pre-
senting it as his own. Thus, one fragment of Heraclitus reports that Pythagoras’
fame as a wise man was due to his deceitfulness, a kakotechnie, which included
the selection and accumulation of other people’s writings in the elaboration of
his own wisdom. Heraclitus’ fragment holds that
Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus pursued inquiry further than all other men and, choosing
what he liked from these compositions, he made a wisdom of his own: much learning, art-
ful knavery (kakotechnie).⁷
In a second fragment, Heraclitus again attempts to debunk Pythagoras’ fame as

a wise man or philosopher:
Much learning does not teach understanding. For it would have taught Hesiod and Pytha-
goras, and also Xenophanes and Hecateus.⁸
Both fragments repeat the word erudition, “much learning”, polymathie, under-
scoring that the accumulation of knowledge does not grant understanding or in-
telligence, nous, which Heraclitus believed was the trait that distinguished the
true wise man. The sense of Heraclitus’ criticism seems, thus, evident. In con-
trast with Pythagoras’ reputation for possessing extraordinary knowledge, to
the point of having been credited with inventing the word “philosopher”, accord-
ing to the account transmitted by Cicero and Diogenes Laertius,⁹ Heraclitus pre-
sented Pythagoras as a polymathes, an erudite know-it-all, an accumulator of
knowledge amassed with deceit, kakotechnie.
In this context, it is telling that Diogenes Laertius directly links Pythagoras
with Orpheus without moving away from the profile of Pythagoras sketched by
the philosopher from Ephesus. Indeed, the doxographer argues that, according
to Ion of Chios, Pythagoras “ascribed some poems of his own making to Or-
pheus”.¹⁰ This action is evocative of the Pythagorean kakotechnie reported by
Heraclitus. Sadly there is no other testimony as ancient as the one provided
by Ion of Chios (mid fifth century B.C.) that could confirm Pythagoras’ inclina-
tion to attribute his poems to Orpheus. Later testimonies, however, seem to con-
firm the tendency of Pythagoreans to attribute their own poems to Orpheus. Ker-
kops the Pythagorean, the author of a Carmen Orphicum according to Aristotle, is
noteworthy¹¹. Clement of Alexandria adds that, according to Epigenes, in his
book On the Poetry attributed to Orpheus, Kerkops also wrote other Orphic
 22 B 129 DK. Translated by C.H. Kahn.

 22 B 40 DK. Translated by C.H. Kahn.
 D. L. VIII 8; Cic. Tusc. V 3. Despite these testimonies, ascertaining whether Pythagoras was
indeed the first to coin the word “philosophy” is problematic. Burkert (1960) has expressed his
reservations and suggested that this word appeared in Platonic environments. On this issue, see
Riedweg 2007.
 D. L. VIII 8. L. Brisson is distrustful of this testimony by Ion of Chios, arguing that it is
unlikely that Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans attributed poems to Orpheus, because they were
known for having written nothing down. Brisson 2000, p. 246.
 Arist. fr. 7 Rose = Cic. ND I 38, 107.
poems, such as Descent to Hades and an early Sacred Discourse (Hieros logos),¹²
and that Brontinus, another Pythagorean of the period, who was said to be con-
nected with Pythagoras,¹³ wrote the Peplus and a Physics. ¹⁴ Many other testimo-
nies confirm that espousing characteristic opinions of Orphism was a common
practice among Pythagoras’ successors.¹⁵
Likewise, many testimonies suggest that Pythagoras appropriated Orphic
doctrinal principles, and that he even put them into writing in the form of a sa-
cred discourse (Hieros logos). Thus, Iamblichus confirms that
Nor is it to be doubted that when Pythagoras composed his treatise Concerning the Gods, he
received assistance from Orpheus, on which account also he called it The Sacred Discourse,
because it contains the flower of the most mystical place in Orpheus.¹⁶
and specifies Pythagoras’ relation with Orpheus even more closely:
Pythagoras imitated the Orphic mode of writing, and disposition, and the way they honored
the Gods.
Iamblichus then adds that Pythagoras composed a philosophy and instituted a

divine cult many of whose characteristics he learned
from the Orphic followers, but much also from the Egyptian priests, the Chaldeans and
Magi, the mysteries of Eleusis, Imbrus, Samothrace, and Delos and even the Celts and Iber-
ians.¹⁷
On the basis of Iamblichus’ testimony, Proclus adds that
what Orpheus delivered mystically through arcane narrations these Pythagoras learned,
being initiated by Aglaophamus in the mystic wisdom which Orpheus derived from his
mother Calliope. For these things Pythagoras says in the sacred Discourse.¹⁸
 The Suda, in its entry on Orpheus, supplements this information asserting that Kerkops
wrote Hieroi lógoi of the Rhapsodies in 24 books.
 D. L. VIII 42.
 Clem. Al. Strom. I 131.
 Cf. Galen. Phil. Hist. 56; Aët. 2, 13, 15; Clem. Al. Strom. 5, 8, 49.
 Iamb VP 146= OF 249 T.
 Iamb. Vita VP 151. OF 249a T.
 Procl. Theol. Plat VII, 27= OF 250 T. Of Aglaophamus, who is mentioned only by Proclus, we
know only what this source tells us: that he introduced Pythagoras to Orphic initiations and
theology. This ignorance has led to the supposition that this figure might have been “an in-
vention”, Brisson 2000, p. 240.
The intention behind these passages from Neoplatonic authors was not, as in the
case of Heraclitus, to discredit Pythagoras. On the contrary, it was clear to them
that Pythagoras had absorbed the doctrine of Orphism, and they wished to show
that Pythagoras possessed arcane knowledge of Orphic mysteries and rituals.
Moreover, Neoplatonic authors believed that Pythagoras’ greatness was due to
his appropriation of the figure of Orpheus. Neoplatonic interest in showing
that Pythagoras assimilated the principles of Orphism stems from a subtle strat-
egy: the closer Pythagoras was connected to Orpheus, the greater Pythagoras’
prestige became. Additionally Plato was held by the Neoplatonists to be a faith-
ful follower of both.¹⁹ Pythagoras constitutes a fundamental link in a chain lead-
ing from Orpheus to Plato, which no Neoplatonist wished to break:
All Greek theology is the progeny of the mystic tradition of Orpheus: Pythagoras first of all,
learning from Aglaophamus the secret rites of the gods, but Plato in the second place, re-
ceiving an all perfect science of the divinities from the Pythagorean and Orphic writings.²⁰
Similarities between the figures of Pythagoras

and Orpheus
It is important to note, first, that some of the anecdotes told in Pythagoras’ biog-
raphies seem to be based on some of the most famous episodes in the life of Or-
pheus. Among these, there are three noteworthy similarities: 1) the use of music
for therapeutic purposes; 2) the capacity to communicate with animals; 3) the
visit to the world of the dead.
1) Pythagoras’ association with music is not restricted to his renowned dis-
covery of the harmony of spheres and the numerical proportions of musical in-
tervals. It is noteworthy that he is also said to have used the music of the lyre for
purposes of purification, to heal people, and to cure the passions of the soul.
Iamblichus reports that a selection of verses by Homer and Hesiod were also
used to straighten souls out.²¹ Likewise, he cured illnesses by means of charms,
and this is why Iamblichus believed that Pythagoras created the term ἐπῳδή to
refer to this kind of incantations. This is how, with the aid of music, Pythagoras
elaborated a very efficient means to correct the habits and lives of men.²²
 L. Brisson underscores this strategy in the case of Iamblichus, See Brisson 2008, p. 1491.
 Procl. Theol. Plat. I, 5.25= OF 250 T.
 Iamb. VP. 110 – 111.
 οὕτω μὲν οὖν πολυωφελεστάτην κατεστήσατο Πυθαγόρας τὴν διὰ τῆς μουσικῆς τῶν
ἀνθρωπίνων ἠθῶν τε καὶ βίων ἐπανόρθωσιν, Iamb. VP. 114.
2) With regard to Pythagoras’ capacity to communicate with animals, there

are several sources that tell anecdotes describing various encounters between
Pythagoras and wild animals that, with their pernicious actions, were causing
some kind of harm. For example, there is the story of the bear in the region of
Daunia that was terrorizing the inhabitants of the region. After Pythagoras cap-
tured the bear, he made her promise that she would not attack living creatures
again. After being freed, the bear returned to the mountains and was never again
seen attacking anyone, not even other irrational beings.²³ The same happened at
Sybaris and Tyrrhenia: two venomous snakes that caused death with their bites
were banished by Pythagoras.²⁴ Something similar was told about a cow in Tar-
anto that fed on broad bean bushes, contravening the Pythagorean prescription
of abstaining from them. Pythagoras ordered the shepherd to stop the animal
from eating them. The shepherd answered mockingly that Pythagoras should
try talking directly with the animal. Pythagoras approached the cow and whis-
pered into her ear that not only she should stop eating the beans, she should
not even touch them.²⁵
There is also the story of the eagle that descended from the sky and landed
next to Pythagoras, and after being stroked by him flew away again, and the one
that recounts how he was able to tell how many fish had been captured by some
fishermen, who had previously agreed to free them if he was right. The fishermen
then returned the fish to the sea without any of them dying.²⁶
This power to relate to animals and calm them finally led to the comparison
of the figure of Pythagoras with the mythical hero Orpheus:
Pythagoras demonstrated that he possessed the same dominion as Orpheus over savage an-
imals, and that he allured and detained them by the power of his voice.²⁷
3) There are also many tales recounting Pythagoras’ purported travels to

Hades, which also confirm that he resorted to the kakotechnie reported by Hera-
clitus.²⁸ Indeed, Herodotus linked Pythagoras with the notion of the immortality
of the soul and his capacity to resurrect the dead when recounting that the Getae
adored a daemon named Zalmoxis. Zalmoxis seems to have been Pythagoras’
slave at the island of Samos, who returned to his homeland, Thrace, after regain-
 Porph. VP 23; Iamb. VP 60.

 Iamb. VP 142.
 Porph. VP 23; Iamb. VP 61.
 Porph. VP 23 – 25. Cf. Iamb. VP 60 – 62.
 Iamb. VP 62.
 On Pythagoras’ journeys to Hades, see Burkert 1972, pp. 155 – 159 and p. 199, n. 37; Riedweg
2007, pp. 78 – 79.
ing his freedom. There he taught his compatriots that they would never die, that
they would go to a place where they would enjoy all kinds of good things. To
make his teachings more believable Zalmoxis locked himself up in an under-
ground room for three years. When he was believed to be dead, he was “resur-
rected”, making his teachings even more convincing. Whatever the truth in
this tale, Herodotus did not seem to doubt that Pythagoras, whom he considered
as “not the feeblest clever man among the Greeks” owed the better part of his
prestige to his new ideas about the immortality of the soul and its transmigration
into all kinds of beings.²⁹
Along these same lines, the report of Diogenes Laertius³⁰ that, on arriving to
Italy, Pythagoras also constructed an underground dwelling and ordered his
mother to write everything that happened while he was locked in it on a tablet.
When Pythagoras came up, looking like a skeleton, he went into the assembly
and explained that we had returned from Hades. As a demonstration, he read
all that had happened in his absence. He thus managed to be considered a divine
being. Diogenes Laertius himself also tells of the news that, when Pythagoras de-
scended to Hades,
he saw the soul of Hesiod bound fast to a brazen pillar and gibbering, and the soul of
Homer hung on a tree with serpents writhing about it.³¹
Iamblichus also reports that when Pythagoras was explaining his theory that
souls would return, in a clear allusion to the theory of transmigration, someone
mocked him saying that he would give Pythagoras a letter for his dead father
when he descended to Hades, and he asked him to bring the response back
with him when he returned.³²
The Pythagorean conception of the immortality

and transmigration of souls
Given that the sources reveal that Pythagoreanism progressively moved towards
the figure of Orpheus thus bestowing on Pythagoreanism an aura of Orphism, it
is convenient to examine how this rapprochment might have affected the novel
notion of the immortality of the soul, a characteristic idea of both movements.
 Hdt. 4.93 – 96.

 D. L. 8.41. Cf. Suda s. v. Ἤδη 88 (II 552, 7 Adler).
 D. L. 8.21.
 Iamb. VP 178.
The view that the soul is immortal is precisely one of the concepts that Py-
thagoras learned from others. According to Cicero it was Pherecydes³³, Pythago-
ras’ master, who was the first to hold that the soul is immortal. The relation be-
tween Pherecydes and Pythagoras was considered to be so close that it was said
that Pythagoras lay down next to his master on his deathbed.³⁴ Pythagoras was
taught by Pherecydes, but he did not receive instruction in philosophy from any
master: he obtained his knowledge from the secret books of the Phoenicians.³⁵
Additionally, some sources link Pherecydes, the author of a cosmogony, with Or-
phism because of his compilation of Orphic poems.³⁶
In this same context, it is worthwhile to mention a prominent passage of
Herodotus that states that the Egyptians were the first to argue that the soul is
immortal. According to this passage, when the body dies the soul joins the
body of another terrestrial, marine, or winged animal, finally entering, with
the passing of transmigrations, the body of a man. After three thousand years
of successive reincarnations, the soul is finally freed from this cycle. However,
what is most surprising in this passage is the assertion that
there are Greeks who have used this doctrine, some earlier and some later, as if it were their
own; I know their names, but do not record them.³⁷
In any case, the assertion that the soul lives on after death and is reincorporated
into other beings must certainly have shaken and perplexed those who heard it
for the first time. This is clear from passages in several Platonic dialogues where
the interlocutors express their surprise when Socrates states that the soul is im-
mortal.³⁸
Pythagoras also astonished his fellows when, according to Diogenes Laer-
tius, he stopped a man from hitting a dog because he said he recognized the
voice of a friend’s soul in the animal’s howls:
Once he [sc. Pythagoras] was passing by when a dog was being ill-treated. “Stop”, he said,
“don’t hit it! It is the soul of a friend. I knew it when I heard its voice”.³⁹
 Pherecides Sirius primum dixit animos esse hominun sempiternos, Cic. Tusc. 1, 16, 38.
 D. L. I, 118.
 Suda IV 713.
 DK 7 A 2.
 Hdt. II 123.
 Pl. Phd. 70a-b, R. 608d. On this issue see Casadesús 2008, p. 1241.
 DL VIII 36=21 B 7 D.-K. = AP VII 120 = APl. F 62, Suda s. v. Ξενοφάνης. On the scope and
meaning of this passage, cf. Riedweg 2007, p. 68.
This is an especially important testimony since the doxographer attributes its au-
thorship to Xenophanes. If this attribution is correct, it would constitute one of
the oldest references to Pythagoras. The anecdote implies that Pythagoras’ pro-
tection of the dog was motivated by his belief in the transmigration of a soul that
had been human in a previous life and that, in its new existence, had reappeared
in an animal. This made Pythagoras’ strange claim all the more striking for those
who heard it.
This all suggests that the most remarkable and characteristic foundation of
Pythagoras’ doctrine, and the main cause for his reputation, was the notion of
the soul’s transmigration, as underscored, for instance, by Porphyry, in his
Vita Pythagorae:
What he said to his associates no one can say with any certainty; for they preserved no or-
dinary silence. But it became very well known to everyone that he said, first, that the soul is
immortal; then, that it changes into other kinds of animals; further, that at fixed intervals
whatever has happened happens again, there being nothing absolutely new; and that all
living things should be considered as belonging to the same kind. Pythagoras seems to
have been the first to introduce these doctrines into Greece.⁴⁰
The declaration that the soul is immortal, that it migrates to animals of other
species, meaning that all animated things are endowed with life, made Pythago-
ras seem immensely wise, and enveloped him in a superhuman aura.⁴¹ This was
very attractive for those who had the opportunity to hear his theories, to the
point that many wished to be his followers.⁴² This undoubtedly helped the foun-
dation of his sect in Southern Italy. The sources are very clear that Pythagoras
was consistent with his doctrine, and that, in order to demonstrate it, he claimed
that he could recall prior reincarnations of his soul, which led him to be consid-
ered a wise man endowed with extraordinary knowledge. Another account, this
time attributed to Empedocles, testifies to this:
Amongst these was one in things sublimest skilled, his mind with all the wealth of the
learning filled. Whatever sages did invent, he sought; and whilst his thoughts were on
this work intent, all things existent, easily he viewed, through ten or twenty ages making
search.⁴³
 Porph. VP 19.
 Porph. VP 20 – 21. Cf. Iamb. VP 30.
 Porph. VP 18.
 Porph. VP 30 – 31.
Pythagoras’ alleged gift created such an influential reputation that he was even
likened to a god. This divine consideration fits perfectly with a figure believed to
be responsible for countless exceptional feats and deeds, such as, for instance,
his ability to be in two places at the same time, to soar through the air with an
arrow given to him by Abaris the Hyperborean priest, for having a golden thigh,
predicting an earthquake, and foreseeing the sinking of a ship. The claim that
the soul transmigrates, and that he had knowledge of his prior lives as far
back as twenty generations, increased his unusual divine status, because, ac-
cording to Porphyry, Pythagoras
reminded many of his associates of the lives lived by their souls before they were bound to
their present body.⁴⁴
In fact, even Pythagoras attributed this ability to himself, claiming that
he knew what his soul was, whence it came into the body, and also its former lives, of this
giving the most evident indications.⁴⁵
Pythagoras’ transmigrations
There are several indications that suggest that Pythagoras used, and in a certain
way, abused the notion of transmigration to increase his fame and prestige
among his fellow citizens and numerous devoted followers. Moreover, some tes-
timonies suggest that the philosopher from Samos cunningly used this concep-
tion to declare the divine origin of his soul. This is apparent in a passage of Di-
ogenes Laertius which, citing Heraclides Ponticus, tells that Pythagoras, demon-
strating that he possessed the faculty of remembering the lives of souls in prior
generations, applied this gift to explain the previous reincarnations of his own
soul. The text reads:
This is what Heraclides of Pontus tells us he used to say about himself: that he had once
been Aethalides and was accounted to be Hermes’ son, and Hermes 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 the course of time his soul entered into
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 wander-
 Porph. VP 26.
 Iamb. VP 134.
ings of his soul, how it migrated hither and thither, into how many plants and animals it
had come, and all that it underwent in Hades, and all that the other souls there have to
endure. When Euphorbus died, his soul passed into Hermotimus, and he also, wishing
to authenticate the story, went up to the temple of Apollo at Branchidae, where he identified
the shield which Menelaus, on his voyage home from Troy, had dedicated to Apollo, so he
said: the shield being now so rotten through and through that the ivory facing only was left.
When Hermotimus died, he became Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos, and again he remem-
bered everything, how he was first Aethalides, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, and
then Pyrrhus. But when Pyrrhus died, he became Pythagoras, and still remembered all
the facts mentioned.⁴⁶
This passage synthesizes the most characteristic traits of the Pythagorean notion
of the transmigration of the soul, so it merits a detailed analysis. First, the text’s
expository strategy aims above all to underscore Pythagoras’ divine origin, when
linking his soul, indirectly and successively, with two singularly important Olym-
pic gods in Homeric times, Hermes and Apollo.
Thus, indeed, when proclaiming that he had been Hermes’ son Aethalides,
Pythagoras related himself, as a direct descendant, with the most multifaceted
and complex god, whose assignments included accompanying the dead to
Hades. As stated in the text we are discussing, this god’s privilege of entering
and exiting the afterlife, as psychopompos, constituted the ideal mechanism
for granting his son Aethalides the capacity of remembering everything, both
in life and after death. In fact, Apollonius of Rhodes confirmed that Aethalides,
who participated as a herald in the Argonauts’ expedition, was the son of
Hermes, and that his father had granted him “an imperishable memory of all
things”. This capacity, in addition to the particularity that he could spend
time continually and alternatively in the world and in Hades, allowed him to re-
call what happened on Earth and in the Afterlife.⁴⁷ As we will show later, this
relation legitimized Pythagoras’ claim that he also had the faculty of visiting
the world of the dead.
On the other hand, the reincarnation of Pythagoras’s soul in Euphorbus con-
nected him directly with Apollo. Pythagoras’ biographies insist in linking, or
even identifying, this divinity with the philosopher from Samos by using the
name of Hyperborean Apollo.⁴⁸ Indeed, in the Iliad, Homer describes how the
 D. L. VIII 4– 5.
 A. R. I 640 – 647. According to Pherecydes of Athens, FGrH 3 F 109 (= Schol. in A. R. I 645),
Hermes granted Aethalides that his soul could spend time in this world and in Hades. Burkert,
1972, p. 138, n. 102, believes that this circumstance is reminiscent of the Dioscuri and has no
relation with metempsychosis.
 D. L. VIII 11; Iamb. VP 140; Arist. fr. 191a Rose.
Trojan hero Euphorbus injured Patroclus before he was killed by Hector. Euphor-
bus’ action was aided by Apollo, and this collaboration suggests that he had the
god’s protection. This preferential treatment, as Kerenyi noted, would explain the
reincarnation of Pythagoras’ soul in an epic hero of little importance who ended
up being killed by Menelaus.⁴⁹ The fact that Euphorbus’ father, Panthous, was
probably a priest of Apollo would further strengthen Pythagoras’ link with
that divinity.
Porphyry and Iamblichus narrate that in order to demonstrate his bond with
Euphorbus, Pythagoras sang, accompanied by his lyre, Book 17.51– 60 of the
Iliad, where Homer describes the Trojan hero’s death at Menelaus’ hands.⁵⁰ Py-
thagoras’ insistence on identifying himself with this Trojan hero, and the fact
that some testimonies mention only this reincarnation,⁵¹ have led to the belief
that this was the first and oldest known transmigration of Pythagoras’ soul.
This idea is confirmed by the fact that Porphyry, who repeats Heraclides’ list
as transcribed by Diogenes Laertius, puts Euphorbus’ name in the first place,
ahead of Aethalides’.⁵² The same can be said of the lists given by Dicaearchus
and Clearchus. Although they are different from the others, they also begin
with Euphorbus⁵³. In any case, the sources’ unanimous inclusion of the name
of Euphorbus has motivated some scholars to concentrate their attention on
this name, which they etymologize as eu-phorbos, “he who eats the right
food”, assuming that the choice of this name was intended to reinforce the strict
dietary rules imposed by Pythagoras.
In any case, it needs to be emphasized that both in the form of Aethalides
and in the form of Euphorbus, Pythagoras introduced his novel notion of trans-
migration in the context of an archaic conception that did not contemplate it at
all. Thus, Pythagoras vindicated the presence of his soul in the heroic world of
Homeric epic in the form of the Trojan Euphorbus, while at the same time he pre-
sented himself as a direct relative of two powerful Olympic divinities: Hermes
 Il. 16. 806 – 815; 849 – 850. “Durch die Identität mit Euphorbos gelangt Pythagoras ganz in
der Nähe von Apollon”, Kerényi 1950, p. 12. On this issue see Burkert 1972, pp. 140 – 141.
 Porph. VP 26; Iamb. VP 63.
 Iamb. VP 63; Callim. fr. 191.59 Pfeiffer; Diod. 10.6.1. Hippol. Ref. 1.3.3.
 Porph. VP 45.
 Dicaearch. fr. 36 Wehrli; Clearch. fr. 10 Wehrli. In both cases the list coincides: Euphorbus,
Pyrandrus, Aethalides, Alco (a prostitute) and Pythagoras. Burkert noted that the name Py-
randrus is probably equivalent to the name Pyrrhus in Heraclides’ list, transcribed by Diogenes
Laertius and Prophyry. The inclusion of a prostitute among Pythagoras’ reincarnations seems to
have been the result of one of Dicaearchus’ jokes mocking Pythagoras’ claim to have experie-
nced everything, which Clearchus appears to have repeated uncritically, Burkert 1972, p. 138 and
p. 139, n. 104 and 105.
and Apollo. Pythagoras had the skill to introduce his particular notion of the im-
mortality and transmigration of souls into this traditional and familiar mytholog-
ical scene, probably in order to gain prestige. Thus, he was able to demonstrate
what he taught other men: he was a higher kind of being than normal mortals.⁵⁴
As a result, he himself acquired the status of an immortal hero.
In fact, the presence of Hermotimus, the third name in Heraclides’ list of
transmigrations cited by Diogenes Laertius in this same genealogical lineage
is explained in the passage that alludes to his visit to the Branchidae, the line
of priests in charge of Apollo’s temple and oracle at Didyma. Hermotimus’ recog-
nition of the shield that Menelaus, the author of Euphorbus’ death, had offered
Apollo is intended, as asserted in the text, to prove that Hermotimus had been
Euphorbus. The fact that such an action happened in the temple of Apollo guard-
ed by the Branchidae reinforces the link between both reincarnations and the
god. The particular traits of Hermotimus of Clazomenae also need to be taken
into account. His knowledge of philosophy and thaumaturgy was legendary.
He was especially notorious for the myth that his soul traveled distant places
during many years, returning with predictions about the future, while his body
remained in a trance at the same place, until his enemies burned his body
while his soul was absent, and it could not return again. It was said that the in-
habitants of Clazomenae constructed a temple in his honor.⁵⁵ Although, as noted
above, Hermotimus is included in the list of Pythagoras’ reincarnations in other
sources, it is only in Heraclides’ list that we find the episode of recognizing the
shield, in which Pythagoras himself usually plays the leading role, and is often
located in other places, like Argos, Mycenae, or Delphi.⁵⁶
Finally, Pythagoras’ subsequent reincarnation, after Hermotimus’ death,
into Pyrrhus, a Delian fisherman, would also strengthen his connection with
Leto’s son, given that the island of Delos was Apollo’s birthplace and center of
his worship.⁵⁷
Thus, the succession of reincarnations in Euphorbus, Hermotimus and Pyr-
rhus, linked for different reasons with Apollo, created a direct association be-
tween Pythagoras and this divinity. Therefore, the list of his prior human reincar-
 Arist. fr. 191c Rose.

 Cf. Plin. HN VII 174; Apollon. Mir. 3; Tert. An. 44; Plu. De gen. 592c-e, passage in which he is
referred to as “Hermodorus”.
 Cf. D. S. X 6.2, Ov. Met. XV 163 s., Tert. An. 28.4, Hippol. Haer. I 3.3.
 Burkert 1972, p. 138, n.104, suggests a relation between this fisherman and the Delian diver
mentioned in D. L. II 22, IX 12. However, it seems that the most relevant issue is that both the
fisherman and the diver were from Delos. This has been interpreted as an allusion to the god
Apollo, sovereign of the island. On this matter see Casadesús, in press.
nations can be considered as a way to ensure the philosopher from Samos’ Apol-
lonian lineage.
It is striking in this context that the surviving sources do not specify the pas-
sage of Pythagoras’ soul through animal or plant stages, although the text trans-
mitted by Diogenes Laertius asserts that Euphorbus used to say that he had been
Aethalides, who had received from Hermes the gift of transmigration of the soul,
and that he was able to remember how he had performed his transmigrations, as
well as how many plants and animals he had been in, and how many things his
soul had suffered in Hades, and all the things the others endured. Only in the
vague report transmitted by Ennius do we find that Pythagoras had been a pea-
cock in the phase between Euphorbus and Pythagoras.⁵⁸ The absence of animal
and plant reincarnations contrasts, for instance, with those attributed to Empe-
docles, which included, apart from the human ones in the forms of a boy and a
girl, a bush, a bird, and a fish.⁵⁹
The conclusion of all these strands of information about the conception of
the notion of transmigration attributed to Pythagoras, together with the dietary
prescriptions, is that he constructed the so-called “Pythagorean way of life”. Ac-
cording to Plato, this distinguished him from the rest:
Pythagoras was himself especially honored for this, and his successors, even to this day,
denominating a certain way of life the Pythagorean, are distinguished among their contem-
poraries.⁶⁰
Much information has survived about this way of life. Among the many precepts
and prohibitions observed by Pythagoreans, including the mandatory silence
about their activities and doctrines, most later sources insist in stating that
the sacrifice of animals and the consumption of meat was forbidden. Porphyry
tells, for instance, that, according to Eudoxus, Pythagoras exhibited such purity
that he abhorred murder and murderers, and that not only did he not feed on
living beings, he never socialized with butchers or hunters.⁶¹ Likewise, Strabo re-
ports that Pythagoras used to order others not to eat meat.⁶²
It is worth underscoring, nevertheless, that none of the preserved accounts
associate Pythagoras with beliefs about rewards or punishments for behavior
 Enn. Ann. 15. Cf. Pers. 6.11. The explanation of the reincarnation of Pythagoras’ soul in a
peacock has been related to the fact that this bird represents immortality or that it was the
symbol of the island of Samos. On this issue, see Skutsch 1959, p. 115.
 31 B 117 DK.
 Pl. R. 600b.
 Porph. VP 6.
 Str. XV 716.
in previous lives, or with the characteristic theory of Orphism that the soul, dur-
ing its earthly life, is locked in a body, as if it were a tomb. Neither do they men-
tion rites or initiations with the objective of purifying the soul to free it from the
cycle of reincarnations. This ritual conception was characteristic of the Orphic
lifestyle, and was described by Plato himself in the Laws, in direct relation
with the prohibition on sacrificing, eating meat and defiling the altars of the
gods with blood.⁶³ Diverse ancient testimonies corroborate that the prohibition
on shedding blood, committing murders and eating meat was a highly distinctive
Orphic precept,⁶⁴ related to the idea of purifying the soul from the body’s impur-
ities, unlike Pythagoras’ views.
The oldest passage that mentions Orphics and Pythagoreans together refers
to the prohibition on wearing woollen clothes because they were considered im-
pure. This information is preserved by Herodotus who, after comparing the hab-
its of Egyptians and Greeks, states that:
nothing woollen is brought into temples, or buried with them: that is impious. They agree in
this with practices called Orphic and Bacchic, but which in fact are Egyptian and Pythagor-
ean: for it is impious, too, for one partaking of these rites to be buried in woollen wrap-
pings. There is a sacred discourse (hieros logos) about this.⁶⁵
This text requires a more detailed comment than can be given here.⁶⁶ Recall,
however, that there are two ways of reading the passage: the first version is
the one offered in the translation. It mentions, on the one hand Orphics and Bac-
chics and, on the other Egyptians and Pythagoreans. This reading seems to sug-
gest that the so-called Orphic and Bacchic rites are in fact Egyptian and Pytha-
gorean, that is to say, the ones that, according to other sources, Pythagoras had
learned in Egypt and introduced in Greece. This interpretation fits with what has
been presented here about the figure of Pythagoras. However, the reference to
the hieros logos might also allude to the role performed by Pythagoras in the ab-
sorption of aspects of Orphic doctrine. This would then be another instance of
Pythagoras’ kakotechnie, a Pythagorean “sacred discourse” that, as was men-
tioned above, was also noted in other testimonies that could refer to a corpus
 Pl. Lg. 782c.

 Cf. Ar., Ra. 1032; Eur. Hipp. 952– 957.
 Hdt. II 81.
 For a broader comment on the difficulties inherent in the interpretation of this passage, see
Casadesús 1994, pp. 107– 111.
of Orphic doctrine that was assimilated by Pythagoreanism, becoming integrated

into Pythagorean doctrine itself ⁶⁷.
Philolaus’ testimony
In this sense, a fragment attributed to Philolaus can contribute to clarifying the
relation between Orphism and Pythagorism. Indeed, according to Clement of
Alexandria’s testimony Philolaus, before the end of the 5th century B.C., was
part of the Pythagorean school at Thebes and is considered to be the first to
break the Pythagorean school’s strict rule of silence,⁶⁸ attributed to some ancient
theologians and seers the theory that the soul is buried in the body for punish-
ment:
the ancient theologians and seers also give witness that on account of certain penalties the
soul is yoked to the body and is buried in it as in a tomb.⁶⁹
According to Plato’s testimony in the Cratylus, the notion that the body is a tomb
for the soul, where, as in a prison, it serves sentence for a fault committed, has
an Orphic origin. This passage led this theory to be known with the word play
soma-sema:
some say it is the tomb (σῆμα) of the soul, their notion being that the soul is buried in the
present life; (…) But I think it most likely that the followers of Orpheus gave this name, with
the idea that the soul is undergoing punishment for something; they think it has the body
(σῶμα) as an enclosure to keep it safe, like a prison.⁷⁰
 The second version of this passage, however, refers only to the “so-called Orphics and
Pythagoreans”, and omits the Bacchics and the Egyptians. Whichever way the text is read, it
must be underlined that it associates the Orphics and the Pythagoreans with the prohibition of
wearing animal fabric, something that both considered impure. A text by Apuleius attributes to
both Orpheus and Pythagoras this same prohibition on wearing wool, and explains that the
reason for the prohibition is that it comes from the bodies of sheep: “For wool, produced by the
most stolid of creatures and stripped from the sheep’s back, the followers of Orpheus and
Pythagoras are for that very reason forbidden to wear as being unholy and unclean” Apul. Apol.
III 56.
 Diogenes Laertius suggests that according to Hermippus, the transmission of Pythagorean
doctrine began during Plato’s trip to the court of king Dionysius in Sicily, when he bought
Philolaus’ book from his relatives for 40 minas D.L. VIII 84.
 Clem. Al. Strom. 3.17 (2.203.11 Stählin)= Philol. D/K 44 B 14.
 Pl. Cra. 400c.
Philolaus’ fragment completely coincides with the information offered by Plato:

the soul, which is immortal, is buried in a mortal body, as punishment for a com-
mitted offense. Likewise, the reference to some “ancient theologians and seers”
implies that Philolaus intended to point to Orpheus as the author of the soma-
sema theory.⁷¹ Moreover, on several occasions Plato, like Philolaus, associated
theories that had to do with the Orphic notion of the punishment of the soul
with “certain priests”. Thus, in the Meno, Plato, alluding to “wise men and
women who told of things divine”, “priests and priestesses”, asserted that
“the soul is immortal” and that therefore it is necessary to live one’s life in
the purest possible way.⁷²
Philolaus, a contemporary of Socrates, would have been the first to unveil a
notion that surprised almost everyone. Although it was Orphic in origin, it had
become part of Pythagorean doctrine by then. Philolaus would have precisely at-
tempted to highlight that the origin of the soma-sema theory was not Pythagor-
ean, but Orphic.
Although the historical existence of Philolaus has been questioned by some
scholars, and although some doubt that Philolaus is the author of this fragment⁷³
on the basis of information provided by Plato in the Phaedo, it seems prudent to
consider that Philolaus was directly linked to the view that the soul is locked in
 “The double denomination οἱ παλαιοὶ θεολόγοι τε καὶ μάντιες does not agree with a Py-
thagorean context either, as has been noted repeatedly: the word θεολόγος is usually used to
refer to those who write poems on divinity, especially Orpheus. The Orphics can be considered
“fortunetellers” if we take into account that they are believed to have authored multiple χρη-
σμοί”, Bernabé 1995, p. 208.
 Pl. Men. 81a. There are two references in the Laws to the same theory: in one of them the
theory postulating the existence of an avenging justice is attributed to a myth or sacred tale from
“ancient priests”, Pl. Lg. 872d-e; The other specifies that there is a tale that is told during the
initiations, teletai, that alludes to the punishments souls must endure in Hades, Pl. Lg. 870d.
Moreover, in Ep. VII 335a, Plato traces the doctrine that “the soul is immortal and that it has
judges and pays the greatest penalties, whensoever a man is released from his body” to ancient
and holy doctrines.
 Huffman 1993, pp. 402– 405 summarizes the main argument that authors like Bywater,
Wilamowitz, Frank and Burkert have offered to demonstrate that the fragment is spurious. They
generally do so on the grounds of style and vocabulary issues, as on the fact that the notions
that Clement of Alexandria, who quotes the fragment, attributes to Philolaus seem to be in-
fluenced by Platonic and Aristotelian texts that refer to the soma-sema theory. There is a general
hypercritical attitude towards Philolaus that seems excessive in the case of this fragment. Be-
rnabé 1995, pp. 229 – 230 has cogently argued against these hypercritical opinions to conclude
that “there are no serious reasons to doubt Clement’s testimony, and they seem like another
example of how, on occasions, doubts about the authenticity of a passage are motivated by its
not coinciding with a hypothesis than by any other cause”.
the body as if in a prison, with the prohibition on suicide as a way to escape.

Hence, after Socrates asserts that violence against oneself is illicit, and his inter-
locutors display their ignorance of this theory, the following dialogue takes
place.
Socrates asks Cebes: “How is this, Cebes? Have you and Simmias, who are pupils of Philo-
laus, not heard about such things?”
To what Cebes answers: “Nothing definite, Socrates”.
Socrates adds: “I myself speak of them only from hearsay; but I have no objection to telling
what I have heard”.⁷⁴
Finally, Cebes asks Socrates what is his basis for holding that suicide is not licit, admitting
that “I heard Philolaus, when he was living in our city, say the same thing you just said”.⁷⁵
The dialogue continues to focus on the soma-sema theory, which Socrates attrib-
utes to a doctrine that was told in secret circles, en aporretois,⁷⁶ that states that
“men are in a kind of prison and must not set ourselves free or run away”. The
tone of this passage from the Phaedo clearly alludes, thus, to the fragment that
Clement of Alexandria attributes to Philolaus. Therefore, it seems convenient to
accept his suggestion that the doctrine that the body is the soul’s tomb comes
from ancient theologians and seers, who very likely attributed it to Orpheus.
In fact, Clement of Alexandria, who preserves the fragment, presents Philolaus’
testimony after referring to the passage from the Cratylus that assigns the soma-
sema theory to the followers of Orpheus with the intention of linking them to-
gether, and underlining the Orphic authorship of this belief.
That the idea also circulated in Pythagorean contexts is supported by a pas-
sage of Athenaeus that states that the Pythagorean Euxitheus argued that
the souls of all beings are imprisoned in the body and in this hither life as a punishment
and he added in a similar vein to Philolaus in the Phaedo, in allusion to the pro-
hibition of committing suicide to free oneself, that god has decreed that
if they refuse to abide in these until he of his own will releases them, they will then be
plunged in more and greater torments.⁷⁷
 The apparent ignorance shown by Plato’s interlocutors about Philolaus’s theories might be
motivated by the secrecy surrounding Pythagorean doctrines, a fact that is highlighted in this
passage with Socrates’ usual ironic tone.
 Pl. Phd. 61 d-e.
 The expression en aporretois usually alludes to Orphic circles. Cf. Pl. Cra. 413a; R. 378a.
 Ath. 4.157c.
In time, the identification between Orphism and Pythagoreanism increased to

the point that, regarding matters related to metempsychosis and immortality
of the soul, they came to be considered as two sides of the same coin. However,
certain issues need further clarification at this point.
The Orphic and Pythagorean conception

of the soul
These testimonies suggest that Pythagorean circles believed, from the start, in
the transmigration of souls from one body to another, a theory that Pythagoras
had probably learned in his numerous journeys. At the very beginning the strict-
ly Pythagorean notion would have been that the soul remains after death, and
goes through successive cycles, moving from being to being, whether animal
or plant.
His respect towards animals was a consequence of his belief that they have a
soul that is reincarnated successively, and present in any living body. This atti-
tude, in turn, must be understood in the broader context of Pythagorean vision
of the universe, that considered the cosmos as a universal community ruled by
order and harmony. This had important ethical implications, notably the require-
ment of living a prudent and moderate life, avoiding the excesses that could alter
that cosmic order.⁷⁸ In this harmonious system, and in the initial origins of Py-
thagoreanism, the notion of the souls’ transmigration served as a demonstration
that there is a real universal community among beings. In this context, the souls
that migrate from body to body constitute the nexus that unites all beings that
constitute the cosmos.
Hence, Pythagoreans saw the transmigration of souls as nothing more than
a logical consequence of the belief that the soul is immortal and remains after
the body’s disappearance. The aforementioned accounts of Pythagoras’ reaction
to the dog being beaten or his capacity to recall previous transmigrations of the
soul allude to this fact. Metempsychosis would not have been considered as a
punishment in the first phase of Pythagoreanism, and there were no moral con-
sequences that linked the soul’s purity with its salvation and impurity with its
 Plato described this Pythagorean notion of cosmic harmony with precision: “wise men tell
us, Callicles, that heaven and earth and gods and men are held together by communion and
friendship, by orderliness, temperance, and justice; and that is the reason, my friend, why they
call the whole of this world by the name of order, not of disorder or dissoluteness”, Pl. Grg. 507e-
508a.
condemnation. In sum: the origin of the idea that the soul is buried in a body
because it has to serve a sentence for an offense committed in the past is Orphic,
and Pythagoreanism absorbed it, adapting it to its own conception of the soul.
The demonstration that this is the case resides in the causes that originated
the Orphic belief in the soul’s immortality and successive re-incorporations. In-
deed, Orphics derived this notion from the myth that tells about the dismember-
ment and ingestion of Dionysus’ members by the Titans who, in turn, were struck
dead and reduced to ashes by Zeus, and whose remains gave rise to men. This
explains the duality that characterizes the human condition: the soul, immortal,
corresponds to the Dionysian element; the body, to the Titanic nature. For this
reason, all men are required to purge the original guilt of their ancestors, the Ti-
tans, serving the sentence of wandering from body to body.⁷⁹
This myth’s derivations explain the strong connection existing from the be-
ginning between Orphic and Dionysian rites, though the latter never entered Py-
thagoreanism. As noted by other scholars, Dionysus’ presence in Pythagorean
circles was alwaysnil: their god was Apollo.⁸⁰ The close relation between Diony-
sian rites and Orphism and their notorious absence from Pythagoreanism is no
minor issue. On the contrary, it affords one of the interpretative keys to the Py-
thagorean posture towards Orphism. Indeed, it is well known that Pythagoreans
postulated a harmonic cosmos ruled by moderation, prudence, and order. The
orgiastic manifestations or initiation rituals commemorating the Titans’ violent
acts could not be integrated into this framework. Pythagoreans already pos-
sessed their own strict precepts that guaranteed the sect’s cohesion and secrecy,
and that were better adapted to their own philosophical postulates and modus
vivendi. This is why they kept away from Orphic initiation rituals.
In sum, Pythagoreanism absorbed from Orphism the moral consequences of
the system, but not the mythical causes that originated it, nor the initiation rit-
uals that enveloped it, and did so in order to adapt it and reinforce its own doc-
trinal system. In other words: the idea that the body is the soul’s tomb as a pun-
ishment for a committed offense, and that it must be purified, was incorporated
into Pythagoreanism to stregthen its own theory of the transmigration of souls.
This move consolidated the system and endowed it with a moral dimension that
was not initially suggested by the theory of transmigration. As other authors
have already noted, there existed in Greece a Pythagorean metempsychosis “de-
void of moral connotations”, whose objective was not to gain freedom from the
 On this issue see Bernabé 2008, pp. 591– 607.

 This was already the opinion of Guthrie: “Where the Pythagoreans are in question, we hear
little or nothing of Dionysus or Bakchos. The god of Pythagoras was Apollo”. Guthrie 1952, p. 218.
reincarnation cycle, but instead was the result of an animist conception of the
cosmos.⁸¹ What was new, thus, in the Pythagorean notion of transmigration
was the moral aspect that derived, in F. Cornford’s words, from the fact that “re-
incarnation expiates some original sin and that the individual soul persists bear-
ing its load of inalienable responsibility, through a round of lives, till, purified by
suffering, it escapes for ever”.⁸² Ancient testimonies coincide in considering that
the Pythagoreans appropriated Orphic doctrinal elements that already existed,
and that they would have done nothing more than combine them with the no-
tion, which Pythagoras also learned from others, that the soul is subjected to
continuous transmigrations.⁸³
From the moment when the fusion between both conceptions of the soul
took place, the term “Orphic-Pythagorean” can be used aptly. This expression de-
notes the union of the Pythagorean notion of the soul’s metempsychosis with the
Orphic notion that the soul is buried in the body because it is being punished.
The new vision that emerged from the fusion of both currents was the one picked
up in the Pythagorean hieros logos mentioned by other sources, in agreement
with Pythagoras’ practice of seizing others’ ideas and presenting them as his
own.
Undoubtedly, the conception of the soul that resulted from the absorption of
the Orphic conception of the soul into the Pythagorean framework, a much more
structured system with greater philosophical aspirations than Orphism,⁸⁴ was
the one that prevailed. Empedocles, for instance, already knew, and had even
accepted, this Orphic-Pythagorean theory, although he was able to distinguish,
as Plato did, the features provided by each of the currents.
Plato represents the best testimony of how this Orphic-Pythagorean concep-
tion of the soul was received in philosophical contexts. Traces of Orphism-Pytha-
goreanism are found in several passages of the Phaedo ⁸⁵, Phaedrus ⁸⁶ and Ti-
maeus ⁸⁷ where Plato establishes a scale of reincarnations for souls that depends
on the justice or injustice of the previously lived life. He specifies that the human
or animal bodies that correspond to the souls are similar to the kind of life led in
 Stettner 1934, pp. 7– 19. Cf. Casadio 1991, p. 142.

 Cornford 1922, p. 141.
 “It nevertheless seems most likely from the character of the two systems, and in particular
from the fact that Pythagoreanism takes up Orphism into itself but has as well an intellectual
system to reinforce it, that Orphic dogma was already formulated, at least in its main outlines,
when Pythagoras founded his brotherhood”, Guthrie 1952, p. 220.
 On this issue, see Burkert 1982.
 Pl. Phd 81d-82a.
 Pl. Phdr. 248c-d.
 Pl. Ti. 91e-92c.
their previous existence. This association between the kind of behavior in a prior
life and the corresponding reincarnation, with the consequent requirement of
leading a moderate and prudent life, was the result of the fusion of Orphism
and Pythagoreanism that Plato, in turn, developed within the context of his
own philosophical system. This was known to the Neoplatonic commentators,
who did not hesitate to attribute the passages in which Plato alluded to the im-
mortality of the soul and its punishments to “Orphic and Pythagorean” doctrine.
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3 Fifth and Fourth Century Pythagoreanism
Richard McKirahan
Philolaus on Number
Conscious innovation is the last thing we expect to find in early Pythagoreanism,
but in working on Philolaus I have come to see him as a great innovator within
the Pythagorean tradition. He made original contributions on several topics im-
portant in Pythagorean thought: in his views on the nature of reality, on the na-
ture of knowledge and the extent to which humans are capable of obtaining it,
on the relation between numbers and things, in his analysis of the harmonic in-
tervals, and in extending the concept of number. I believe Philolaus’s theory of
the nature of reality and of the role that numbers play in reality was an effort to
update Pythagorean cosmology to the philosophically sophisticated environ-
ment of the early fourth century. I distinguish two stages in early Pythagorean
thought about numbers; Philolaus marks a third stage.
Stage 1 was defined by the discovery of the numerical basis of the harmonic in-
tervals. At some time in the early days of Pythagorean speculation, someone –
perhaps Pythagoras himself – made the surprising discovery that the basic inter-
vals of Greek music, the octave, the fifth and the fourth can be expressed as ra-
tios of whole numbers.¹ This was not an obvious result and it is not certain how
it was reached. The simplest way (and I am inclined to believe that this is how
the discovery was actually made) depends on the fact that a string in a musical
instrument makes different notes if it is struck or plucked when “stopped” in dif-
ferent places: the shorter the length the higher the note.² This fact is more evi-
dent in modern stringed instruments than ancient ones. A guitar has a fretted
 Certainty on these matters is unattainable, and this is not the place to argue for these views in
detail. The fact that knowledge of the numerical ratios of these intervals is attributed not only to
Pythagoreans but also to Lasus is reasonably taken to show that this knowledge goes back to the
sixth century (Huffman 1993, p. 148). The importance of the tetractus in early Pythagorean
thought (it appears in the akousmata [Iamblichus, VP 82] and the Pythagoreans swore oaths by
it) is also relevant. The tetractus is a representation of the first four numbers represented by ten
points or pebbles arranged into a triangle, which thus embodies the harmonic ratios, each of
which is indicated by the points found in successive rows, Even if Pythagoras did not discover
the harmonic ratios, it is plausible but hardly provable that Pythagoras himself “invested the
applicability of these ratios to musical intervals with enormous general significance.” Here I
follow Schofield (Kirk, Raven, and Schofield 1983, p. 235, from which the quotation is taken) and
Kahn (Kahn 2001, pp. 30 – 38).
 In this I follow Barker 2007, p. 26: “It is usually and plausibly assumed that the Pythagoreans’
practice of representing intervals as ratios began from such observations as these.” For dis-
cussion of the ancient evidence, see Burkert (Burkert 1972, pp. 374– 83).
180 Richard McKirahan
fingerboard that marks the different notes, and it is easy to see that if you stop a
string at its midpoint it plays a note an octave higher than the note it plays if it is
not stopped. The typical stringed instrument of ancient Greece, the lyre, had no
fingerboard and all its strings were about the same length. Each string was nor-
mally used to play only one note (like a harp). The idea of measuring the lengths
of a string that produce the octave and other intervals characteristic of Greek
music was not obvious. Further, it was necessary to devise some way of doing
this, actually to do it, and to do it with sufficient accuracy. A simple thought-ex-
periment would not have been enough to make anyone think that the ratios of
lengths for the harmonic intervals had the simple numerical relations that
they do.
The Pythagorean discovery of the mathematical basis of the harmonic inter-
vals amounts to the discovery that if you stop a string halfway along its length,
the note produced is an octave above the note made by the unstopped string, if
you stop it three-fourths way along its length, the note produced by the longer
segment is a fourth above the note made by the unstopped string, and if you
stop it two-thirds along its length, the note produced by the longer segment is
a fifth above the note made by the unstopped string. If the string is 12 units
long, these intervals are produced by stopping it at lengths 6, 8, and 9. These
three intervals were the basic intervals of Greek music. All the various tunings
of the lyre contained a string tuned to a fourth above the bottom note and all
the tunings that ranged over an octave had a string tuned to a fifth above the
bottom note as well, although the other intervals could vary. As they expressed
it, the ratios of the octave, fifth, and fourth are, respectively, 2 to 1, 3 to 2 and 4 to
3. It appears that the early Pythagorean analysis of ratios went no farther than
this.
Stage 2 saw the development of the study of numbers and the generalization of
the discovery that numbers are fundamental to music.³
On the mathematical side, the discovery prompted an interest in numbers in
their own right, and it had important positive results for the history of mathemat-
ics. The Pythagoreans were the first to classify numbers into kinds (e. g., even
and odd, square and triangular), which naturally led them to come up with def-
initions of the different kinds of number.⁴ They also employed proofs (of a sort)
 The evidence does not establish that all the elements of my Stage 2 were developed prior to
Philolaus, but I think it likely that that is the case.
 This view seems to be generally accepted, but the sources are not sufficiently definite about
how early the definitions they assign to Pythagoreans are. Aristotle refers to the Pythagorean
practice of representing numbers as triangles and squares (Metaph. N 5, 1092b12).
to discover new results or to justify them. For these reasons the Pythagoreans are
rightly regarded as the originators of number theory. Here is a well known exam-
ple of the kind of proof I have in mind. It is based on the following diagram:
The diagram shows that the square on 4 has 16 units, the square on 5 has 25
units, and that the number of units in the square on 5 is equal to the number of
units in the square on 4 plus twice 4 plus 1. Likewise the number of units in the
square on 4 is equal to the number of units in the square on 3 plus twice 3 plus 1,
etc. If a person does not see this, someone else can easily point it out, and what
is pointed out is clear to see once you are shown how. And having understood
this much, you immediately “see” that the same relation holds between all suc-
cessive square numbers. As we would write it, (n+1)2 = n2 + 2n + 1.
This is not a rigorous proof. It is not a deductive argument from unproved
principles and it is not a case of mathematical induction. It displays how the re-
sult is obtained in one case and prompts us to “see”⁵ that it works like that in all
cases (that is, for all positive whole numbers). There is reason to think that this
proof technique was also used by geometry in its earliest stages.⁶ I call this kind
of proof a paradigm proof because it is based on a well chosen example, and I
regard it as legitimately mathematical even though it is very different from Eu-
 The normal words for “prove” are δεικνύναι (“show”) and its compound ἀποδεικνύναι.
 Of the five theorems attributed to Thales, four can easily be “shown” to be true by the method
of superposition (a technique that proves a conclusion by showing that the conclusion is true in
a single case): showing that two figures are congruent by placing one upon the other. “We can
hardly suppose that, if Thales proved that the diameter of a circle divides it into two equal parts,
he would do so by any other method” (Heath 1921, vol. 1, p. 225). This method of proof can have
contributed to his “proof” of the fifth as well.
clid’s deductive proofs based on unproved principles. I believe that paradigm

proofs were employed to good effect by Philolaus.
Beyond mathematics, the discovery that the octave is dependent not on the
material of the string that produces it, or its length or thickness or tension, but
on the ratio 2:1, was the inspiration for a general theory about the nature of re-
ality. In one way or another, everything depends on number: number is essential
or fundamental to all things. This claim was primarily a claim about the nature of
things in the world, but it was also an epistemological claim: if we understand
the numerical basis of something, then we understand that thing. Number is the
key to knowledge.
This kind of generalization is typical of the early Presocratic period, where
large theories about fundamental entities and mechanisms were typically
grounded in a small number of examples. A clear example is found in Aristotle’s
comment on Thales’ view that the principle or origin of all things is water. Thales
“may have got this idea from seeing that the nourishment of all things is moist
[…], and also because the seeds of all things have a moist nature; and water is
the principle of the nature of moist things.”⁷ On this account Thales saw that
water is fundamental to some kinds of things and concluded that it is fundamen-
tal to all kinds of things. Similar reasoning may have led Anaximenes to con-
clude that air rather than water was fundamental, and Heraclitus to name fire
as his basic entity.
The Pythagorean belief that number is fundamental to everything led to an
attempt to discover the numerical nature of various things – which consisted in
associating or identifying things with numbers, as in the identification of kairos,
“the right time” with the number 7 and justice with 4.⁸ This aspect of early Py-
thagoreanism is well known and it is hardly necessary to say that these identi-
fications have no scientific or mathematical basis.
The practice of associating numbers with shapes found a place among these
fanciful identifications of things with numbers. The first four numbers sum to 10,
and they can be arranged into the shape of a triangle in which each adjacent pair
of lines represents one of the harmonic ratios. This arrangement was called the
“tetractus” or the “tetractus of the decad,” and had great importance for the Py-
thagoreans, who swore their oaths on it, and perhaps on this flimsy basis decid-
ed that there were ten heavenly objects, although only nine are visible, and so
posited the “counter-earth” which was so located in the heavens that it was
 Aristotle, Metaph. A 3, 983b18 – 27.

 Aristotle, Metaph. A 5, 985b27– 31.
never visible from earth;⁹ perhaps the tetractus was also behind the specification
of ten pairs of fundamental opposites by “others of this same group” – that is, a
group of Pythagoreans.¹⁰
From the mathematical point of view, the state of Pythagorean mathematics
in the late fifth century was not healthy. Here are five salient features. (1) The
results the Pythagoreans achieved in number theory remained – but geometry,
not number theory, was the leading branch of mathematics, and while Pythagor-
eans contributed to the development of geometry, they are not reputed to be its
founders (Thales was).¹¹ (2) The proof methods of the early Pythagoreans were
severely limited and had been superseded by deductive proofs of the kind
found in Euclid,¹² and there is no good reason to suppose that the idea of deduc-
tive axiomatic demonstration was due to Pythagoreans, even though some Py-
thagorean mathematicians did employ proofs of that kind.¹³ (3) The idea of de-
fining mathematical terms and using them in proofs, which may have originated
with the Pythagoreans, was a winner, but it was not an unmixed blessing. In par-
ticular, the definition of number as a “plurality of units”¹⁴ had unfortunate con-
sequences. In the first place, it implies that 1 is not a number, and neither are 0
or negative integers. In the second, it implies that fractions and irrational num-
bers are not numbers. The resulting concept of number (which admits only the
finite positive integers greater than 1) did not hinder mathematicians and others
from treating 1 as a number in their calculations and in their proofs, but it re-
mained a difficulty for those who wanted to put mathematics on a sound phil-
osophical basis and (most relevant to my present concern) was an obstacle to
conceptualizing numbers other than positive integers or reflected a difficulty
the Greeks had in conceptualizing them. (4) The discovery of the numerical
 Aristotle, Metaph. A 5, 986a8 – 12.

 Aristotle, Metaph. A 5, 986a22– 26.
 Proclus, Commentary on the first book of Euclid’s Elements, 65.7– 11 (Friedlein).
 The earliest surviving example is the quadrature of lunes by Hippocrates of Chios (second
half of the fifth century BCE). For discussion and analysis see Heath 1921, vol. 1, pp. 183 – 200.
This evidence makes Hippocrates “in an important sense, the first mathematician” (Netz 1999,
p. 275).
 The Pythagorean Archytas of Tarentum (first half of the fourth century BCE) “increased the
number of theorems [in geometry] and made a further advance towards a scientific arrangement
of them” (Proclus, Commentary on the first book of Euclid’s Elements 66.15 – 17). See Huffman
2005, pp. 342– 401.
 This definition is found in Euclid (Elements, book 7, definition 2). Other ancient definitions,
some of them attributed to Pythagoreans, involve the same difficulty: e. g., “a progression of
multitude beginning from a unit,” “a determinate multitude,” “multitude of units,” “multitude
measurable by one.” (Heath 1921, vol. 1, pp. 69 – 70), but see n. 11 above.
basis of the harmonic intervals remained as an important achievement and it

seems to be linked with the interest in various “means” (arithmetic, geometric,
and harmonic) whose discovery is attributed to the early Pythagoreans.¹⁵ The
so-called “musical proportion”¹⁶ (12, 9, 8, 6) illustrates the arithmetic and har-
monic means. (The arithmetic and harmonic means of 6 and 12 are 9 and 8, re-
spectively). The musical proportion may go back to the initial discovery of the
harmonic intervals and it may well have played a role in Philolaus’s analysis
of the octave. (5) Most of the accounts of the numerical basis of things were
mathematically and scientifically useless and were ignored by other mathemati-
cians and philosophers. There are a number of good reasons for this, but I want
to mention one that has not received the attention it deserves – namely that it is
not true that the harmonic intervals are numbers, or that numbers are their
basis. If the octave is essentially the ratio 2:1, then it is wrong to conclude that
it is the number 2 or the number 1 or the numbers 2 and 1; it is their ratio.
This is an obvious point, but its significance has passed relatively unnoticed. I
am going to argue that Philolaus got this right and that the early Pythagoreans
took the wrong lesson home. They held that things are numbers (or are similar to
numbers, etc.), and this led them to their unscientific and unmathematical iden-
tifications and explanations. If only they had seen that it is not numbers but nu-
merical ratios that are basic to things, they would have been better positioned to
pursue more scientifically fruitful (and no less fascinating) directions of re-
search.
This is the discouraging situation in which Philolaus found himself at the
end of the fifth century. Worse, the centers of Pythagorean power had been de-
stroyed and Philolaus himself seems to have lived the life of a kind of refugee.
These are not usually the best circumstances for intellectual work, but in Philo-
laus’s case the absence of community pressure to conform to tradition may have
been the enabling condition for his original thinking as well as for his decision to
make his work public. However, I cannot here pursue these thoughts further.
I have come to think that Philolaus held that reality, harmony (ἁρμονία),
number, and knowledge are systematically connected and need to be understood
in terms of one another. This paper concentrates on harmony and number, but I
will say a few things about knowledge and reality to give an idea of the import
his analysis of the octave in fragment B6a has for his philosophical system.
 Nicomachus, Intro. Arith. 2.28.6, cf. 2.22.1. This attribution is generally accepted. See Burkert
1972, pp. 440 – 42, with references to Theon, Nicomachus and Iamblichus.
 For the term, see Iamblichus, in Nic. 122, 26 – 27.
Philolaus was an originator, but he worked within the Pythagorean tradition,

with its emphasis on harmony and κόσμος, with number somehow being omni-
present in things and the presence of number making them intelligible. He held
that things are constituted out of limiters and unlimiteds. The surviving frag-
ments do not provide lists of limiters and unlimiteds. But Philolaus holds that
the κόσμος and also everything in the κόσμος is characterized by ἁρμονία,
where a ἁρμονία is the way the limiters and unlimiteds that constitute it are ar-
ranged in an orderly structure.¹⁷ In this way ἁρμονία and reality go together. Each
thing is a ἁρμονία of limiters and unlimiteds. I will shortly go through his anal-
ysis of the octave in B6a, which I take to be a “paradigm proof” of how limiters
and unlimiteds combine to form something in the perceptible world.
He also held that there is a direct link between number and knowledge –
most clearly in B4 where he says, “And in fact all the things that are known
have number. For it is not possible for anything at all to be comprehended or
known without this.” I suppose he means that nothing can be comprehended
or known if it does not have number, and moreover that in order to comprehend
or know something we need to know its number. Possessing number (whatever
that may mean) is a necessary condition for intelligibility.
So far we have two linked pairs: number and knowledge on the one hand,
ἁρμονία and reality on the other. Number is the key to knowledge and ἁρμονία
the key to reality. As we are about to see, Philolaus connects the two pairs by
linking number with ἁρμονία. Nothing can be known if it does not have number,
but everything is constituted out of limiters and limiteds in a way that involves a
ἁρμονία. B6a shows that every ἁρμονία is characterized by a number.
In B6a Philolaus takes up the old Pythagorean discovery of the numerical
basis of the harmonic intervals and extends it in interesting ways. To show
this it is necessary to supply some background information on Greek music
and musical instruments. As noted earlier, the basic stringed instrument of clas-
sical Greece was the lyre. Lyres were different from modern stringed instruments
in several important ways. Representations in Greek art of the period show that
there was no set number of strings. Further, although lyres typically had seven
strings, there are pictures of lyres with as few as three strings and ancient
texts that mention lyres with as many as twelve.¹⁸
 “Now things that are similar and of the same kind have no need of ἁρμονία to boot, but
those that are dissimilar and not of the same kind or of the same speed must be connected
together in ἁρμονίαι if they are going to be kept in an orderly arrangement (κόσμος)” (from
Philolaus, B6a).
 West 1992, p. 63.
Ancient visual representations indicate that the size of lyres varied consider-
ably. One consequence of this variation is that there was no standard set of pitch-
es to which the strings were tuned. However, there were standard systems of tun-
ing. Consider a violin. Its four strings are usually tuned to the following notes: G
below middle C, and then in ascending order: D A E. The interval between each
pair of successive strings is the same: a fifth. In this tuning, call G below middle
C the bottom note. Consider what happens if we leave the violin tuned this way
but stop all the strings somewhere along their length (say, three inches from the
end); each string will play a higher note than before. If we make certain assump-
tions about continuity, there are an infinite number of possible notes that each
string can play, but the intervals between the notes made by the different strings
remain constant, a musical fifth. From the Greek point of view, all these systems
of notes count as the same tuning. From this point of view absolute pitch is un-
important. The bottom note can be selected to suit your own requirements – say
the range of your voice. This fact, that the tunings are not systems of definite
notes but systems of intervals, is fundamental to the Pythagorean analysis of
the musical intervals and to Philolaus’s extension of it.
Unlike the early Pythagoreans, Philolaus considered how the intervals are
related to one another both musically and mathematically, and came up with
an analysis of the octave, an extension of the concept of number, and a new
kind of arithmetic. The evidence for these claims is found in fragment B6a.
B6a needs to be approached gradually, since it contains some technical vocabu-
lary. I will take it sentence by sentence, developing an interpretation as I pro-
ceed. In each case I begin with a “semi-translation.”¹⁹
(1) The magnitude of a ἁρμονία is a συλλαβά plus a δι’ ὀξειᾶν and a δι’ ὀξειᾶν is greater
than a συλλαβά by an epogdoic.²⁰
ἁρμονία, the origin of our word “harmony,” means “joint” or “joining together.”
In this case it is the “joining together” of musical intervals so as to form a “tun-
ing” – a certain arrangement of intervals whose entire range spans an octave.
Not just the span between two notes, but that span thought of as an organized
system of intervals.
Like a guitar or violin, a lyre has its strings arranged so that the top string
plays the lowest note and the bottom string the highest. I will consider the
case of a seven-string lyre whose highest note is an octave above the lowest
note. Number these strings 1 through 7, beginning with the top string. The
 Here I follow the example of Barker 2007, p. 264.

 This coinage represents ἐπόγδοος.
seven strings and the seven notes they play were conceived of as two overlapping
groups: the top four strings (the four lowest notes) and the bottom four strings
(the four highest notes). The interval of the notes made by strings 1 and 4 was
always the same, a musical fourth. In the tuning described in B6a, the interval
between the notes made by strings 1 and 7 is an octave. The group consisting of
strings 1 through 4 was called συλλαβά (grasp) – apparently because in the
“starting position” the lyre player’s fingers were poised over them. The group
of strings 4 through 7 was called δι’ ὀξειᾶν (“the interval of the high-pitched
[strings]”). The words συλλαβά and δι’ ὀξειᾶν are musicians’ terminology. In sen-
tence (1), the word translated epogdoic is not a musical term but a mathematical
one. An epogdoic ratio is the ratio of 9 to 8. The occurrence of a technical math-
ematical term here is unexpected. It has been treated as an unimportant anom-
aly²¹ but in fact it is the key to the entire fragment.
Sentence (1) now becomes
(1) The magnitude of a tuned octave is a grasp plus an interval of the high-pitched strings,
and the interval of the high-pitched strings is greater than a grasp by a ratio of 9 to 8.
The first part of sentence (1) talks about the magnitude or size of a tuned octave,
and asserts that it is the sum of two smaller things, conceived as the musical in-
tervals between the notes produced by certain pairs of strings (strings 1 and 4,
strings 4 and 7). The mention of the magnitude of a tuned octave is important.
The tuned octave in question is a particular system of musical intervals. Its mag-
nitude is the interval between its highest and lowest notes, where the interval is
not a physical distance (so many centimeters). The word magnitude normally re-
fers to physical size, but here it is given a new application, extending the notion
of magnitude to include musical intervals. Likewise, “grasp” here means the mu-
sical interval between the notes produced by strings 1 and 4, and “interval of the
high-pitched strings” means the musical interval between the notes produced by
strings 4 and 7. All octaves have the same magnitude and if a lyre is tuned so that
the interval between the notes produced by strings 1 and 4 is a grasp, and the
interval between the notes produced by strings 4 and 7 is an interval of the
high-pitched strings, the interval between the notes produced by strings 1 and
7 will be an octave, and the claim in the first part of sentence (1) will hold for
them.
So far, there is nothing mathematically interesting. The same result would
hold if the dividing point were not string 4 but string 2, 3, 5 or 6: (the two inter-
 Barker 2007, p. 270. I plan to take up Barker’s interpretation in detail in a future article.
vals would sum to an octave). But what points in the direction of mathematics is
the talk of addition and subtraction. Let S stand for grasp, H for the interval of
the high-pitched strings, and O for the magnitude of a tuned octave. Then the
first part of sentence (1) claims that
S+H=O
In a musical sense this is obvious, and the word translated “plus”²² need not be
taken in any strictly mathematical sense. The punch is delivered (gently) in the
second part of sentence (1), which compares the magnitudes of the two intervals
S and H, and declares that the value is a numerical ratio, specifying that ratio as
a ratio of 9 to 8. Thus the second part of sentence (1) claims that
H - S = 9:8
At this point we have made the transition to mathematics, and I can find nothing
like it earlier than this fragment, for as I said, the early Pythagoreans seem to
have been content to identify the ratios that correspond to the three harmonic
intervals and did not think of investigating their mathematical relations.
The grounds for this claim are given in sentences (2) through (4). I will treat sen-
tences (2) and (3) together.
(2) For from ὑπάτα to μέσσα is a συλλαβά, from μέσσα to νεάτα is a δι’ ὀξειᾶν, from νεάτα to
τρίτα is a συλλαβά, and from τρίτα to ὑπάτα is a δι’ ὀξειᾶν.
(3) And what lies between τρίτα and μέσσα is an epogdoic.
Since ὑπάτα is the name for string 1, μέσσα for string 4, τρίτα for string 5, and
νεάτα for string 7, sentences (2) and (3) mean,
(2) For from string 1 to string 4 is a grasp, from string 4 to string 7 is an interval of the high-
pitched strings, from string 7 to string 5 is a grasp, and from string 5 to string 1 is an
interval of the high-pitched strings.
(3) And what lies between string 5 and string 4 is a ratio of 9 to 8.
Philolaus here offers an analysis of the octave that goes farther than his Pytha-
gorean predecessors. He envisages a process of going up the octave and back
down again, striking string 4 on the way up and string 5 on the way down. If
 καί.
we imagine that the unstopped lowest string is 12 units long, then we would ob-
tain the same sequence of notes by first striking it at its full length (12 units),
then when it is stopped at 9 units, and then at 6; on the way down again we
start at half its length (6 units) and then strike it at 8 units and at 12. He goes
on to make certain claims about the notes produced in this way. Let (m,n)
stand for the interval between the notes produced by strings m and n or (for
short) the interval from m to n. Then from sentence (2) we learn that (1,4) and
(7,5) are both grasps and that (4,7) and (5,1) are both intervals of the high-pitched
strings. Sentence (3) says that (5,4) = a ratio of 9 to 8.
The first thing to notice is that this purports to be an argument, as the first
word of sentence (2), “for,” indicates. This argument constitutes a “proof” by Py-
thagorean standards. The second thing to notice is that “interval of the high-
pitched strings” no longer applies only to the interval of the four highest-pitched
strings; it also applies to the interval of the five lowest-pitched strings! Likewise,
“grasp” no longer refers only to the interval of the four lowest-pitched strings; it
applies to the interval of three highest-pitched strings. This means that Philolaus
has made a generalization. We are no longer dealing with the musical intervals
produced by particular strings on a specific type of instrument; now we are deal-
ing with musical intervals as such. Any musical interval of a fifth is to be called
an interval of the highest-pitched strings – even if it is played on a clarinet! And
he has also made an abstraction: in fact, what he has to say applies to all things
of whatever sort (not just musical intervals) that have the numerical ratios in
question. The third thing to notice is that while the theorem states that H – S
(which = (1,5) – (1,4)) = a ratio of 9 to 8, sentence (3) tells us that (5,4) = a
ratio of 9 to 8. Evidently Philolaus considers it obvious that H – S = (5,4). This
is intuitively plausible when we think of the intervals represented by the special
case of strings 1, 4 and 5 on a lyre. At this point Philolaus considers it acceptable
to treat (1,5) – (4,1) as equal to (5,4). But by now he is committed to a generalized
version of this claim, since (1,5) = (7,4) and since (4,1) = (5,7). And of course, (1,5)
= (5,1), since it is the same identical interval. So not only is (1,5) – (4,1) = the ratio
of 9 to 8, but also (4,7) – (5,7) (which is as obvious as the case of (1,5)-(4,1), since
(5,7) is part of (4,7)) = the ratio of 9 to 8 and so are (4,7) – (1,4) and (1,5) – (5,7),
which are not at all so obvious since the part being subtracted is not a part of the
larger interval. This is true because Philolaus is dealing no longer with the mu-
sical intervals between the notes made by particular pairs of strings, but with the
magnitudes of those intervals.
We do not yet know why (5,4) = the ratio of 9 to 8, but it is clear that we are
dealing with the arithmetical operations of addition and subtraction. And if H –
S = 9:8, it is clear that neither H nor S (nor O for that matter) is a natural number.
As we learn from sentence (4), S, H and O are ratios too.
(4) whereas a συλλαβά is epitritic, a δι’ ὀξειᾶν is hemiolic, a διὰ πασᾶν is diploic.²³
Where δι’ ὀξειᾶν means the interval of the high-pitched strings, διὰ πασᾶν (“the
interval of all [the strings]”) is the entire octave. Epitritic is the ratio of 4 to 3,
hemiolic is the ratio of 3 to 2, and diploic is the ratio of 2 to 1.
So sentence (4) means,
(4) whereas a grasp is a ratio of 4 to 3, an interval of the high-pitched strings is a ratio of

3 to 2, an octave is a ratio of 2 to 1.
In other words,
S = 4:3
H = 3:2
O = 2:1
Here we are reminded of the whole-number ratios of the three musical intervals,
which is the key to deriving the result that H – S = 9:8. As we have seen, in the
present context this applies not only to (1,4) and (1,5) – that is, not only to the
intervals between notes produced by certain specified pairs of strings on lyres
tuned in a specified way – but to the intervals between any pair of notes, pro-
duced in any way whatsoever, that are equal to (1,4) and (1,5), and indeed be-
tween all things that have the appropriate ratios.
Now we can look at the mathematics of the argument. Sentence (1) talks of
adding and subtracting ratios. Sentences (1) and (4) taken together tell us the fol-
lowing:
4:3 + 3:2 = 2:1

3:2 - 4:3 = 9:8
An important recent book on Greek harmonics has claimed that Philolaus was
mathematically inept and he did not realize that “Ratios do not behave like
this; we do not add 9:8 to 4:3 to reach 3:2 – the notion is nonsensical.”²⁴ I sup-
pose that the author is basing his accusation on the fact that 9/8 + 4/3 is not
equal to 3/2. (In fact it is equal to 59/24.) But rather than charging Philolaus
with such a blunder, I think he is making an important advance in the concept
of number. He is not treating ratios like fractions. As I said before, the notion of
fractional numbers was unknown in his time. He is extending the notion of num-
 Epitritic, hemiolic, diploic represent ἐπίτριτος, ἡμιόλιος, and διπλόος.

 Barker 2007, p. 270.
ber to include ratios. And he is doing so in order to justify his beliefs that each
thing in the cosmos is a ἁρμονία, that everything that is known “has a number”
and that its number is responsible for making it knowable.
We tend to think of ratios as fractions, but the Greeks viewed them different-
ly. For the Greeks there were no numbers between 2 and 3. For us, there are lots
of numbers between 2 and 3. Infinitely many, in fact. Some of the numbers be-
tween 2 and 3 are fractions. 2 1/2 is a number for us; it was not a number for the
Greeks. On the other hand, the Greeks had no problem about talking of ratios of
numbers. I am proposing that Philolaus treats ratios of numbers as numbers. He
gives examples of addition and subtraction of ratios. He also does something
else which I think may have been intended to support his view that ratios are
numbers. He points out that they satisfy some of the basic properties of num-
bers. This, I think, is one purpose of sentence (2).
(2) For from string 1 to string 4 is a grasp, from string 4 to string 7 is an interval of the high-
pitched strings, from string 7 to string 5 is a grasp, and from string 5 to string 1 is an
interval of the high-pitched strings.
That is,
(1,4) = (7,5) = S
(4,7) = (5,1) = H
We saw this as generalizing the notions of grasp and interval of the high pitched
strings, but I think there may be more going on. Philolaus is describing a process
of first ascending and then descending an octave beginning at the bottom note
and ascending via one interval (a fourth above the bottom note), and descending
via another (a fifth above the bottom note). We can represent this as
(1,4) + (4,7) = O
(7,5) + (5,1) = O
He also tells us that
(1,4) = (7,5) = S
(4,7) = (5,1) = H
The first two sums are obvious. If we begin at string 1 and go to any other string
on the lyre and from there to string 7, we have covered an octave. In the present
case we utilize the intervals of the fourth and fifth (as sentence (4) asserts). If we
begin at string 1 and go first to string 4 and then to string 7, we achieve the same
result as we do if we begin at string 1 and go to string 7 via string 5. In the first
case we go up a fourth and then a fifth, in the second we go up a fifth and then a
fourth; it makes no difference which way we go, the result is the same. This cor-
responds to the commutative property of addition of numbers. (a+b = b+a), and
we may consider sentence (2) to be a paradigm proof that this property applies to
ratios.
Philolaus’s example shows this and it also shows (what is obvious) that it
makes no difference whether we go up (from string 1 to string 7) or down. Just
as (1,5) = (5,1),²⁵ so (1,5) + (5,7) = (5,7) + (1,5); they are both equal to O, another
instance of commutativity.
But in the example given, we do not go up and back via the same route. We
go via string 4 on the way up and via string 5 on the way down. This may hint at
another property of numbers, the associative property:
(a+b) + c = a + (b+c)
If we go up from string 1 to string 4 to string 7 and then down to string 5, we have

gone up a fourth plus a fifth and then down a fourth, and have ended up a fifth
above the original note: (1,4) + (4,7) – (7,5) = (1,5).
S + H (= O) – S = H
This result holds generally, since
S+H = H+S by the commutative property²⁶

therefore (S+H) - S = (H+S) – S²⁷
but also (H+S) - S = H + (S-S) by the associative property²⁸
and since (S-S) = 0²⁹
it follows that S + H - S = H³⁰
 In general, an interval is defined by two notes; the order is irrelevant. (1,5) = (5,1).
 In the present case this means that regardless if you go from string 1 to string 7 via string 4 or
string 5, the result is the same: (1,7) = O.
 That is, if you go up an octave via any string whatsoever, and then go down a fourth, the
result is the same.
 That is, if you go up a fifth plus a fourth (meaning that you go up an octave) and then down a
fourth, you end up at the same place as if you go up a fifth then ascend (or descend) the interval
that is the result of going up a fourth and then down a forth.
 That is, if you go up an interval and then down the same interval you end up at the original
note.
 That is, if you go up a fifth and then a fourth and down a fourth, you end up a fifth above the
original note.
The generality of the result is the important thing. It holds for all cases of adding
and subtracting these ratios, not only where we have a particular seven-string
lyre. Once again, Philolaus used familiar properties of a lyre in a paradigm proof.
The commutative and associative properties were first formulated in the late
eighteenth or early nineteenth century, and I do not mean to claim that Philolaus
stated them. He would have supposed the equivalences to be obvious from the
paradigm he is using, the seven strings of the lyre. But I am suggesting that
since his key move in justifying treating ratios as numbers is the proof that ratios
are subject to the arithmetical operations of addition and subtraction, and since
the commutative and associative properties are essential to addition, Philolaus
may have realized this and this is why he gave a “paradigm case” that shows
how the order in which addition proceeds is irrelevant to the result (commutativ-
ity) and that points toward the re-grouping feature of addition (associativity).
These are properties of numbers which mathematicians used in antiquity, and
Philolaus may have written sentence (2) – whose motivation is otherwise un-
clear – in order to bolster the idea that ratios are numbers by showing that
they have important properties associated with ordinary numbers. In fact, this
is just the kind of argument that we would expect him to use to make the point –
a well chosen example that lets us “see” that similar cases work similarly. (The
similar cases here are the addition and subtraction of ordinary numbers and of
ratios.) Again, the example is concrete and clear, but we are dealing with prin-
ciples that apply as widely as the previous generalizations do. As far as I know,
this is the earliest appearance of anything close to recognizing commutativity
and associativity as properties of numbers.
The next step is to show that ratios work like numbers. Characteristic of
numbers is that they can be manipulated in certain ways. The basic operations
are addition and subtraction. I propose that in stating that S + H = O and that H –
S = 9:8, Philolaus is giving paradigm cases of addition and subtraction in the
sense that once we understand how these results are derived, we can go on to
apply the same procedures in other cases. Consider the example that introduced
the mathematical terminology in the first place
3:2 - 4:3 = 9:8
We can’t be certain how Philolaus came up with this result. We would solve this
problem by interpreting the ratios as fractions and dividing 3/2 by 4/3, but that
option was not available to Philolaus. Here is one way he could have done it. We
are told³¹ that he knew the “musical proportion” 12, 9, 8, 6, which embodies the
three musical intervals: 12:9 = 4:3, 12:8 = 3:2, and 12:6 = 2:1.
(a) The bottom note is made by the full length of the string (from 0 to 12).
(b) The note an octave above the bottom note is made by half the string (from 0 to 6); sim-
ilarly, the notes a fifth and a fourth above the bottom note are made by two-thirds of the
string (from 0 to 8) and three-quarters of the string (from 0 to 9), respectively.
(c) The difference between the fifth and the fourth is the distance from 9 to 8.
(d) Since the ratio between lengths 12 and 8 is 3:2 and the ratio between lengths 12 and 9 is
4:3, it follows that 3:2– 4:3 = 9:8.
So far so good, but is it just a coincidence? Can we do something similar with

Philolaus’s other claim that 3:2 + 4:3 = 2:1? We might think that this would
amount to the claim that 12:8 + 12:9 = 12:6, but this is not an obvious result,
since it is not immediately clear how to perform the addition. But think what
the addition involves. We begin by taking the length corresponding to the
ratio 3:2, namely the length 12 to 8. In other words, we start at 12 and take 2/3
of its length. Then we add a length corresponding to the ratio 4:3, but this
time we are starting not at 12 but at 8 and we want to take 3/4 of that. So instead
of taking 12:9, which is 3/4 of 12, we take 8:6, which is 3/4 of 8. And so by adding
the length 12 to 8 and the length 8 to 6, we get the length 12 to 6, which corre-
sponds to the ratio 2:1. This is the correct result and further, it turns out that
these procedures are correct and generalizable.
First, what are the procedures (algorithms) for addition and subtraction?
Subtraction
3:2– 4:3 → 9:8
12:8 – 12:9 → 9:8
(1) Find ratios that are equal to the given ratios such that the first elements in these ratios
are equal.
The easiest way is to multiply both elements of the first ratio by the first element of the
second ratio (multiply 3 and 2 by 4 and get 3:2 = 12:8) and both elements of the second
ratio by the first element of the first ratio (multiply 4 and 3 by 3 and get 4:3 = 12:9).
(2) Drop the common first elements (the 12’s) and form a new ratio that has as its first el-
ement the second element of the second ratio (9) and that has as its second element the
second element of the first ratio (8).
 Nicomachus, Intro. Arith. 2.26.2, Iamblichus, in Nic. 118.23 (both = DK 44 A24), discussed by
Huffman 1993, pp. 167– 71.
(3) Reduce result of step 2 to its lowest terms. (Not necessary in this example.)
Addition
3:2 + 4:3 → 2:1
12:8 + 8:6 → 12:6 = 2:1
(1) Find ratios that are equal to the given ratios such that the second element of the first
ratio is equal to the first element of the second ratio.
The easiest way is to multiply both elements of the first ratio by the first element of the
second ratio (multiply 3 and 2 by 4 and get 3:2 = 12:8) and both elements of the second
ratio by the second element of the first ratio (multiply 4 and 3 by 2 and get 4:3 = 8:6).
(2) Drop the common elements (the 8’s) and form a new ratio that has as its first element
the first element of the first ratio (12) and that has as its second element the second el-
ement of the second ratio (6).
(3) Reduce result of step 2 to its lowest terms (12:6 = 2:1).
Second, how does this work more generally?
Subtraction
3:2– 4:3 = 12:8 – 12:9 → 9:8
a:b – c:d = ac:bc – ac:ad → ad:bc
Reduce ad:bc to lowest terms, if necessary
Addition
3:2 + 4:3 = 12:8 + 8:6 → 12:6
a:b + c:d = ac:bc + bc:bd → ac:bd
Reduce ac:bd to lowest terms, if necessary
(Note that addition is commutative: c:d + a:b = ac:ad + ad:bd → ac:bd.)
Third, how much knowledge about manipulating ratios is needed to perform

these operations? Three manipulations are needed:
(1) a:b = ac:bc
(2) c:d = ac:ad
(3) finding the greatest common measure of two numbers
(4) finding the smallest numbers that have a given ratio
The first two are proved in Euclid, Elements 7, proposition 17. The third and fourth
are needed to reduce the ratio 12:6 to 2:1, and both are found in Euclid’s Elements
book 7 as well, proposition 2 and proposition 33, respectively. Euclid’s Elements
written, ca. 300 BCE, contains the earliest extant systematic treatment of ratios
known from Greek mathematics. The Elements is largely a compilation of previ-
ously known mathematical results and proofs, some of which go back to the fifth
century. Even though Euclid lived later than Philolaus, the manipulations of ra-
tios involved are so simple that it is plausible that they were known in Philo-
laus’s time.
Fourth, how do these procedures agree with arithmetical operations that we use?
We interpret addition of ratios as multiplication of fractions and subtraction of
ratios as division of fractions.
a:b + c:d → ac: bd. Reduce ac:bd if necessary

a/b x c/d = ac/bd. Reduce ac/bd if necessary
a:b – c:d → ad:bc Reduce ad:bc if necessary
(a/b) ∕ (c/d) = ad/bc Reduce ad/bc if necessary
These techniques work for all two-place ratios, and further, these procedures are
equivalent to our own methods of multiplying and dividing fractions, and all this
(except for the sidebar remarks about fractions) was in all likelihood well within
the capacity of mathematicians in Philolaus’s time.
Finally, the last sentence of the fragment:
(5) In this way a ἁρμονία is five epogdoics plus two διέσιες, a δι’ ὀξειᾶν is three epogdoics
plus a δίεσις, and a συλλαβά is two epogdoics plus a δίεσις.
This means,
(5) In this way a tuned octave is five ratios of 9 to 8 plus two διέσιες, an interval of the high-
pitched strings is three ratios of 9 to 8 plus a δίεσις, and a grasp is two ratios of 9 to 8
plus a δίεσις.
Briefly, the fourth is not simply a sum of units whose size is the ratio 9 to 8. If
you subtract two of those units from a fourth, there is a small remainder,
which Philolaus calls a δίεσις.³² A δίεσις is a ratio as well – the ratio of 256 to
243 (although Philolaus does not say so, and he might have had difficulty ex-
pressing it). If we check Philolaus’s claim by applying the arithmetic of ratios,
we find that his claims work out exactly.
9:8 + 9:8 + 256:243 = 4:3

9:8 + 9:8 + 9:8 + 256:243 = 3:2
9:8 + 9:8 + 9:8 + 9:8 + 9:8 + 256:243 + 256:243 = 2:1
 For δίεσις in Philolaus see Huffman 1993, pp. 152– 3, 160; Barker 2007, pp. 268 – 270.
In this way Philolaus succeeded in analyzing the octave, showing how its chief
parts (the fourth and the fifth) are themselves composed of exactly two smaller
units (the ratio of 9 to 8 and the δίεσις) and how the chief parts are systemati-
cally related to one another; also that octave itself is composed of the sum of
the components of its chief parts.³³ This is a major advance on earlier Pythagor-
ean thought about the musical intervals and could serve as a basis for further
work in harmonics.³⁴
So, to end the mathematical part of my paper, I have argued that Philolaus
extended the notion of number to include ratios of numbers, and that in frag-
ment B6a he gives reasons to think that they are numbers (they have the asso-
ciative and commutative properties) and shows how they can be added and sub-
tracted. If I am right in this, it is the first conscious extension of the notion of
number in the history of Greek mathematical thought.³⁵ Now I want to show
how this interpretation fits with the other fragment in which Philolaus mentions
numbers.
This is the puzzling fragment B5:
In fact, number has two proper kinds, even and odd, and a third kind, even-odd, from both
mixed together.³⁶ Of each of the two kinds there are many forms, of which each thing itself
gives signs.
Even and odd are two kinds of numbers – numbers in the traditional or “proper”
sense, which may have something to do with why Philolaus calls even and odd
the “proper” kinds of number. What does Philolaus mean by “forms” of these
 This is not to say that Philolaus is constructing a scale with eight notes in which the interval
between the third and fourth notes and between the seventh and eighth notes is a semitone
(δίεσις) and the others are a whole tone (corresponding to our major scale). This distribution of
intervals corresponds to only one of many tunings used in Greek music (see West 1992, pp. 160 –
89), and some of the other tunings contain intervals that are neither tones nor semitones (West
1992, p. 162– 64). When Philolaus says that the fourth is the sum of (in effect) two whole tones
and a semitone, he is not saying anything about how these three intervals are to be placed
within the fourth, but only indicating how the fourth and fifth can both be analyzed in terms of
smaller units.
 I believe that much of Archytas’s thought on harmonics can be understood as stemming
from Philolaus’s, but I cannot argue for this view here.
 I mean to distinguish “mathematical thought,” that is, philosophizing about mathematics,
from mathematical practice. Of course mathematicians treated 1 as a number, and so did or-
dinary people when they counted things or added them.
 I follow Huffman (Huffman 1993, pp. 187– 89) in keeping the reference to the third kind of
number, which Barnes (Barnes 1982, p. 632 n.31) rejects.
kinds? It is hard to see what it can mean if we remain with the traditional num-
bers. 2, 4, 6, … are not forms of even numbers, but are just even numbers.³⁷
The recognition of ratios as numbers leaves room for another interpretation.
It would be natural for Philolaus to identify various kinds of these new numbers,
just as the early Pythagoreans identified various kinds of traditional numbers,
and it would be natural to want to extend already familiar classifications to
make them apply to ratios. Here is a suggestion.
In the case of simple numbers, there are two possibilities. A number (a) is either
odd or even.
a is O
a is E
Here we have one form of even and one form of odd.
In the case of a two-place ratio of whole numbers (a:b), there are four possible
situations, depending on whether a and b are even or odd. Thus
a is O and b is O
a is O and b is E
a is E and b is O
a is E and b is E
It would be natural to call OO (that is, a ratio both of whose elements are odd
numbers, for example 7:5) a form of odd, EE a form of even and OE and EO
forms both of odd and of even. And likewise for ratios involving more than
two terms.
“Each thing itself gives signs” that there are many forms of odd and even will
have to do with the compositon of “each thing.” Since everything in the κόσμος
is characterized by ἁρμονία, where a ἁρμονία is the way the limiters and unlim-
iteds that constitute it are arranged in an orderly structure,³⁸ it can be expected
be that some (in fact, very many) of the things in the κόσμος are made up of more
than one and perhaps of a large number of limiters and unlimiteds, and conse-
quently that the ἁρμονία that characterizes such an entity will more complex
than the simple paradigmatic case of the musical tuning treated in B6a, and
 Pace Huffman (Huffman 1993, p. 191).

 See above p. 185 and n. 17.
will require a ratio with as many elements are there are pairs of unlimiteds and
limiters in its composition. B5 may be alluding to such complex structures.³⁹
I will return briefly to Philolaus’s epistemology. We saw that Philolaus holds
that in order to comprehend something we need to know its number. It is signif-
icant that B4 does not say that knowing a thing’s number is all we need to com-
prehend it; this knowledge is a necessary but not a sufficient condition.
Consider how Aristotle describes the Pythagorean views on the relation be-
tween things and numbers. Aristotle complained that the early Pythagorean
identifications of things with numbers implied that different things are the
same, since they have the same number.⁴⁰ Philolaus needs to guard against
the same thing happening. If the ratio 2:1 is fundamental to the octave, it is
also fundamental to water (which consists of twice as many hydrogen atoms
as oxygen atoms), and clearly the octave and water are very different things.
Philolaus should hold that comprehending a thing consists in knowing three
things about it:
(1) what limiters and unlimiteds it is composed of
(2) how those limiters and unlimiteds are fitted together to compose it
(i. e., the way in which ἁρμονία comes upon them)⁴¹
(3) the number which the thing has
We have seen that he recognizes (3), but it is not yet clear what the number is a
number of. That Philolaus also recognized (1) and (2) is strongly suggested in his
remarks on ἁρμονία. The ἁρμονία characteristic of a thing is the way its constit-
uent limiters and unlimiteds interact. Different things have different ἁρμονίαι. In
the case of the musical intervals, I suppose that the unlimited will be the range
of possible intervals, whereas each tuning is a limiter, which establishes a system
of definite intervals.⁴² In the system that Philolaus sketches, there are three basic
intervals that work together: the fourth + the fifth equal the octave, and each of
the three intervals is composed of smaller intervals. This system is intelligible –
we can know it, and knowing it consists in understanding what is the unlimited
in question, what is the limiter (and consequently what are the limits it sets),
 I look forward to elaborating this interpretation in detail in future work on Philolaus.

 Aristotle, Metaph. A 5, 987a27, following the interpretation in Ross 1924, vol. 1, p. 157.
 Paraphrase of part of fragment B6.
 I cannot argue here for this interpretation of Philolaus’s brief remarks on the composition of
entities.
how the limits are imposed on the unlimited, and how the results (the intervals)
are related. In other words, knowing the system requires comprehending the na-
ture of the ἁρμονία – not only its numerical nature but its nature as a ἁρμονία of
particular limiters and unlimiteds. In this case, the notes are related by a system
of ratios of whole numbers. If I am right that Philolaus considered these ratios to
be numbers, then it makes sense to say that the tuned octave “has number” and
knowledge of the nature of the tuned octave requires knowing the relevant ra-
tios. Recall that Philolaus refers to the tuned octave as a ἁρμονία.⁴³ This is the
connection I promised to establish between reality and ἁρμονία on the one
hand and knowledge on the other.
Finally, I propose that this analysis of the octave is what I have called a para-
digm proof. It works by taking a good example of the phenomenon in question
and showing how the claim in question works in a way that invites us to “see”
how this type of analysis works elsewhere. In fact it is easy enough to apply this
same approach to some other kinds of things, and it may be possible to extend it
to cover a wide range indeed, but that will have to be the subject of another
paper.⁴⁴
 See above, p. 186.

 This paper is substantially identical with the paper of the same title published in Proceedings
of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, vol. 27, 2011, p. 211– 232. I have given
versions of it at the University of Thessaloniki and the University of Crete in Greece, at the 2010
Conference of the International Association for Presocratic Studies, at the Claremont Colleges
Mathematics Colloquium, and at a session of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy
held at St. Anselm’s College in April 2011. I am grateful to the participants for their questions
and criticism, and in particular to Vassilis Kalfas, whose shrewd question about the ratio 9:8 got
me to the core of the issues treated in this paper. I also want to thank my friend Carl Huffman for
his assistance both as my commentator at St. Anselm’s College and elsewhere.
Bibliography
Barker, A. 2007. The Science of Harmonics in Classical Greece. Cambridge.
Barnes, J. 1982. The Presocratic Philosophers. revised edn. London.
Burkert, W. 1972. Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism. Cambridge MA.
Heath, T.L. 1921. A History of Greek Mathematics. Oxford.
Huffman, C. 1993. Philolaus of Croton. Pythagorean and Presocratic. Cambridge.
Huffman, C. 2005. Archytas of Tarentum. Cambridge.
Kahn, C.H. 2001. Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. Indianapolis.
Kirk, G.S., J.E. Raven and M. Schofield. 1983. The Presocratic Philosophers. 2nd. edn.
Cambridge.
Netz, R. 1999. The Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics. Cambridge.
Ross, W.D. 1924. Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Oxford.
West, M.L. 1992. Ancient Greek Music. Oxford.
Luc Brisson
Archytas and the duplication of the cube
After his Philolaus ¹, Carl A. Huffman has published a volume on Archytas.² I ex-
pressed some criticisms of Philolaus,³ and today I would like to do the same thing
for Archytas. These are two substantial works, very well structured, well written
and well printed. Their argumentation is clear and rigorous, in a sober a limpid
English. How, then, can one contest the results of such works? As I did for the
Philolaus, I reproach Carl Huffman for taking little account of the context of
transmission of the fragments and the testimonies he uses. I will here limit
my remarks to what Carl Huffman considers Genuine Testimonia concerning Ge-
ometry: The duplication of the cube (A14 and A15). This entire section (pp. 342 to
401) is based on a long passage from Eutocius, an author of the sixth century AD
who lived a millennium later than Archytas (a contemporary of Plato) and who, I
will try to prove, was dependent on compilations whose sources it is impossible
to determine, insofar as we can now refer only fragmentarily to works that were
copied more or less carefully.
The life and reputation of Archytas

The oldest testimonies concerning Archytas are found in Plato’s seventh Letter,
in Aristotle, and in Aristoxenus.⁴ What is the status and value of these testimo-
nies? These are the questions that should have priority as far as determining the
figure of Archytas is concerned.
Transl. by Michael Chase. I thank Leonid Zhmud who has generously accepted to read this
article and helped me to improve it. I hope he will find, in this version, reasons to believe his
criticism has been fruitful. – My thanks go also to Constantin Macris for his careful proof-reading
of the text and for some useful suggestions.
 Carl A. Huffman, Philolaus of Croton. Pythagorean and Presocratic. A commentary on the
fragments and testimonia with interpretative essays, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993.
 Carl A. Huffman, Archytas of Tarentum, Pythagorean, Philosopher and Mathematician King,
Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005.
 Luc Brisson, “Aristoxenus: His evidence on Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. The case of
Philolaus”, in M. Erler and St. Schorn (eds.), Die griechische Biographie in hellenistischer Zeit,
Berlin, De Gruyter, 2007, p. 269 – 284.
 See my “Platon, Pythagore et les Pythagoriciens”, in M. Dixsaut and A. Brancacci (eds.),
Platon, source des Présocratiques. Exploration, Paris, Vrin, 2002, p. 21– 46, and especially p. 32–
33.
204 Luc Brisson
The testimony of Plato (428 – 348 BC)
At the beginning of his book, Carl Huffman, evoking the usual way of approaching
the personality of Archytas, writes: “The quickest way to identify Archytas then be-
comes as the friend of Plato.⁵ This has left Archytas in the shadow of Plato, and for
this reason I have first tried to paint a portrait of Archytas that is largely independ-
ent of the Platonic connection.”⁶ The problematic nature of the relations between
Archytas and Plato as described in the seventh Letter has been emphasized by
G. E. R. Lloyd.⁷ Nevertheless, we have in the seventh Letter an essential document,
with which no other piece of the dossier can be compared. The other “Testimonia
for Archytas’ life, writings and reception (A1–A6, B5–B8)” that Carl Huffman sit-
uates in the section of his book entitled “Genuine testimonia”⁸ are all based on
indirect tradition, whose quality cannot be judged.
By contrast, the seventh Letter, which I consider authentic,⁹ gives us first-
hand information about Archytas. If Plato did indeed go to Tarentum on the oc-
casion of his first trip to Southern Italy and Sicily (388 – 387), there is every rea-
son to believe it was in a city in which Archytas had not yet come to power; no
mention is made of this personage. What is more, since Plato’s condemnation of
the way of life of the people of Southern Italy and Sicily does not allow for any
exception (seventh Letter, 326 b-c), it is hard to imagine the citizens of Tarentum
living such a deplorable life under the leadership of Archytas.¹⁰ Be this as it may,
during his stay in Syracuse, Plato met Dion, the tyrant’s brother-in-law, whom he
made to share in his contempt for this lifestyle. Disappointed by Dionysius the
Elder, however, Plato soon returned to Athens, where he founded the Academy,
then wrote the Republic.
In all likelihood, it was a bit later that Archytas was elected stratêgos seven
years in a row.¹¹ as Diogenes Laertius reports (VIII 79), probably following Aris-
 Carl Huffman refers here to Bernard Mathieu, “Archytas de Tarente pythagoricien et ami de
Platon”, Bulletin de l’Association G. Budé, 1997, p. 239 – 255.
 Huffman, Archytas, p. 32. The entire dossier is examined at pp. 32– 42.
 G. E. R. Lloyd, “Plato and Archytas in the seventh Letter”, Phronesis 35 (1990), p. 159 – 174.
 Huffman, Archytas, p. 255 – 282.
 On the authenticity of this letter, see my introduction to the seventh Letter, in Platon, Lettres,
traduction inédite, introduction et notes par Luc Brisson, Collection GF 466, Paris (Flammarion)
1987, p. 133 – 166; and my article “La Lettre VII de Platon, une autobiographie?”, in: L’invention
de l’autobiographie d’Hésiode à saint Augustin, Actes du deuxième colloque de l’Équipe de re-
cherche sur l’Hellénisme post-classique [Paris, ENS], Paris (PENS) 1993, p. 37– 46.
 See, in the section “Genuine Testimonia, Moral philosophy and character”, p. 283 – 341.
 Like Pericles, who was elected stratêgos in Athens for more than ten years in a row.
toxenus.¹² The magistracy of the stratêgos was primarily military, but particularly
in Athens it was accompanied by important political powers, including the
power of making propositions to the Council and playing a role in establishing
the agenda of the Assembly.¹³ If, therefore, we situate Plato’s second trip between
367– 366, and the third one in 360 – 361, we fall into the period when Archytas
was elected stratêgos seven years in a row.¹⁴ Plato was supposed to have estab-
lished diplomatic contacts with Archytas in the course of his first trip in 367– 366
(seventh Letter, 338 c). This would explain why Archytas was able to intervene
with Dionysius the Younger in 362– 361 to allow Plato to leave Sicily, thereby sav-
ing his life, or at least setting him free (350 a-b). Archytas was certainly an im-
portant politician in Tarentum. But was he a philosopher, and what is more, a
Pythagorean?
The hypothesis that Plato considered Archytas to be a philosopher is based
on two pieces of evidence: the figure of Archedemos (seventh Letter 339b1) and
the fact that Archytas and Archedemos testify to the passion of Dionysius the
Younger for philosophy (338c-d). Yet neither of these pieces of evidence has pro-
bative value.
Nothing in Plato, moreover, gives us to understand that Archytas was a Py-
thagorean; and this is surprising because there were Pythagoreans at the time of
Plato and Aristotle. Archytas is described as a “Pythagorean” for the first time in
Diogenes Laertius (VIII 79), who on this point once again relies on the testimony
of Aristoxenus.¹⁵ Yet for Iamblichus, there were two Archytas: the elder Archytas,
fellow-student of Empedocles under Pythagoras (Life of Pythagoras, § 104), who
was chased out of Croton by the uprising against Pythagorean power (ibid.
§ 250), and the younger Archytas, whom Plato knew (ibid. § 127, 160, 197). Indeed,
the elder Archytas, who died at the end of the sixth or the beginning of the fifth
century BC, cannot have been frequented by Plato, who was born in 428 and died
in 348.¹⁶ Iamblichus cites an Archytas of Tarentum in his catalogue of Pythagor-
 The information given by Diogenes Laertius is strange: “Moreover, he was seven times the
stratêgos of his fellow citizens, whereas the others were not so for more than a year, since it was
forbidden by law” (after the French translation by J.-F. Balaudé).
 On political organization in Tarentum, see P. Wuilleumier, Tarente, des origines à la conquête
romaine, Paris (de Boccard) 1939 [Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises de Rome et d’Athènes, 148].
 It is impossible to determine a certain chronology for Archytas. Carl A. Huffman has him
born between 435 and 410, and dying between 360 and 350, which seems very likely.
 “Archytas, son of Mnesagoras, from Tarentum, but according to Aristoxenus, son of He-
stiaios, was also a Pythagorean” (after the translation by. J.-F. Balaudé).
 One should be much more prudent than Charles Kahn in his Pythagoras and the Py-
thagoreans. A Brief History, Indianapolis (Hakkert) 2001, who in a chapter entitled “Pythagorean
206 Luc Brisson
eans (VP § 267), probably taking his inspiration from Aristoxenus. In his Life of
Pythagoras, however, Iamblichus seems highly embarrassed by the figure of
Archytas, owing to the aforementioned ambiguity.
The testimony of Aristotle (384 – 322 B.C.)
In the preserved works of Aristotle, who was supposed to have written three
books On the philosophy of Archytas,¹⁷ the name of Archytas appears three
times. At Metaphysics, H 2, 1043 a 22– 26,¹⁸ Aristotle considers the theory of def-
inition proposed by Archytas as anticipating his own doctrine of the compound,
involving matter and form. At Rhetoric III 11, 1412 a 9 – 13,¹⁹ he concedes that
Archytas had a wise mind, since he was able to establish a similarity between
two very different objects: “An arbiter and an altar are identical things, for
both are the refuge of all who suffer injustice”. At Politics VIII 5, 1340 b 36,²⁰
he seems to attribute to Archytas the invention of a rattle (platagé). In addition,
one of the Problems (section XIV 9, 915 a 25 – 34),²¹ which is not Aristotelian,
seems to attribute to Archytas an explanation concerning the fact that the exter-
nal parts of plants and animals are circular in form. Faced by this heterogeneous
list, one can wonder whether this Archytas is indeed the one we are concerned
with, for he is never described as a Pythagorean.
The testimony of Aristoxenus (born between 375 and 360 BC)
Born between 375 and 360 at Tarentum, where his father was said to have known
Archytas personally,²² Aristoxenus was supposed to have been the disciple of a Py-
thagorean at Athens before attending the Lyceum. This implies that he can only
have known the Pythagoreans who were the contemporaries of Plato and Aristotle,
philosophy in the time of Archytas and Plato” takes his inspiration from Carl A. Huffman’s book
(which was then about to be published).
 See R. Goulet, in R. Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques [henceforth DPhA],
Paris, CNRS Éditions, t. I, 1989, p. 427. On questions of authenticity, see P. Moraux, Les listes
anciennes des ouvrages d’Aristote, Louvain, Nauwelaerts, 1951; I. Düring, “Aristoteles”, RESuppl.
XI, 1968, col. 184– 190.
 Huffman, Archytas, p. 489 – 505.
 Huffman, Archytas, p. 505 – 507.
 Huffman, Archytas, p. 302– 309.
 Huffman, Archytas, p. 516 – 519.
 Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras § 197; see also D.L. II 20; V 92.
and who lived two centuries after Pythagoras. Aristoxenus wrote on music, and
was the author of biographies,²³ particularly of Pythagoras and of Archytas.
Most of the testimonies concerning Archytas seem to been taken from his Life of
Archytas.²⁴ In what sense does Aristoxenus describe Archytas as a “Pythagorean”?
Did he support a particular doctrine, or did he merely follow a Pythagorean way of
life? These questions may be asked, in so far as Archytas is known above all for
having been stratêgos, and for defending certain moral values.
The question of the duplication of the cube

The same type of question concerning the validity of the tradition arises with re-
gard to a geometer named Archytas, who discovered a highly elaborate solution
to the formidable problem of doubling the cube: how can one find the side of
one cube that has twice the volume of another? On the basis of the testimony
of a commentator from the sixth century AD, that is, more than a millennium
after the death of Archytas, an attempt has been made to attribute to the latter
the paternity of the geometrical construction of the segment sought.
Carl Huffman devotes sixty pages to this tour de force,²⁵ basing himself on
two studies by Wilbur R. Knorr,²⁶ who in turn based himself on the works of Tho-
mas Heath.²⁷ All these works, particularly those of Knorr and Huffman, are im-
pressive; full of magnificent drawings, impeccable typography, allusions to mod-
ern mathematical theories. Yet they feature a characteristic defect: a sovereign
contempt with regard to history. The texts are presented as such, without the fol-
lowing decisive question being raised: Who are we talking about, about an out-
standing mathematician or about a hero of the Pythagorean legend? The answer
to that question depends on a more fundamental question: How did this infor-
mation come down to our main source, Eutocius? Concerning the duplication
of the cube by Archytas, our main source, Eutocius, says he refers to Eudemus
 His fragments have been collected by F. Wehrli, Die Schule des Aristoteles, II. Aristoxenos,
Basel, Schwabe & Co, 19672 [19451]. See also Jamblique, La Vie de Pythagore, Introduction,
traduction et notes par L. Brisson et A. Ph. Segonds, Paris, Les Belles Lettres (coll. ‘La Roue à
Livres’), 20112 [19961], p. LXIV-LXV.
 Huffman, Archytas, p. 3 – 41.
 Huffman, Archytas, p. 342– 401.
 Wilbur Richard Knorr, The Ancient Tradition of Geometric Problems, Boston / Basel / Stutt-
gart, Birkhäuser, 1986, chap. 3; Id., Textual Studies in Ancient and Medieval Geometry, Boston /
Basel / Berlin, Birkhäuser, 1989, chap. 5 – 7.
 Thomas L. Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1921, p. 244–
270.
208 Luc Brisson
of Rhodes, an Aristotelian of the 4th century BC. As a first hand informant Eude-
mus of Rhodes would be very reliable; but what if Eutocius read only compila-
tions giving second hand information? The question is sound, because, as we
will see, many problems, internal as well as external, arise in the case of Arch-
ytas’ solution. Archytas’ solution in Eutocius seems peculiar, while Eutocius and
Plutarch give opposing accounts of the solution. What can this mean?
One must refrain from the reaction of today’s historians of modern science,
who would say: How could one doubt a piece of information about Descartes
that comes from one of his contemporaries? Things were very different in Antiqui-
ty, when the printing press did not exist. For an author of this period, publishing
consisted in making a copy of his work available to the public.²⁸ In general, read-
ers copied down the texts they read more or less carefully.²⁹ What is more, because
copies were scarce, compilations were produced from a very early date, in order to
facilitate the task of those who were interested in a problem. Yet nothing proves
that the compilers’ work was rigorous and / or objective. A second-hand piece
of information must always be replaced within the context of its citation, which
is more important than its content.³⁰ About any source of information one should
raise the following questions: 1) Has the information been well preserved? 2) Was it
used for a specific goal? and 3) What credit should be accorded to it? As time
passed, these questions became more and more complex, and Eutocius lived in
the 6th century AD, a millennium after Archytas. And concerning the duplication
of the cube, the problem should have been approached not as Carl Huffman
did, but in reverse starting out from Plato, and inquiring into the validity of Euto-
cius’ testimony.
The Arabic treatise (ninth century)
Let’s have a look to the end of the tradition. Despite its interest for the history of
mathematics, I will not take into account here, because I have not the compe-
tence to do so, the testimony of an Arabic treatise from the ninth century, the
work of three brothers, sons of Musa ibn Shakir at Baghdad, that was translated
into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the mid-twelfth century under the title Verba
filiorum. This treatise preserves, under another name, the solution to the problem
 On this point, see Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, “Plotin, professeur de philosophie”, in L. Brisson

et alii, Porphyre, Vie de Plotin, t. I, Paris, Vrin, 1982, p. 270 – 273.
 For examples, see the Pseudo-Plutarch or Stobaeus.
 See Luc Brisson, “Diogène Laërce. Livre III”, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt,
Teil II: Band 36.5, 1992, p. 3619 – 3760, at p. 3759 – 3760.
of the duplication of the cube that Eutocius attributes to Archytas, which indi-
cates that these authors must have gone back to a source that was, if not iden-
tical, then at least similar to that of Eutocius, and therefore of Proclus.³¹
Eutocius (c. 480 – c. 540 AD)
Eutocius’ commentary on Archimedes’³² treatise On the Sphere and Cylinder is

dedicated to a certain Ammonius, no doubt the Neoplatonist philosopher of
Alexandria. This Ammonius,³³ son of Hermias and of Aidesia, a relative of Pro-
clus’ teacher Syrianus, who died after 517, had manifested an interest in geometry
and astronomy. His fellow-students included Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus
of Miletus, the architects who built the cathedral of Hagia Sophia at Constanti-
nople. Eutocius, who wrote several commentaries on geometrical treatises by Ar-
chimedes and Apollonius of Perga, thus lived in the first half of the sixth centu-
ry,³⁴ one millennium after the death of Plato, the contemporary of Archytas.
In the passage under consideration,³⁵ Eutocius is not, properly speaking,
commenting on the first proposition of Book II, but he gives a list of the ten sol-
utions for the problem of the duplication of the cube, a problem that Archi-
medes, according to Eutocius, considered as solved.
Order in the text Chronological order
Plato (. – .) Plato ( –  BC)

Hero of Alexandria (. – .) Archytas (c.  – c.  BC)
Philo of Byzantium (. – .) Menaechmus (IVth BC)
Apollonius of Perga (. – .) Eratosthenes (c.  – c. BC)
Diocles (. – .) Philo of Byzantium (c.  –  BC)
Pappus of Alexandria (. – .) Nicomedes (c.  – c.  BC)
Sporus of Nicaea (. – .) Apollonius of Perga (c.  – c.  BC)
Menaechmus (. – .) Diocles (c.  BC)
Archytas (. – .) Hero of Alexandria (c.  –  AD)
Eratosthenes (. – .) Sporus of Nicaea ( –  AD)
Nicomedes (. – .) Pappus of Alexandria (active c.  AD.)
 On this point, see Knorr, Textual Studies in Ancient and Medieval Geometry, p. 251– 265.
 Archimedes, who was born and lived in Syracuse (ca. 287– 212 BC), was a famous inventor
and geometer.
 H. D. Saffrey, “Ammonius”, DPhA I, 1989, p. 168 – 169.
 R. Goulet, “Eutocius d’Alexandrie”, DPhA III, 2000, p. 392– 396.
 Eutocius, Commentary on Archimedes’ On the Sphere and Cylinder II (III.56.13 – 88.2 ed.
Heiberg / Stamatis). For a commentary, see Knorr, Textual Studies in ancient and Medieval
Geometry, chap. 5, p. 77– 129.
210 Luc Brisson
As one can see from a glance at the table, this list features no order, either chro-
nological or systematic. The solutions attributed to Apollonius of Perga, Hero of
Alexandria and Philo of Byzantium amount to the same thing,³⁶ while the solu-
tions attributed to Sporus and to Pappus appear very similar to the one attribut-
ed to Diocles.³⁷ Such redundancy can probably be explained by a desire to reach
the Pythagorean decade. Wilbur R. Knorr himself is aware of many other defects.
Here, I will only consider the cases of Plato, Archytas, and Eratosthenes, which
are relevant for the present investigation.
Plato
Let us first consider the case of Plato.
1) The solution attributed to Plato presupposes only the theorems of “Pythago-
ras” and of “Thales”.³⁸
2) Knorr has to admit: “The commentator (that is, Eutocius) doubtless had in-
tervened editorially in composing this text, for some of its phrases reappear
elsewhere in his survey.”³⁹
3) In the Meno (82b-85), it is obvious that Plato knew a solution to the dupli-
cation of the square. But in Republic (written in c. 387) VII 528a-c, Plato
seems to say, as he makes it clear in the Timaeus (written c. 358), that stereo-
metry is poorly developed. One can therefore assume that a solution to the
duplication of the cube had not yet been found.
4) Moreover Knorr notes: “In particular, the text (of the solution attributed to
Plato) is unusually detailed in its mechanical description, matched in Euto-
cius’ set only by that of Nicomedes.”⁴⁰ By “mechanical”, one must under-
stand a method involving a device. In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle
first classifies mechanics under geometry (76a34), then under stereometry
(78b37). Mechanics refers to the facts, and knows the “how”, while geometry
and stereometry are related to scientific knowledge, and know the “why”. A
reading of Republic VI 510c-e and VII 527a-b clearly shows that Aristotle was
taking up a Platonic thesis in the Posterior Analytics. ⁴¹ Carl Huffman disa-
grees on that point and declares: “There is no trace of the anti-mechanical
 Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics, p. 262– 266.

 Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics, p. 266 – 270.
 See Euclides, Elements, Books V and VI.
 Knorr, Textual Studies in ancient and medieval geometry, p. 78.
 Knorr, Textual Studies in Ancient and Medieval Geometry, p. 78 – 79.
 Cf. Huffman, Archytas, p. 385 – 392.
theme in the Republic account of stereometry. What problem, then, if any,

would Plato have had with Archytas’ solution to the problem of the duplica-
tion of the cube?”⁴² This is true, but only if one understands the texts liter-
ally. Moreover, passages in the Republic on astronomy (VII 528d-530d) and
music (VII 530d-531d) clearly show the distance Plato established between
rigorous knowledge and the sensible realm.
In the Timaeus 32a-b, Plato knew (maybe through Hippocrates of Chios) what the
solution of the duplication of the cube had to consist in. He first conceived that,
if a way can be found to place two mean proportionals in continued proportion
between two straight lines of which the greater is the double of the lesser, the
cube will be doubled.
Let there be a cube of side a.⁴³ We must find a cube of side x such that x3 =
2a3. To achieve this, we must search for two segments of length x and y, such that
a/x = x/y = y/2a

x2 = ay and x4 = a2y2, if (x2 = a2y2)2
y2 = 2ax, if x/y = y/2a
therefore x4 = 2ax3, if x4 = a2(y2 = 2ax) or x4 = 2a3x
and, if x is not equal to 0, x4/x = 2a3x/x
then x3 =2a3
Hence, the cube of side x is twice the cube of side a. Yet we still must find a geo-
metrical means to construct these two segments.
Here is the solution attributed to Plato by Eutocius; it needs a mechanical
device.
 Huffman, Archytas, p. 392.

 Drawings and demonstration based on Michel Bénassy, Collège d’Albret, Dax (France) n°14,
mars 2001: http://mathematiques.ac-bordeaux.fr/profplus/publica/bulletin/bull14/duplicube.
htm.
212 Luc Brisson
Figure : “The device in question is a sort of carpenter’s or

draftman’s square, together with a moveable straightedge that
slides along one side of the square while remaining perpendic-
ular to that side and parallel to the other side.”⁴⁴
Figure : If ABC is a right-angled triangle with right angle BCA and

if H is the foot of the altitude coming from C, then HA / HC = HC /
HB
Figure : Let B be perpendicular to A in O so that OB =  OA
Figure : Let’s construct the triangles AEF and EFB.

In the triangle AEF we have OA /OE = OE / OF
in the triangle EFB we have OE / OF = OF / OB
then we have OA / OE = OE / OF = OF / OB
and, according to the demonstration supra, OE =  OA
so the volume of the cube with a side AE will be the double of the
volume with the side OA.
a) In this perspective, one wonders why Eutocius attributes to Plato a method

which, because it situates him on the side of mechanics, triggered the skep-
ticism of many commentators who attributed this solution to Eudoxus⁴⁵ or to
Menaechmus,⁴⁶ precisely because of Plato’s overall attitude to a method that
takes the sensible realm into account.
b) It should be noted, moreover, that four centuries previously, in the first cen-
tury AD, Plutarch (see text 3a) stated that Eudoxus, Archytas, and Menaech-
mus had used mechanical devices (as did Plato, according to Eutocius) and
were criticized by Plato for that reason. How to explain this criticism?
 Michael J. White, “On doubling the cube: mechanics and conics”, Apeiron 39 (2006), p. 202.
 Knorr, The Ancient Tradition of Geometric Problems, 57– 61; Id., Textual Studies in Ancient and
Medieval Geometry, 78 – 80. See also Reviel Netz, “Plato’s mathematical construction ”, Classical
Quarterly 53 (2003), p. 500 – 509.
 Michael J. White, “On doubling the cube”, traces these two proofs back to Menaechmus.
Archytas
We now come to Archytas (text 1a). Eutocius attributes to Archytas the most in-
genious and sophisticated solution, using rotation, and referring to three surfa-
ces, a cylinder, a torus and a cone. I cannot reproduce it here; but one will find a
beautiful drawing and a clear demonstration in Carl Huffman’s book.⁴⁷
1) The fact itself that Archytas’ solution is presented as the oldest one, makes it
particularly unlikely. Why, if Archytas had already found such a solution,
would anyone look for another solution, less ingenious and less sophisticat-
ed?
2) As was the case for Plato, Wilbur R. Knorr has to admit: “Clearly, then, Eu-
tocius has intervened in the transmission of this text.”⁴⁸
3) Eutocius says he relied on Eudemus of Rhodes,⁴⁹ a student of Aristotle, who
was said to have written a History of geometry,⁵⁰ but this is impossible to
check: “Discerning the vestiges of Eudemus’ text in Eutocius’ account of
Archytas would be no less complicated. Thus the price we must pay for re-
ceiving from the commentator a well articulated rendition of Archytas’ con-
struction and proof is the loss of an invaluable pre-Euclidean fragment.”⁵¹
That is why Wilbur R. Knorr uses at this point the Arabic tradition of the
Banû Mûsâ to understand the testimony, although, from an historical
point of view, it is hard to understand why.
4) As far as Eudemus is concerned, I subscribe, to a certain extent, to the fol-
lowing conclusions of P. Tannery:⁵² 1) Quite early on, the historical works of
Eudemus were known only through the intermediary of compilations of ex-
tracts. 2) Proclus only knows these extracts from Eudemus through the inter-
 Huffman, Archytas, p. 356.

 In a note, Knorr declares: “The conclusion is also reached by Neuenschwander, who dis-
courages the effort to reconstruct a Eudemean text on the basis of Eutocius’ account: see his ‘Zur
Überlieferung der Archytas-Lösung des delischen Problems’” (Textual Studies in Ancient and
Medieval Geometry, n. 127, p. 126).
 J. P. Schneider, “Eudème de Rhodes”, DPhA III (2000), p. 285 – 289.
 Since he was destined to succeed Aristotle, Eudemus must have been between thirty and
forty years old at the time of Aristotle’s death in 322 BC.
 Knorr, Textual Studies in Ancient and Medieval Geometry, p. 101.
 Paul Tannery, “Sur les fragments d’Eudème de Rhodes relatifs à l’histoire des ma-
thématiques”, in Id., Mémoires Scientifiques, tome I. Sciences exactes dans l’Antiquité (1876 –
1883) no 15, Paris, éd. Jacques Gavay, 1995, p. 168 – 177. The paper dates from 1882, but the texts
have not changed in the meantime. Thus, it is excessive to reject these conclusions (which are
accepted by W. Knorr Textual Studies in Ancient and Medieval Geometry, n. 124 p. 126) on the
grounds that they are hypercritical.
214 Luc Brisson
mediary of Porphyry and/or of Geminus. 3) In the field of geometry, Simpli-

cius and Eutocius must have made use of a collection compiled by Sporus of
Nicaea in the third century AD. 4) Consequently, all quotations from Eude-
mus later than the third century are second-hand. In section 3, which he de-
votes to the Catalogue of geometers, L. Zhmud⁵³ rightly questions the details
of the reconstruction proposed by P. Tannery, conclusion 2) and 3) in partic-
ular. Nevertheless, conclusions 1) and 4) remain valid. In all probability, Eu-
demus’ work was replaced very early on by one or several compilations, as
was the case for most other fields, particularly as far as the opinions of the
philosophers were concerned.⁵⁴
5) What, then, should we conclude? We can suppose that when evoking the
problem of doubling the cube in his work, Eudemus had emphasized the in-
terest in this problem manifested by Eudoxus and Archytas, who may have
tried, without success, to find a concrete method of constructing the cube in
question. Over time, more and more complex solutions were attributed to
Eudoxus and to Archytas; and Eutocius, who did not go into the matter
any further, was dependent on the state of the transmission on which the
compiler he used was relying himself. One might therefore suppose that
the compilation is the work of a partisan of Archytas, who considered the lat-
ter as the champion of pure geometry. This tradition, based on a compila-
tion, can be traced back to Eratosthenes,⁵⁵ who himself relied heavily on a
compilation quoting Eudemus of Rhodes.⁵⁶
 Leonid Zhmud, “Eudemus’ History of Mathematics”, in István Bodnár and William W.

Fortenbaugh (eds.), Eudemus of Rhodes (“Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities”,
11), Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (USA) and London 2002, p. 263 – 306, particularly
pp. 277– 288; Id., The Origin of the History of Science in Antiquity (“Peripatoi”, 19), Berlin / New
York: De Gruyter, 2006, p. 205 – 208.
 For the doxographic tradition, cf. Jaap Mansfeld and David T. Runia, Aëtiana. The method
and intellectual context of a doxographer. vol. I: The Sources, Leiden / New York / Köln, Brill, 1997
[“Philosophia antiqua”, 73]; vol. II: The compendium, Leiden / New York / Köln, Brill, 2009
[“Philosophia antiqua”, 114.1– 2]; vol. III: Studies in the doxographical traditions of ancient phi-
losophy, Leiden / New York / Köln, Brill, 2010 [“Philosophia antiqua”, 115].
 “The solution of Archytas, as Eudemus reports it” (first line of Text 1a).
 See Zhmud, “Eudemus’ History of Mathematics”, p. 272; Id., The Origin of the History of
Science, p. 207– 208.
Eratosthenes
Also concerning the duplication of the cube, right after giving Archytas’ solution,
Eutocius cites in his Platonicus (according to Theon of Smyrna; see text 5), a let-
ter (text 1b) which Eratosthenes supposedly sent to king Ptolemy.⁵⁷
This letter⁵⁸ informs us about the problem of the duplication of the cube and
Plato’s and Archytas’ solutions. It can be divided into five parts.
1) A historical introduction. The starting point is found in an anecdote that im-
plies the doubling of two physical objects of cubic form: the tomb of Glaucos
and the altar of Apollo at Delphi. The Glaucos mentioned in Eratosthenes’
letter was the son of Minos, king of Crete, and of Pasiphaë. In honour of
his son who died accidentally, Minos wanted to build a tomb double of
the one initially outlined, by doubling each side of the cube. The geometers
were then supposed to have taken an interest in the problem, and under-
stood that a cube could not be doubled by doubling the line of its edge,
for one would then have a surface four times as large as the first one, and
a cube eight times as large as the first one. As early as the mid-fifth century
BC, Hippocrates of Chios⁵⁹ discovered that to achieve this, two proportional
means had to be found between two straight lines, the larger of which is
twice the length of the smaller. Some time later, the people of Delos had
to satisfy an oracle recommending that they double the size of one of
their altars. This is when they addressed the geometers associated with
Plato in the Academy. Subsequently, Archytas found a way to construct
the two proportional means through semi-cylinders, and Eudoxus⁶⁰ found
out how to do so through curved lines. Yet they could not construct the
cube in question, and it was Menaechmus,⁶¹ a mathematician who was a
 Probably Ptolemy Euergetes, who associated Cyrene to Egypt. Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who
lived from ca. 276 to c. 195 BC, wrote on a wide variety of subjects. See P.P. Fuentes González,
“ Ératosthène de Cyrène ”, DPhA III (2000), p. 188 – 236.
 Eutocius, Commentary on Archimedes’ On the Sphere and Cylinder II (III. 88.3 – 96 ed. Hei-
berg / Stamatis). For a commentary, see Knorr, Textual Studies in ancient and Medieval Geometry,
chap. 6, p. 132– 153.
 P. P. Fuentes González, “ Hippocrate de Chios ”, DPhA III (2000), p. 762– 770.
 J. P. Schneider, “ Eudoxe de Cnide ”, DPhA III (2000), p. 293 – 302. On this question, see Paul
Tannery, “Sur les solutions du Problème de Délos par Archytas et par Eudoxe. Divination d’une
solution perdue”, in Id., Mémoires Scientifiques, tome I. Sciences exactes dans l’Antiquité (1876 –
1883) no 15, Paris, éd. Jacques Gavay, 1995, p. 52– 61. The paper dates from 1878, but it is still
highly interesting, insofar as it associates Eudoxus with Archytas, whose alleged solution is
expressed in the terms of analytic geometry.
 P. P. Fuentes González, “ Ménaichmos ”, DPhA IV (2005), p. 401– 407.
216 Luc Brisson
disciple of Eudoxus of Cnidus and belonged to the circle of Plato, who

showed the way, and Eratosthenes who achieved it later.
2) Eratosthenes presents his mechanical invention and praises it while enumer-
ating its applications.
3) Then comes a description of the instrument mentioned.
4) Details are given concerning the instrument used.
5) The passage closes with the description of a monument erected by Eratos-
thenes to commemorate his discovery, and with an eighteen-verse epigram
praising it.
Eratosthenes’ narration is highly interesting. The question of the authenticity of

this letter, discussed at length by Carl A. Huffman, does not seem to me to be
very important. The letter was written probably by Eratosthenes as an open letter
(like Plato’s seventh Letter), but not sent to king Ptolemy. The focus is on the fol-
lowing points.
1) At the beginning of the 2nd century BC, the tradition evoked by Eutocius was
already constituted.
2) The question of the duplication of the cube was rooted in the religious tra-
dition and referred in particular to Apollo – a connection that gave it partic-
ular prestige. First of all, let us leave aside the stories about Minos, who was
a mythical king, and the oracle given to the Delphians, about which nothing
is known. This is part of the rhetorical presentation of the time: the idea was
to embed every discovery, including agriculture, within tradition, preferably
religious. We should note that Delos was the island on which Apollo and Ar-
temis, who can be considered as twins, were born. The patronage of Apollo,
associated with both Pythagoras and Plato, over the problem of Delos gives
it a quite peculiar aura, all the more so because the order to solve this prob-
lem was given by an oracle. Whereas some testimonies associate this oracle
with the disappearance of a plague, Plutarch and Theon of Smyrna explain
that Plato interpreted the oracle in a different sense: it was intended to re-
mind the Greeks of the need to develop geometry and mathematics. We
are here in the midst of a novel. Let us also omit the anecdote of the mission
of the delegation of the Delians to the Academy; all this also seems to per-
tain to fabrication.
3) Hippocrates of Chios had already found what the solution had to consist in.
He first conceived that, if a way can be found to place two mean proportion-
als in continued proportion between two straight lines of which the greater
is the double the lesser, the cube will be doubled. Then, according to the
story, Plato, the Academy, and the Pythagoreans took an interest in the prob-
lem. We must, however, admit that the information concerning Hippocrates
of Chios is, if not true, then at least highly likely. For, even if one may have
doubts about the attribution of this discovery to Hippocrates of Chios him-
self, one has to admit that the need for finding two proportional means be-
tween two solids was known in Plato’s time.
4) The solution by means of semi-cylinders is attributed by Eratosthenes to
Archytas. But this solution seems impossible before Apollonius of Perga
(c. 262- c. 180 BC), a contemporary of Eratosthenes, who wrote on the
conic sections.. So Eratosthenes could have been the inventor of the attribu-
tion to Archytas of a solution to the duplication of the cube by means of
semi-cylinders.
5) Finally, Eratosthenes succeeded in constructing an instrument enabling the
doubling of the cube. The opposition between Archytas’ solution and Era-
tosthenes’s is stressed by Vitruvius (c. 90 – c. 20 BC) (text 4).
Proclus (412 – 487 AD)
One finds a testimony very similar to that of Eutocius one century earlier in Pro-
clus (412– 485), who was said to have written his Commentary on Plato’s ‘Ti-
maeus’ at the age of twenty-seven, that is, in 439 – 440 (text 2). The information
Proclus gives obviously comes from the same source, that is, the same compila-
tion, as the one used by Eutocius, as is guaranteed by the mention of conics.⁶²
This is entirely normal, since Proclus and Eutocius both belonged – one in Ath-
ens and the other in Alexandria – to a well-structured Platonic school which re-
mained basically highly orthodox.⁶³ Proclus prefers the solution that Eutocius at-
tributed to Archytas over two others, those of Menaechmus and of Eratosthenes,
because it makes use of conics and is therefore purely geometrical, and hence
Platonic, whereas the solutions proposed by Menaechmus and Eratosthenes
are mechanical, in that they make use of a ruler. It should be noted that Proclus
does not mention the solution Eutocius attributes to Plato. He was probably
using the same compilation as Eutocius, but had made a selection among the
proposed solutions. This ideological aspect, based on specific passages from Pla-
to’s work, is absolutely essential for evaluating Proclus’testimony.
 On the problems raised by the history of the conics, see Wilbur R. Knorr, “Observations on
the early history of the conics”, Centaurus 26 (1982), p. 1– 24.
 On the history of this School, see Luc Brisson, “ Famille, pouvoir politique et argent dans
l’École néoplatonicienne d’Athènes ”, in Henri Hugonnard-Roche (ed.), L’enseignement supérieur
dans les mondes antiques et médiévaux. Aspects institutionnels, juridiques et pédagogiques, Paris
(Vrin) 2008, p. 29 – 41.
218 Luc Brisson
Plutarch (c. 46 – 120 AD)
It should be noted, however, that three centuries before Proclus, Plutarch (texts
3a, b, c, d), who was also a Platonist and who subscribed to Plato’s position con-
cerning geometry and stereometry, maintained the converse position, associating
Archytas with Eudoxus and Menaechmus and attributing to them a mechanical
solution: “Plato himself also reproached Eudoxus, Archytas, Menaechmus and
their followers for trying to divert the problem of the duplication of a solid
into constructions that use instruments and that are mechanical, just as if
they were trying to obtain the two mean proportionals apart from reason, in
whatever way it was practicable.”⁶⁴ In short, Plutarch, like Proclus and Eutocius,
admits that Archytas found a solution to the problem of the cube, but he reverses
the perspectives: the solution proposed by Archytas, Eudoxus, and Menaechmus
pertains to construction in the sensible realm. This testimony is corroborated by
that of Theon of Smyrna (second century AD) (text 5).
In the face of this contradiction, we must go back further and try to find out
how and why the name of Archytas became associated with this problem. What
can we conclude from these contradictory testimonies? In my opinion this con-
tradiction indicates that we are in front either of two compilations, one favorable
to Plato, and the other favorable to Pythagoreanism, or of two ideologically dif-
ferent readings of the same compilation.
Plato (428 – 348 BC)
The passage from the Timaeus (text 6),⁶⁵ commented on by Proclus, when he
evokes Archytas, is completely relevant in this regard.
The problem of the duplication of the square

At first, Plato evokes the surface, which requires only one mean proportional.
This is shown by the solution to the problem of the duplication of the surface
 Plutarch, Quaestiones conviviales VIII 2.1, 718e.

 On this point, see Platon, Timée/Critias, traduction inédite, introduction et notes par Luc
Brisson [avec la collaboration de Michel Patillon pour la traduction], Collection GF 618, Paris
(Flammarion) 1992, 19994. For another interpretation, see Bernard Vitrac, “ Les mathématiques
dans le Timée de Platon: le point de vue d’un historien de la science ”, Etudes Platoniciennes 2
(2006), p. 11– 78.
of a square, a solution found as early as the time of Plato, if we may believe the
solution Socrates makes Meno’s young servant “discover” in the Meno. To con-
struct a square that is twice the size of another (of side 1), one must find a
side √2. Since the Greeks did not know either zero or a convenient numerical no-
tation, they could not extract a square root. Yet they could construct a line whose
length was √2.
Let there be a square of side 1. In view of what is known as Pythagoras’ theorem,

we find that the diagonal is: AB2 + AC2 = BC2.
If AB = BC, as is the case in a square,
we have 1 + 1 = 2 = BC2.
Consequently, BC = √2. The construction of a square with a surface twice the size
of the first one then becomes easy.⁶⁶
The problem of the duplication of the cube

The physical world in which we live contains solids, since the four elements −
earth, water, air, and fire − are associated with regular polyhedra: the cube,
the dodecahedron, the octahedron, and the tetrahedron. Yet Plato knew that be-
tween two solids (the case of the duplication of the cube is an excellent example
of this), not one but two mean proportionals are needed. This allows him to give
a mathematical proof of the necessity, in the sensible realm, of four elements as-
sociated with four solids. He clearly explains this at Timaeus 31b-32b.⁶⁷
Plato knew this theorem,⁶⁸ but he stops there, for he is explaining the laws
of transformation of the three elements fire, air, and water, while taking into ac-
count only the number of equilateral triangles that make up the external face of
these polyhedra. Yet if one calculates the volume of the elements in question,
one winds up with absurdities. What does this mean? At the time, all that
could be extracted by geometrical means was the square root of numbers up
to 17 or 19. Plato did not know how to construct, with the help of geometry, a
straight line whose length would be the cube root of n. It was therefore still im-
possible to give a geometrical construction of a line that would be the cube root
of n.
 See Euclid, Elements VIII, prop. 11.

 The following notation was unknown to Plato and his contemporaries, and has a merely
illustrative function.
 See Euclid, Elements VIII, prop. 12.
220 Luc Brisson
Therefore, not Plato, of course, but neither Eudoxus nor Archytas, contem-
poraries of Plato, can be credited with this discovery, for the following two rea-
sons:
a) Plato founded the Academy only a few years after Isocrates founded his own
school, that is, in 387, immediately after his return from his first trip to Sicily
and Southern Italy. In 367 and in 362, he returned to Sicily and to Southern
Italy. On his second trip he met Archytas, who was probably at the head of
the city as stratêgos. Archytas was to free Plato at the end of his third trip.
The Timaeus was written shortly after 360, and we do not find in it any al-
lusion to the solution of a problem that would have been important to him.
b) It should be noted, more generally, that Plato deplores, first in the Republic
(VII 528a-c), then in the Laws (VII 817e-820e), his last work, the lack of re-
search on geometry and on stereometry at his time; we find the same obser-
vation in the Epinomis (990c-992a).⁶⁹ However, in the Sisyphus (388e),⁷⁰ an
apocryphal dialogue written not so long after Plato’s death, we read: “You
know, of course, that the duplication of the cube is the subject of research
on the part of geometers who wish to know how to achieve it”. We can there-
fore assume that no solution had yet been found in Plato’s time; we can rely
also on Republic VII 528 a-c, as seen above. This is not an argument e silentio
for these two reasons: Plato in the Meno says that he knew the solution to
the problem of the duplication of a surface; and in the Timaeus he was
aware of the importance of knowing a solution to the problem of the dupli-
cation of a surface, without being able to cite one.
The discovery of a solution to the problem of the duplication of the cube would
have constituted a remarkable exception, but Plato never mentions it. It could
even be maintained that Archytas discovered this solution after Plato’s death,
but this is highly unlikely. Therefore, the testimony of Plutarch, on the one
hand, and that of Eutocius and of Proclus on the other, must be considered as
an expansion of the evidence. The solution that Eutocius and Proclus attribute
to Archytas is simply untenable, for the latter did not even have the means to
achieve it. How can we explain that the solution to the problem of the duplica-
tion of the cube was so generally attributed to him from the time of Eratos-
thenes? Probably because, since the time of Aristoxenus Archytas was a presti-
 On this subject, see David Rabouin and Bernard Vitrac, “ Sur le passage mathématique de
l’Épinomis (990c-992a): signification et postérité ”, Philosophie Antique 10 (2010), p. 5 – 38.
 Carl Werner Müller, Die Kurzdialoge der Appendix Platonica, München, Fink, 1975, p. 97– 98.
gious figure of the Pythagorean legend,⁷¹ who attracted toward himself the most
interesting discoveries in the field of mathematics and harmonics. As far as the
mechanical solution is concerned, a very primitive form of it may have been
known at the time of Plato and Archytas, but it is impossible to affirm this
with certainty.
What conclusions shall we draw from all this?
1) Archytas was known to Plato, who met him at Tarentum.
2) Archytas occupied an important political position, and maintained close re-
lations with Syracuse.
3) It is highly likely that Archytas claimed for himself the title, if not of “phi-
losopher”, then at least of “thinker”.
4) It is also likely that he presented himself as a “Pythagorean”, although it is
very hard to know what this epithet entailed: a way of life (ethics and pol-
itics) or an intellectual commitment (speculation in mathematics, music, as-
tronomy, cosmology, etc.).
5) As far as the duplication of the cube is concerned, it is also likely that he was
interested in it. Yet it is implausible to attribute to him the solution Eutocius,
Proclus and Eratosthenes place under his name for the following reasons: a)
Plato, who knew the solution of the duplication of the square, did not know
the solution to the duplication of the cube; b) the solution attributed to Arch-
ytas presupposes the theory of conics, which was not fully developed until
decades after his death. Therefore, if Archytas was interested in this prob-
lem, he can only have proposed a very primitive mechanical solution to it.
6) How, then, are we to explain the major contradiction between the testimony
reported by Eutocius and Proclus, on the one hand, and by Plutarch and Vi-
truvius on the other? Without doubting the authenticity of the testimony of
Eudemus on Archytas, it is appropriate to ask questions about the mode of
transmission of this testimony, which seems to have been part of a compila-
tion that was biased or written rather carelessly. We can therefore presume
that the testimony of Eudemus, which was part of a compilation, was misin-
terpreted or interpreted in a sense favorable either to Platonism or to Pytha-
goreanism – a fact that would explain the flagrant contradiction between
testimonies on the same subject.
 Many treatises and letters will be later attributed to him; see The Pythagorean Texts of the
Hellenistic Period, collected and edited by Holger Thesleff, Åbo, Åbo Akademi, 1965; Holger
Thesleff, An Introduction to the Pythagorean Writings of the Hellenistic Period, Åbo, Åbo Aka-
demi, 1961.
222 Luc Brisson
More generally, the position I am defending here ought not to be characterized at

the outset as “hypercritical”, in order to get easily rid of it. I would like to be op-
posed by using arguments that cast doubt on my own arguments. My approach
takes into consideration the process of textual transmission in Antiquity, from
the context of their production to that of their quotation. This is the only way
to explain the contradictions and deviations, which become increasingly impor-
tant as time goes by. In the case considered here, that is, the solution of the du-
plication of the cube by Archytas, it is appropriate to start out from Plato, and to
account for the reversal that takes place between Plutarch and Eutocius as far as
the solutions to this problem are concerned. Once more, one has to ask the ques-
tion: who are we talking about when we are talking about Archytas: the man
Plato met, or the character in a Pythagorean novel?
Appendix: Greek texts and translations

Text 1a
Eutocius, Commentary on Archimedes’ On the Sphere and Cylinder II (III.84.12–

88.2 ed. Heiberg / Stamatis). Text and translation in Huffman 2005, p. 342– 344.
Ἡ Ἀρχύτου εὕρησις, ὡς Εὔδημος ἱστορεῖ.
Ἔστωσαν αἱ δοθεῖσαι δύο εὐθεῖαι αἱ ΑΔ, Γ. δεῖ δὴ τῶν ΑΔ, Γ δύο μέσας ἀνάλογον
εὑρεῖν. γεγράφθω περὶ τὴν μείζονα τὴν ΑΔ κύκλος ὁ ΑΒΔΖ, καὶ τῇ Γ ἴση ἐνηρ-
μόσθω ἡ ΑΒ καὶ ἐκβληθεῖσα συμπιπτέτω τῇ ἀπὸ τοῦ Δ ἐφαπτομένῃ τοῦ κύκλου
κατὰ τὸ Π. παρὰ δὲ τὴν ΠΔΟ ἤχθω ἡ ΒΕΖ, καὶ νενοήσθω ἡμικυλίνδριον ὀρθὸν ἐπὶ
τοῦ ΑΒΔ ἡμικυκλίου, ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς ΑΔ ἡμικύκλιον ὀρθὸν ἐν τῷ τοῦ ἡμικυλινδρίου
παραλληλογράμμῳ κείμενον. τοῦτο δὴ τὸ ἡμικύκλιον περιαγόμενον ὡς ἀπὸ
τοῦ Δ ἐπὶ τὸ Β μένοντος τοῦ Α πέρατος τῆς διαμέτρου τεμεῖ τὴν κυλινδρικὴν ἐπι-
φάνειαν ἐν τῇ περιαγωγῇ καὶ γράψει ἐν αὐτῇ γραμμήν τινα. πάλιν δέ, ἐὰν τῆς ΑΔ
μενούσης τὸ ΑΠΔ τρίγωνον περιενεχθῇ τὴν ἐναντίαν τῷ ἡμικυκλίῳ κίνησιν,
κωνικὴν ποιήσει ἐπιφάνειαν τῇ ΑΠ εὐθείᾳ, ἣ δὴ περιαγομένη συμβαλεῖ τῇ κυλιν-
δρικῇ γραμμῇ κατά τι σημεῖον· ἅμα δὲ καὶ τὸ Β περιγράψει ἡμικύκλιον ἐν τῇ τοῦ
κώνου ἐπιφανείᾳ. ἐχέτω δὴ θέσιν κατὰ τὸν τόπον τῆς συμπτώσεως τῶν γραμμῶν
τὸ μὲν κινούμενον ἡμικύκλιον ὡς τὴν τοῦ ΔΚΑ, τὸ δὲ ἀντιπεριαγόμενον τρίγω-
νον τὴν τοῦ ΔΛΑ, τὸ δὲ τῆς εἰρημένης συμπτώσεως σημεῖον ἔστω τὸ Κ· ἔστω
δὲ καὶ τὸ διὰ τοῦ Β γραφόμενον ἡμικύκλιον τὸ ΒΜΖ, κοινὴ δὲ αὐτοῦ τομὴ καὶ
τοῦ ΒΔΖΑ κύκλου ἔστω ἡ ΒΖ. καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ Κ ἐπὶ τὸ τοῦ ΒΔΑ ἡμικυκλίου ἐπίπεδον
κάθετος ἤχθω· πεσεῖται δὴ ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ κύκλου περιφέρειαν διὰ τὸ ὀρθὸν ἑστάναι
τὸν κύλινδρον. πιπτέτω καὶ ἔστω ἡ ΚΙ, καὶ ἡ ἀπὸ τοῦ Ι ἐπὶ τὸ Α ἐπιζευχθεῖσα συμ-
βαλέτω τῇ ΒΖ κατὰ τὸ Θ, ἡ δὲ ΑΛ τῷ ΒΜΖ ἡμικυκλίῳ κατὰ τὸ Μ, ἐπεζεύχθωσαν
δὲ καὶ αἱ ΚΔ, ΜΙ, ΜΘ.
ἐπεὶ οὖν ἑκάτερον τῶν ΔΚΑ, ΒΜΖ ἡμικυκλίων ὀρθόν ἐστι πρὸς τὸ ὑποκείμε-
νον ἐπίπεδον, καὶ ἡ κοινὴ ἄρα αὐτῶν τομὴ ἡ ΜΘ πρὸς ὀρθάς ἐστι τῷ τοῦ κύκλου
ἐπιπέδῳ· ὥστε καὶ πρὸς τὴν ΒΖ ὀρθή ἐστιν ἡ ΜΘ. τὸ ἄρα ὑπὸ τῶν ΒΘΖ, τουτέστι
τὸ ὑπὸ ΑΘΙ, ἴσον ἐστὶ τῷ ἀπὸ ΜΘ· ὅμοιον ἄρα ἐστὶ τὸ ΑΜΙ τρίγωνον ἑκατέρῳ τῶν
ΜΙΘ, ΜΑΘ, καὶ ὀρθὴ ἡ ὑπὸ ΙΜΑ. ἔστιν δὲ καὶ ἡ ὑπὸ ΔΚΑ ὀρθή· παράλληλοι ἄρα
εἰσὶν αἱ ΚΔ, ΜΙ, καὶ ἔσται ἀνάλογον, ὡς ἡ ΔΑ πρὸς ΑΚ, τουτέστιν ἡ ΚΑ πρὸς ΑΙ,
οὕτως ἡ ΙΑ πρὸς ΑΜ, διὰ τὴν ὁμοιότητα τῶν τριγώνων. τέσσαρες ἄρα αἱ ΔΑ, ΑΚ,
ΑΙ, ΑΜ ἑξῆς ἀνάλογόν εἰσιν. καί ἐστιν ἡ ΑΜ ἴση τῇ Γ, ἐπεὶ καὶ τῇ ΑΒ· δύο ἄρα
δοθεισῶν τῶν ΑΔ, Γ δύο μέσαι ἀνάλογον ηὕρηνται αἱ ΑΚ, ΑΙ.
The solution of Archytas, as Eudemus reports it.
Let the two given straight lines be ΑΔ and Γ. It is then necessary to find two mean
proportionals of ΑΔ and Γ. Let the circle ΑΒΔΖ be drawn around the greater ΑΔ,
let ΑΒ, equal to Γ, be fit into (the circle) and being extended let it meet the line,
which is tangent to the circle and drawn from Δ, at Π. Let line ΒΕΖ be drawn par-
allel to ΠΔΟ, and let a right semicylinder be conceived on the semicircle ΑΒΔ,
and on ΑΔ a semicircle at right angles lying in the rectangle of the semicylinder.
When this semicircle is rotated from Δ to Β, while the endpoint Α of the diameter
remains fixed, it will cut the cylindrical surface in its rotation and will describe a
line on it. And again, if, while ΑΔ remains fixed, the triangle ΑΠΔ is rotated in an
opposite motion to that of the semicircle, it will make the surface of a cone with
the line ΑΠ, which as it is rotated will meet the line on the cylinder in a point. At
the same time the point Β will also describe a semicircle on the surface of the
cone. Let the moving semicircle have as its position ΔΚΑ at the place where
the lines meet, and let the triangle being rotated in the opposite direction
have as its place ΔΛΑ, and let the point of intersection described above be Κ.
Let the semicircle described by Β be ΒΜΖ, and let the line of intersection between
it and the circle ΒΔΖΑ be ΒΖ. And let a perpendicular be drawn from Κ to the
plane of the semicircle ΒΔΑ. It will fall on the circumference of the circle, be-
cause the cylinder is a right cylinder. Let it be dropped and let it be line ΚΙ,
and let the line which connects Ι to Α meet the line ΒΖ in Θ, and the line ΑΛ
meet the semicircle ΒΜΖ at Μ. Let ΚΔ, ΜΙ, and ΜΘ be connected.
Since each of the semicircles ΔΚΑ and ΒΜΖ are at right angles to the plane
that lie under them, therefore their line of intersection ΜΘ is also perpendicular
224 Luc Brisson
to ΒΖ. Therefore the rectangle formed by ΘΒ and ΘΖ, that is the rectangle formed
by ΘΑ and ΘΙ, is equal to the square formed by ΜΘ. The triangle ΑΜΙ is therefore
similar to each of the triangles ΜΙΘ and ΜΑΘ. And the angle ΙΜΑ is right. But the
angle ΔΚΑ is also right. The line ΚΔ and ΜΙ are therefore parallel and there will
be a proportion: as ΔΑ is to ΑΚ, that is as ΚΑ is to ΑΙ, so ΙΑ is to ΑΜ on account of
the similarity of the triangles. The four lines ΔΑ, ΑΚ, ΑΙ, ΑΜ are therefore in con-
tinued proportion. And ΑΜ is equal to Γ, since it is also equal to ΑΒ. Therefore of
the two given lines ΑΔ and Γ two mean proportionals have been found, ΑΚ and
ΑΙ.
Text 1b
Eutocius, Commentary on Archimedes’ On the Sphere and Cylinder II (III.88.3 –

96.27 ed. Heiberg / Stamatis). Text and translation in Huffman 2005, p. 361– 364.
Βασιλεῖ Πτολεμαίῳ Ἐρατοσθένης χαίρειν.
Τῶν ἀρχαίων τινὰ τραγῳδοποιῶν φασιν εἰσαγαγεῖν τὸν Μίνω τῷ Γλαύκῳ κατα-
σκευάζοντα τάφον, πυθόμενον δέ, ὅτι πανταχοῦ ἑκατόμπεδος εἴη, εἰπεῖν·
μικρόν γ᾽ ἔλεξας βασιλικοῦ σηκὸν τάφου·

διπλάσιος ἔστω, τοῦ καλοῦ δὲ μὴ σφαλεὶς
δίπλαζ᾽ ἕκαστον κῶλον ἐν τάχει τάφου.
ἐδόκει δὲ διημαρτηκέναι· τῶν γὰρ πλευρῶν διπλασιασθεισῶν τὸ μὲν ἐπίπεδον

γίνεται τετραπλάσιον, τὸ δὲ στερεὸν ὀκταπλάσιον. ἐζητεῖτο δὲ καὶ παρὰ τοῖς
γεωμέτραις, τίνα ἄν τις τρόπον τὸ δοθὲν στερεὸν διαμένον ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ σχήματι
διπλασιάσειεν, καὶ ἐκαλεῖτο τὸ τοιοῦτον πρόβλημα κύβου διπλασιασμός· ὑπο-
θέμενοι γὰρ κύβον ἐζήτουν τοῦτον διπλασιάσαι. πάντων δὲ διαπορούντων ἐπὶ
πολὺν χρόνον πρῶτος Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Χῖος ἐπενόησεν ὅτι, ἐὰν εὑρεθῇ δύο εὐ-
θειῶν γραμμῶν, ὧν ἡ μείζων τῆς ἐλάσσονός ἐστι διπλασία, δύο μέσας ἀνάλογον
λαβεῖν ἐν συνεχεῖ ἀναλογίᾳ, διπλασιασθήσεται ὁ κύβος. ὥστε τὸ ἀπόρημα αὐτῷ
εἰς ἕτερον οὐκ ἔλασσον ἀπόρημα κατέστρεφεν.
μετὰ χρόνον δὲ τινάς φασιν Δηλίους ἐπιβαλλομένους κατὰ χρησμὸν διπλα-
σιάσαι τινὰ τῶν βωμῶν ἐμπεσεῖν εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ ἀπόρημα. διαπεμψαμένους δὲ
τοὺς παρὰ τῷ Πλάτωνι ἐν Ἀκαδημίᾳ γεωμέτρας ἀξιοῦν αὑτοῖς εὑρεῖν τὸ ζητού-
μενον. τῶν δὲ φιλοπόνως ἐπιδιδόντων ἑαυτοὺς καὶ ζητούντων δύο τῶν δοθεισῶν
δύο μέσας λαβεῖν Ἀρχύτας μὲν ὁ Ταραντῖνος λέγεται διὰ τῶν ἡμικυλίνδρων εὑρη-
κέναι, Εὔδοξος δὲ διὰ τῶν καλουμένων καμπύλων γραμμῶν.
συμβέβηκε δὲ πᾶσιν αὐτοῖς ἀποδεικτικῶς γεγραφέναι, χειρουργῆσαι δὲ καὶ
εἰς χρείαν πεσεῖν μὴ δύνασθαι πλὴν ἐπὶ βραχύ τι τὸν Μέναιχμον καὶ ταῦτα δυσχε-
ρῶς. ἐπινενόηται δέ τις ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν ὀργανικὴ λῆψις ῥᾳδία, δι᾽ ἧς εὑρήσομεν δύο
τῶν δοθεισῶν οὐ μόνον δύο μέσας, ἀλλ᾽ ὅσας ἄν τις ἐπιτάξῃ. τούτου δὲ εὑρισκο-
μένου δυνησόμεθα καθόλου τὸ δοθὲν στερεὸν παραλληλογράμμοις περιεχόμενον
εἰς κύβον καθιστάναι ἢ ἐξ ἑτέρου εἰς ἕτερον μετασχηματίζειν καὶ ὅμοιον ποιεῖν
καὶ ἐπαύξειν διατηροῦντας τὴν ὁμοιότητα, ὥστε καὶ βωμοὺς καὶ ναούς (…)
τὴν δὲ ἀπόδειξιν καὶ τὴν κατασκευὴν τοῦ λεχθέντος ὀργάνου ὑπογέγραφά
σοι. δεδόσθωσαν δύο ἄνισοι εὐθεῖαι (…)
ταῦτα οὖν ἐπὶ τῶν γεωμετρουμένων ἐπιφανειῶν ἀποδέδεικται· ἵνα δὲ καὶ
ὀργανικῶς δυνώμεθα τὰς δύο μέσας λαμβάνειν, διαπήγνυται πλινθίον ξύλινον
ἢ ἐλεφάντινον ἢ χαλκοῦν ἔχον τρεῖς πινακίσκους ἴσους ὡς λεπτοτάτους, ὧν ὁ
μὲν μέσος ἐνήρμοσται, οἱ δὲ δύο ἐπωστοί εἰσιν ἐν χολέδραις, τοῖς δὲ μεγέθεσιν
καὶ ταῖς συμμετρίαις ὡς ἕκαστοι ἑαυτοὺς πείθουσιν· τὰ μὲν γὰρ τῆς ἀποδείξεως
ὡσαύτως συντελεῖται πρὸς δὲ τὸ ἀκριβέστερον λαμβάνεσθαι τὰς γραμμὰς φιλο-
τεχνητέον, ἵνα ἐν τῷ συνάγεσθαι τοὺς πινακίσκους παράλληλα διαμένῃ πάντα
καὶ ἄσχαστα καὶ ὁμαλῶς συναπτόμενα ἀλλήλοις.
ἐν δὲ τῷ ἀναθήματι τὸ μὲν ὀργανικὸν χαλκοῦν ἐστιν καὶ καθήρμοσται ὑπ᾽αὐτ-
ὴν τὴν στεφάνην τῆς στήλης προσμεμολυβδοχοημένον, ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ δὲ ἡ ἀπόδειξις
συντομώτερον φραζομένη καὶ τὸ σχῆμα, μετ᾽ αὐτὸ δὲ ἐπίγραμμα. ὑπογεγράφθω
οὖν σοι καὶ ταῦτα, ἵνα ἔχῃς καὶ ὡς ἐν τῷ ἀναθήματι (…)
Eratosthenes to King Ptolemy, greetings,
They say that one of the ancient tragedians portrayed Minos constructing a tomb
for Glaucus, and that, when he learned that it was a hundred feet on each side,
he said,
Small indeed is the tomb your have spoken of for a royal burial.
Let it be double! While not destroying its beauty,
quickly double each side of the tomb.
But he was considered to have made a mistake. For when the sides are doubled,
a surface is increased four-fold and a solid is increased eight-fold. But geometers
also sought in what manner someone could double a given solid, while it contin-
ued in the same shape. And this sort of problem was called the duplication of the
cube. For having posited a cube, they sought to double it. After everyone had
226 Luc Brisson
been in perplexity for a long time, Hippocrates of Chios first conceived that, if a
way can be found to get two mean proportionals in continued proportion be-
tween two straight lines, of which the greater is double the lesser, the cube
will be doubled. As a result he transformed the Minos’ problem into another
no less difficult problem.
Some time later it was told that some Delians, devoting themselves to dou-
bling one of their altars in accordance with an oracle, fell into the same difficul-
ty. They sent to the geometers associated with Plato in the Academy and expect-
ed to find that which they sought. After these geometers devoted themselves in-
dustriously to seeking to determine the two means of the two given lines, Arch-
ytas of Tarentum is said to have discovered them through the semi-cylinders, and
Eudoxus through the so-called bent lines.
But it has turned out that they all have written in the form of a geometrical
demonstration and that they cannot build what they describe or descend to prac-
tice, except to some small extent Menaechmus and that only with difficulty. But I
have contrived an easy approach, by means of an instrument, through which I
will find not only two means of the two given lines, but however many someone
demands. With this discovery we will be able in general to transform any given
solid, which is bounded by parallelograms, into a cube, or to change it from one
shape to another, and to both altars and temples (…)
I have written out for you below the mathematical demonstration and the
construction of the instrument which I have described. Let two unequal lines
be given (…)
This, then, is the demonstration on geometrical surfaces. But in order that
we also be able to determine the two means with an instrument, a frame is fash-
ioned out of wood, or ivory, or bronze (…)
On the votive monument the instrument is bronze and it has been attached
with lead right under the crown of the column. Under it is the demonstration,
phrased more concisely, and the diagram, and after it there is an epigram. Let
these things also be written out for you below, so that you might also have
them as they are on the votive monument. …
Text 2
Proclus, Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus 32 a-b, II 33.29 – 34.4 ed. Diehl. Text and
translation in Huffman 2005, p. 344.
πῶς μὲν οὖν δύο δοθεισῶν εὐθειῶν δυνατὸν δύο μέσας ἀνὰ λόγον λαβεῖν, ἡμεῖς
ἐπὶ τέλει τῆς πραγματείας εὑρόντες τὴν Ἀρχύτειον δεῖξιν ἀναγράψομεν. ταύτην
ἐκλεξάμενοι μᾶλλον ἢ τὴν Μεναίχμου, διότι ταῖς κωνικαῖς ἐκεῖνος χρῆται γραμ-
μαῖς, καὶ τὴν Ἐρατοσθένους ὡσαύτως, διότι κανόνος χρῆται παραθέσει.
How, then, it is possible to find two mean proportionals of two given straight
lines, I will record at the end of my work, since I have found the demonstration
of Archytas. I picked this demonstration, rather than that of Menaechmus, be-
cause he uses conic sections and similarly rather than the solution of Eratos-
thenes since he uses a ruler laid alongside.
Text 3a
Plutarch, Quaestiones conviviales VIII 2.1 718e-f (Hubert 1971; 261.27– 262.13). Text
and translation in Huffman 2005, p. 364– 365.
πᾶσι μὲν οὖν τοῖς καλουμένοις μαθήμασιν, ὥσπερ ἀστραβέσι καὶ λείοις κατόπ-
τροις, ἐμφαίνεται τῆς τῶν νοητῶν ἀληθείας ἴχνη καὶ εἴδωλα· μάλιστα δὲ γεωμε-
τρία κατὰ τὸν Φιλόλαον (DK44 A 7a) ἀρχὴ καὶ μητρόπολις οὖσα τῶν ἄλλων ἐπα-
νάγει καὶ στρέφει τὴν διάνοιαν, οἷον ἐκκαθαιρομένην καὶ ἀπολυομένην ἀτρέμα
τῆς αἰσθήσεως. διὸ καὶ Πλάτων αὐτὸς ἐμέμψατο τοὺς περὶ Εὔδοξον καὶ Ἀρχύταν
καὶ Μέναιχμον εἰς ὀργανικὰς καὶ μηχανικὰς κατασκευὰς τὸν τοῦ στερεοῦ διπλα-
σιασμὸν ἀπάγειν ἐπιχειροῦντας, ὥσπερ πειρωμένους δίχα λόγου δύο μέσας ἀνὰ
λόγον, ᾗ παρείκοι, λαβεῖν. ἀπόλλυσθαι γὰρ οὕτω καὶ διαφθείρεσθαι τὸ γεωμε-
τρίας ἀγαθὸν αὖθις ἐπὶ τὰ αἰσθητὰ παλινδρομούσης καὶ μὴ φερομένης ἄνω
μηδ᾽ ἀντιλαμβανομένης τῶν ἀιδίων καὶ ἀσωμάτων εἰκόνων, πρὸς αἷσπερ ὢν ὁ
θεὸς ἀεὶ θεός ἐστιν (Plat. Phaedr. 249c).
Now in the so-called sciences, just as in undistorted and smooth mirrors, traces
and images of the truth of intelligible things appear. But geometry, being, ac-
cording to Philolaus, the source and mother-city of the rest of the sciences, espe-
cially leads upward and turns the intellect, purified, as it were, and gently freed
from sense-perception. For this reason, Plato himself also reproached Eudoxus,
Archytas, Menaechmus and their followers for trying to lead away the problem of
the duplication of a solid into constructions that use instruments and that are
mechanical, just as if they were trying to obtain the two mean proportionals
apart from reason, in whatever way it was practicable. For its good was ruined
and destroyed, when geometry ran back again to the sensible and was not
borne upwards and did not lay hold of the eternal and incorporeal images in re-
lation to which God is always God.
228 Luc Brisson
Text 3b
Plutarch, Marcellus XIV 5 – 6 (Ziegler 1994: 123.6 – 22). Text and translation in
Huffman 2005, p. 365 – 366.
τὴν γὰρ ἀγαπωμένην ταύτην καὶ περιβόητον ὀργανικὴν ἤρξαντο μὲν κινεῖν οἱ
περὶ Εὔδοξον καὶ Ἀρχύταν, ποικίλλοντες τῷ γλαφυρῷ γεωμετρίαν, καὶ λογικῆς
καὶ γραμμικῆς ἀποδείξεως οὐκ εὐποροῦντα προβλήματα δι᾽ αἰσθητῶν καὶ ὀργανι-
κῶν παραδειγμάτων ὑπερείδοντες. ὡς τὸ περὶ δύο μέσας ἀνὰ λόγον πρόβλημα
καὶ στοιχεῖον ἐπὶ πολλὰ τῶν γραφομένων ἀναγκαῖον εἰς ὀργανικὰς ἐξῆγον
ἀμφότεροι κατασκευάς. μεσογράφους τινὰς ἀπὸ καμπύλων γραμμῶν καὶ τμη-
μάτων μεθαρμόζοντες. ἐπεὶ δὲ Πλάτων ἠγανάκτησε καὶ διετείνατο πρὸς αὐτούς,
ὡς ἀπολλύντας καὶ διαφθείροντας τὸ γεωμετρίας ἀγαθόν, ἀπὸ τῶν ἀσωμάτων
καὶ νοητῶν ἀποδιδρασκούσης ἐπὶ τὰ αἰσθητά, καὶ προσχρωμένης αὖθις αὖ σώμα-
σι πολλῆς καὶ φορτικῆς βαναυσουργίας δεομένοις, οὕτω διεκρίθη γεωμετρίας
ἐκπεσοῦσα μηχανική, καὶ περιορωμένη πολὺν χρόνον ὑπὸ φιλοσοφίας, μία τῶν
στρατιωτίδων τεχνῶν ἐγεγόνει.
Eudoxus and Archytas and their followers began to set in motion this prized and
famous science of mechanics, by embellishing geometry with its subtlety, and, in
the case of problems which did not admit of logical and geometrical demonstra-
tion, by using sensible and mechanical models as supports. Thus, they both em-
ployed mechanical constructions for the problem of the two mean proportionals,
which is a necessary element in many geometrical figures, adapting to their pur-
poses certain mean lines from bent lines and sections. But, when Plato was upset
and maintained against them that they were destroying and ruining the value of
geometry, since it had fled from the incorporeal and intelligible to the sensible,
using again physical objects which required much common handicraft, the sci-
ence of mechanics was driven out and separated from geometry, and being dis-
regarded for a long time by philosophy, became one of the military arts.
Text 3c
Plutarch, The E at Delphi 6, 386d-f (Patton 1929: VI.5 – 18). Text and translation in
Huffman 2005, p. 367– 368.
Ταῦτα τοῦ Νικάνδρου διελθόντος, οἶσθα γὰρ δὴ Θέωνα τὸν ἑταῖρον, ἤρετο τὸν
Ἀμμώνιον, εἰ διαλεκτικῇ παρρησίας μέτεστιν οὕτω περιυβρισμένῃ <καὶ κακῶς>
ἀκηκουίᾳ. τοῦ δ᾽ Ἀμμωνίου λέγειν παρακελευομένου καὶ βοηθεῖν “ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι
μέν” ἔφη “διαλεκτικώτατος ὁ θεός ἐστιν, οἱ πολλοὶ τῶν χρησμῶν δηλοῦσιν· τοῦ
γὰρ αὐτοῦ δήπουθέν ἐστι καὶ λύειν καὶ ποιεῖν ἀμφιβολίας. ἔτι δ᾽, ὥσπερ Πλάτων
ἔλεγε χρησμοῦ δοθέντος ὅπως τὸν ἐν Δήλῳ βωμὸν διπλασιάσωσιν, ὃ τῆς ἄκρας
ἕξεως περὶ γεωμετρίαν ἔργον ἐστίν, οὐ τοῦτο προστάττειν τὸν θεὸν ἀλλὰ γεωμε-
τρεῖν διακελεύεσθαι τοῖς Ἕλλησιν, οὕτως ἄρα χρησμοὺς ἀμφιβόλους ἐκφέρων ὁ
θεὸς αὔξει καὶ συνίστησι διαλεκτικὴν ὡς ἀναγκαίαν τοῖς μέλλουσιν ὀρθῶς αὐτοῦ
συνήσειν”.
After Nicander had gone through these things, my friend Theon, whom you
know, asked Ammonius if logic had a right to speak, since it had been treated
so insultingly and spoken ill of. When Ammonius encouraged him to speak
and to come to its aid, he said “that god is most skilled in logic, many of his ora-
cles make clear. For I suppose that it belongs to the same person both to create
and to resolve ambiguities. Moreover, as Plato said, when an oracle had been
given commanding that they double the altar in Delos, which is a task involving
the highest geometrical ability, that it was not this that the God was ordering but
that he was commanding the Greeks to practice geometry, in the same way, by
putting forth ambiguous oracles, the god is extolling and establishing logic as
necessary for those who are going to understand him correctly”.
Text 3d
Plutarch, On the Sign of Socrates 7, 579b-d (Patton 1929: III. 469 – 470). Text and
translation in Huffman 2005, p. 368 – 369.
…κομιζομένοις ἡμῖν ἀπ᾽ Αἰγύπτου περὶ Καρίαν Δηλίων τινὲς ἀπήντησαν δεόμενοι
Πλάτωνος ὡς γεωμετρικοῦ λῦσαι χρησμὸν αὐτοῖς ἄτοπον ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ προβε-
βλημένον. ἦν δ᾽ ὁ χρησμὸς Δηλίοις καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις Ἕλλησι παῦλαν τῶν παρόντων
κακῶν ἔσεσθαι διπλασιάσασι τὸν ἐν Δήλῳ βωμόν. οὔτε δὲ τὴν διάνοιαν ἐκεῖνοι
συμβάλλειν δυνάμενοι καὶ περὶ τὴν τοῦ βωμοῦ κατασκευὴν γελοῖα πάσχοντες
(ἑκάστης γὰρ τῶν τεσσάρων πλευρῶν διπλασιαζομένης ἔλαθον τῇ αὐξήσει
τόπον στερεὸν ὀκταπλάσιον ἀπεργασάμενοι δι᾽ ἀπειρίαν ἀναλογίας ἣν τὸ μήκει
διπλάσιον παρέχεται). Πλάτωνα τῆς ἀπορίας ἐπεκαλοῦντο βοηθόν. ὁ δὲ τοῦ
Αἰγυπτίου μνησθεὶς προσπαίζειν ἔφη τὸν θεὸν Ἕλλησιν ὀλιγωροῦσι παιδείας
οἷον ἐφυβρίζοντα τὴν ἀμαθίαν ἡμῶν καὶ κελεύοντα γεωμετρίας ἅπτεσθαι μὴ
παρέργως. οὐ γάρ τοι φαύλης οὐδ᾽ ἀμβλὺ διανοίας ὁρώσης ἄκρως δὲ τὰς γραμμὰς
ἠσκημένης ἔργον εἶναι [καὶ] δυεῖν μέσων ἀνάλογον λῆψιν, ᾗ μόνῃ διπλασιάζεται
σχῆμα κυβικοῦ σώματος ἐκ πάσης ὁμοίως αὐξόμενον διαστάσεως. τοῦτο μὲν οὖν
Εὔδοξον αὐτοῖς τὸν Κνίδιον ἢ τὸν Κυζικηνὸν Ἑλίκωνα συντελέσειν. μὴ τοῦτο δ᾽
230 Luc Brisson
οἴεσθαι χρῆναι ποθεῖν τὸν θεὸν ἀλλὰ προστάσσειν Ἕλλησι πᾶσι πολέμου καὶ
κακῶν μεθεμένους Μούσαις ὁμιλεῖν καὶ διὰ λόγων καὶ μαθημάτων τὰ πάθη κατα-
πραΰνοντας ἀβλαβῶς καὶ ὠφελίμως ἀλλήλοις συμφέρεσθαι.
… some of the Delians met us in the region of Caria, as we were journeying from
Egypt and asked Plato, as a geometer, to solve the strange oracle which had been
posed to them by the god. The oracle said that there would be a cessation of their
present evils for the Delians and the other Greeks, when they had doubled the
altar on Delos. But they, not able to understand what was meant and having
made tools of themselves in regard to the construction of the altar (for they un-
wittingly produced a solid eight times as great, when each of the four sides was
doubled, because of their inexperience with the proportion which the double
length creates), called upon Plato as an ally in their perplexity. Plato, remember-
ing the Egyptian, said that the god was mocking the Greeks for neglecting edu-
cation, as it were insulting our ignorance and commanding us to pursue geom-
etry in no cursory fashion. For he said that the grasp of the two mean proportion-
als, by which alone a body with the shape of a cube is doubled, while being aug-
mented in the same way in each dimension, was the task of no mean or dim
sighted intelligence but of one trained to the highest degree in geometry. This,
he said that Eudoxus of Cnidus or Helicon of Cyzicus would accomplish for
them. But he said that they were not to think that this was what the god desired
but rather that he was ordering all the Greeks, having laid aside war and evils, to
consort with the Muses and, allaying their passions through discourse and study
of mathematics, to associate without doing harm to one another but rather ben-
efit.
Text 4
Vitruvius, On Architecture IX. Prologue 13 – 14 (Krohn 1919: 199.13 – 27). Text and
translation in Huffmann 2005, p. 366 – 367.
Transferatur mens ad Archytae Tarentini et Eratosthenis Cyrenaei cogitate; hi

enim multa et grata a mathematicis rebus hominibus invenerunt. Itaque cum
in ceteris inventionibus fuerint grati, in eius rei concitationibus maxime sunt
suspecti. Alius enim alia ratione explicaverunt, quod Delo imperaverat responsis
Apollo, uti arae eius, quantum haberent pedum quadratorum, id duplicarentur,
et ita fore uti, qui essent in ea insula, tunc religione liberarentur.
Itaque Archytas cylindrorum descriptionibus, Eratosthenes organica mesola-
bi ratione idem explicaverunt. Cum haec sint tam magnis doctrinarum iucundi-
tatibus animadversa et cogamur naturaliter inventionibus singularum rerum

considerantes effectus moveri, multas res attendens admiror etiam Democriti
de rerum natura volumina…
Let us turn our attention to the thoughts of Archytas of Tarentum and Eratos-
thenes of Cyrene. For these men have discovered many pleasing things for hu-
manity by means of mathematics. Therefore, although they have been popular
for other discoveries, they have been especially admired for the stimulation
that they have provided in this area. For they each in their own way accomplish-
ed that which Apollo had commanded in his response to the Delian that the
number of cubic feet in his altar be doubled, and thus it would come about to
those in the island would then be freed from their religious duty.
So Archytas by means of diagrams of cylinders and Eratosthenes by a meth-
od that employed the mesolab as an instrument solved the same problem. Al-
though these things are apprehended with the very great pleasure which attends
such learning, and we are naturally compelled to be moved by the discovery of
remarkable things, as we consider what has been accomplished, after a wide sur-
vey, I also admire the books of Democritus on the nature of things…
Text 5
Theon of Smyrna, Mathematics useful for reading Plato (p. 2.3 – 15 ed. Hiller
1878). Text and translation in Huffmann 2005, p. 367.
Ἐρατοσθένης μὲν γὰρ ἐν τῷ ἐπιγραφομένῳ Πλατωνικῷ φησιν ὅτι, Δηλίοις τοῦ

θεοῦ χρήσαντος ἐπὶ ἀπαλλαγῇ λοιμοῦ βωμὸν τοῦ ὄντος διπλασίονα κατα-
σκευάσαι, πολλὴν ἀρχιτέκτοσιν ἐμπεσεῖν ἀπορίαν ζητοῦσιν ὅπως χρὴ στερεὸν
στερεοῦ γενέσθαι διπλάσιον, ἀφικέσθαι τε πευσομένους περὶ τούτου Πλάτωνος.
τὸν δὲ φάναι αὐτοῖς, ὡς ἄρα οὐ διπλασίου βωμοῦ ὁ θεὸς δεόμενος τοῦτο Δηλίοις
ἐμαντεύσατο, προφέρων δὲ καὶ ὀνειδίζων τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἀμελοῦσι μαθημάτων καὶ
γεωμετρίας ὠλιγωρηκόσιν.
Eratosthenes, in the work entitled Platonicus, says that, when the god had or-
dered the Delians, in an oracle, to construct an altar double the existing one,
in order to escape from a plague, great perplexity fell on the builders as how
a solid should become the double of another solid, and they came to ask
Plato about this, and he said to them, that the god did not give this oracle to
the Delians because he wanted an altar twice the size, but in order to bring for-
232 Luc Brisson
ward as a reproach to the Greeks that they pay no attention to mathematics and
have neglected geometry.
Text 6
Plato, Timaeus 31b-32c. Text by J. Burnet, translation by D. J Zeyl modified.
Σωματοειδὲς δὲ δὴ καὶ ὁρατὸν ἁπτόν τε δεῖ τὸ γενόμενον εἶναι, χωρισθὲν δὲ

πυρὸς οὐδὲν ἄν ποτε ὁρατὸν γένοιτο, οὐδὲ ἁπτὸν ἄνευ τινὸς στερεοῦ, στερεὸν
δὲ οὐκ ἄνευ γῆς. ὅθεν ἐκ πυρὸς καὶ γῆς τὸ τοῦ παντὸς ἀρχόμενος συνιστάναι
σῶμα ὁ θεὸς ἐποίει. δύο δὲ μόνω καλῶς συνίστασθαι τρίτου χωρὶς οὐ δυνατόν.
δεσμὸν γὰρ ἐν μέσῳ δεῖ τινα ἀμφοῖν συναγωγὸν γίγνεσθαι. δεσμῶν δὲ κάλλιστος
ὃς ἂν αὑτὸν καὶ τὰ συνδούμενα ὅτι μάλιστα ἓν ποιῇ, τοῦτο δὲ πέφυκεν ἀναλογία
κάλλιστα ἀποτελεῖν. ὁπόταν γὰρ ἀριθμῶν τριῶν εἴτε ὄγκων εἴτε δυνάμεων ὡντι-
νωνοῦν ᾖ τὸ μέσον, ὅτιπερ τὸ πρῶτον πρὸς αὐτό, τοῦτο αὐτὸ πρὸς τὸ ἔσχατον,
καὶ πάλιν αὖθις, ὅτι τὸ ἔσχατον πρὸς τὸ μέσον, τὸ μέσον πρὸς τὸ πρῶτον, τότε τὸ
μέσον μὲν πρῶτον καὶ ἔσχατον γιγνόμενον, τὸ δ᾽ ἔσχατον καὶ τὸ πρῶτον αὖ μέσα
ἀμφότερα, πάνθ᾽ οὕτως ἐξ ἀνάγκης τὰ αὐτὰ εἶναι συμβήσεται, τὰ αὐτὰ δὲ γενόμε-
να ἀλλήλοις ἓν πάντα ἔσται.
εἰ μὲν οὖν ἐπίπεδον μέν, βάθος δὲ μηδὲν ἔχον ἔδει γίγνεσθαι τὸ τοῦ παντὸς
σῶμα, μία μεσότης ἂν ἐξήρκει τά τε μεθ᾽ αὑτῆς συνδεῖν καὶ ἑαυτήν. νῦν δὲ στε-
ρεοειδῆ γὰρ αὐτὸν προσῆκεν εἶναι, τὰ δὲ στερεὰ μία μὲν οὐδέποτε, δύο δὲ ἀεὶ
μεσότητες συναρμόττουσιν. οὕτω δὴ πυρός τε καὶ γῆς ὕδωρ ἀέρα τε ὁ θεὸς ἐν
μέσῳ θείς, καὶ πρὸς ἄλληλα καθ᾽ ὅσον ἦν δυνατὸν ἀνὰ τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον ἀπεργα-
σάμενος, ὅτιπερ πῦρ πρὸς ἀέρα, τοῦτο ἀέρα πρὸς ὕδωρ, καὶ ὅτι ἀὴρ πρὸς ὕδωρ,
ὕδωρ πρὸς γῆν, συνέδησεν καὶ συνεστήσατο οὐρανὸν ὁρατὸν καὶ ἁπτόν. καὶ διὰ
ταῦτα ἔκ τε δὴ τούτων τοιούτων καὶ τὸν ἀριθμὸν τεττάρων τὸ τοῦ κόσμου σῶμα
ἐγεννήθη δι᾽ ἀναλογίας ὁμολογῆσαν, φιλίαν τε ἔσχεν ἐκ τούτων, ὥστε εἰς ταὐτὸν
αὑτῷ συνελθὸν ἄλυτον ὑπό του ἄλλου πλὴν ὑπὸ τοῦ συνδήσαντος γενέσθαι.
Now that which comes to be must have bodily form, and be both visible and tan-
gible, but nothing could ever become visible apart from fire, nor tangible without
something solid, nor solid without earth. That is why, as he began to put the
body of the universe together, the god came to make it out of fire and earth.
But it isn’t possible to combine two things well all by themselves, without a
third; there has to be some bond between the two that unites them. Now the
best bond is one that really and truly makes a unity of itself together with the
things bonded by it, and this in the nature of things is best accomplished by pro-
portion. For whenever of three numbers, which are either an integer (i. e. 2) or a
power (i. e. √2), the middle term between any two of them is such that what the
first term is to it, it is to the last, and conversely, what the last term is to the mid-
dle, it is to the first, then, since the middle term turns out to be both first and
last, and the last and the first likewise both turn out to be middle terms, they
will all of necessity turn out to have the same relationship to each other, and,
given this, will all be unified.
So if the body of the universe were to have come to be as a two-dimensional
plane, a single middle term would have sufficed to bind together its conjoining
terms with itself. As it was however, the universe was to be a solid, and solids are
never joined together by just one middle term but always by two. Hence the god
set water and air between fire and earth, and made them as proportionate to one
another as was possible, so that what fire is to air, air is to water, and what air is
to water, water is to earth. He then bound them together and thus he constructed
the visible and tangible universe. This is the reason why these four particular
constituents were used to beget the body of the world, making a symphony of
proportion. They bestowed friendship upon it, so that, having come together
into a unity with itself, it could not be undone by anyone but the one who
had bound it together.
4 Reception by Plato, Aristotle
and the Early Academy
Carl Huffman
Plato and the Pythagoreans
There is a striking contradiction in scholarly treatments of the relationship be-
tween Plato and the Pythagoreans. One group of scholars maintains that Pytha-
goreanism played a central role in the development of Plato’s philosophy, so that
its origins would not be intelligible without appealing to Pythagoreanism. Thus,
Guthrie, in the first volume on Plato in his History of Greek Philosophy, comment-
ed on “how difficult it is to separate their [i.e. the Pythagoreans’] philosophy
from Plato’s” (1975, p. 35). Such a view had even more radical predecessors in
antiquity, in such texts as the biography of Pythagoras read by Photius in the
9th century AD, in which Plato was presented as a member of the Pythagorean
school, being the pupil of Archytas and the ninth successor to Pythagoras him-
self. Some scholars (e. g. Cherniss 1944) would argue that Plato’s own pupil Ar-
istotle presented Plato as following the Pythagoreans “in most respects” (Met-
aph. 987a29 – 31).
On the other hand, however, there has been a tsunami of handbooks and
guides to Plato in recent years and one of the most striking things about these
guides is their almost uniform failure to indicate any close connection between
Plato and the Pythagoreans. The scholars editing these books and writing the in-
dividual chapters seem to think that Plato’s philosophy is completely intelligible
with essentially no reference to the Pythagoreans at all. Thus, neither The Cam-
bridge Companion to Plato, edited by Richard Kraut (1992), nor A Companion to
Plato, edited by Hugh Benson (2006), have a chapter devoted to Plato’s connec-
tions to the Pythagoreans, which would surely seem to be required if Plato did
indeed owe a significant debt to them. Matters are actually even worse, since pe-
rusal of the indices of these volumes reveals that the references to Pythagoras
and the Pythagoreans are few and almost all take the form of passing comments.
There is virtually no substantive discussion of Plato’s relation to the Pythagor-
eans. In Benson’s volume there are three entries for Pythagoras, three for the Py-
thagorean School and three for the Pythagorean theorem. The three references to
the Pythagorean theorem simply use the name, once in scare quotes, probably
rightly so. The chapter on “Plato and Mathematics” repeatedly uses the term Py-
thagoreanizing to describe certain, mostly modern, interpretations of Plato but
makes no attempt, in fact, to discuss Pythagorean mathematics or Pythagorean
philosophy and its relation to Plato. The three entries on Pythagoras and the
three entries on the Pythagorean School refer to just six sentences, in which
the references are mostly passing, such as “Simmias and Cebes were Pythagor-
eans” (2006, p. 32). Thus, in 451 pages devoted to Plato, only the equivalent of a
238 Carl Huffman
very short paragraph of mostly inconsequential references deals with Pythagoras

and the Pythagoreans. The situation is similar in Kraut’s volume. Twelve referen-
ces to Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans are indicated in the index, but most are
brief. Thus there is twice mention of the fact that Plato met Pythagoreans, when
he went to southern Italy and Sicily in 387, and three or four brief allusions to the
Pythagorean belief in reincarnation in the chapter on “Plato and Greek Religion.”
One would certainly expect to find discussion of the Pythagoreans in the chapter
entitled “Plato: Intellectual Background” by Terry Irwin, but we get only a half a
sentence in which Irwin reports that Plato “mentions Pythagorean mathematical
speculation” (1992, p. 51). There could not be a clearer statement that modern
scholarship does not see Pythagoreanism as an important part of Plato’s intellec-
tual background. The only exception to this pattern is one brief paragraph by
Terry Penner, in which he discusses possible Pythagorean influence on Plato’s
theory of forms (1992, p. 123). Thus out of 492 pages, there is just a third of
one page of serious discussion of Plato’s connection to the Pythagoreans.
Who then should we believe, scholars like Guthrie who find it hard to distin-
guish Platonism from Pythagoreanism, because the Pythagorean influence was
so pervasive, or scholars like Kraut and Benson and the distinguished group
of contributors to their volumes, who discuss the development of Plato’s philos-
ophy with only the most cursory reference to Pythagoreanism? The rest of my
paper will be devoted to answering this question. Not surprisingly, my conclu-
sion will be that there is a grain of truth to be found in each position. Nonethe-
less, the more modern view is closer to the truth, so I will argue, in that substan-
tive Pythagorean influence is limited to only a few narrowly defined aspects of
Plato’s philosophy rather than being pervasive. In stating this thesis I should
note that I am using the term “influence” in what is the relatively unsophisticat-
ed but still the most commonly used sense, in which it indicates that Plato took
over specific Pythagorean philosophical doctrines. In another sense, Plato could
be said to be influenced by the Pythagoreans insofar as he developed some of his
doctrines in opposition to them and, as I will show, Plato was clearly influenced
by the Pythagoreans in this second sense as well. Indeed, a second important
result of my paper is that there are a significant number of cases of this sort
of Pythagorean influence on Plato. If both types of influence are taken together,
Pythagoreanism becomes a more important influence on Plato, but even in this
expanded sense of the term its “influence” is not pervasive but is instead limited
to circumscribed areas.
Each group of scholars can point to prominent evidence from the time of
Plato to support its view. Those who see little Pythagorean influence can empha-
size the well-known fact that Plato refers to the Pythagoreans very sparingly,
which is surprising if they were a major influence. Thus Plato mentions the Py-
thagoreans and Pythagoras exactly once each in all of his extensive writings.
Both references appear in the Republic: Pythagoras is said to be famous not as
a public figure but as a beloved private educator, who prescribed a way of life
to which his followers still adhered in Plato’s day (600a-b); the Pythagoreans
are cited with approval for the assertion that astronomy and harmonics are kin-
dred sciences (this is evidently a reference to fr. 1 of Archytas) but criticized for
searching for numbers in heard harmonies and failing to ascend from the sensi-
ble to the intelligible world to consider the problem of determining which num-
bers are harmonious and which not and why (530d and 531c). The reference to
Pythagoras is clearly positive, but the treatment of the Pythagoreans is more
mixed and, in fact, Plato’s main reason for referring to them seems to be to dis-
agree with their approach to harmonics.
Now Leonid Zhmud has argued that, even if Plato only refers to Pythagoras
once and refers to him only as a private educator and founder of a way of life,
this need hardly mean that this is all that Plato knew about him (2012,
p. 225). This is certainly true. There are, however, some reasonable conclusions
that can be drawn from the passage. Pythagoras is not the focus of the passage
but is instead briefly mentioned in a wider discussion of Homer. Socrates high-
lights Greek intellectuals who are preeminent in a given area, in order to ask if
Homer had similar expertise in that area, so that we should expect him to be
able to tell us the truth rather than providing just an inaccurate poetic image.
Lycurgus, Charondas and Solon are mentioned as great lawgivers, Thales and
Anacharsis as the preeminent practical inventors. Pythagoras is contrasted
with these figures, so it seems clear that Plato did not think of him primarily
as a political figure or as a practical scientist. Nor did he think of him first
and foremost as a mathematician, if indeed he thought of him as a mathemati-
cian at all; instead he is identified as “a leader in private education” who handed
on a Pythagorean way of life to his followers (600a-b). Furthermore, while the
passage is clearly positive and, indeed, marvels at the continued existence of
those who follow the Pythagorean life in Plato’s time, there is not the slightest
hint that Pythagoras is thought of as some sort of semi-divine figure. He is in-
stead a beloved but very human teacher. It is important to note that Plato
does not explicitly connect Pythagoras to his own philosophy in any way and
mentions him in a single sentence, indeed in a subordinate clause of a sentence
that is primarily about Homer. The Pythagoreans do both a little better, since
Plato discusses them for two or three sentences but also a little worse, in that
Plato clearly disagrees with them. So, we should not be surprised that the Cam-
bridge Companion to Plato’s Republic (2007), just like Kraut’s and Benson’s vol-
umes mentioned earlier, has little to say about Pythagoras. In the index to its 473
240 Carl Huffman
pages there is only a single reference to the Pythagoreans and it is a passing ref-
erence to the Pythagorean theorem.¹
Of course, these Pythagorean minimalists should not be too smug, both be-
cause of Zhmud’s point mentioned above and because almost all scholars would
agree that there are other places in the dialogues where Plato is clearly alluding
to the Pythagoreans. He mentions Philolaus briefly in the Phaedo and Archytas
in the Seventh Letter (if that controversial text is authentic), although it must be
noted that he calls neither a Pythagorean and, more importantly, gives little in-
dication of any particular respect for, let alone deference towards, them as phi-
losophers. Philolaus is reported to have said “nothing clear” (61d) on the topic of
suicide and, although Archytas does come to Plato’s rescue, he is clearly present-
ed not as Plato’s teacher in philosophy but rather as someone who gave very mis-
leading reports about the progress of Dionysius II in philosophy, so misleading
as to make us doubt his philosophical acumen (see Lloyd 1990). Other evidence
suggests that Archytas and Plato were “competitive colleagues” rather than one
being dependent on the other (Huffman 2005,pp. 32 – 42). So these references to
Philolaus and Archytas do little to suggest that Plato saw himself as owing much
of a debt to the Pythagoreans. There are numerous other passages where Plato is
supposed to be alluding to the Pythagoreans. With the exception of a crucial pas-
sage in the Philebus, which I will discuss further below, most of the rest turn out
to be less clear references than is usually supposed. In many cases the Pythagor-
eans appear to be just one group among a number of related groups of whom
Plato may be thinking, so that there is little reason to think that they are signifi-
cant influences in the passages in question. The evidence of Plato himself, then,
creates a prima facie case for the Pythagorean minimalists.
Those who would argue that Plato is greatly indebted to the Pythagoreans
seem to be able to cite an almost equally powerful source, however: Plato’s great-
est pupil, Aristotle. One might even argue that Plato is a bad source on the basis
of which to determine his philosophical influences and that an outside observer
like Aristotle could, in fact, be more objective. According to a common reading of
a sentence that is part of his treatment of his predecessors in Metaphysics I
(987a29 – 31), Aristotle reports that Plato agreed with the Pythagoreans “in
most respects” (e. g., Cherniss 1944, p. 177 n. 100). I have discussed this sentence
in great detail elsewhere (Huffman 2008b) and will not rehearse all of my argu-
 The volumes edited by Kraut (1992), Benson (2006) and Ferrari (2007) belong, by and large, to
the Anglo-American tradition of analytic philosophy; their lack of interest in the connection
between Plato and the Pythagoreans, accordingly, may be in part a reflection of analytic phi-
losophy’s relative disinterest in issues in the history of philosophy. For a recent consideration of
some aspects of Plato’s connection to the Pythagoreans see Périllié 2008.
ments here. The most fundamental point is that the passage does not say that
Plato agreed with the Pythagoreans in most respects but rather that he agreed
with “these men” in most respects. The “these” has been commonly thought
to refer to the Pythagoreans, because the Italians (= the Pythagoreans) are men-
tioned in the second half of the sentence. But if we are looking for the antecedent
for “these men,” it clearly must be found in the immediately preceding sentence,
which concludes Aristotle’s discussion of all philosophers up to that point, i. e.
what we call the Presocratics. Thus “these men” are all the “others who have
lived before us,” to whom Aristotle refers in the immediately preceding sentence.
Aristotle is saying that when it comes to kinds of first principles, his topic in
Book 1 of the Metaphysics, Plato agreed with the Presocratic tradition “in most
respects”; he is not identifying any particular connection to the Pythagoreans.
This interpretation is supported by the immediately following passage (987a32-
b9), which describes Plato’s central metaphysical doctrine, the theory of forms,
as arising from just two influences: Socrates and Heraclitus. This makes no
sense if Plato is supposed to have derived most of his philosophy from the Pytha-
goreans.
A few lines later (987b20 – 31) and in a number of passages further on in the
Metaphysics, Aristotle does go on to suggest that Plato was heavily influenced by
the Pythagoreans but only in a very specific area. He repeatedly compares the
pair of principles which Plato adopted late in his life, the One and the Indefinite
Dyad, from which the forms are derived, to the Pythagorean principles of limit
and unlimited. Aristotle even in this area takes some pains to emphasize Plato’s
divergences from the Pythagoreans, e. g., Plato posited a duality instead of a sin-
gle unlimited, made that duality the great and the small and regarded the one
and numbers as separate from things, whereas, according to Aristotle, the Pytha-
goreans thought that things were numbers (987b25 – 32). Despite highlighting
these differences, however, he nonetheless clearly suggests that Plato’s ultimate
principles are quite similar to those of the Pythagoreans. A few pages later, after
a further discussion of Pythagorean principles, including the limit and unlimit-
ed, Aristotle concludes by saying that he has said enough about the Pythagor-
eans and then turns, in contrast, to “those who posit the forms” (990a33-b1).
It could not be clearer that he thinks of the forms, the central feature of Plato’s
middle-period metaphysics and epistemology, as a distinctive development of
Plato’s and not as something he owes to the Pythagoreans.
This reading of Aristotle’s account of Plato’s connection to the Pythagoreans
receives emphatic confirmation from the text of Plato himself. If the Pythagor-
eans had played a crucial role in developing Plato’s theory of forms, we would
have expected them to figure prominently in early and middle dialogues culmi-
nating in the Republic, but as we have seen, this is not the case. If the text of
242 Carl Huffman
Plato supports Aristotle’s view that Plato’s theory of forms and hence his middle
period metaphysics and epistemology was not influenced by Pythagoreanism, is
there evidence in Plato for Aristotle’s further contention that there were, none-
theless, striking similarities between the theory of principles that Plato devel-
oped late in his life and Pythagoreanism? Clearly Plato’s Philebus provides just
such evidence. At 16c-17a Socrates describes a method that “was hurled down
from the gods by some Prometheus along with fire” and that “men before his
time” adopted. This method begins from the basic assumption that limit and un-
limited are inherent in all things and maintains that to attain knowledge one
must first look for the unity that arises from limit in each thing but then, instead
of immediately moving to the unlimited instances of such unities, one must first
determine the precise number that applies to each thing. The example given is
music. People in this area first recognize the unified concept of sound but do
not achieve knowledge if they rush from this delimited concept to assert that
there are an unlimited variety of such sounds. Knowledge only arises when peo-
ple are able to identify the precise numbers that constitute a well-constructed
scale, when they can identify the number “between the one and the unlimited”
as Plato puts it (16d-e). Plato starts from this method of his predecessors but de-
velops it further. In particular he identifies the unlimited with what admits of the
more and the less (e. g. 24a), and many scholars have suggested that this points
to Plato’s adoption of the unlimited dyad or the great and the small as one of his
principles, alongside the one (e. g., Meinwald 2002 and Sayre 1983). Thus Plato
can be seen to be developing the method of “the men before his time” in the
Philebus into the theory of principles that emerges in his late thought and
which is described by Aristotle.
Plato does not identify these men before his time, who adopted this method.
It is nonetheless certain that he is referring to the Pythagoreans. We can be cer-
tain because Plato explicitly says that these thinkers made limit and unlimited
their basic principles, and it is precisely these principles that Aristotle repeatedly
assigns to the Pythagoreans in his account of the basic principles of his prede-
cessors in the Metaphysics (e. g., 987a15 – 19 and 990a8 – 9). Moreover, it is these
first principles that are found in the earliest Pythagorean metaphysical system
for which we have direct evidence; the system found in the fragments of Philo-
laus of Croton. Philolaus’ book began with the assertion that “the world-order as
a whole and all the things in it” were “fitted together out of things which are un-
limited and out of things which are limiting.” Moreover, the second crucial point
in Plato’s presentation in the Philebus, that knowledge only arises when we know
the specific numbers that govern things, is explicitly stated in fr. 4 of Philolaus: “
… all the things that are known have number. For it is not possible that anything
whatsoever be understood or known without this.” There is yet another striking
similarity between Plato’s presentation of the Pythagoreans here in the Philebus

and Aristotle’s presentation in the Metaphysics. Aristotle famously assigns the
Pythagorean metaphysical system to the Pythagoreans as a group rather than as-
signing it any individual such as Philolaus, in whose book are to be found many
of the ideas that Aristotle calls Pythagorean. Plato does not even apply the gen-
eral term Pythagoreans to the people whose view he describes, but he agrees
with Aristotle in treating the metaphysics as belonging to a group, the vague
“men before our time” (οἱ παλαιοί, 16c), rather than to an individual.
It is true that both in antiquity and in the modern world some have wanted
to identify the Prometheus by whom the method was hurled down from the gods
to “the men before our time,” as Pythagoras. The problem is that this Prometheus
is said to have hurled down the method along with fire, so that, if Pythagoras
were meant, Plato would be assigning him not just a philosophical method
but also the invention of fire, which is clearly absurd. It also seems unlikely
that Plato would describe Pythagoras as, in effect, a deity here, when in his
sole explicit reference to Pythagoras the Republic there is no hint of such ex-
treme adulation. No, it is clear that for Plato Prometheus is just a revised version
of the Prometheus of myth, who hands down not just fire but also a philosophic
method (Huffman 1999). In later antiquity, when Pythagoras did come to be re-
garded as a divine figure, it is not surprising that the Prometheus of the Philebus
should be seen as a representing Pythagoras and modern scholars who have
been influenced by the late antique picture of Pythagoras make the same mis-
take (Hackforth 1958, p. 21 and Gosling 1975, pp. 83 and 165).
The evidence of Plato and Aristotle thus coheres to a remarkable degree to
suggest that the Pythagoreans did not play a significant role in the development
of Plato’s philosophy in his early and middle periods but that Pythagorean met-
aphysics was the foundation of Platonic thought in a more limited area, Plato’s
late theory of ultimate metaphysical principles. Yet there remain a number of
other areas in which scholars have routinely supposed there was significant Py-
thagorean influence on Plato. For example, Charles Kahn has argued that the Py-
thagoreans exercised great influence on Plato in two areas: the fate of the soul
after death and “the mathematical-musical conception of the cosmos.” Accord-
ing to Kahn a “Pythagorean view of the soul is most systematically developed
in Plato’s Phaedo” (2001, pp. 3 – 4), while the Timaeus is emblematic of the Py-
thagorean contribution to Plato’s conception of the cosmos, although it contains
much that is pure Plato. There is certainly a tendency among scholars to suppose
that whenever Plato talks about metempsychosis and recounts his various myths
244 Carl Huffman
about the afterlife² or whenever he appeals to mathematical structure to explain

some part of the cosmos or solve a philosophical problem that he is drawing di-
rectly on the Pythagoreans. In my chapter for The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic
Philosophy, I too largely accepted Kahn’s point that the Pythagoreans did have
significant influence on Plato in these two areas (Huffman 2008b). Now I
think I was mistaken to do so. The foundation for a critique of Kahn’s view is
one of the conclusions of Burkert’s great study of Pythagoreanism, i. e. that ad-
vanced mathematics was a Greek achievement in which the Pythagoreans par-
ticipated in distinctive ways rather than a peculiarly Pythagorean achievement
(1972, p. 427). I would suggest that the same point should be applied to theories
about the fate of the soul in the next life and even specifically theories that in-
voke metempsychosis. The Pythagoreans were indeed interested in such theories
and undoubtedly made distinctive contributions to them, but such theories were
a broad theme in Greek religious thought rather than the exclusive domain of the
Pythagoreans. My suggestion then is that, when Plato appeals to mathematics in
order to explain some aspect of the natural world or solve a philosophical prob-
lem, he is not always and, in fact, not usually drawing on the Pythagoreans. Sim-
ilarly when he sets out a myth about the fate of the soul, even one in which some
form of metempsychosis figures prominently, Plato may not see himself as draw-
ing specifically on Pythagoreans as opposed to Orphic, Bacchic or Eleusinian
practices. Plato then is attracted to strands in Greek thought which Pythagoras
and Pythagoreans also emphasized but he may not, in most cases, owe his inter-
est in those strands or his presentation of them specifically to the Pythagoreans.
In order to make these general points clearer, it is necessary to examine a num-
ber of passages in specific detail.
The vivid accounts of the judgment and reincarnation of the soul, which ap-
pear suddenly in dialogues such as the Gorgias, Meno and Phaedo and figure in
later dialogues such as the Republic, Phaedrus and Timaeus have frequently been
traced to Pythagorean influence arising from Plato’s visits to Italy and Sicily, the
first of which occurred in 387 BCE. It seems not unlikely that Pythagoras played a
prominent role in introducing the doctrine of metempsychosis into Greece (Di-
caearchus, fr. 40 Mirhady). But if it ever was the exclusive domain of the Pytha-
goreans, it was no longer so by Plato’s time. It had appeared in Empedocles but
also in Orphic and probably Bacchic rites (Burkert 1987, p. 87; Burkert 1985,
p. 294; Bremmer 2002, p. 23). It is important to note that, when Plato talks of me-
 Thus Annas (1982, pp. 120 and 139) adopts the common assumption that Plato “probably” got
his theory of reincarnation from the Pythagoreans, although in her wonderful analysis of the
philosophical significance of reincarnation in the myths found in the Gorgias, Phaedo and
Republic her focus is not on historical issues.
tempsychosis in the dialogues,he seems to particularly associate it with initia-

tions into mystery cults. Thus, in the Laws (870d-e), Plato presents metempsy-
chosis as something that one hears from those seriously engaged in carrying
out teletai, “religious initiations,” while in the Meno, he assigns it to “men
and women, who are wise about divine matters” and who are “priests and priest-
esses who have made it their concern to give an account of their practices” (81a).
These descriptions fit Orphic and Bacchic mystery cults in which priests did
carry out such initiations. On the other hand, members of the Pythagorean soci-
eties did not preside over mystery cults as Pythagoreans. As Burkert states em-
phatically, “there is no Pythagorean telete [i.e. cultic initiation]; the bios, [i.e.
the Pythagorean way of life] has discarded cult” (1985, p. 302).
The truth of Burkert’s assertion can be further supported by looking at the
three great accounts of Pythagoras in the later tradition, those of Iamblichus,
Porphyry and Diogenes Laertius. These accounts draw on sources from many pe-
riods in the development of the Pythagorean tradition. These three accounts
never, however, describe Pythagorean practices using the word telete. What is
striking is that Pythagoras himself is portrayed as a particular devote of teletai,
mystery initiations, going through as many of them as he can, both in Greece and
in foreign countries (DL 8.3; Iamb. VP 14, 18 and 19). Initiations in Egypt and
Phoenicia are mentioned along with initiations in Greece at Eleusis, Imbros, Sa-
mothrace and Lemnos (Iamb. VP 151). The sources report that he learned much
from these initiations and comment that a number of the prescriptions of the Py-
thagorean life derive from them (D.L. 8.33). In passing, I would note that it is this
sort of omnivorous appetite for mystery initiations and other religious rites that
is probably what Heraclitus had in mind when he described Pythagoras as prac-
ticing inquiry (historia) most of all men (fr. 129; see Huffman 2008a). Thus, Py-
thagoras himself and individual Pythagoreans undoubtedly had themselves ini-
tiated into mystery cults. What they learned there influenced the brief Pythagor-
ean sayings that governed a multitude of aspects of human life, known as the
akousmata or symbola. Pythagoreanism itself, however, was not such a cult
and is not described as such. Thus one is supposed to “sacrifice and enter tem-
ples without shoes,” as one akousma says, (Iamb. VP 85) not as part of specifi-
cally Pythagorean cultic practice, for there was no such cult, but as part of any
worship of the gods that the individual carried out during his life. Pythagorean-
ism was a society that promulgated a common way of life. There clearly were in-
itiation procedures that were followed to join the society, but these were not a
religious cult. Plato’s tendency to present metempsychosis in the context of reli-
gious cult thus clearly suggests that Orphic and Bacchic mysteries were the dom-
inant influence on Plato’s use of reincarnation. This is true, even if he, like his
younger contemporary Dicaearchus (fr. 40 Mirhady), knew that there was a tra-
246 Carl Huffman
dition, according to which Pythagoras was the first to introduce the idea of me-
tempsychosis into Greece, and he knew of contemporary Pythagoreans, who be-
lieved in the doctrine.
The fact that Plato mentions both priests and priestesses, when introducing
metempsychosis in the Meno, has led some to argue that he must be thinking of
the Pythagoreans, since women did have an unusually prominent role in Pytha-
goreanism. Yet we have no trace of these Pythagorean women being called priest-
esses any more than Pythagorean men are called priests. Of course, it is true that
Pythagoreans of both sexes could have been priests and priestesses in various
cults, and some Pythagorean women might have particularly served as priestess-
es of Demeter and Persephone, as Kingsley points out (1995, p. 164). This misses
the central point, however, in that they did not play this role as Pythagoreans.
We have no evidence that such priesthoods were limited to Pythagoreans.
Thus, since people who were not Pythagoreans could also serve as priests and
priestesses in these cults, Plato’s reference to priests and priestesses can hardly
be a way to single out Pythagoreans. It is true that we do not have any direct evi-
dence for Orphic or Bacchic priestesses either. Yet we have very little evidence at
all of these priesthoods, so such silence is not particularly significant. Women
were initiated into Bacchic mysteries as well as men (Bremmer 2002, p. 18), so
it is not impossible that there were Bacchic priestesses. Moreover, there clearly
were priestesses in Greek religion, including mystery cults associated with Deme-
ter and Persephone, so that the mention of priestesses alongside priests in the
Meno creates no presumption that Plato is thinking of Pythagoreans (Bremmer
[2002, p. 18] takes it as clear that the priests and priestesses are Orphics). The
figure of Diotima in the Symposium shows that Plato had no trouble in conceiv-
ing of a woman with religious expertise (she is reported to have delayed the pla-
gue at Athens by prescribing certain sacrifices), who was not a Pythagorean. One
further piece of evidence shows that it is very unlikely that Plato intended the
reference to priests and priestesses in the Meno to refer to Pythagoreans or
that his audience would have understood him in this way. Once again a search
of the three major accounts of Pythagoras by Iamblichus, Porphyry and Diogenes
Laertius shows that neither Pythagoras nor any of his followers are ever descri-
bed as priests or priestesses in these works. These authors draw on many sources
that derive from a wide range of times, and it is surely significant that Pythagor-
eans are never described as priests in any of them. Priests play a role in two
prominent contexts in these lives. First, accounts of Pythagoras’ early life regu-
larly describe him as visiting and learning from the priests in Egypt (e. g. Iamb.
VP 12, 18 and 151). Second, he is visited by Abaris, who is described as a priest of
Apollo (e. g. Iamb. VP 91 and 135). So Pythagoras is presented as very interested
in what can be learned from priests and in undergoing initiations into religious
mysteries, but Pythagoreanism itself is never presented as involving cultic initia-

tions and neither Pythagoras nor the Pythagoreans are presented as priests.
Two further features of the discussion of metempsychosis in the Meno have
led some scholars to see it as a reference to Pythagoreans. First, after setting out
the doctrine as something taught by priests and priestesses, Plato will go on to
give mathematical knowledge as an example of something that we learned in a
previous life and remembered in this one. Yet, as stated above, the mere mention
of mathematics is no indication that Plato is thinking of Pythagoreans. It is true
that the incident with the slave boy deals with mathematics connected with what
in the modern world is known as the Pythagorean theorem, but the mathematics
involved will have been known to any Greek mathematician of the period, Pytha-
gorean or not. Plato could have learned it from a sophist like Hippias (see further
on Hippias below). So there is nothing particularly Pythagorean about the math-
ematics of the Meno. Moreover, Plato does not in any way suggest that the priests
and priestesses made any reference to mathematics in their account of metem-
psychosis. He clearly starts from the basically religious idea of these priests
and priestesses and then develops it into his epistemological theory of recollec-
tion. The mathematical example is presented as part of this further elaboration
and not as anything mentioned by the priests and priestesses.
The second feature of the Meno passage that has suggested connection to
Pythagoreans is the idea that “all nature is akin” (81d). This might be an allusion
to the Pythagorean view that all animate creatures are related, which is attested
by Plato’s younger contemporary, Dicaearchus (fr. 40 Mirhady). However, the Py-
thagorean doctrine is limited to living beings and thus narrower than the view
that Plato cites, which would include the kinship of different parts of mathemat-
ical knowledge. Moreover, Plato does not seem to ascribe the doctrine to the
priests and priestesses. After quoting the probably Pindaric lines that set out
the view of the priests and priestesses, Plato is now going beyond this starting
point. While the priests and priestesses were primarily concerned with metem-
psychosis as a religious and moral doctrine that encourages us to live our
lives “with the utmost holiness” (81b), Plato is going on to develop it into an
epistemological doctrine. It is a clear sign of this further development when
Plato asserts that the soul “has acquired knowledge of all and everything,”
and it is in this context that Plato next introduces the idea that “all nature is
akin.” The point is that, if we have learned everything and can recollect one
thing, then the kinship of all things will allow us to remember all things starting
from just that one thing. So the doctrine that all things are akin is not assigned to
the priests and priestesses and thus provides no evidence that they are Pythagor-
eans. It is Plato himself who introduces the idea that all nature is akin. He might
have drawn it from the Pythagoreans and hence be drawing in a Pythagorean
248 Carl Huffman
idea to combine with an idea derived from mystery priests and priestesses in de-
veloping his own doctrine of recollection. Yet, if Plato is drawing on the Pytha-
goreans for this point, he is clearly going beyond them to expand the kinship of
animate creatures to a kinship of all things.
What I hope to have shown, then, is that, when Plato refers to metempsycho-
sis and to the fate of the soul after death, the context suggests that he is not pri-
marily thinking of the Pythagoreans but rather of mystery cults. This point can be
further supported by a passage where he clearly does refer to a Pythagorean.
Early in the Phaedo, Socrates argues that a philosopher should welcome death
but is not permitted to commit suicide (61d). When Cebes expresses puzzlement
at this assertion, Socrates is surprised that he and Simmias had heard nothing
about such things in their association with Philolaus. This incident surely sug-
gests that Socrates (or at least Plato) thought that Philolaus had views about
the fate of the soul in the next life and hence would have had something to
say about whether we should welcome death and whether suicide is permissible.
Cebes says that he has indeed heard Philolaus say that one should not commit
suicide, but he adds that he has heard this from others as well. He is emphatic
that he has heard nothing clear on the topic from Philolaus or anyone else (61e-
62a), which presumably means that he has not heard any clear reason why we
should avoid suicide. This is the end of the mention of Philolaus. It is crucial
to note that Socrates does go on to tell what he has heard about the reasons
for the prohibitions. Plato cannot intend us to understand this as the teaching
of Philolaus, since he has just dismissed that teaching as unclear. Socrates in-
stead refers to a doctrine that is taught in secret, according to which human be-
ings in this life are in a kind of prison (φρουρά), from which they must not set
themselves free without permission (62b).³ The assertion that this doctrine is
taught in secret teachings, literally “in things not to be spoken of” (ἐν ἀπορρή-
τοις), suggests that Plato is here once again referring to initiations into mystery
religions, which were kept secret. This supposition is confirmed by the Cratylus
(400c), where we are told that the Orphics thought that the soul is undergoing
punishment in this life and the body is that which keeps it safe like a prison
(400c). Thus, while Plato clearly indicates that he expects a Pythagorean like
Philolaus to have something to say about the fate of the soul, he does not, in
fact draw on the Pythagoreans in this passage to state the reasons for the prohib-
ition on suicide but instead relies on accounts from the mysteries. Here in the
 It seems most likely that φρουρά means “prison” rather than its more common meaning,
“military watch,” since Cratylus 400c, which seems to be describing a similar doctrine explicitly
refers to the body as a prison (δεσμωτήριον) for the soul. The meaning prison is also found at
Gorgias 525a.
Phaedo, just as in the passages about reincarnation in the Laws and the Meno,
Plato is much more focused on mystery cults than on the Pythagoreans, when he
discusses the fate of the soul after death.
Philolaus is, of course, not the only Pythagorean in the Phaedo; Phaedo is
reporting the conversation that occurred on Socrates’ last day to the Pythagorean
Echecrates in Phlius, although Plato does not explicitly call either Philolaus or
Echecrates a Pythagorean. Aristoxenus calls Echecrates and three other Pytha-
goreans from Phlius “the last of the Pythagoreans” and says that they were pu-
pils of Philolaus and Eurytus (fr. 19 = D.L. 8.46). Some would add Simmias and
Cebes as Pythagoreans, since they heard Philolaus in Thebes, but they are also
“hearing” Socrates in Athens, so it is not really clear whether we should treat
them as Pythagoreans or Socratics. The dialogue does directly discuss a doctrine
that is likely to be Pythagorean, the doctrine that the soul is a harmony. There is
some reason to think that Philolaus adhered to this view (Huffman 2009). Al-
though Plato does not assign it to him directly, the Pythagorean Echecrates
makes clear that the view has always had great attraction for him (88c-d). If
this is to be seen as a particularly Pythagorean doctrine, Plato delivers a serious
critique of it, so that just as was true with Philolaus earlier, the Pythagoreans,
perhaps including Philolaus again, are not presented as important influences
on Plato but rather as thinkers who are interested in some of the same issues,
but of whose views Plato is very critical.
At this point it should be clear that I cannot in the end agree with Kahn that
a “Pythagorean view of the soul is … systematically developed in the Phaedo”
(2001, p. 4). Plato certainly does not present matters in this way. Pythagorean
views about the fate of the soul in the next life are rejected as unclear and Plato’s
starting point in this area seems to be the mysteries rather than the Pythagor-
eans, just as it was in the Meno and Laws; the Pythagorean account of the nature
of the soul, i. e. that it is a harmony, is not Plato’s starting point either, but rather
at best an interesting alternative account that Plato critiques in passing. The facts
that Echecrates is the audience for Phaedo’s account and that Philolaus makes a
brief appearance suggest that Plato thought that Pythagoreans would be interest-
ed in the subject matter of the dialogue: the nature of the soul and whether it is
immortal or not. But this seems to be precisely the role of the Pythagoreans in
the dialogue. They are presented as learning from and listening to Plato rather
than as the source of Plato’s inspiration. The account of the soul in the Phaedo
is clearly a place where Plato’s dissatisfaction with the Pythagorean account of
the soul might be said to have influenced Plato to develop his own quite different
and better account.
Some scholars have thought that the myth at the end of the Phaedo, like
many of Plato’s myths, was inspired by the Pythagoreans. The most extreme ver-
250 Carl Huffman
sion of this tendency can be seen in Kingsley, who argues that Plato’s myth in the
Phaedo follows a Pythagorean source, a poem entitled Krater by Zopyrus of Tar-
entum, even in the smallest details (1995, pp. 79 – 171). Kingsley’s argument is ex-
tensive and ingenious and I cannot go into it in detail here. The case is, however,
entirely circumstantial, and there is a fatal a priori objection to his position. As
Kingsley himself notes “no verses specifically ascribed to the poem survive”
(1995, p. 134); thus it is simply impossible to confirm or disconfirm such a radical
thesis. If there were an ancient source that claimed that Plato had drawn on Zo-
pyrus, we might assume that the author had read Zopyrus and thus could con-
firm the similarities, as we cannot. But, alas, no ancient source connects Plato’s
myth in the Phaedo with Zopyrus’ Krater, either. Another way to evaluate Kings-
ley’s thesis would be to try to look at Plato’s practice in other myths or in the
case of other doctrines, where we have some of the material on which he was
drawing, in order to see if Plato generally proceeds by reproducing his sources
in great detail. Certainly we do not see anything like this in Plato’s treatment
of figures like Parmenides and Heraclitus, where Plato definitely presents their
views under a strong interpretation and where there is no sense in which he
takes their views over word for word. The passage from the Philebus discussed
above, indeed, seems to show Plato’s practice well. He explicitly acknowledges
that he is drawing on his predecessors for the thesis that things are composed of
limit and unlimited, but, as he proceeds, he makes fairly clear when he is going
beyond his source.⁴ So it would not be surprising if Plato took over a central Py-
thagorean image for his myth in the Phaedo and then developed that image in
his own way, but it would be totally atypical for him to take over the whole pas-
sage word for word. In fact, of course, despite Kingsley’s arguments we cannot
be sure that any feature of the myth derives from Zopyrus or any other Pythagor-
ean, since we have no parallel passage in a Pythagorean text.
We can study the way in which Plato develops his myths and how he uses
his predecessors in doing so, by looking at the myth at the end of the Gorgias,
the sources of which are a little easier to document. Dodds did a careful study
of the sources of the myth taking into account earlier scholarship (1959,
pp. 372– 376). The myth portrays a judgment of all people at the end of life. Ini-
tially this judgment occurred while people were still alive, but this practice led to
mistaken judgments based on external appearance and wealth, so that the judg-
ment was moved until after death, when the soul is naked and the scars of mis-
deeds can be seen on it. The judges are Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeacus, who
pass judgment in a meadow where three roads meet. Dodds’ conclusion was that
 Huffman 2001.
Plato drew on a variety of sources and was probably himself responsible for im-
portant features, such as the idea of the faulty initial judgment, which led to the
judgment of the naked soul. He emphasizes that many features that scholars
quickly identify as Orphic and Pythagorean are, in fact, found much more widely
in Greek thought. He notes that the concept of a judgment of the dead relies on
the belief in reward or punishment after death, which is older than the Pythagor-
eans or Orphics. It is found in Homer and at Eleusis and is attested in the pop-
ular religion of Plato’s day. The explicit mention of a judgment appears first in
Aeschylus and Pindar but may go back earlier. Bremmer argues that theme of
judgment in the underworld is Orphic, because it appears in an Orphic context
in Pindar (2002, p.92). Socrates reports the names of four judges in the Apology,
one of whom is Triptolemos, which suggests that the doctrine of a judgment was
taught at Eleusis. None of these four judges are prominent in Orphic or Pythagor-
ean literature. The meadow and the meeting of three roads have some parallels
in Orphic literature, but the meadow is already found in Homer and, while for
the Orphics it is the home of blessed souls, in Plato it is a place of judgment.
The idea of a crossroads in the underworld is so natural that we do not need
to suppose a specific source. Dodds does suggest that one element, which is
not part of the myth proper but is added by Socrates, is likely to be Pythagorean.
This is the doctrine of a Purgatory according to which some souls that come to
the underworld are not immediately sent to the Isles of the Blessed as reward or
to Tartarus for eternal punishment but instead are punished in order to improve
their souls or, if they have committed incurable crimes, are punished as an ex-
ample to deter crime in others. As Dodds points out, these examples only
have force, if we suppose that the people seeing them are going to be reborn
and, because of the example of the incurables in the underworld, are deterred
from committing crimes in their next life. Why does Dodds suppose that this as-
pect of the myth must be Pythagorean? He is not completely clear, but it appears
to be because he equates reference to metempsychosis to reference to the Pytha-
goreans. As I have shown, no such equation can be assumed, so the one element
that Dodds thought likely to be Pythagorean in the Gorgias myth need not be. In
the end there is nothing in the Gorgias myth that can confidently be identified as
Pythagorean. Instead it seems to draw on widespread traditions about a judg-
ment in the afterlife, which are perhaps particularly influenced by the teachings
of Eleusis but which also have distinctive Platonic twists.
There is not time here to examine every Platonic myth. Moreover, it is not my
purpose to show that none of them are based on Pythagorean ideas. In some
cases it seems likely that at least some aspects of them are. Thus, the myth of
Er in the Republic articulates a vision of cosmic music, which might plausibly
be traced back to an earlier Pythagorean doctrine according to which the planets
252 Carl Huffman
make harmonious music by their movements. Bremmer takes these elements to

be Pythagorean as well as the emphasis on a judgment based on what is morally
just and unjust, which he argues is not present in Orphism. On the other hand,
he sees the myth as also drawing a little on traditional views of the underworld
and heavily on Orphic views (2002, pp. 91– 2). My point is simply that many, per-
haps most, features of the myths, including their references to metempsychosis,
can be explained without supposing Pythagorean influence. At most Pythagor-
eanism can explain some aspects of some myths. So we should not assume mas-
sive Pythagorean influence on Plato simply on the basis of the Platonic myths.In
addition to the myths, however, there are a number of other references to the fate
of the soul in the next life that have been thought to be references to Pythagor-
eanism; I want to briefly consider some of these passages in order to show, first,
that in many of these cases it is far from clear that allusion is being made to the
Pythagoreans and, second, that even where a reference to the Pythagoreans
seems plausible, in most cases there is no reason to conclude that the reference
implies extensive influence upon Plato.
I will begin with two further possible references to the Pythagoreans in the
Gorgias. At 493a, the unnamed “wise” man who teaches that we are dead in this
life and makes a punning reference to the body (σῶμα) as the tomb (σῆμα) of the
soul cannot be an Orphic, since the equation of the body with a tomb is men-
tioned again in the Cratylus and, in that passage, the Orphics are assigned a dif-
ferent, competing view (400c).⁵ It therefore might seem that the “wise” man is
likely to be a Pythagorean, yet this conclusion is not inevitable, since a passage
in Sextus Empiricus attributes a very similar view, according to which “our souls
have been buried in us,” to Heraclitus (P. 3.230). There is a fragment assigned to
Philolaus that mentions the equation of the body with the tomb (fr. 14), but the
fragment is likely to be spurious (Huffman 1993: 402– 406). Even if we accepted
its authenticity, however, “Philolaus” there presents the view not as his own but
as something taught by “ancient theologians and seers.” So the most that can be
said is that Plato might be alluding to a Pythagorean in the passage, while rec-
ognizing that there are other equally plausible candidates.⁶ In this same passage
 Alberto Bernabé (1995) argues that the Cratylus passage shows that the view is Orphic but I
am not convinced.
 In an astonishing piece of over interpretation, Taylor concludes that, since the wise man is
likely to be a Pythagorean (although actually Taylor is confusing the wise man with the clever
Italian or Sicilian man discussed below) and since he refers to “that part of the soul in which the
desires are,” Plato is giving a “plain ascription” of the tripartite soul to the Pythagoreans (1928:
449). The passage indicates that Plato at this point was thinking that the soul has a desiring
part, but he does not explicitly ascribe it to the wise man and, while the assumption of a desiring
the wise man explicates his view by referring to “some clever man,” who is said
to be “mythologizing” and who is identified as perhaps a Sicilian or an Italian.
This second man by another pun makes the soul a leaky jar (πίθος), because it is
so easily persuaded (πιθανός) to change its views. Since the clever man is from
Italy or Sicily, it might be that Plato intends us to think of a Pythagorean, but it
does not seem likely that someone such as Philolaus or Archytas is meant, be-
cause neither is readily described as a teller of myths. Moreover, the clever
man describes those with leaky jars for souls as the uninitiated, which yet
again points to a religious figure associated with the mysteries. As Burkert
notes, the idea that the initiated were punished in the underworld by carrying
water in a sieve was a widely known teaching of the mysteries in the fifth century
and was depicted in a painting by Polygnotus at Delphi (1972, p. 248 n. 48). In
the end, however, even if one or both of these figures is a Pythagorean, and it
is far from sure that they are, neither can be regarded as a significant influence
on Plato’s views. The doctrines assigned to them can be regarded as in some
ways parallel to Plato’s views on the soul and its fate in the Gorgias and are
used by Plato in his critique of Callicles, but neither the equation of the body
with the tomb of the soul nor the image of the soul as a leaky jar are central
to Plato’s account of the soul.
Dodds argued that the wise man of the Gorgias was likely to be a Pythagor-
ean because whenever Plato has Socrates refer to “the wise” in other dialogues,
he is referring to Pythagoreans (1959, p. 297). Unfortunately, as Burkert has
shown (1972, p. 78), Dodds is mistaken in this generalization and many counter-
examples can be given. In the Lysis (214b) Socrates refers to writings “of the very
wise” (τῶν σοφωτάτων), which teach that like is friend to like. The doctrine of
like to like is clearly not a distinctively Pythagorean doctrine, and Plato is prob-
ably referring to Empedocles (e. g., fr. 109). In the Cratylus Socrates first says that
he has noticed “a swarm of wisdom,” but this time instead of leaving the refer-
ence vague, he explicitly says that it is Heraclitus who is speaking ancient wis-
dom, a wisdom that is shared with Homer, according to which all things move
and nothing remains still (402a). Burkert has further examples, but these are
enough to show that Plato does not use “the wise” as code for “the Pythagor-
eans.” One of Dodds’ examples is the reference to “wise men and women” in
the Meno (81a), which, as I have already shown, is not likely to be a reference
to Pythagoreans. Dodds also follows Adam (1902, p. 378) in thinking that the
wise man of Republic 583b, who thinks that pleasure is unreal and a kind of
part might seem to imply a rational part to control it, there is absolutely no implication of a
third, spirited, part such as is found in Plato’s account of the tripartite soul.
254 Carl Huffman
scene painting, a view that is also mentioned in the Philebus (e. g., 44b), is a Py-
thagorean. Pythagoreans such as Archytas were hostile to pleasure, but, when
Archytas says that “no more deadly curse had been given to men by nature
than bodily pleasure” (Huffman A9a), he is emphasizing its power and clearly
thinks that it is all too real. In the end, the truth seems to be, what common
sense would suggest: Plato uses the term “wise men” to refer to a wide range
of thinkers, including Presocratics such as Empedocles and Heraclitus but
also poets such as Homer. It is, of course, quite possible that the Pythagoreans
were in some cases the “wise men” that Plato had in mind, but this must be dem-
onstrated in each case and cannot be assumed.
It should now be clear that Plato’s discussions of metempsychosis and the
fate of the soul after death are not, in most cases, specifically Pythagorean in ori-
gin. Thus one of Kahn’s two main areas of Pythagorean influence on Plato is
problematic, to say the least. What of the other main area that he identifies,
the mathematical conception of the cosmos? It is absolutely clear that mathemat-
ics played a significant role in the philosophy of Plato. For those who try to
equate Greek mathematics with Pythagoreanism, the inevitable conclusion is
that Pythagorean influence was responsible for the prominence of mathematics
in Plato. As noted above, however, one of the great achievements of Burkert’s
work on Pythagoras was to demonstrate that what we think of as Greek mathe-
matics, i. e. abstract mathematics involving proof, was precisely a Greek inven-
tion and not a peculiarly Pythagorean one (1972, p. 427). Individual Pythagoreans
did make important contributions to the development of Greek mathematics,
but, even in these cases, they were not engaging in some special Pythagorean
mathematics. It may be that the belief that the cosmos was structured according
to mathematics, which might in some form go back to Pythagoras himself and is
certainly present in Philolaus, provided special impetus for Pythagoreans like
Archytas to study mathematics, but the mathematics that they studied was the
same mathematics pursued by great non-Pythagorean mathematicians, such
as Hippocrates of Chios. What follows for Plato, then, is that the appearance
of mathematical ideas in a dialogue need provide no suggestion whatever that
Pythagorean influence is operating. In order to show that Pythagorean influence
is involved, it is necessary to show that peculiarly Pythagorean applications of
mathematical ideas are present. There are some passages in Plato that do
show such Pythagorean influence, but there are, in fact, very few such passages
and most of the discussions of mathematics in Plato have nothing to do with Py-
thagoreanism.
This can be clearly seen by considering the most famous mathematicians to
make an appearance in Plato’s works: Theodorus and Theaetetus. They appear in
three dialogues: Theaetetus, Sophist and Statesman. With the exception of a few
very isolated passages, some of which I will discuss below, scholars have found
little in these dialogues to label Pythagorean, and I would argue that there is es-
sentially no Pythagorean influence in them. There is a possibility, however, that
Theodorus, who is presented as the great mathematician of the time and the
teacher of Theaetetus, was a Pythagorean. There is only one piece of evidence
for this, but it is not negligible. A Theodorus is included among the Pythagoreans
from Cyrene in the catalogue of Pythagoreans in Iamblichus’ On the Pythagorean
Life. It is quite plausible that most of this catalogue goes back to the work of Ar-
istoxenus of Tarentum in the fourth century BC, and Aristoxenus was certainly in
a position to know what he was talking about (Zhmud 2012; Huffman 2008b). I
remain skeptical, however, that Theodorus was, in fact, a Pythagorean, since this
is the only piece of evidence in favor of such a view. Plato never refers to Theo-
dorus as a Pythagorean in the three dialogues in which he appears, even though
he does not hesitate to mention that he was a companion of Protagoras (Theae-
tetus 161b). Plato explicitly calls him a geometer at the beginning of the Theae-
tetus (143b) and refers to his expertise in arithmetic, astronomy and music as
well as geometry. Nor does Aristotle’s pupil Eudemus call Theodorus a Pythagor-
ean in his survey of the history of Greek geometry. Of course, it might just be that
Plato and Eudemus are focusing on Theodorus as a mathematician and do not
feel compelled to mention his philosophical affiliations. It is striking, however,
that even in the biographical tradition found in Diogenes Laertius, Theodorus
is never called a Pythagorean. In a list of twenty famous people who bore the
name Theodorus, Diogenes Laertius picks out our Theodorus not as Theodorus
the Pythagorean but as a geometer from Cyrene with whom Plato studied (2.103).
Similarly, in the Life of Plato, Diogenes reports that after the death of Socrates,
Plato visited Theodorus in Cyrene, but Theodorus is once again not described as
a Pythagorean but rather as a mathematician (3.6). This is all the more striking
because immediately following this visit to Cyrene, Plato is said to have gone to
Italy to visit Philolaus and Eurytus, who are explicitly labeled Pythagoreans. In-
deed, most of the other figures with whom Plato is said to have associated after
Socrates’ death are described according to their philosophical affiliations (Craty-
lus the Heraclitean, Hermogenes the follower of Parmenides, Euclides his fellow
Socratic), yet Theodorus is simply described as the mathematician. Diogenes is,
of course, not a very reliable source, but it is striking that Theodorus does not
seem to have been labeled a Pythagorean in the biographical traditions on
which he drew. The silence about Theodorus’ Pythagoreanism thus seems just
too resounding to allow us to accept that he was, in fact, a Pythagorean.
Even if we were to accept that Theodorus was a Pythagorean, however, it
does not seem to me that this would much affect our assessment of Pythagorean
influence on Plato. If Theodorus was a Pythagorean, it was not because of any
256 Carl Huffman
philosophical views that he had, but because he was, in fact, a member of a Py-
thagorean society or followed a Pythagorean way of life. Even Zhmud, who re-
gards Theodorus as a Pythagorean, concludes that he left “no traces of philo-
sophical preoccupations” and was instead a professional mathematician
(2006, p. 19). Plato goes out of his way to emphasize Theodorus’ lack of familiar-
ity with philosophical discussion (Tht. 146b). Theodorus’ practice of mathemat-
ics thus need have nothing to do with his being a Pythagorean. This would ex-
plain why neither Plato nor Eudemus nor anyone in the biographical tradition
called Theodorus a Pythagorean. They were interested in him as a mathemati-
cian and saw no connection between that and his being a Pythagorean and
hence no reason to mention it. So Theodorus was a great mathematician. He
may also have been a Pythagorean and, whether he was or not, he was undoubt-
edly familiar with the work of Pythagoreans before his time, who had been math-
ematicians, such as Hippasus, but he also equally undoubtedly drew on the
work of mathematicians who were not Pythagoreans, such as his contemporary
Hippocrates of Chios. The important point is that we have no reason to think
that, Pythagorean or not, Theodorus was practicing some special sort of Pytha-
gorean mathematics; he was simply a mathematician. The fact that Theodorus’
pupil, Theaetetus, who became very famous as a mathematician, was never
called a Pythagorean again shows that Theodorus was not teaching him “Pytha-
gorean” mathematics. Thus, the two most famous mathematicians mentioned by
Plato in the dialogues, one of whom, Theodorus, is likely to have been one of the
major sources of Plato’s mathematical knowledge, influenced Plato not as Pytha-
goreans but as mathematicians and show that the mere presence of mathematics
in the dialogues is no indication of Pythagorean influence.
There were other important sources of mathematical learning for Plato that
had no connection with the Pythagoreans. This is clearly indicated by the case of
Hippias. In the Protagoras, Plato has the eponymous sophist suggest that Hip-
pias mistreats the young men that come to him by forcing them to learn arithmet-
ic, astronomy, geometry and music (318e; see also Hp. Ma. 285c-d). This is just
the same quadrivium of mathematical subjects that Plato assigned to Theodorus
in the Theaetetus. There is some plausibility to Zhmud’s argument (2006,
pp.63 – 4) that this quadrivium was first established by the Pythagoreans, al-
though certainty is not possible. Nonetheless, it is clear that a young man like
Plato in the later part of the fifth century would not have had to visit the Pytha-
goreans to find this group of subjects taught together but could have consulted a
sophist like Hippias in Athens.
Of course, this same quadrivium famously appears again in Book 7 of Plato’s
Republic. It should be clear that the mere appearance of the quadrivium need
suggest no direct Pythagorean influence. Moreover, Plato’s general strategy in
dealing with mathematics in Book 7 can only be said to be influenced by Pytha-

goreanism insofar as it might have been developed in opposition to Pythagorean
views on mathematics. Plato’s fundamental points about mathematics, 1) that it
should be studied in order to turn the soul from the sensible realm to the intel-
ligible realm and 2) that as such it was preparatory for the highest study, dialec-
tic, flatly contradict Pythagorean views. Philolaus argues that we can have
knowledge of things in the cosmos through grasping their number (fr. 4) and sug-
gests no higher study. Philolaus’ focus is explicitly on things in the sensible and
not some other intelligible world and this is even clearer in Archytas, whose har-
monics is an attempt to give a mathematical explanation of the perceptible har-
moniai, which were used by practicing musicians rather than some ideal harmo-
nies that were not heard but rather grasped by the intellect (Huffman 2005,
pp. 410 – 425).
The Pythagoreans do appear in Book 7 both explicitly and implicitly, and it
is very instructive to note the precise contexts in which they appear. In his only
explicit reference to the Pythagoreans in any of his works, immediately after hav-
ing discussed astronomy, Plato turns to harmonics and asserts that astronomy
and harmonics “are in some way kindred (ἀδελφαί) sciences, as the Pythagor-
eans say, and we, O Glaucon, agree” (530d). This is almost certainly an allusion
to Archytas, who asserts in Fr. 1 of all four sciences that “these sciences seem to
be akin (ἀδελφεά).” Plato states explicit agreement with the Pythagoreans on the
kinship of the sciences, but the continuation of the passage contains a strong cri-
tique of the Pythagorean approach to harmonics on the grounds that it focuses
on numbers in heard harmonies rather than using mathematics to turn the soul
from the sensible to the intelligible by considering which numbers in themselves
are concordant and which not (531c). So Plato first explicitly introduces the Py-
thagoreans when he turns to the last science that he considers, harmonics, and
he explicitly comments on the connection they saw between astronomy and har-
monics, before criticizing their actual approach to harmonics.
This presentation of Pythagoreanism matches exceedingly well with the evi-
dence provided by the fragments of Philolaus and Archytas. The former connects
astronomy to harmonics in his conception of the cosmos as structured according
to the diatonic scale (fr. 6a) and the latter is the likely target of Plato’s critique
since he did focus on explaining the heard harmonies of the practicing musi-
cians of his day (Huffman 2005, pp. 410 – 25). Plato’s presentation of Pythagor-
eanism in Republic 7 also agrees with Aristotle’s presentation of Pythagoreanism
in Book 1 of the Metaphysics and provides a clearly defined notion of the core
Pythagorean view, which can be used to trace Pythagorean influence elsewhere.
The core Pythagorean view is neatly summarized in Aristotle’s statement in the
Metaphysics that according to the Pythagoreans “the whole heaven was a harmo-
258 Carl Huffman
ny and a number” (986a2). Here we see combined three central ideas: 1) things in
the sensible cosmos are to be explained in terms of number, 2) this number is not
separate from things but identified with them in some way and 3) the number
that governs the structure of the heavens is specifically the numerical structure
found in musical harmony. These ideas do figure prominently in the myth that
ends the Republic so that we must infer significant Pythagorean influence in
that passage, but they are not the central ideas governing Plato’s approach to
mathematics in Book 7, where Plato turns resolutely away from the sensible cos-
mos.
Plato’s divergence from the Pythagorean approach to mathematics in Book 7
goes even further, for he suggests that there should be five not four mathematical
studies. So far Plato would be diverging not just from the Pythagoreans but all of
Greek mathematics in his day. However, the passage in which he suggests that a
fifth science, solid geometry or stereometry, should be added implies both an ap-
preciation of Archytas’ famous solution to the duplication of the cube and at the
same time yet another criticism of Archytas and the Pythagoreans. Archytas’ fa-
mous solution to the problem of the duplication of the cube seems a likely can-
didate for one of the “charming” achievements in solid geometry to which Plato
alludes (528c), but Archytas is also the likely object of criticism for not having
developed a distinct discipline of stereometry, although I cannot examine the
evidence in detail here (see Huffman 2005, pp. 385 – 91 and 398 – 9).
Plato’s familiarity with Pythagorean mathematics is shown again in Book 8,
where in his description of the famous nuptial number, he uses what may be dis-
tinctively Pythagorean terminology to produce a playful and mock tragic descrip-
tion of the number. He describes it, for instance, as involving “a basal four-thirds
wedded to the pempad” (546b-c, tr. Shorey). It is just the grandiose language
that is borrowed, however. The conception of the nuptial number itself is embed-
ded in Plato’s own conception of the philosopher kings and there is no evidence
for Pythagorean origin (Huffman 2005, pp. 436 – 7 and 89). The evidence of the
Republic thus suggests that Plato was aware of and to some extent admired Py-
thagorean mathematical achievements in harmonics and solid geometry but rad-
ically parted company with them when it came to the role of this mathematics in
philosophy. The Pythagorean world view is an important influence on one aspect
of the myth at the end of the Republic, but the Pythagoreans are missing from the
rest of the argument of the Republic, appearing only briefly in Book 7 as a foil for
Plato’s radically different views on the role of mathematics in education.
Before concluding my paper with the Timaeus, which many scholars take as
prime example of Pythagorean influence on Plato, three other passages in Plato,
which appear to refer to the Pythagorean mathematical and musical account of
the cosmos, merit brief discussion. One passage where Plato seems quite likely to
be alluding to the Pythagoreans, at least in part, is Gorgias 507e-508a. In his at-

tempt to persuade Callicles to pursue temperance (σωφροσύνη) rather than al-
ways striving for more (πλεονεκτεῖν), Socrates makes the following statement:
The wise, Callicles, say that community and friendship and order and temperance and jus-
tice hold together heaven and earth and gods and men; on account of this they call this
whole a world-order (κόσμος) and not disorder or licentiousness. But you seem to me
not to pay attention to these things, for all your wisdom, and it has escaped your notice
that geometrical equality has great power both among gods and also among men. You
think that you should try to get more than your share (πλεονεξίαν), for you neglect geom-
etry.
It is important to recognize that there are two related but nonetheless distinct
parts to this passage. In the first part Socrates reports a view about the nature
of the cosmos, which he assigns to the wise. He tacitly accepts this view, when
he criticizes Callicles for not paying attention to these things, despite all his wis-
dom. He then goes on to suggest that Callicles does not pay attention to this view
of the cosmos, because he has failed to notice the power of geometrical equality
in the world; Callicles thus tries to get more than his fair share because of his
neglect of geometry. Although the emphasis on geometrical equality is clearly in-
tended to be in accord with the view of the wise, which has just been stated, it is
not explicitly ascribed to them. The view of the wise does not, in fact, make any
explicit mention of mathematics. The structure of the passage thus suggests,
first, that the wise put forth a conception of the cosmos according to which it
is held together by community, friendship, order, temperance and justice and,
second, that one would be more likely to accept such a view if one studied ge-
ometry and thus could observe the role of proportion in the cosmos. So the
wise and those who exalt the power of geometric equality do not have to be ex-
actly the same people.
I will deal with the wise first, before turning to the friends of geometry.
Dodds thought that the reference to “the wise” guaranteed that Plato had the Py-
thagoreans in mind (1959, p. 337), but, as we have seen, Plato refers to a wide
range of people in this way. If we believed the tradition reported by Aetius
(2.1.1 = DK 14.21) according to which “Pythagoras was the first to use the name
κόσμος for that which surrounds the whole, because of the order in it,” then
we could be sure that the Pythagoreans were in the front of Plato’s mind here,
since he refers to these wise men as calling “this whole a κόσμος.” The evidence
for the term κόσμος in Presocratic philosophy suggests, however, that its use to
refer to the whole world order developed gradually from an earlier meaning of
“arrangement” and was not a “programmatic invention” of a single individual
(Burkert 1972, p. 77 and Kahn 2001, p. 54 n. 35). Indeed, this very passage of
260 Carl Huffman
the Gorgias could well have been used as the basis upon which to fabricate the
story of Pythagoras’ invention of the term. It is certainly true, however, that Py-
thagoreans such as Archytas did emphasize the value of friendship in their way
of life (A7a Huffman), and Philolaus uses the term κόσμος prominently to de-
scribe the world that arises from the fitting together of his basic principles, limit-
ers and unlimiteds (frs. 1, 2, 6 and 17). It thus seems that the Pythagoreans must
have been included among the wise here, but we should not be too quick to as-
sume that Plato is only thinking of the Pythagoreans. The depictions of friend-
ship (φιλία) and justice (δικαιότης) as cosmic principles make most sense as ref-
erences to Empedocles and Anaximander, the former of whom makes friendship
or love (φιλότης) a cosmic principle alongside strife (e. g. fr. 17.7– 8) and the later
of whom depicts the cosmic powers as “giving justice and retribution to one an-
other in atonement for their injustice in accordance with the ordering of time.”
(fr. 1). None of our evidence for fifth or fourth century Pythagoreanism explicitly
refers to such principles of friendship and justice at the cosmic level. Dodds
thinks that the wise must also be Pythagoreans because they were “the first pro-
ponents of the idea of a world-order controlled by mathematical laws” (1959,
p. 337). Yet there is no mention of mathematics in this statement of the view
of the wise. It is particularly revealing that Dodds quotes Aristotle’s statement
in the Metaphysics, which I have quoted above as neatly defining what is unique
in Pythagoreanism, i. e. “the whole heaven was a harmony and a number”
(986a2). There is no trace of this emphasis on music and number in what Socra-
tes ascribes to the wise. Thus, it seems more likely that by “the wise” Plato
means a whole range of Presocratic thinkers, including Pythagoreans like Philo-
laus, but among whom Empedocles and Anaximander may be the foremost in
his mind.
However, when Socrates goes on to chide Callicles for not noticing the power
of “geometric equality” in the world and suggests that it is his neglect of geom-
etry that leads him to try to strive to get more than his fair share, it is quite likely
that he is referring not just to the Pythagoreans, but specifically to Archytas.
Dodds thought that “geometric equality” refers to the geometric mean (1959,
pp. 339 – 40), which Archytas defines in Fragment 2. The geometric mean, how-
ever, as opposed to the arithmetic mean was regularly associated with aristocrat-
ic privilege, whereby aristocrats receive more than the ordinary individual be-
cause of their greater worth. As Burkert points out (1972, p. 78 n. 156), it is pre-
cisely this sort of mean that would appeal to Callicles, so it is very unlikely that
Socrates should single out this mean as something neglected by Callicles. In
fact, study of Plato’s usage in the Gorgias suggests that “geometric” means es-
sentially “mathematical” here and that Socrates is accusing Callicles not of ne-
glecting the specific “geometric mean” or “geometry” but rather the study of
equality as a whole in mathematics, which is in effect the study of proportion

(Huffman 2005, p. 210). Once we see that this is what Socrates means, then it
is very likely that Plato has Archytas in mind, since, in Fragment 3, Archytas ar-
gues that logismos, the study of proportion, is what does away with the pursuit of
more than one’s fair share (πλεονεξίαν), which is precisely Socrates’ point here
in the Gorgias. If we look at the passage as a whole, then, it appears that Plato
starts with a general reference to a number of Presocratics, i. e. “the wise” who
saw the universe as ordered according to principles of justice and friendship.
These wise men included but were not limited to the Pythagoreans. In the follow-
ing remarks he develops the general view of the wise with a reference to the role
of proportion in combating greed, which appears to have been inspired by Arch-
ytas.
What then do these references to the Pythagoreans at Gorgias 507e-508a
show about Plato’s connection to the Pythagoreans? He employs them as part
of his critique of Callicles, so he clearly sees the Pythagoreans as allies in that
critique and in his argument for a life of self-control. Nonetheless, this passage
primarily plays precisely the role of additional support for a position that Plato
develops on other grounds. None of the premises in Socrates’ primary argument
against Callicles, which is summarized in 506c-507c, are derived from the Pytha-
gorean views to which Socrates alludes at 507e-508a. The Presocratics, such as
Empedocles and Anaximander, who say that the world is held together by friend-
ship and justice, and Pythagoreans, like Archytas, who argue that the study of
proportion teaches not to pursue more than our fair share are supporting wit-
nesses to a view that Plato has already fully developed on other grounds. In
just the same way the myth at the end of the Gorgias, which seems largely de-
rived from the mysteries, is not the foundation of the central arguments but is
deemed true because it agrees with them. The Pythagoreans are portrayed as im-
portant allies but as only one group among several such allies: there is no sug-
gestion that Pythagoreanism is the foundation on which the Gorgias is based.
In two further passages, one in the Cratylus and one in the Statesman, Plato
in all probability alludes to the Pythagorean conception of the cosmos, but these
allusions are even less central to Plato’s purposes in the dialogues than was the
case with the Gorgias. In both of these cases Plato refers to unnamed “clever
men,” and while in these two cases it is likely he is referring to Pythagoreans,
as I will argue below, “the clever” (οἱ κομψοί) is no more code for Pythagoreans
than is “the wise” (οἱ σοφοί) and Plato uses it of a wide range of thinkers. Thus,
the clever (κομψός) man at Lysis 216a, who argues that opposites attract, is hard-
ly likely to be a Pythagorean nor are the “more clever men” (κομψότεροι) at The-
aetetus 156a, who maintain that everything is really motion (Skemp 1952, p. 173 n.
1). In the midst of a series of etymologies for the name of the god Apollo in the
262 Carl Huffman
Cratylus, however, Socrates refers to “those who are clever about music and as-
tronomy,” who say that the heavens “move together by a kind of harmony”
(405c). These clever men are almost certainly Pythagoreans, since the view ascri-
bed to them matches the combination of music and harmony with astronomy,
which is found both in the fragments of Philolaus, who presents the cosmos
as structured according to the diatonic scale (fr. 6) and also in Aristotle’s sum-
mary of Pythagoreanism in the Metaphysics, where, as was noted above, Aristotle
says that the Pythagoreans called “the whole heaven a harmony and a number”
(986a2). The important thing to stress in the case of this passage in the Cratylus,
however, is that the reference to the Pythagoreans is quite limited. Socrates gives
four etymologies of Apollo’s name, which illustrate his importance in four differ-
ent spheres: medicine, prophecy, archery and music. It is only in the course of
the fourth etymology, which illustrates Apollo’s connection to music, that
“those who are clever about astronomy and music,” i. e. the Pythagoreans, are
mentioned. The crucial connection is in the Pythagoreans’ assertion that the
heavens “move together in a certain harmony.” Socrates first notes that the ini-
tial alpha in Apollo can mean “together.” This alpha is then combined with the
verb πολέω, which means “to go.” Plato gives this verb a connotation of circular
motion by noting the similarity to the Greek word πόλος, which refers to the axis
of the celestial sphere (cf. “north pole”). Thus, Socrates etymologizes Apollo as
the “all together” (Ἀ‐) “mover” (πώλει), or “the one who rotates the heavens all
together.” This in itself would not produce a reference to music were it not for the
Pythagorean idea that Plato draws in here, that “the heavens move together in a
certain harmony.” Immediately after this fourth and final etymology of Apollo,
Socrates goes on to discuss etymologies for Apollo’s mother Leto, his sister Ar-
temis and the Muses. There is no further reference to the Pythagoreans. Thus, de-
spite attempts by scholars like Boyancé to find Pythagorean influence behind all
the etymologies of the Cratylus (1941, pp. 147 ff.), the passage in question gives no
support for such a view. The Pythagoreans are not integral to the Cratylus as a
whole and are rather cited to support a single etymology proposed by Plato him-
self, with no hint that they themselves were responsible even for that etymology.
In the Statesman the Visitor argues that the art of measurement should be
divided into two parts, one part which measures things with regard to their op-
posites and another which measures things not with regard to the opposite ex-
treme but with regard to the due measure that is found in the middle between
extremes (284e). The Visitor then refers to what “many of the clever (τῶν κομ-
ψῶν) think themselves very wise to say,” namely that “measurement is involved
in everything that comes to be” (285a). The Visitor then claims that this assertion
by the clever is equivalent to the position for which he and his interlocutors have
just argued. The clever are right that, in a way, measure is involved in everything
that partakes in art, but they have not noticed that there is more than one kind of
measurement. This failure on their part is said to be a result of their not being
accustomed to distinguishing things according to forms (εἴδη – 285a). Are
these clever people of the Statesman Pythagoreans? Things are not nearly as
clear-cut as in the passage from the Cratylus, since there is no mention of the
harmony, music and number, which characterize the Pythagorean view of the
cosmos. Instead the key term is measurement (μετρητική – 284e). Neither this
term nor its cognates appear in the genuine evidence for fifth- and fourth-centu-
ry Pythagoreanism. Nonetheless, Philolaus’ assertion that nothing is known
without number (fr. 4) would seem to imply that everything that is known has
measure. Aristotle’s assertion that the Pythagoreans thought that all things
were numbers, although probably a misrepresentation of the Pythagorean posi-
tion in some ways, points in the same direction. A number of scholars have thus
supposed that Plato is alluding to the Pythagoreans here (e. g. Campbell 1867
and Skemp 1952, pp. 173 – 4), although some have argued that the reference is in-
stead to Protagoras and his followers (e. g. Sayre 2006, p. 148 n.5). This seems
less likely. It is true that Protagoras uses the concept of measure prominently
in his assertion that man is the measure of all things. However, the emphasis
in Protagoras’ assertion is on man as a measurer, not on all things as having
measure; indeed Protagoras’ doctrine might mean that things precisely do not
have measure; measure is imposed on things by human beings. If the clever
men of the Statesman are Pythagoreans, it is striking that Plato goes on to em-
phasize that these men fail to distinguish things according to forms, which
would then clearly indicate that the Pythagoreans did not have a theory of
forms. The evidence of the Statesman would thus confirm the conclusion that
I have drawn above from Aristotle’s testimony about the relation between the Py-
thagoreans and Plato, i. e. the Pythagoreans had no role in the development of
Plato’s theory of forms. If we accept this passage of the Statesman as alluding
to the Pythagoreans, once again, as in the case of the Cratylus, there is no indi-
cation that the Pythagoreans had any significant influence on the central ideas
Plato is developing in the Statesman. The Pythagoreans are only brought in as
saying something similar to one point that is being developed and then criticized
for not having made the distinctions that Plato himself draws. They are used as
examples of a related but mistaken view, which Plato is correcting.
In assessing the influence of the Pythagorean view of the cosmos on Plato
we come finally to what is often regarded as the most Pythagorean of all Platonic
dialogues, the Timaeus. Strikingly, the same schizophrenia in scholarship that
has been detailed above is found here in an even more pronounced form. In
his massive commentary on the Timaeus, published in 1928, A. E. Taylor asserts
that “it is in fact the main thesis of the present interpretation of Plato’s dialogue
264 Carl Huffman
[i.e. the Timaeus] that the teaching of Timaeus can be shown to be in detail ex-
actly what we should expect in a fifth-century Italian Pythagorean” (1928, p. 11).
Taylor can regard the dialogue as presenting mid-fifth century Pythagorean doc-
trine because he interprets the passage in Aristotle’s Metaphysics that is dis-
cussed earlier in this paper as showing that “Platonism and Pythagoreanism
were in the main at one” (1928, p. 29). There is literally nothing in the Timaeus
that is distinctively Platonic. On the other hand, in the index to the most recent
volume devoted to the dialogue, Timaeus, One Book, The Whole Universe (Mohr
and Sattler 2010), which contains essays on the Timaeus by twenty-one different
scholars, the Pythagoreans appear just three times. Moreover, in the general in-
troduction to the volume, one of the editors, Richard Mohr, fails to mention the
Pythagoreans even once and roundly asserts that all the contributors to the vol-
ume “work on the unstated presumption that the speech represents Plato’s
views” (2010, p. 3). It thus seems to be the consensus of scholars in 2010 that
there is literally nothing in the Timaeus that is Pythagorean.
Some middle ground surely needs to be found here, because there can be no
doubt that Plato is to some extent signaling a Pythagorean connection in the Ti-
maeus. The moderate position can, in fact, be seen in the view of M. R. Wright,
who asserts of the Timaeus that “some features, such as transmigration, the in-
terest in number, harmony and proportion, and, possibly, the harmony of the
spheres, may be due to Pythagorean influence.” She is quick to add, however,
that we should “not countenance the malicious rumour … that Plato plagiarized
the whole narrative from a Pythagorean source” (2000, p. 20). The rumor to
which she refers is the report preserved by Diogenes Laertius (8.85) according
to which Plato transcribed the Timaeus from Philolaus’ book. Kahn also adopts
the moderate position, although he is less dismissive of Pythagorean influence
than Wright, when he describes the Timaeus as “particularly rich in Pythagorean
numbers and cosmic geometry,” before asserting that “Plato has reworked these
Pythagorean elements” (2001, pp. 56 – 57). In my own view Wright is closer to the
truth. Pythagoreanism is clearly discernable in two main features of the dia-
logue. First, and most importantly, Timaeus himself is identified as from the
south-Italian town of Locri and said to excel both in philosophy and also in pub-
lic service (20a). This fits no one so well as the Pythagorean Archytas, who served
as strategos of his native Tarentum for seven years, while also being one of the
most distinguished mathematicians of his day. Second, the central passage de-
scribing the construction of the world soul (34c-36d) introduces the Pythagorean
connection between harmony, number and the cosmos and uses the same dia-
tonic scale that figures prominently in Fragment 6a of Philolaus. These two fea-
tures constitute a clear Pythagorean thread in Plato’s presentation, but they are
only one thread in a complicated weave. As I will shortly show, they are com-
pletely overwhelmed by demonstrably un-Pythagorean material. Why then does

Plato signal a Pythagorean connection only to totally undercut it? Such a presen-
tation surely does not suggest that we should assume that the purpose is simple
homage to his predecessors.
One crucial point to recognize is that the figure of Timaeus is a creation of
Plato. The ancient tradition provides no information about Timaeus that cannot
be derived from Plato’s dialogue (see DK 49), which surely suggests that he had
no existence independent of the dialogue. In the catalogue of Pythagoreans pre-
served by Iamblichus there is a Timaeus from Paros and a Timares from Locri,
but it is unjustified to derive from either of these a Timaeus of Locri. Even if
there were unambiguous evidence for a Timaeus of Locri in the catalogue, it
would be far from clear that the name had not been introduced at a later
date. A treatise that is universally recognized as spurious was forged in Timaeus’
name by the first century A.D. in order to serve as the model from which Plato
supposedly derived his dialogue (Thesleff 1965, pp. 203 – 225). Unfortunately, an-
cient scholars such as Proclus, under the influence of the late tradition that
made Pythagoras the font of all wisdom, did regard the treatise by “Timaeus”
as the source of Plato’s dialogue. In his commentary on the Timaeus, Proclus as-
serts that “there is universal agreement that Plato took over the book of the Py-
thagorean Timaeus … and undertook to ‘do Timaeus-writing’ in the Pythagorean
manner” (7.19 – 22; tr. Tarrant 2007, p. 100). The best evidence that Timaeus is Pla-
to’s invention, however, is provided by the dialogue itself. When Timaeus, Critias
and Hermocrates are introduced in the beginning section of the dialogue, Plato
assumes that his readers will know who Critias and Hermocrates are and does
not give a detailed account of them. He asserts that “we all know” that Critias
is competent to speak on the proposed subjects and similarly that “there are
many witnesses” to Hermocrates’ expertise (20a), but in the case of Timaeus
he makes no such appeal to common knowledge and instead constructs the
character for us saying:
Timaeus here, being from the very well governed city of Locri in Italy, second to none there
in wealth and family, has, on the one hand, taken part in the most important offices and
positions in the city and on the other, has in my opinion reached the heights of all philos-
ophy. (20a)
Plato tells his readers just what he wants them to know about Timaeus. He does
not call him a Pythagorean, but he clearly wants us to think of a figure like Arch-
ytas. However, the nature of the account of the cosmos that Plato goes on to put
in his mouth makes clear that Timaeus is not a stand in for Archytas or any other
Pythagorean. That account contains many of Plato’s central philosophical ach-
266 Carl Huffman
ievements including the distinction between the sensible and intelligible realm,
the theory of forms, the tripartite soul and also reflects developments in his later
works, such as the importance of the forms of sameness, difference and being in
the Sophist. If Timaeus were a historical figure, it would be inconceivable that
Plato would be ascribing to him most of the core doctrines of his philosophy,
doctrines that Plato had in earlier dialogues put in the mouth of his spokesman,
Socrates.
The absurdity of supposing, as Taylor did, that Plato had really derived these
ideas from Pythagoreans like Timaeus is clear not just from our ability to see
those central doctrines developing in Plato’s earlier dialogues rather than
being imported wholesale from somewhere else. It is also clear from testimony
that Taylor himself particularly values: Plato’s pupil Aristotle. Aristotle frequent-
ly refers to what is said in the Timaeus as what Plato said or what Plato said in
the Timaeus, with no mention of a Pythagorean philosopher by the name of Ti-
maeus (e. g. Cael. 293b32 and GC 325b24, see Taylor 1928, p. 1). Taylor tries to
avoid this problem by comparing the situation to our use of the expression
“Shakespeare says,” when quoting a speech of Hamlet (1928, p. 12). This parallel
hardly works to Taylor’s advantage, however, since we do not believe that Ham-
let was a real person, whose ideas Shakespeare is reporting, just as we should
not believe that Timaeus is a real person whose views Plato is reporting. It is
clear that Aristotle did not take the views of Plato in the Timaeus as in reality
the views of the Pythagorean Timaeus, because he has lots to say about the Py-
thagoreans, particularly in Book 1 of the Metaphysics, but he never ascribes the
views that Plato presents in the Timaeus to these Pythagoreans.
The problem, however, is not just that the Timaeus presents a series of views
that we have good reason to think distinctly Platonic but also that some of these
doctrines as well as a series of other more specific points directly contradict what
we know about Pythagorean philosophy in the fifth and fourth century. After in-
voking divine support for his speech, Plato’s Timaeus begins with a fundamental
distinction that is profoundly un-Pythagorean. He distinguishes between the un-
changing intelligible realm and the constantly changing realm that is revealed
through sensation (27d-28a). The distinction is also central to the division be-
tween the works of intelligence (29e-47e) and the works of necessity (48b-68d)
that is the fundamental structural feature of Timaeus’ presentation (47e). Yet Ar-
istotle clearly asserts that, even though to his mind mathematical principles
properly do not belong to the sensible world, Pythagorean discussions and the-
ories dealt solely with the natural world (Metaph. 989b33 – 4) and that Plato dif-
fered from the Pythagoreans precisely in regarding numbers as properly belong-
ing to an intelligible realm distinct from sensible things (Metaph. 987b27). Aris-
totle’s point is supported by the extant fragments of Philolaus and Archytas, in
which there is no trace of a distinction between the intelligible and the sensible
and indeed by Plato’s complaint in the Republic that the Pythagoreans looked for
numbers in the heard harmonies of the sensible realm rather than ascending to
the intelligible realm (R. 530d). Scholars have sometimes thought that Plato’s ac-
count of the derivation of the four elements, earth, air, fire and water, from geo-
metric solids and those solids in turn from plane triangles was Pythagorean in
origin. However, such a derivation sequence is, in fact, profoundly un-Pythagor-
ean, because it assumes an intelligible realm of mathematicals from which the
material world derives. Aristotle does discuss the view that bodies are derived
from planes, but while a reference to the Timaeus shows that Plato is one of
the people of whom he is thinking, he contrasts this approach with the Pythagor-
ean attempt to identify things with numbers (Cael. 299a6 ff.; see further Huffman
1993, pp. 362 – 3) At its foundations then, Plato’s account of the cosmos in the
Timaeus is un- and perhaps anti-Pythagorean.
A whole series of specific points follow in Timaeus’ presentation that contra-
dicts famous Pythagorean ideas. Archytas’ most striking contribution to cosmol-
ogy is his argument to show that the universe is unlimited by supposing himself
at the edge of a limited universe and asking whether he would be able to extend
his staff or not (A24; Huffman 2005, pp. 540 – 50). Plato’s Timaeus adopts the
view that the universe is limited and has nothing outside it (32c-33a), precisely
the view Archytas argues against. The astronomical system that Plato presents
in the Timaeus is geocentric and bears no trace of Philolaus’ famous counter
earth and central fire. Yet it is the cosmology of the central fire that Aristotle as-
cribes to the Pythagoreans, so that once again Plato’s geocentric cosmos in un-
Pythagorean. Similarly, while Plato’s account of the soul and that of Philolaus
agree in the general strategy of associating psychic faculties with specific
parts of the body and in assigning the intellect to the head, there are profound
differences as well. There is no trace of Plato’s spirited part of the soul in Philo-
laus, nor of the Timaeus’ emphasis on the role of the liver. In contrast to Plato’s
famous tripartite soul, Philolaus recognizes four psychic faculties (Huffman
1993, pp.308 – 9). In other cases the ancient doxographical tradition specifically
distinguishes Plato’s views on vision and motion from those of Archytas (Huff-
man 2005, pp. 508 – 515 and 550 – 569). Archytas’ sophisticated analyses of the
diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic tetrachords (A16) are nowhere to be
found in the Timaeus, which is not surprising, since Plato specifically rejected
Archytas’ approach to harmonics in the Republic (531c).
There is the slender thread of Pythagoreanism, which I have identified
above, in the fabric of the Timaeus, but there are also clearly threads from
other Presocratics such as Empedocles (the four elements) and Anaximenes
(the process of condensation and rarefaction at 49b-c). All of these Presocratic
268 Carl Huffman
elements are in turn woven into a great structure that relies on the theory of
forms and its distinction between the sensible and intelligible that is clearly Pla-
to’s own creation, so that in the end the specifically Pythagorean element is quite
small. The Pythagorean thread in the weave is noticeable, but I would estimate
that, nonetheless, ninety percent of Timaeus’ account in not Pythagorean and its
foundations are un-Pythagorean. How are we to explain Plato’s signaling of a Py-
thagorean connection for an account that in the end has little to do with Pytha-
goreanism? The pattern here is, in fact, the same as in the Republic. For Plato the
Pythagoreans are right in very general terms, but he has searching criticisms of
them. Timaeus of Locri is Plato’s answer to the deficiencies of Pythagoreanism.
Through the figure of Timaeus Plato presents us with a new and vastly improved
Pythagoreanism, which is part of Plato’s attempt to outdo the entire Presocratic
cosmogonic tradition. There is thus as much of the negative influence of Pytha-
goreanism as of the positive in the Timaeus.
Taylor was thus spectacularly wrong in his view that everything in the Ti-
maeus was really fifth-century Pythagoreanism, but modern scholars who fail
to mention the Pythagoreans at all in their account of the Timaeus, in particular,
or of Plato in general go too far the other direction. When Richard Mohr com-
ments that Plato’s “basic vision that the intelligibility of physical reality is fun-
damentally mathematical has turned out to be right” (2010, p. 2), the failure to
mention Philolaus and other Pythagoreans as Plato’s precursors could lead the
incautious to assume that Plato should get the credit for having been the first
to have formulated this view of reality. Yet probably a half-century before
Plato, Philolaus had already asserted in Fr. 4, that “all the things that are
known have number. For it is not possible that anything whatsoever be under-
stood or known without this.” So Plato owes an undeniable debt to Philolaus
that must be recognized if we are to give an accurate account of the development
of Greek philosophy. On the other hand, Plato radically reinterprets even this
thesis; and, apart from it, almost every other aspect of the Timaeus, large and
small, is the work of Plato himself and not the Pythagoreans. As we have
seen, the same is true of Plato’s philosophy as a whole. Plato’s late theory of
principles owes a significant debt to Philolaus and the Pythagoreans, as he ac-
knowledges in the Philebus; one part of that debt is again the thesis that knowl-
edge is gained through number. Beyond this, however, Pythagorean influence is
as minimal as Plato’s infrequent explicit references to them would suggest. Py-
thagoreans are alluded to without being named in various isolated passages in
dialogues throughout Plato’s career, as I have shown above, but nothing in
those dialogues suggests that the Pythagoreans played a central role in the de-
velopment of the core of Plato’s philosophy.
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de Gruyter.
Beatriz Bossi
Philolaus and Plato on method, measure
and pleasure
I
In this paper I shall attempt to demonstrate how Plato’s use and transformation
of doctrines that might have originally been developed by Pythagorean mathe-
maticians,¹ and are attested to in the epistemological fragments of Philolaus
(and are also likely traceable back to Eleatic and other Presocratic traditions²),
operate in many ways as background to the Philebus, providing him as they
do with not just the crucial method of dialectic but also the firmest ontological
foundation he can find to justify his long-term thesis that limit, measure, number
and the like constitute the key to making sensible pleasure something good for
us.
The adoption of a ‘philosophy of number’ by Plato is not something restrict-
ed either to the Philebus or to his late period, but a pattern that is constant in
Plato’s treatment of many subjects, and in particular in his treatment of pleasure,
from the time of the Gorgias and the Protagoras, through the years of the Repub-
lic and the Phaedo, to the final, conclusive treatment in the Philebus.
Plato’s ‘philosophy of number’ does not coincide with his arithmetical or
geometrical investigations, which he must have developed as a student and
also as a teacher in the Academy. What I call Plato’s ‘philosophy of number’ im-
plies, among other things, the following theses:
1. sensibly perceived things are in some sense units (though not so by strict
definition, since they undergo change, and are subject to generation and
corruption);
2. all things in the natural world are arranged in accordance with number:
things have number (for they possess limit and unlimitedness, being derived
from the one and the many);
3. knowing the exact number of parts/species that constitute a form/monad/
genus is essential for getting to know the things that belong to them, either
in the natural world or intellectual world;
 Zhmud (1998) 121– 149.

 Huffman (1999) 11– 31; Nussbaum (1979) 63 – 108.
272 Beatriz Bossi
4. since measure is the single most determinant aspect of the good, knowing
number and measure is essential not only for the pursuit of investigation
but for leading a good, serene and happy life.
In my view Plato’s philosophy of number should not be considered as either

magical or mythical. Though it might not be regarded as genuine science, it
should be placed at the threshold of science, since, although he did not look
for number regularities in nature, through his philosophy of number Plato laid
the foundation for a method of theoretical investigation that is applicable to
what we classify as the theoretical and practical sciences. I fully agree with Huff-
man³ that it is not just the concepts of limit and unlimited that Plato borrows
from Philolaus, but an entire approach to the explanation of reality.
Huffman finds that Plato ‘calls on us to follow three steps: 1. to recognize
that all things that are have limit and unlimited in them; 2. to try to determine
the limited number of principles relevant to knowledge in each domain; and
3. to find the bond that unites these principles into an ordered system. And he
concludes that these are exactly the three steps that Philolaus follows in Frag-
ment 6,⁴ which reads as follows:
Concerning nature and harmony, this is how it is: the being of things, which is eternal, and
nature itself, admit of divine but not human knowledge; except that it is not possible that
any of the things that exist and are known by us could have come to be, unless the being of
the things from which the world-order is composed, both limiters and unlimiteds, existed.
And since the principles were not alike nor of the same kind, it was impossible for them to
be ordered, unless a harmony came upon them, in whatever way it did. Things that were
alike and of the same kind had no need of harmony, but things that were unlike and of
a different kind and rank, these had to be bonded together by a harmony, if they were
to be held in an order.⁵
 Huffman (1993) 78 – 92; (2001) 84– 85: ‘Plato is not adopting an antiquated system wholesale
but taking the central insights of that system and recasting them in terms of his own earlier
work’ (84).
 Stobaeus, Eclogae I.21.7d. I follow Graham’s translation (2010) with minor changes.
 περὶ δέ φυσίος καὶ ἁρμονίας ὧδε ἔχει· ἁ μὲν ἐστὼ τῶν πραγμάτων ἀῖδιος ἔσσα καὶ αὐτὰ μὰν ἁ
φύσις θείαν τε καὶ οὐκ ἀνθρωπίνην ἐνδέχεται γνῶσιν πλάν γα ἤ ὃτι οὐχ οἷόν τ’ἧν οὐθενὶ τῶν
ἐόντων καὶ γιγνωσκομένων ὑφ’ ἁμῶν γεγενῆσθαι μὴ ὑπαρχούσας τᾶς ἐστοῦς τῶν πραγμάτων, ἐξ
ὧν συνέστα ὁ κόσμος, καὶ τῶν περαινόντων καὶ τῶν ἀπείρων. ἐπεὶ δὲ ταὶ ἀρχαὶ ὑπᾶρχον οὐχ
ὁμοῖαι οὐδ’ ὁμόφυλοι ἒσσαι, ἥδη ἀδύνατον ἦς κα αὐταῖς κοσμηθῆναι, εἰ μὴ ἁρμονία ἐπεγένετο ᾡ
τινιῶν ἄν τρόπῳ ἐγένετο. τὰ μὲν ὦν ὁμοῖα καὶ ὁμόφυλα ἁρμονίας οὐδὲν ἐπεδέοντο, τὰ δὲ
ἀνόμοια μηδέ ὁμόφυλα μηδέ ἰσοταχῆ, ἀνάγκα τὰ τοιαῦτα ἁρμονίᾳ συγκεκλεῖσθαι, εἰ μέλλοντι έν
κόσμῳ κατέχεσθαι.
Although Philolaus’s work remains, unfortunately, fragmentary and controver-

sial,⁶ I aim to show how close resemblances with regard to method and content
are enough to reinforce the comparison between Philolaus and Plato much more
strongly. What I should like to demonstrate is that, in the light of this compari-
son, Plato’s obscure metaphysical assumptions at the beginning of the Philebus
become much more understandable. I also cannot agree with Huffman’s suspi-
cion⁷ that Philolaus’s fragments ‘have less far-reaching significance for Plato’s
metaphysics than is commonly supposed’ or his doubt that Philolaus’s method
would be the key that solves the problems of the Philebus. On the contrary, I shall
attempt to show in what sense Philolaus’s statement turns out to be essential to
an understanding of the task at hand, in that it suggests not only how pleasure
and intelligence can be both one and many, but also how the first of them is nat-
urally subordinated to the second, and why knowledge should take the lead in
any attempt to organize human life into a cosmos.
II
Plato’s dialectical method in the Philebus is usually regarded as being of Pytha-
gorean inspiration, under the mask of Prometheus:
A gift from the gods to human beings, tossed down from the gods by some Prometheus to-
gether with the most brilliant fire. And the ancients, our superiors who dwelt nearer to the
gods, have passed this word on to us, that the things that are always said to be are derived
from one and many, having Limit and Unlimited built into their nature. (16 c 5 – 10)⁸
 Huffman (2008) summarizes the status quaestionis with regard to authenticity as follows:
‘Burkert’s arguments (1972a, 238 – 277), supported by further study (Huffman 1993), have led to a
consensus that some 11 fragments are genuine (Frs. 1– 6, 6a, 7, 13, 16 and 17 in the numbering of
Huffman 1993) and derive from Philolaus’ book On Nature (Barnes 1982; Kahn 1993 and 2001;
Kirk, Raven and Schofield 1983; Nussbaum 1979; Zhmud 1997). Fragments 1, 6a and 13 are
identified as coming from the book On Nature by ancient sources. Stobaeus cites fragments 2
and 4– 7 as coming from a work On the Cosmos, but this appears to be an alternate title for On
Nature […] Testimonia A7a, A9, A10, A16 (part), A17 (part), A18 – 24, A27– 9 are also generally
agreed to reflect the contents of On Nature. […] Fr. 6b and Testimonium A26 were accepted as
authentic by Burkert (1972a, 394– 400; followed by Mueller 1997, 292– 3), whereas Huffman
argues that they are spurious (1993, 364– 74; followed by Zhmud 1997, 185). Similarly, Burkert
accepts A14 as genuine (1972a, 350), whereas Huffman argues against authenticity (1993, 381–
91).’
 Huffman (2001) 85.
 θεῶν μὲν εἰς ἀνθρώπους δόσις, ὥς γε καταφαίνεται ἐμοί, ποθὲν ἐκ θεῶν ἐρρίφη διά τινος
Προμηθέως ἅμα φανοτάτῳ τινὶ πυρί: καὶ οἱ μὲν παλαιοί, κρείττονες ἡμῶν καὶ ἐγγυτέρω θεῶν
274 Beatriz Bossi
Most scholars understand ‘Prometheus’ as a reference to Pythagoras himself, be-

cause Aristotle and Aristoxenus, among others, regarded him as divine in char-
acter, and also because the Pythagoreans are supposed to have devoted them-
selves to the study of the cosmos.⁹
According to Huffman,¹⁰ however, when Plato refers to ‘the men before our
time’ in 16a ff. he must be alluding to ‘Philolaus and his followers’ because, as
his book was probably written seventy-five years before Plato wrote the Philebus,
the title is applicable¹¹ and, more importantly, because the thesis corresponds to
what is now referred to as Philolaus Fr.1:
Nature in the world-order was fitted together from unlimiteds and limiters, both the world-
order as a whole and all the things in it.¹²
οἰκοῦντες, ταύτην φήμην παρέδοσαν, ὡς ἐξ ἑνὸς μὲν καὶ πολλῶν ὄντων τῶν ἀεὶ λεγομένων
εἶναι, πέρας δὲ καὶ ἀπειρίαν ἐν αὑτοῖς σύμφυτον ἐχόντων. Graham (2010) translates: ‘the things
that are said always to be’. I take ‘always’ with ‘said’ because in my view it refers not to eternal
beings but to generated things that are always said to be (born and perish) because they have
both Limit and Unlimited in their nature. The Forms are assumed to be one and many, but to my
knowledge they are never claimed to have Unlimitedness in their nature, though perhaps they
could be taken as unlimited in an extensional sense, for they are said to be ‘one, and many and
infinite’ (Cf. Phil. 16 c 9 – 17 a 5). Frede (in Cooper 1997) translates: ‘whatever is said to be’. This is
consistent with the passage that follows, which claims that ‘since this is the structure of things,
we have to assume there is in each case always one Form for every one of them, and we must
search for it for, as we will indeed find it there’.
 Cf. Hackforth (1958) 21; Gosling (1975) 83; Burkert (1972). Huffman (1999:14– 15) points out that
this assumption by Burkert raises a problem of consistency in his general interpretation of
Pythagoras, since B. refuses to place him among philosophers of nature, but regards him rather
as the creator of a way of life (following Plato’s testimony at Rep. 600 a-b) and a religious
authority. Huffman appeals to this Platonic passage to argue against the traditional inter-
pretation that is Pythagoras who is being alluded to behind the mask of Prometheus, for if Plato
and Aristotle do not take Pythagoras to be a philosopher of nature, we cannot assume that Plato
is alluding to him at Philebus 16 c 5 – 10. However, Huffman concludes that it is not impossible
that Pythagoras had developed an archaic system in which limit and unlimitedness could have
been the main principles, but we do not have any direct proof that he had in fact done so (30).
Kahn follows the traditional interpretation but observes that ‘the context is playful, and some
readers would prefer to take the reference as less specific’ (2001) 14 n. 23.
 Huffman (2001) 84; he points out that the Platonic tradition tends to associate this passage
with Philolaus rather than Pythagoras, as in Proclus (Plat. Theol. I, 5) and Syrianus (Met. 10, 2):
Huffman (1999) 16.
 For more arguments on this point, see Huffman (1999) 16 note 1.
 ἁ φύσις δ´ἐν τῶι κόσμωι ἁρμόχθη ἐξ ἀπείρων τε καὶ περαινόντων καὶ ὅλος 〈ὁ〉 κόσμος καὶ τὰ
ἐν αὐτῶι πάντα.
Philolaus does not speak here of ‘abstract singular principles’ but of constitutive
parts or elements of the cosmos, though in Fr. 6 he takes them to be pre-existent
principles.
So Philolaus regarded the cosmos as a combination of unlimiteds and limit-
ing structures. Huffman¹³ suggests that the important point is not the choice of a
particular substance (such as fire, water or the centre) as the unlimited genera-
tive source, (as is the case in other Pre-Socratics) but the observation that the
unlimiteds must be defined as a continuum that can receive structure or quan-
tity. And he gives the example of the diatonic scale, in which the unlimited cor-
responds to the continuum of musical pitch, and the specific tones are the limits
set onto it. Plato also appeals to the same example.
Philolaus rejected the thesis that ‘all things are unlimited’ as coming from an
adversary thinker. Kahn¹⁴ linked Philolaus’s doctrines to those of Anaximander.
However, Huffman concluded that, while Philolaus accepted the Pre-Socratic
thesis that the unlimited has power of generation, he rejected the claim that
the mathematical structure of the cosmos could derive from it, and, following
Parmenides,¹⁵ he understood the act of knowledge as an act of limitation. So
 Huffman (1999) 30.

 Kahn (1993) 183 and ff. After examining the history of the concept of ‘unlimited’, Huffman
concludes that the first Greek thinkers attributed the adjective ‘unlimited’ to any mass ‘that
cannot be crossed’ (such as the sea), and also to that which is ‘an inexhaustible source of
generation’. This meant that whatever is limited derives from the unlimited, and so is inferior to
it. Anaximander attributed power and divinity to the unlimited and made it indestructible, since
it ‘embraces and governs everything’ (Arist., Physics 203 b). But Parmenides associated what is
indestructible with what is complete and totally defined, and in this way he ‘provoked a re-
volution’ against the typical Pre-Socratic identification of the ‘unlimited’ with the ‘superior’.
Anaxagoras tried to find the solution to the problems raised by Parmenides by appealing to the
radical generative power of the unlimited, but instead of postulating a single unlimited element
from which the world would get formed, he seems to have posited an ‘unlimited number of
infinitely small elements’, which produce things as they are separated from the original mixture.
The biggest novelty is the introduction of an Intellect that is ‘unlimited’ in its cognitive power.
Huffman (1999) 21– 27.
 On the other hand, Nussbaum finds that ‘Philolaus’ argument urges that the possibility of
cognitive experience depends, in fact, on the falsity of Parmenides’ conclusions: for there to be
an object of recognition there must be distinctions in things’. She is aware that there is a
paradox here which she has not resolved, for, on the one hand, she claims that ‘Parmenides
denies that the mortals’ attempts at recognizing, classifying and naming have any reliable
connection with external reality’, since, to be a proper object of thought or talk, what-is must be
undifferentiated, while on the other hand she also claims that Parmenides affirms that ‘thought
is committed to what is’. If this is so, every judgement must refer to what-is; this does not mean
that every judgement must be necessarily true: it could be true or false. She acknowledges that
his universe, though internally without divisions, is bounded as a whole, and that Parmenides
276 Beatriz Bossi
he objects to the Anaximandrian thesis that whatever comes from the unlimited
will be itself unlimited, and thinks that if everything were unlimited, nothing
would be known.¹⁶
Plato has Socrates say that there is no better path, and that he has always
(ἀεί) been in love with it, although it has often abandoned him and left him help-
less and ἄπορον (16 b 5 – 7).¹⁷
There is a parallel passage in the Phaedrus (266 b 3-c 1):
Well, Phaedrus, I am myself a lover of these processes of division and bringing together, so
that I may be able to speak and think; and if I think any other man is capable of discerning
a single thing that is also by nature¹⁸ capable of encompassing many, I follow ‘straight be-
hind, in his footsteps, as if he were a god’. And whether the name I give to those who can
do this is right or wrong, God knows, but so far I have always called them dialecticians.¹⁹
In this passage Plato could well have Philolaus in mind. On the one hand, Soc-
rates, apparently paraphrasing Homer,²⁰ says that he follows his predecessor
‘straight behind’ (κατόπισθε), which might mean that he refers to someone closer
to Plato in time. On the other hand, the expression ‘in his footsteps’ (ἴχνιον)
wants to hold that thought’s object must be definite and demarcated, but without conceding that
this implies a plural universe (1979) 86 – 87. I agree with Huffman about the inspiration Philolaus
must have received from Parmenides about limit as a positive feature for both being and ‘getting
to know’. I think Parmenides is not describing the characteristics of the world but those that
belong to the object of apprehension. Plurality and difference belong to combining and dis-
course. Unity and limit belong to apprehension. It is possible to reconcile both views, but this is
not the place to do so.
 Huffman (1999) 18 – 29.
 οὐ μὴν ἔστι καλλίων ὁδὸς οὐδ᾽ ἂν γένοιτο ἧς ἐγὼ ἐραστὴς μέν εἰμι ἀεί, πολλάκις δέ με ἤδη
διαφυγοῦσα ἔρημον καὶ ἄπορον κατέστησεν.
 b 6 πεφυκόθ᾽Burnet: πεφυκός B T Stobeus. If we read πεφυκόθ᾽ with Burnet, this person
should have a ‘natural’ capacity to discern the one/many aspects of a thing, which seems to
indicate an admirable intuitive intelligence rather than a mind which follows methodological
steps to demonstrate a thesis. In this sense the passage seems to point to Pythagoras, whether he
is to be interpreted merely as a master of a way of life and a religious leader (as Burkert and
Huffman think), or also as a mathematical thinker who views the universe as a cosmos based
upon number and proportion. But if we accept πεφυκός following B T and Stobaeus, as Ne-
hamas and Woodruff do, and I think they are right, there is no need to make this assumption.
 τούτων δὴ ἔγωγε αὐτός τε ἐραστής, ὦ Φαῖδρε, τῶν διαιρέσεων καὶ συναγωγῶν, ἵνα οἷός τε ὦ
λέγειν τε καὶ φρονεῖν: ἐάν τέ τιν᾽ ἄλλον ἡγήσωμαι δυνατὸν εἰς ἓν καὶ ἐπὶ πολλὰ πεφυκός ὁρᾶν,
τοῦτον διώκω “κατόπισθε μετ᾽ ἴχνιον ὥστε θεοῖο.” καὶ μέντοι καὶ τοὺς δυναμένους αὐτὸ δρᾶν εἰ
μὲν ὀρθῶς ἢ μὴ προσαγορεύω, θεὸς οἶδε, καλῶ δὲ οὖν μέχρι τοῦδε διαλεκτικούς.
 Od. V.193 ὃ δ᾽ ἔπειτα μετ᾽ ἴχνια βαῖνε θεοῖο: and he walked in the footsteps of the god (1925);
Il. XXII 157 according to De Vries (1969) 218; Od. II 406 according to Nehamas/Woodruff (1997).
might be an indication that Plato is thinking about the written work of Philolaus.
But this is of course speculation, not proof.
It is worth noticing that in the Phaedrus Socrates refers to a group he calls
‘dialecticians’. The early Pythagoreans, however, were not dialecticians, accord-
ing to Aristotle’s report (at Met. 987 b 18 – 33), and Plato seems to confirm this in
a passage of the Statesman (284 e 11– 285 a 3), where he refers to a number of
sophisticated people who suppose themselves to be saying something clever be-
cause they assume that there is an art of measurement which relates to every-
thing that comes into being. Some interpreters²¹ think that it is the Pythagoreans
who are being alluded to in the Stranger’s claim:
Many clever persons occasionally say, Socrates, fancying that it is a wise remark, that the
science of measurement has to do with everything that comes into being, which is precisely
the same as what we have just said. For in a certain way all things which are in the province
of art do partake of measurement. (Statesman, 284 e 11– 285 a 3)²²
However, the Stranger affirms that they are unable to make the proper divisions:
…but because of their not being accustomed to considering things by dividing them into
classes (μὴ κατ᾽ εἴδη), they hastily put these widely different relations into the same cate-
gory, thinking they are alike; and again they do the opposite of this when they fail to divide
other things into parts. What they ought to do is this: when a person at first sees only the
unity or common quality of many things, he must not give up until he sees all the differ-
ences in them, so far as they exist in classes; and conversely, when all sorts of dissimilar-
ities are seen in a large number of objects he must find it impossible to be discouraged or to
stop until he has gathered into one circle of similarity all the things which are related to
each other and has included them in some sort of class on the basis of their essential na-
ture. (Statesman, 285 a 3 – 285 b 7)²³
Plato is critical of them because they were not used to conducting their investi-
gations by dividing according to real classes, as dialecticians do. Now, if we were
right in assuming that Socrates alludes to the Pythagoreans in the first place,
 As Cattanei (2011) 69.

 ὃ γὰρ ἐνίοτε, ὦ Σώκρατες, οἰόμενοι δή τι σοφὸν φράζειν πολλοὶ τῶν κομψῶν λέγουσιν, ὡς
ἄρα μετρητικὴ περὶ πάντ᾽ ἐστὶ τὰ γιγνόμενα, τοῦτ᾽ αὐτὸ τὸ νῦν λεχθὲν ὂν τυγχάνει.
 μετρήσεως μὲν γὰρ δή τινα τρόπον πάνθ᾽ ὁπόσα ἔντεχνα μετείληφεν: διὰ δὲ τὸ μὴ κατ᾽ εἴδη
συνειθίσθαι σκοπεῖν διαιρουμένους ταῦτά τε τοσοῦτον διαφέροντα συμβάλλουσιν εὐθὺς εἰς
ταὐτὸν ὅμοια νομίσαντες, καὶ τοὐναντίον αὖ τούτου δρῶσιν ἕτερα οὐ κατὰ μέρη διαιροῦντες,
δέον, ὅταν μὲν τὴν τῶν πολλῶν τις πρότερον αἴσθηται κοινωνίαν, μὴ προαφίστασθαι πρὶν ἂν ἐν
αὐτῇ τὰς διαφορὰς ἴδῃ πάσας ὁπόσαιπερ ἐν εἴδεσι κεῖνται, τὰς δὲ αὖ παντοδαπὰς ἀνομοιότητας,
ὅταν ἐν πλήθεσιν ὀφθῶσιν, μὴ δυνατὸν εἶναι δυσωπούμενον παύεσθαι πρὶν ἂν σύμπαντα τὰ
οἰκεῖα ἐντὸς μιᾶς ὁμοιότητος ἕρξας γένους τινὸς οὐσίᾳ περιβάληται.
278 Beatriz Bossi
and to the followers of Philolaus in the second place in the passage of the States-
man, we would have some support for the view that in the Phaedrus he is likely
to be alluding to Philolaus.
In any case,²⁴ it seems that Plato fell in love with this ‘excellent path’ in his
mature period, but always remained fond of the thesis that ‘things have number
and that there is an art of measurement for all the things that come into being’,
including human happiness. This might mean that Plato always remained fond
of a philosophy of number which could be traced back to the early Pythagoreans
in some way (though it might also have had other sources), and then, when he
happened to study Philolaus, he felt fascinated by his method and adopted it.²⁵
I shall attempt to collect a number of passages in Plato’s dialogues that be-
long to different stages in his life where the reference to number, limit and order
is explicitly asserted with regard to one particular subject: pleasure. For I am
convinced that there is a certain unity and coherence on this point throughout
all of the dialogues.²⁶ I shall however focus on the Philebus, because it can be
 Cf. Kahn (2001), who supports a ‘more positive evaluation of the tradition and a more
philosophical interpretation of the figure of Pythagoras. The idealizing conception of Pythagoras
is not likely to be a new creation of Plato and his disciples’. Since Iamblichus (De Communi
mathematica sicentia 25) reports the existence of the mathematikoi as being more representative
of Pythagoras’s teaching than the akousmatikoi, Kahn concludes that ‘when the Platonists credit
Pythagoras with mathematical philosophy, they may be seen as following a genuine Py-
thagorean tradition’. And since Herodotus (IV.5) calls Pythagoras a sophistes and Heraclitus
(fr. 40) attributes to him polymathie and historie (a standard designation for Milesian science), he
thinks that the double role of Pythagoras is historically possible, though not necessarily fac-
tually correct (15 – 18). Kahn suggests that it will be convenient to refer to the system of Philolaus
as the oldest attested version of Pythagorean theory, without prejudging the question of its
originality (23).
 It is a well-known fact that Aristotle claims that Plato’s philosophy was profoundly in-
fluenced by Pythagorean teaching. When he introduces the so-called Pythagoreans in Meta-
physics I, he keeps them separated from the physiologoi, because they conducted their inquiry
into all entities, assuming that among entities some are sensible and some are non-sensible
(cf. 989 b 21– 29), and he places both the Pythagoreans and Plato or the Platonists under this
same heading (cf. Leszl, W. 2004, 372– 4). In Aristotle’s view the discovery of non-sensible
entities ‘is perverted, since they want to make these entities become principles of the physical
processes, while they are not appropriate to this end. Thus, in a way, even Plato’s position, not
only that of the Pythagoreans, is a deviation from the ‘proper’ physiologia’(374– 5)’. Leszl claims
that, since Plato and Aristotle were in contact with a live tradition, ‘it was rather unavoidable for
them to be bad historians. But, if one sees them as inheritors of a tradition which was still alive,
one can also find in their works traces of this tradition that allow to go beyond their explicit
testimony and to reconstruct the past’ (379).
 Bossi, B. (2008) Saber Gozar, Estudios sobre el Placer en Platón, Madrid, Trotta.
taken as a conclusive point at which Philolaic assumptions become more explic-

it, and throw light on his former more cryptic, briefly expressed, assertions.
According to Kahn, there are two clusters of ideas typically attributed to Py-
thagoras that Plato develops in his own way: the view that the soul is immortal
and potentially divine, which entails the idea of transmigration and kinship
among all living beings (explored in the Phaedo, Republic and Phaedrus) and
the mathematical-musical conception of the cosmos (which inspired the Ti-
maeus)²⁷. My contribution here concerns a subject that has particular resonance
for the latter issue, since measure is the key concept, not only for the building of
the world as a cosmos, but for the bringing of order and harmony into our lives
as well, when imposed on pleasures.
I am aware of the fact that ἀριθμός is a constant presence in Plato’s dia-
logues, but, as Cattanei has shown, it is not a simple presence: it can be inter-
preted as a multiplicity composed of units (as in Euclid, Elem. VII, def. 2) or
as a relationship of proportion which is the object of a technique of calculation.²⁸
Both sciences are distinguished at Gorgias 451 c 1– 5:
in most respects calculation is in the same case as numeration, for both are concerned with
the same thing, the odd and the even; but they differ to this extent, that calculation con-
siders the numerical values of odd and even numbers not merely in themselves but in re-
lation to each other.²⁹
The subject of my paper will be the second of these two sciences, which not only
considers relations among numbers, but also tends to produce a certain unity of
measurement which could balance excess and defect as well in the search to
know the mean (cf. Republic 525 c 1- d 1). In the Statesman the Stranger says:
We must believe that all the arts alike exist, and that the greater and the less are measured
in relation not only to one another but also to the establishment of the standard of the
mean. (284 d 4– 6)³⁰
Then the Stranger divides the art of measurement in two:
 Kahn (2001) 3 – 4.
 Cattanei (2011) 59. I agree with her that Plato’s meanings of ‘number’ are not uniform.
 τὰ μὲν ἄλλα καθάπερ ἡ ἀριθμητικὴ ἡ λογιστικὴ ἔχει – περὶ τὸ αὐτὸ γάρ ἐστιν, τό τε ἄρτιον
καὶ τὸ περιττόν – διαφέρει δὲ τοσοῦτον, ὅτι καὶ πρὸς αὑτὰ καὶ πρὸς ἄλληλα πῶς ἔχει πλήθους
ἐπισκοπεῖ τὸ περιττὸν καὶ τὸ ἄρτιον ἡ λογιστική.
 ἄρα ἡγητέον ὁμοίως τὰς τέχνας πάσας εἶναι, μεῖζόν τε ἅμα καὶ ἔλαττον μετρεῖσθαι μὴ πρὸς
ἄλληλα μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ μετρίου γένεσιν.
280 Beatriz Bossi
We should evidently divide the science of measurement into two parts in accordance with
what has been said. One part comprises all the arts which measure number, length, depth,
breadth, and thickness in relation to their opposites; the other comprises those which
measure them in relation to the moderate, the fitting, the opportune, the needful, and
all the other standards that are situated in the mean between the extremes. (284 e 2– 8)³¹
The technique I am examining here measures authentic pleasures in relation to

one another and to human life taken as a whole. On the one hand, it considers
the sensible and intellectual objects of desire that are displayed as one follows
the descending line of this calculative discipline (as it is presented in the Prota-
goras, the Gorgias and the Republic). However, since this route leads to the infin-
ite number of individual pleasures which are subject to generation and corrup-
tion, and cannot be scrutinized without a proper map detailing the intermediate
species belonging to each class, it will also deal with the dialectical ascending
method, as presented in the Eleatic dialogues, the Phaedrus and the Philebus. ³²
III
On the epistemological front, one should expect Plato’s use of the ‘Philolaus-in-
spired method of enquiry’ to be essential for the solving of all problems of sci-
entific research, both the one-many problems relevant to the relationship be-
tween the Forms and their multiple instantiations in the cosmos and the one-
many problems raised by the Forms themselves.
After the new stage that the Forms attain in the Sophist, they are no longer
simply ‘closed unities’ but unities that admit of multiplicity and dynamism in
themselves: in order to ‘be’, they are pervaded by the Form of Being, and in
order to be ‘different’ from each other, they are pervaded by the Form of Differ-
ence. Since the Forms are presented as being constituted of multiple ‘parts’, it is
 δῆλον ὅτι διαιροῖμεν ἂν τὴν μετρητικήν, καθάπερ ἐρρήθη, ταύτῃ δίχα τέμνοντες, ἓν μὲν
τιθέντες αὐτῆς μόριον συμπάσας τέχνας ὁπόσαι τὸν ἀριθμὸν καὶ μήκη καὶ βάθη καὶ πλάτη καὶ
ταχυτῆτας πρὸς τοὐναντίον μετροῦσιν, τὸ δὲ ἕτερον, ὁπόσαι πρὸς τὸ μέτριον καὶ τὸ πρέπον καὶ
τὸν καιρὸν καὶ τὸ δέον καὶ πάνθ᾽ ὁπόσα εἰς τὸ μέσον ἀπῳκίσθη τῶν ἐσχάτων.
 Cattanei (2011) 59 poses the question whether what we, after Aristotle, call ‘mathematical
numbers’, extend beyond their ambit in two ways, either downwards as ‘numbers of physical
objects’ or upwards as non-sensible numbers connected to the Forms. In the Theaetetus Socrates
claims that the perfect mathematician will count numbers themselves and also the external
things which have number: ἦ οὖν ὁ τοιοῦτος ἀριθμοῖ ἄν ποτέ τι ἢ αὐτὸς πρὸς αὑτὸν αὐτὰ ἢ ἄλλο
τι τῶν ἔξω ὅσα ἔχει ἀριθμόν (198 c 1– 2).
necessary to get to know the way the Greatest Genera/Forms (Being, Same, Dif-
ference, Motion and Rest) enter into the constitution of each particular Form.
If we take into account the whole range of the Eleatic dialogues, the identity
of one and many seems to be found at all levels: 1. at the level of the new status
of each Genus/Form, 2. as an ‘immortal and ageless quality within us, which be-
longs to discourses themselves’ (Philebus 15 d 4– 8)³³, and 3. at the level of nat-
ural, sensible, generated things, as is stated in the Parmenides.
So it seems no longer enough for Plato to make the infinite multiplicity of the
sensible realm understandable by reference to one single unity, as seems to be
the case in the years of the Republic. In light of the investigations in the Philebus
it is necessary to consider the whole realm of the intermediate ‘parts’ between
the former, so-called unitary ‘Ones’ (the Genera/Forms) and the infinite, unlim-
ited ‘many’ that instantiate them.
In a famous puzzling passage at the beginning of the Philebus, Socrates
wonders:
First, (1) whether one ought to suppose that these Monads really exist [as truly real]; then
again, (2) how is it that these units, though each one is always one and the same, and does
not admit either of generation or of destruction, nevertheless are most firmly one and the
same? and, after this, one should raise the question of whether, in the things that come
to be and are unlimited, either (3) one should posit it as spread out and become multiple,
or as a whole apart from itself, which would seem to be the most impossible thing of all, [for
then it would] become the same and one both in unity and in multiplicity. ³⁴ The unity and
multiplicity of these [Monads], rather than of those [things that come to be and are unlim-
ited], Protarchus, is the cause of the whole problem if it is not properly settled, and [the
cause of the] solution if properly [settled]. (Philebus 15 b 1-c 2)³⁵
 ‘We say somehow that the identity of one and many produced by discourses, circulates
everywhere in whatever it may be said at any time, both long ago and now. This is no new thing
and will never cease; it is, in my opinion, an immortal and ageless quality within us, which
belongs to discourses themselves’ φαμέν που ταὐτὸν ἓν καὶ πολλὰ ὑπὸ λόγων γιγνόμενα περι-
τρέχειν πάντῃ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον τῶν λεγομένων ἀεί, καὶ πάλαι καὶ νῦν. καὶ τοῦτο οὔτε μὴ παύσηταί
ποτε οὔτε ἤρξατο νῦν, ἀλλ᾽ ἔστι τὸ τοιοῦτον, ὡς ἐμοὶ φαίνεται, τῶν λόγων αὐτῶν ἀθάνατόν τι
καὶ ἀγήρων πάθος ἐν ἡμῖν.
 My translation. D. Frede (1997) and R. Hackforth (1972) assume that there are only two
questions addressed. Archer-Hind and Friedländer think that the second question concerns the
unity of the Forms themselves. I agree with them. The problem raised in the context antecedent
to the passage has to do with how pleasure and knowledge can be one and many and different
in kind.
 πρῶτον μὲν εἴ τινας δεῖ τοιαύτας εἶναι μονάδας ὑπολαμβάνειν ἀληθῶς οὔσας: εἶτα πῶς αὖ
ταύτας, μίαν ἑκάστην οὖσαν ἀεὶ τὴν αὐτὴν καὶ μήτε γένεσιν μήτε ὄλεθρον προσδεχομένην, ὅμως
εἶναι βεβαιότατα μίαν ταύτην; μετὰ δὲ τοῦτ᾽ ἐν τοῖς γιγνομένοις αὖ καὶ ἀπείροις εἴτε διεσπα-
σμένην καὶ πολλὰ γεγονυῖαν θετέον, εἴθ᾽ ὅλην αὐτὴν αὑτῆς χωρίς, ὃ δὴ πάντων ἀδυνατώτατον
282 Beatriz Bossi
Far from rejecting the Forms in the Philebus, Plato offers straight evidence that
he is persuaded that the problem of the one and the many with regard to the Mo-
nads could be solved if settled in the right way, i. e., when the proper ‘divine’
method is followed. This means that the web of Forms, taken either as the
truly real and/or as the Genera displayed in discourse and thought which refer
to the classes of things (their ontological status made no clearer here than in
the Sophist or the Statesman), should be explored in their parts and interconnec-
tions.
One proof that Plato follows Philolaus closely in the Philebus emerges here
as he makes Socrates manifest an optimistic attitude when he credits the divine
method as possessing both the ‘proper perspective’ on the one-and-many status
of the Monads and also the solution to the whole problem.
In the Sophist Plato refers to the Forms both as Ideas and Genera, without
distinguishing two different ways of being. In my view, the attribution of immor-
tality to the one-and-many status of discourse in the Philebus does not necessa-
rily mean that the Forms or Monads are replaced by the Genera displayed in dis-
course, in the Aristotelian sense, but rather that Plato wishes to keep their onto-
logical status ambiguous, as he had done in the Sophist, while giving signs in
both directions³⁶.
After analyzing the passage quoted above, Kahn³⁷ concluded that it does not
fit the context into which it has been inserted, because it concerns the problem
of participation, i. e. the question concerning the plural instantiation of a single
Form, and there is no reference to this problem in what follows, but rather to the
problem of the unity of whole and part or genus and species. Though his obser-
vation (with regard to the context of the passage) seems right to me, his conclu-
sion that the passage does not fit in does not necessarily follow. There might be
an alternative interpretation which makes sense of it.
Let us start by considering the general context and goal of the whole dia-
logue for a moment. The notion of the priority of knowledge over pleasure can
be defended when it is set in the ontological and cosmological perspective
which Plato requires to justify his thesis that pleasure in itself is unlimited
and needs to be controlled by intelligence. The imposition of Limit on the Unlim-
ited is essential if any successful process of generation is to begin, not only in the
φαίνοιτ᾽ ἄν, ταὐτὸν καὶ ἓν ἅμα ἐν ἑνί τε καὶ πολλοῖς γίγνεσθαι. ταῦτ᾽ ἔστι τὰ περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἓν
καὶ πολλά, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἐκεῖνα, ὦ Πρώταρχε, ἁπάσης ἀπορίας αἴτια μὴ καλῶς ὁμολογηθέντα καὶ
εὐπορίας [ἂν] αὖ καλῶς.
 Plato uses eidos (18 c 2; 23 c 12- e 2), genos (25 a 1; 26 d 1; de 2; 27 a 12; 25 d 3) and idea(16 b 1,
7; 25 b 6) to refer to the same thing.
 Kahn (2010) 58.
cosmological perspective, but in the psychological one as well. The ‘divine’

method of division is necessary if a classification of the genus of pleasure into
its species is to be attained, and this step is fundamental for the solution of
the problem of the relationship between knowledge and pleasure, since there
is no simple general answer to the question of the goodness of pleasure as a to-
tality, be it called a ‘Genus’, a ‘Monad’ or a ‘Form’. On the one hand, some species
of pleasure are ‘mixed’ with pain and, though necessary to make a human life
happy, cannot be admitted into the hierarchy of the good (because they are
not intrinsically good), but may ‘become good’ if the proper limit is imposed
on them, which is the job of intelligence and knowledge. On the other hand,
some species of sensible and intellectual pleasure can be accepted into the hier-
archy of the good, because they are ‘pure’ and measured by nature.
In my view, the problem of participation is in part solved in the Parmenides,
in the sense that the objections put into the mouth of Parmenides are so clumsy
that it is easy to conclude that we should not imagine that the Forms are spread
out over the many in some physical way, as if they possessed extension. Accord-
ingly, it seems to me that we can assume that Socrates’s first alternative, raised
as the third problem in the passage quoted above, has already been rejected in
the Parmenides: the Forms cannot be spread out and become multiple in a phys-
ical sense, as if they had extension.
The big difficulty pointed out in the introductory passage of the Parmenides
is the problem of being one-and-many, not in the realm of the things that come
to be and pass away, which Socrates explains without difficulty, but in the realm
of the Forms themselves.
This problem is also explored in the Sophist, where the Genera/Forms are
said to be both one and many, though in different senses: they are one because
they are the same, i. e. they keep their identity, and they are multiple because
they admit of having parts (e. g. ‘Non-being’ is a part of the Form ‘Difference’)
and because they are pervaded by other Forms (such as Being and Difference).
So we are told that we should regard the Forms as a dynamic realm which is
open to interwoven relationships.
Now, when in the Philebus Plato makes Socrates say that it would seem ‘the
most impossible thing’ that the Monads are both wholes in themselves and sep-
arated from themselves, being one and the same, both in their unity and as they
become in the many, one is tempted to think he is straightforwardly dismissing
the possibility.
However, Socrates does not say that it is the most impossible thing, only that
it would seem the most impossible thing. I take it that when Socrates explores
this alternative he is pointing out the difficulty it would present to common
sense, since it seems a contradiction in terms for the monads to be both one
284 Beatriz Bossi
in their oneness and one in their non-oneness. In my view, he is in no way dis-

missing such a possibility but rather attempting to introduce a bold alternative,
which he will adopt in the Timaeus, by appealing to the model of the paradigm-
copy. The unlimited individuals that become and pass away look like the images
in a mirror. Neither fragmented into multiple pieces nor different from the orig-
inal; they are in one sense one and the same as the original (in contemporary
terms, one would say that every individual has the same genome) though the
image will have a different ontological status from the original, since it depends
on it in its design, unity and identity.
When Socrates raises the second problem (2), he wonders: ‘How it is that
these units, though each one is always one and the same, and does not admit
either of generation or of destruction, are nevertheless most firmly one and the
same’. It is difficult to grasp the sense of this ‘nevertheless’. Kahn says that
“the adversative ὅμως ‘nevertheless’ seems out of place.”³⁸ It seems impossible
not to notice that, literarily read, there is a tautology involved. What does it mean
to ask: “How is it that what is ‘one and the same’ is nevertheless ‘one and the
same’?”
However, one could read this sentence in the light of the Sophist and under-
stand that what Socrates means here is that ‘even when pervaded by multiple
Forms’ each Monad is nevertheless most firmly one and the same. In the passage
quoted above, Socrates might be referring either to the relation of the Monads to
their internal parts or to their ‘becoming’ in the infinite number of individuals
that come to be. The solution is analogous at all levels – the level of the ‘truly
real’, the level of language and thought, and the level of the infinite number
of instances that come to be. For one instance is an instance of something as
a whole, in its totality; it is the Genus/Form completely, and cannot lack a
part of that unity. Which is why the unity is present in each instance (‘becomes’
in it) as being one and the same, with the effect that it is ‘separated’ or ‘apart’
from itself (ὅλην αὐτὴν αὑτῆς χωρίς).
In the present context, Plato needs the divine dialectical method to guide
him to the answer to the problem raised by the priority of knowledge over pleas-
ure, in order to discover the precise way in which a certain part or kind possesses
the same generic unity and in which way it is differentiated from other parts or
kinds of the same Genus, and how, in the search for a happy life, these reflec-
tions might turn out helpful in deciding which particular kinds of pleasure are
available.
 Kahn (2010) 58 n. 4.
It is not difficult to see that Socrates is here alluding to the ‘divine’ dialecti-
cal method which he has used and will use here in order to know: 1. the way in
which the Monads are one and the same in their innermost unity, despite the fact
that they are pervaded by general Forms (a point which he develops in the So-
phist); 2. the way in which the Monads are one and the same, despite their admit-
ting multiple parts (in fact, some parts inside the Genus/Monad of Pleasure are
contrary to each other: which is the subject of the Philebus); and 3. the way in
which they are one and the same in the infinite number of generated instances
that participate in them or imitate them (the problem considered in the first
part of the Parmenides).³⁹
IV
Now that Plato has discovered that the key to the method requires setting aside
the old static Forms, he focuses on the gift of the gods to wise old men:
… The things that are always said to be are derived from one and many, having Limit and
Unlimited built into their nature. This being the way in which these things are arranged in
order, we should on every subject matter conduct our inquiry by always positing a single
Form for every one of them, for we shall find that there is such a unity in each. And once
we have grasped it, we must look next for two, if there be two, and if not, for three or
some other number; and again we must treat each of those units in the same way, until
we can see not only that the original unit is one and many and infinite, but also how
many kinds it consists of. And we must not apply the Form of the unlimited to the plurality
before we know the exact number of every plurality that lies between the unlimited and the
one; only then, and not before, may we allow each kind of unity to pass on without hin-
drance into the unlimited. The gods, then, as I said, handed down to us this mode of inves-
tigating, learning, and teaching one another; but the wise men of the present day construct
the one and the many too quickly or too slowly, in haphazard fashion, and they go straight
from the one to the unlimited and omit all the intermediates that lie between them. It is
these, however, that make all the difference as to whether we are engaged with each
other in dialectical or only in eristic discussion. (Philebus, 16 c 9 – 17 a 5)⁴⁰
 Delcomminette has come to the same conclusion, finding that three problems raised at 15 b
1– 8 correspond to the three stages of dialectic presented at 16 c-d: 1. searching out one idea
relative to the whole that is being examined; 2. searching for the exact number of species or
parts it has; 3. relating the unlimited realm of individuals to these species (2006) 59 – 60.
 ‘ὡς ἐξ ἑνὸς μὲν καὶ πολλῶν ὄντων τῶν ἀεὶ λεγομένων εἶναι, πέρας δὲ καὶ ἀπειρίαν ἐν αὑτοῖς
σύμφυτον ἐχόντων. δεῖν οὖν ἡμᾶς τούτων οὕτω διακεκοσμημένων ἀεὶ μίαν ἰδέαν περὶ παντὸς
ἑκάστοτε θεμένους ζητεῖν – εὑρήσειν γὰρ ἐνοῦσαν – ἐὰν οὖν μεταλάβωμεν, μετὰ μίαν δύο, εἴ
πως εἰσί, σκοπεῖν, εἰ δὲ μή, τρεῖς ἤ τινα ἄλλον ἀριθμόν, καὶ τῶν ἓν ἐκείνων ἕκαστον πάλιν
ὡσαύτως, μέχριπερ ἂν τὸ κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς ἓν μὴ ὅτι ἓν καὶ πολλὰ καὶ ἄπειρά ἐστι μόνον ἴδῃ τις, ἀλλὰ
286 Beatriz Bossi
The analysis of this passage clearly shows evidence that Plato’s Pythagorean/
Philolaic affaire is much more important than it has been usually interpreted,
since the manifest love for the method implies, we claim, ontological assump-
tions that reach the heart of his new doctrine of the Forms.
First, like Philolaus (fr. 6; see p. 2 above), Plato makes Socrates attempt to
explain ‘how things are’.
Secondly, though Plato raises the real existence of Monads as a problem, he
also makes Socrates show that one should still posit them, since one ‘will find
that they are present’. When Socrates asserts this, one has the impression that
he is in some way echoing Philolaus’s thesis, mentioned at the beginning of
Fr. 6, that the ‘being of things is eternal’. Though Plato does not seem to be ex-
plicitly attributing eternity to the Forms here, but to be speaking rather of the
one-and-many character of discourse, each Monad is said to be ‘always one
and the same and does not admit either of generation or of destruction’ (cf. 15
b), and Dialectic is understood as knowledge of eternal entities (cf. 59 a-d).
Plato uses the expression ‘Form’ to refer to the original unities that can be
divided into parts or kinds, without making clear statements about their ontolog-
ical status. One could certainly argue that he affirms their existence, since Soc-
rates asserts that there is a Form for every instance. But he could equally well be
talking of Genera, as he had done in the Sophist. So once again, I think, we
should avoid demanding too much clearness, since Plato seems to be delibera-
tively reluctant to separate the logical aspect of the term from the ontological.
Socrates’s indication that we should know the one Form and the exact num-
ber of parts it possesses also reminds us of Philolaus’s assertion that:
all things that are known have number. For it is not 〈possible〉 that anything at all should be
thought or known without this. (Fr. 4)⁴¹
This thesis is also present in the Sophist, when the Stranger claims that each
being is one and also a multiplicity that can be expressed in number, without
which it could not be either said or thought:
καὶ ὁπόσα: τὴν δὲ τοῦ ἀπείρου ἰδέαν πρὸς τὸ πλῆθος μὴ προσφέρειν πρὶν ἄν τις τὸν ἀριθμὸν
αὐτοῦ πάντα κατίδῃ τὸν μεταξὺ τοῦ ἀπείρου τε καὶ τοῦ ἑνός, τότε δ᾽ ἤδη τὸ ἓν ἕκαστον τῶν
πάντων εἰς τὸ ἄπειρον μεθέντα χαίρειν ἐᾶν. οἱ μὲν οὖν θεοί, ὅπερ εἶπον, οὕτως ἡμῖν παρέδοσαν
σκοπεῖν καὶ μανθάνειν καὶ διδάσκειν ἀλλήλους: οἱ δὲ νῦν τῶν ἀνθρώπων σοφοὶ ἓν μέν, ὅπως ἂν
τύχωσι, καὶ πολλὰ θᾶττον καὶ βραδύτερον ποιοῦσι τοῦ δέοντος, μετὰ δὲ τὸ ἓν ἄπειρα εὐθύς, τὰ
δὲ μέσα αὐτοὺς ἐκφεύγει – οἷς διακεχώρισται τό τε διαλεκτικῶς πάλιν καὶ τὸ ἐριστικῶς ἡμᾶς
ποιεῖσθαι πρὸς ἀλλήλους τοὺς λόγους.
 καὶ πάντα γα μὰν τὰ γιγνωσκόμενα ἀριθμὸν ἒχοντι. οὐ γὰρ ὁτιῶν 〈οἶόν〉 τε οὐδὲν οὔτε
νοηθῆμεν οὔτε γνωσθῆμεν ἄνευ τούτω.
How then could a man either utter in speech or even so much as conceive in his mind
things which are not, or not-being, apart from number? (238 b 6 – 8)⁴²
This is enough to place number among the things that are (238 a 10 – 11: ἀριθμὸν
δὴ τὸν σύμπαντα τῶν ὄντων τίθεμεν).
The second part of Fr. 4 could also be inspiring Plato when he makes Socra-
tes say:
But the infinite number of individuals and the infinite number in each multiplicity makes
you in every instance indefinite in thought and of no account and not to be considered
among the wise, so long as you have never fixed your eye upon any definite number in any-
thing. (17 e 3 – 6)⁴³
This passage is connected to what has come to us as Philolaus Fr. 5:
Number indeed has two proper kinds, odd and even, and a third from both mixed together,
the even-odd. Of each of the two kinds there are many forms, of which each thing itself
gives signs. (Fr. 5)⁴⁴
This seems to suggest that every generated thing offers signs of the presence of
number in it, of its being as a mathematical intelligible structure. The thesis is
one that was dear to Plato since the time of the Protagoras and the Gorgias,
when he wanted to turn wisdom into a calculative technique, following the
model of arithmetic or geometry.
In the passage quoted above, Socrates makes the difference between dialec-
tic and eristic lie in the analysis of the species or parts of the Forms in which the
method consists, and attributes this method to ‘wise old men’. The Forms are de-
scribed as being One and Many in the Sophist, and because of this they are said
to generate in us the One and the Many in discourse and thought. Analogously in
the Philebus, the One and the Many are called a feature of discourse, and also of
the Forms, as the dialectical method shows.
This new appeal to the ‘Pythagorean’ principles of Limit and Unlimited as
necessary to generate the world does not mean that the Forms have been re-
 πῶς οὖν ἂν ἢ διὰ τοῦ στόματος φθέγξαιτο ἄν τις ἢ καὶ τῇ διανοίᾳ τὸ παράπαν λάβοι τὰ μὴ
ὄντα ἢ τὸ μὴ ὂν χωρὶς ἀριθμοῦ;
 τὸ δ᾽ ἄπειρόν σε ἑκάστων καὶ ἐν ἑκάστοις πλῆθος ἄπειρον ἑκάστοτε ποιεῖ τοῦ φρονεῖν καὶ
οὐκ ἐλλόγιμον οὐδ᾽ ἐνάριθμον, ἅτ᾽ οὐκ εἰς ἀριθμὸν οὐδένα ἐν οὐδενὶ πώποτε ἀπιδόντα.
 ὅ γα μὰν ἀριθμὸς ἔχει δύο μὲν ἲδια εἲδε, περισσὸν καὶ ἄρτιον, τρίτον δὲ ἀπ´ ἀμφοτέρον
μιχθέντων ἀρτιοπέριττον. ἑκατέρω δὲ τῶν εἲδεος πολλαὶ μορφαί, ἃς ἕκαστον αὐτὸ σημαίνει.
.
288 Beatriz Bossi
placed by these cosmological principles, for they operate on different levels. We

can nonetheless suppose there is a certain correspondence (which is not an iden-
tity) between the Cosmological level and the Ontological and Logical levels, in
the sense that at every level we must assume a particular combination of the
One and the Many.⁴⁵
I agree with Kahn that ‘the underlying cosmic structure is cited as a guaran-
tee that the method of positing a single form in every subject of inquiry will be
satisfied’ and hence ‘the cosmology is presented as objective support for the
method of division and collection’ as Plato posits a basis in reality for the meth-
od of science. He concludes, however, that it cannot be regarded as an answer to
the metaphysical problem of participation, since ‘the method has nothing to say
about particular instances, which can be dismissed eis to apeiron’; for ‘the lowest
unit of numerical analysis is the type and not the token’; so the method offers no
contribution to the solving of the problem of the relationship between the one
unchanging Form and its many perishable homonyms.⁴⁶
In my view, the relationship between the Form and its perishable homonyms
is not made explicit because it is taken for granted. It is the job of Science to ac-
count for the infinite number of instances to be found in the world of becoming
(it must be ‘universal’), but in order to do this it should not stop to consider every
single instance in itself, i. e. in its particular difference from other instances of
the same type, but should concentrate on the parts of the Forms or the classes
they belong to, and this way it will account for the infinite number of possible
instances, because every instance is somehow the same unity. This is made ex-
plicit when Socrates explores what seems the most impossible thing of all,
that the Forms are ‘both the same and one in unity and also [the same and one
as they] become in the many’ as if they were wholes separated from themselves.
One can get to recognize the particular utterance of an alpha said by someone
here and now because, as Aristotle says, ‘this alpha is an alpha’; the infinite in-
stantiations of a Form are the same Form in different ways. To allow particular
instances to disappear into an infinity of becoming does not mean that they
have been abandoned as the final goal of every inquiry. On the contrary, the
 I agree with Kahn that ‘the One and the Many are the fundamental principles that underlie
all rational thought and discourse, corresponding to the principles of Limit and Unlimited that
structure the cosmos’ Kahn (2001) 58. However, this correspondence does not mean equivalence.
For while the One and Many are the primordial principles from which the Forms are derived,
they are not necessarily to be identified with the cosmic principles that constitute the world of
change, namely Limit and Unlimitedness, since these ‘do not have obvious homonyms in the
realm of Becoming’, as Kahn says in a recent article (2010) 60 note 15.
 Kahn (2010) 64.
only way to account for them is to let go of them in their infinite becoming, where
they are displayed as different, but collect them in their eternal class, genus or
form. So in my view there are not two different notions of Dialectic, one appli-
cable to any subject matter and another that takes as its object only eternal be-
ings, but simply one Dialectic, which collects and divides all objects that are eter-
nal beings (as classes or genera are) in any field, each of them possessing instan-
ces that stretch into the infinite becoming.
V
Aristotle compares Plato’s oral teaching to that of the ‘Pythagoreans’, and says:
Now since the Forms are the causes of everything else, he supposed that their elements are
the elements of all things. Accordingly the material principle is the “Great and Small,” and
the essence 〈or formal principle〉 is the One, since the numbers are derived from the “Great
and Small” by participation in the One. In treating the One as a substance instead of a
predicate of some other entity, his teaching resembles that of the Pythagoreans, and also
agrees with it in stating that the numbers are the causes of Being in everything else; but
it is peculiar to him to posit a duality instead of the single Unlimited, and to make the Un-
limited consist of the “Great and Small.” He is also peculiar in regarding the numbers as
distinct from sensible things, whereas they hold that the things themselves are numbers,
nor do they posit an intermediate class of mathematical objects. His distinction of the
One and the numbers from ordinary things (in which he differed from the Pythagoreans)
and his introduction of the Forms were due to his investigation of discourse (the earlier
thinkers:[οἱ πρότεροι] were strangers to Dialectic)… (Met. 987 b 18 – 33)⁴⁷
On the one hand, Aristotle points out Plato’s resemblance to the Pythagoreans in
the following respects:
1) in treating the One as the truly real;
2) in considering the elements of the Forms as the elements of all things;
3) in giving the limiting role to the One; and
 Tredennick’s translation (1933) with minor changes. ἐπεὶ δ᾽ αἴτια τὰ εἴδη τοῖς ἄλλοις,
τἀκείνων στοιχεῖα πάντων ᾠήθη τῶν ὄντων εἶναι στοιχεῖα. ὡς μὲν οὖν ὕλην τὸ μέγα καὶ τὸ
μικρὸν εἶναι ἀρχάς, ὡς δ᾽ οὐσίαν τὸ ἕν: ἐξ ἐκείνων γὰρ κατὰ μέθεξιν τοῦ ἑνὸς [τὰ εἴδη] εἶναι τοὺς
ἀριθμούς. τὸ μέντοι γε ἓν οὐσίαν εἶναι, καὶ μὴ ἕτερόν γέ τι ὂν λέγεσθαι ἕν, παραπλησίως τοῖς
Πυθαγορείοις ἔλεγε, καὶ τὸ τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς αἰτίους εἶναι τοῖς ἄλλοις τῆς οὐσίας ὡσαύτως ἐκεί-
νοις: τὸ δὲ ἀντὶ τοῦ ἀπείρου ὡς ἑνὸς δυάδα ποιῆσαι, τὸ δ᾽ ἄπειρον ἐκ μεγάλου καὶ μικροῦ, τοῦτ᾽
ἴδιον: καὶ ἔτι ὁ μὲν τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς παρὰ τὰ αἰσθητά, οἱ δ᾽ ἀριθμοὺς εἶναί φασιν αὐτὰ τὰ πράγματα,
καὶ τὰ μαθηματικὰ μεταξὺ τούτων οὐ τιθέασιν. τὸ μὲν οὖν τὸ ἓν καὶ τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς παρὰ τὰ
πράγματα ποιῆσαι, καὶ μὴ ὥσπερ οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι, καὶ ἡ τῶν εἰδῶν εἰσαγωγὴ διὰ τὴν ἐν τοῖς
λόγοις ἐγένετο σκέψιν (οἱ γὰρ πρότεροι διαλεκτικῆς οὐ μετεῖχον)…
290 Beatriz Bossi
4) in conceiving numbers as causes.
On the other hand, he also points out the differences:

1) Plato posits a duality instead of the single Unlimited, and
2) he does not confuse numbers and sensible things, since he investigated ἐν
τοῖς λόγοις while the ‘earlier thinkers’ confused them, since they were
strangers to Dialectic.
Aristotle says that the thinkers antecedent to Plato did not do research into
dialectic. Now, if in the passage of the Statesman quoted above (285 a 3 – 285 b 7)
Plato is really suggesting that the Pythagoreans did not engage in dialectic, both
testimonies would be consistent. However, in the Philebus Plato seems to attrib-
ute a ‘divine path’, antecedent to Dialectic, to a peculiar person whom he hides
under the mask of Prometheus, and whom he likens to a god in the Phaedrus. I
have suggested that we have here another clue perhaps in favour of the thesis
that Plato is alluding to Philolaus when he refers to ‘the one’ who discovered
the divine method, for the ‘other smart thinkers’ did not do so. But the testimony
Aristotle gives runs counter to this, for he apparently assumes that the Pythagor-
eans antecedent to Plato did not engage in dialectic, unless he understands that
Philolaus was not a Pythagorean thinker at all, or not a Pythagorean thinker ac-
cording to his own particular conception of them as a group. This is precisely
what Zhmud has shown: when mentioning separate Pythagoreans by their
names, ‘in no place does Aristotle call them Pythagoreans, and speaking
about Pythagorean philosophy on the whole, he never gives any name’. On the
other hand, he points out that ‘the views of individual Pythagoreans are treated
quite separately from the number philosophy belonging to no person and refer-
red to as Pythagorean by Aristotle.’⁴⁸
What, finally, does Aristotle mean by ‘elements’? In the light of the last pas-
sage quoted from the Philebus, it seems that the analogy between forms and par-
ticulars is as follows: particular things are one and many because Forms are one
and many, and the way things are derives from the way Forms are constituted. In
the context of the Philebus, this means that in order to investigate, learn and
teach about pleasure one should be able to say not only that ‘this is a pleasant
thing’ because it instantiates the Form and/or belongs to the Genus ‘Pleasure’
but, in order to be a real dialectician rather than someone merely fond of discus-
sion and looking to win, one should be able to know the exact number of species
or kinds of pleasure. After that, one should analyze its nature, and be capable of
 Zhmud (1989) 280 – 1.

determining in which sense and why one species turns out to be better or worse
than another one.
What does Aristotle mean when he says that Plato distinguished the One and
numbers from ordinary things, and introduced the Forms, due to his investiga-
tion of discourse and his use of dialectic?
Dialectic is described in the Sophist as the capacity to discriminate ‘a single
form spread out all through many, each of which stands separate from the oth-
ers, and many forms that are different from each other, but are included within a
single form that is outside them’ (253 d-e). Now, it is the interweaving of the
Forms with one another which makes discourse possible for us.⁴⁹
I take Aristotle to be suggesting that the Pythagoreans did not do research
into language and thought but attempted to explain the cosmos, and, after dis-
covering the musical proportions of the scales, imagined the cosmos to be com-
posed of numbers as its principles and elements, while Plato did not make such
mistake, placing as he did the Forms and their ‘elements’ at different levels, as
causes that are ‘separated’ from particular things.
But in Aristotle’s view, if the Forms are separated, they cannot be either
causes or principles, and are hence unnecessary. In the light of our analysis of
Philebus 15 b 1-c 2 above, what Aristotle does not seem to take into account is
that Plato might be exploring the possibility that each Form is a whole in itself
and also ‘a whole apart from itself’, perhaps because he is somehow adumbrat-
ing the possibility that a Form might produce multiple ‘images’ of itself, as he
says in the Timaeus. Plato makes Socrates claim here that this alternative
‘would seem the most impossible thing of all’. But he also asserts that a Form
is ‘both the same and one in unity and also [the same and one as it] becomes
in the many’.
There is some controversy about the fact that Aristotle makes the Pythagor-
eans confuse numbers and things. When Aristotle reports that for the Pythagor-
eans ‘all things are numbers’ or ‘imitate’ numbers, Kahn comments that: …‘what
corresponds to this in the literal quotations from Philolaus is the claim that it is
by means of number and proportion that the cosmos becomes organized and
knowable for us’… (cf. Fr. 4) and …‘hence the process by which the cosmos
came into existence seems to have been conceived as analogous to a generation
of numbers’. Kahn follows Aristotle in assuming that the Pythagoreans generate
the heavens by the same process that generates natural numbers⁵⁰. Though Kahn
is aware of the fact that it is always risky to rely on Aristotle’s report of his pred-
 διὰ γὰρ τὴν ἀλλήλων τῶν εἰδῶν συμπλοκὴν ὁ λόγος γέγονεν ἡμῖν. Sophist, 259 e 4– 6.
 Kahn (2001) 27– 28.
292 Beatriz Bossi
ecessors’ views when we cannot confirm this report with original texts, in this
case he understands that the texts seem to be compatible with what Aristotle
tells us.⁵¹ Kahn claims that for Philolaus the one in the centre of the sphere is
both the central fire and also the first integer; however, he also thinks that
…‘the fact that the number one comes into being as a central fire and that the
number seven is correlated with the circle of the sun does not mean that these
numbers are simply identical with specified portions of the universe’ but in his
view appear to lead a double life, as both universals and privileged particulars.
(Italics are mine in all quotations).
Kahn’s account seems implausible to me on the following grounds:
a) Philolaus Fr. 5 clearly does not correspond to the thesis that ‘all things are
numbers’ or ‘imitate’ numbers;
b) to say that the process of generation of numbers is analogous to the process
of generation of things, is not the same as to say that ‘things are numbers’,
and
c) to accept that numbers are not ‘simply identical with portions of the universe’
means that Aristotle was wrong at attributing this identity to the Pythagor-
eans, so, Kahn should not be relying on him.
Kahn also says:
Cosmogony begins as the numbers are generated, when the Unlimited is drawn in (or
‘breathed in’) by the limiting principle (Aristotle, Physics IV.6, 213 b 22). Thus the cosmos
arises from the One by breathing, like a newborn animal. The heavens take shape, as breath
(pneuma) and void are drawn in from the Unlimited, as a separation and differentiation of
things within the sphere. ‘And this happens first in the numbers; for the void distinguishes
their nature’. As we have seen, the primitive One is not thought of as an abstract entity
but as a fiery unit with a definite position in the centre of the sphere. Thus no distinction
seems to be made here between the generation of numbers, the emergence of geometric
points, and the production of sensible magnitudes. Such conceptual refinements will be
the work of Plato and his associates.⁵² (My italics)
If we leave aside the metaphors of breath and the living animal, the salient fea-
ture of the Pythagorean account is the concept of ‘separation’ or ‘limitation’,
 This interpretation, Kahn adds, ‘has been challenged by Huffman, who claims that Philolaus
did not confuse things with numbers but that it was Aristotle (in his rather uncharitable in-
terpretation) who attributed this confusion to the Pythagoreans. On Huffman’s reading of Fr. 5
things ‘signify’ or ‘point to’ the forms of number, hence the central fire points to the number one
but it is not identical with it’.
 Kahn (2001) 29.
which produces ‘differentiation’ both in the generation of numbers and in the

generation of things. In this sense they are analogous. If we accept that the gen-
eration of numbers comes first, the Pythagoreans cannot have confused it with
one that came second. The concept of ‘void’ refers to the physical world, and per-
haps while we perhaps might have expected that the role of void in nature would
run parallel to the role of zero in arithmetic, this is a notion that apparently en-
tered the Western world only a thousand years later. In any case, though the way
of explaining the process might turn out to be confusing to our mentality, this
does not prove that the Pythagoreans really confused things and numbers. Phi-
lolaus merely says that ‘things signify numbers’, which could be understood as
meaning that things have ‘numerical formulas’ in their constitution, thanks to
which the world turns out to be a cosmos and becomes knowable to us. I cannot
consider here the problem of the sense in which the first One is or is not an ab-
stract entity (itself possibly an anachronistic term to use), but, in my view, if
numbers are taken to lead a double life, this means that the Pythagoreans did
not confuse things and numbers.⁵³
Zhmud⁵⁴ comes to the conclusion that ‘it can be safely asserted that the Py-
thagoreans did not say anything about an independent existence of number out-
side the physical world’ but for them number was ‘always the number of some-
thing’. He adds⁵⁵ that the philosophy of number was not central to the early Py-
thagoreans, since it is altogether absent in some philosophers who were enlisted
as Pythagoreans in antiquity, such as Hippasus, Alcmaeon, Menestor and Hip-
pon. Philolaus was the first of the Pythagoreans to have placed number in a phil-
osophical context. I agree with him that number in Philolaus appears in an epis-
temological context, and that his doctrine is rooted not in an earlier ‘number
theory’ but in a Pythagorean mathematics which revealed the geometrical struc-
ture of the cosmos and numerical structure of musical harmony without main-
taining that the heavenly bodies or harmonious intervals consist of numbers:
 Zhmud (1989) 288 examines Aristotle’s testimonies and concludes that his ‘attempts to
connect the cosmogonic process with number (Phys. 213 b 26 – 27) show that he had no support
in the Pythagorean tradition’.
 Ibid. 284– 5.
 Ibid. 274– 8; he finds support in Nussbaum’s arguments against the need to interpret Phi-
lolaus’s theory as attributing ‘magical powers to number, conceived of as separate entities in
their own right’, and she defends the thesis that we should translate and interpret Fr. 4 ‘in the
most straightforward and ordinary way’, as it makes sense ‘without the introduction of any extra
doctrinal apparatus’ (1979: 276 note 20).
294 Beatriz Bossi
that things are measurable does not mean that they are made of mathematical
units.⁵⁶
The assertion ‘all is number’ is absent from any Pythagorean philosopher,
and it appears for the first time only in Aristotle.⁵⁷ Zhmud also argues that the
discovery made by Hippasus (a younger contemporary of Pythagoras), that the
diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its sides, and cannot be expressed
either by a whole or by a fractional number, must have destroyed the thesis, at-
tributed to the Pythagoreans by Aristotle, that things consist of numbers. So the
doctrine of number as the essence of all things was neither Pythagorean nor Pla-
tonic, but ‘owes its birth to the disciples of Plato, and in the first place to Aris-
totle’.⁵⁸
In my view, the young Plato agreed with the Pythagoreans and Philolaus that
things have number. On the one hand, since there is a kind of measure that sets
the ‘formula’ which makes things what they are, he picked this model and ap-
plied it to the world of political and ethical decisions, which were made to de-
pend on the art of measurement (Gorgias, Protagoras, Republic).
On the other hand, with regard to the world of generation, things are said to
be one and many, and in the Philebus this is due to the presence of limit and un-
limitedness in their natural constitution. However, in his mature stage Plato
made the world depend on substantial principles as paradigms: the forms. Tak-
ing these as models, the Demiurge in the Timaeus is described as proceeding
 Zhmud (1998) 121– 149: Aristotle misunderstood Pythagorean cosmology as their ‘number
theory’, and his construction includes the ideas of some later Pythagoreans (such as Philolaus)
combined with various interpretations of Pythagoreanism offered in the Platonic Academy. This
author offers an interesting example of the way Aristotle builds the Pythagorean number phi-
losophy from this material: on the one hand, he says that, since they considered the number ten
to be perfect, they make the counter-earth the tenth heavenly body (cf. Met. 986 a 10). On the
other hand, he contradicts himself, since he also says at De Caelo (293 b 21) that the counter-
earth was introduced in order to explain why lunar eclipses are more frequent than those of the
sun. Now Philolaus could not have introduced the counter-earth because he was fixated on the
number ten, for he had ten bodies in his system (counting Hestia). In fact, before Aristotle, the
Pythagoreans say nothing on the perfection of the decad; Aristotle connects it with the Plato-
nists more often than with the Pythagoreans, and the early Academy developed a specific
metaphysical theory on the number ten, set forth by Speusippus in the work ‘On the Pythagorean
Numbers’ that identified the tetraktys with the perfect decad.
 Aristotle is likely to have found some support in Philolaus and other possible sources, such
as Ecphantus, who started the doctrine of number atomism and apparently was not followed by
anyone else, and Philolaus’s disciple Eurytus, who compose figures of a man or a horse based
on early Pythagorean development of ‘figured numbers’, but, according to Zhmud, it is hard to
believe that he attached deep meaning to his activity, in spite of Aristotle’s testimony.
 Ibid. 279.
more geometrico, according to certain mathematical proportions, in order to cre-

ate the world, and that is why the Platonic world, as Galileo said, also turns out
to be ‘written in mathematical characters’.
But the doctrine that ‘things are numbers’ attested to by Aristotle in this pas-
sage (987 b 18 – 33) as well as other passages (such as Met. 986 a 16; 987 b 28;
1083 b 11), and the thesis that ‘numbers are the elements of things’, as if ideal
rational entities were identified with extended things (cf. 986 a 2; 986 a 18),
sound like Aristotle’s own interpretation of his Pythagoreans, who turn out to
be closer to his fellows at the Academy than to the first disciples of Pythagoras.⁵⁹
VI
Philolaus indicates that the two steps to be followed in each area of enquiry are:
the determining of a limited number of principles relevant to knowledge in each
domain, and the finding of a harmonia or bond that holds them together, in
order to constitute a cosmos. Now I should like to show that these are precisely
the steps that inspired the fundamental procedures that are followed by Plato, in
his attempt to argue for the priority of knowledge over pleasure, which could be
summarized as follows:
1. Socrates establishes a certain number of formal characteristics of the su-
preme good for human beings;
2. He determines which are the species that constitute both genera involved,
namely, pleasure and knowledge;
3. He compares the two, with the formal characteristics as his criteria, and con-
cludes they are different in nature and even opposite to each other;
4. He decides how the species of both genera are to be mixed or arranged, and
which one is to determine the happy life as a whole for human beings; for
measure is the cause of the success of the mixture (64 d-e);
5. He sets what the three aspects of the good are: beauty, proportion and truth
(65 a);
 Ibid., 282. Zhmud (1998) also shows that though Aristotle assigns the table of the ten
opposites to some group of Pythagoreans, what we have is, as Burkert claims (51), ‘a continuous
transition between Pythagorean and Platonic’, while some opposites really important for the
Pythagoreans such as cold-hot, moist-dry are absent. Equally confused is the issue of number
symbolism: we find in the Academic tradition all the material needed for the construction of the
Pythagorean definitions.
296 Beatriz Bossi
6. He constitutes the hierarchy of the good, by adding to these ‘aspects’ or

ideas the species of knowledge and of pleasure that can be admitted into
this final order.
At the second step, Socrates seeks to establish a certain number of species of

pleasure and knowledge, in order to determine which ones are superior and
should be admitted in the happy life and which ones should be discarded. As
all kinds of knowledge are finally admitted into the mixture of the happy
human life, the essential distinctions concern pleasure. Pure pleasures are care-
fully distinguished from those that are mixed with pain; true pleasures, which
are sound and do not create illusions, but are accompanied by true opinion,
are separated from false ones; and pleasures necessary to life and happiness
are separated from the extreme, intense pleasures that the majority pursues as
the best. In a sense these classifications tend to set different criteria for separat-
ing pleasures that are acceptable from ones that should be rejected. Pure pleas-
ures and truly necessary pleasures can be included in the happy life inasmuch as
they are moderate, while false and intense pleasures should be avoided.
In the context of the Philebus pleasure⁶⁰ is Unlimited in itself at the level of
the one (Monad, Form or Genus) (31 a 7– 10) and hence cannot be known, but as
soon as a pleasant thing is generated, it necessarily accepts some Limit so as to
become one particular thing.⁶¹ Now, the Unlimited admits of degrees. Some de-
sires for pleasure are measured ontologically, in the sense that they neither grow
to excess nor cause pain. The objects of those types of desire are akin to knowl-
edge and intelligence, and intrinsically good, and so they can be included in the
hierarchy of the good, standing in fifth place. Such are the ‘pure’ pleasures, ei-
ther the intellectual ones or the aesthetic (e. g. those that accompany the scien-
ces, and certain perfumes and beautiful geometrical configurations). By contrast,
some desires for pleasure tend to grow without measure and cause intense pain,
due to the impossibility of attaining the desired object. These pleasures are not
akin to knowledge and intelligence, and turn out to be very difficult to govern. In
the final analysis Plato has Socrates classify particular pleasures into unlimited
and limited:
 On the question of how consistent Plato is with regard to the ‘unlimited’ character of
pleasure in the Philebus, see Bossi (2010 b).
 ‘Let us firmly keep it in mind that… pleasure itself is unlimited and belongs to the kind that in
and by itself neither possesses nor will ever possess a beginning, middle or end’ (31 a). However,
since pleasure is described as a ‘coming-into-being’ (54 c 6 – 11), it should belong to the class of
the mixture of the unlimited and the limit: ‘I treat all the joint offspring of the other two kinds as a
unity, a coming-into-being created through the measures imposed by the limit’ (26 d).
And now that we have fairly well separated the pure pleasures and those which may be
pretty correctly called impure, let us add the further statement that the intense pleasures
are without measure and those of the opposite sort have measure; those which admit of
greatness and intensity and are often or seldom great or intense we shall assign to the
class of the infinite, which circulates more or less freely through the body and soul
alike, the other kinds of pleasure we will assign to the class of those things that have meas-
ure. (52 c1 – d 1)⁶²
Such are the necessary pleasures of sex, food and drink that are absent in the
ranking of the good.⁶³ Both types of desire are ‘desires for pleasure’, i. e. they be-
long to the same general unity, but not in the same way. Pleasure is a unity that
includes contrary species in itself: some are pure and good and others are mixed
with pain and necessary to life, whereas their goodness depends on an external
factor: the power of intelligence to set limits to them. Unlimited in its source,
erotic pleasure is ‘saved’ by Aphrodite, the protector goddess who has imposed
limit on it (26 b 7 – c 1).
Throughout the dialogues Plato maintains a consistent view on this: the
good is to be identified with order (se, e. g. Gorgias 504 d; 506 d 5; Republic
587 a, and Laws 673 e, 780 d, 853 b, 875 d).
In the Philebus Plato introduces Intelligence as the ‘efficient cause’ that im-
poses Limit on the Unlimited to produce the cosmos. But he also uses this prin-
ciple in an analogous way when it comes to producing a happy life. Aphrodite is
said to save erotic pleasure by setting limits to it, and, in my view, we are expect-
ed to imitate her in our lives (26 b 7-c 1). Once Socrates has established the in-
gredients of the happy life, namely, knowledge and pleasure, the key is to
know the formula that makes for a good recipe, that is, the proportion of the mix-
ture. It will consist of a large amount of ‘healthy water’, i. e. all kinds of knowl-
edge are to be included, with some drops of true pleasures stemming from the
‘fountain of honey’. (61 c 4– 8)⁶⁴ Knowledge and intelligence should predomi-
 οὐκοῦν ὅτε μετρίως ἤδη διακεκρίμεθα χωρὶς τάς τε καθαρὰς ἡδονὰς καὶ τὰς σχεδὸν ἀκα-
θάρτους ὀρθῶς ἂν λεχθείσας, προσθῶμεν τῷ λόγῳ ταῖς μὲν σφοδραῖς ἡδοναῖς ἀμετρίαν, ταῖς δὲ
μὴ τοὐναντίον ἐμμετρίαν: καὶ 〈τὰς〉 τὸ μέγα καὶ τὸ σφοδρὸν αὖ 〈δεχομένας〉, καὶ πολλάκις καὶ
ὀλιγάκις γιγνομένας τοιαύτας, τῆς τοῦ ἀπείρου γε ἐκείνου καὶ ἧττον καὶ μᾶλλον διά τε σώματος
καὶ ψυχῆς φερομένου προσ]θῶμεν αὐτὰς εἶναι γένους, τὰς δὲ μὴ τῶν ἐμμέτρων.
 On the meaning of the quotation from Orpheus and the need to terminate the list at the sixth
generation, see Bossi (2010 a).
 Aristotle seems to offer us a testimony which could be attributed to Philolaus, when he says
‘And there is another view about the soul which is handed down, too… for they say it is a kind of
harmony. For in fact harmony is a mixture and blending of contraries’ (On the Soul, 407 b 27– 31).
Here Plato describes happiness in terms of serenity, as a proportioned mixture of contraries
298 Beatriz Bossi
nate over pleasure in order to produce a happy life every time a decision is to be
taken. Our intellect should imitate the cosmic Intelligence by imposing limit on
pleasure by using the knowledge it has about particular facts and circumstances
relative to us.
When Socrates establishes the kinds of pleasure they should admit into the
mixture that produces a happy life, he places the pure, true ones first, and then
the necessary ones, under the guidance of intellect and wisdom, so as to avoid
their becoming extremely violent and intense and provoking internal rupture.
For, as he says earlier on in the dialogue:
Pleasure and pain may rather turn out to share the predicament of hot and cold and other
such things that are welcome at one point but unwelcome at another, because they are not
good, even though it happens that some of them do occasionally assume a beneficial na-
ture. (32 d 3 – 6)⁶⁵
This is why it is necessary to consider them on each occasion with the aid of
knowledge and intelligence, instead of setting out absolute general views with
regard to them, for they do not belong to the same species, and because they
are, in principle, akin to the Unlimited.
At this point he says that:
to me at least it seems that our discussion has arrived at the design of what might be called
an incorporeal order that rules harmoniously over a body possessed by a soul. (64 b 6 – 8)⁶⁶
Philolaus says that ‘things that were unlike and of a different kind and rank, had
to be bonded together by a harmony, if they were to be held in an order’ (Fr. 6).
One of the most important goals of the Philebus is to show that pleasure and
knowledge are unlike, and different in kind and rank, in their origin and their
affinities, so that they need to be bonded together by a harmony to create an or-
derly, happy life. This harmony cannot be provided by pleasure, which tends to
grow without limit, but only by intellect or reason. It is her role to calculate the
right measure to take. But this thesis is not new.
which are different in rank, namely, knowledge and pleasure. Due to the fact that they are
different, they need to be harmonized by intellect.
 ἡδονῇ δὲ καὶ λύπῃ, καθάπερ θερμῷ καὶ ψυχρῷ καὶ πᾶσι τοῖς τοιούτοις, τοτὲ μὲν ἀσπαστέον
αὐτά, τοτὲ δὲ οὐκ ἀσπαστέον, ὡς ἀγαθὰ μὲν οὐκ ὄντα, ἐνίοτε δὲ καὶ ἔνια δεχόμενα τὴν τῶν
ἀγαθῶν ἔστιν ὅτε φύσιν.
 ἐμοὶ μὲν γὰρ καθαπερεὶ κόσμος τις ἀσώματος ἄρξων καλῶς ἐμψύχου σώματος ὁ νῦν λόγος
ἀπειργάσθαι φαίνεται.
VII
In the Gorgias Plato has Socrates draw upon ‘wise men’ in his efforts to persuade
Callicles, whose lust for power and pleasure is attributed to his neglect of geom-
etry:
Yes, Callicles, wise men claim that partnership and friendship, orderliness, self-control, and
justice hold together heaven and earth, and gods and men, and that is why they call this
universe a world-order, my friend, and not an undisciplined world-disorder. I believe
that you do not pay attention to these facts, even though you are a wise man in these mat-
ters. You have failed to notice that proportioned equality (ἰσότης) has great power among
both gods and men, and you suppose that you ought to practice getting the greater share
(πλεονεξία). That’s because you neglect geometry. (507 e 6 – 508 a 8)⁶⁷
Though the idea of world-order goes back to Miletus, I agree with Kahn⁶⁸ that
Plato probably has in mind a view that is specifically Pythagorean, and also
with Burkert’s suggestion that there is a possible reference to Archytas here.⁶⁹
In my view, it is evident that the passage in the Gorgias could have been inspired
by what has come down to us as Archytas Fr. 3 6 – 8:
When calculation is discovered, it puts an end to civil strife and reinforces concord. Where
this is present, greed disappears and is replaced by equality. It is by calculation that we are
able to come to terms in dealing with one another.⁷⁰
 φασὶ δ᾽ οἱ σοφοί, ὦ Καλλίκλεις, καὶ οὐρανὸν καὶ γῆν καὶ θεοὺς καὶ ἀνθρώπους τὴν κοινωνίαν
συνέχειν καὶ φιλίαν καὶ κοσμιότητα καὶ σωφροσύνην καὶ δικαιότητα, καὶ τὸ ὅλον τοῦτο διὰ
ταῦτα κόσμον καλοῦσιν, ὦ ἑταῖρε, οὐκ ἀκοσμίαν οὐδὲ ἀκολασίαν. σὺ δέ μοι δοκεῖς οὐ προσέχειν
τὸν νοῦν τούτοις, καὶ ταῦτα σοφὸς ὤν, ἀλλὰ λέληθέν σε ὅτι ἡ ἰσότης ἡ γεωμετρικὴ καὶ ἐν θεοῖς
καὶ ἐν ἀνθρώποις μέγα δύναται, σὺ δὲ πλεονεξίαν οἴει δεῖν ἀσκεῖν: γεωμετρίας γὰρ ἀμελεῖς.
 Kahn (2001) 53 – 54.
 Kahn (2001) 54 note 35. Huffman thinks that this fragment is the background to a number of
passages in Plato: Gorgias 507 e ff.; Euthyphro 7b ff.; Protagoras, 356 d, and Philebus. But he
remarks that ‘Plato saw difficulties in supposing that mathematical calculation could solve
moral problems’ (2005) 191. Though he might be aware of these problems, Plato remained
faithful to the power of reasoning and calculus in he production of wisdom and happiness. This
is not of course a simple calculus of the punishment one might undergo if one has acted
unjustly, or the more intense pleasures one can obtain by rejecting minor pleasures of the same
kind (Cf. Phaedo 69) It implies, rather, a dialectical reflection on the different kinds of life one
can choose, and those ends which truly are ends, in light of our relationship with the gods, the
cosmos and the other citizens.
 στάσιν μὲν ἔπαυσεν, ὁμόνοιαν δὲ αὔξησεν λογισμὸς εὑρεθεὶς. πλεονεξία τε γὰρ οὐκ ἔστι
τούτου γενομένου καὶ ἰσότας ἔστιν· τούτῳ γὰρ περὶ τῶν συναλλαγμάτων διαλλασσόμεθα.
300 Beatriz Bossi
But we also have the testimony of Plutarch, who apparently attributes to Philo-
laus the claim that ‘geometry is the principle and mother city of the other [tech-
niques or sciences]’ (Table Talks, 718 e (A7a)). In the Protagoras, calculation plays
an important role too, but it is not a mere question of calculating the reactions
which others could have against the abuses one commits, or the punishment the
laws prescribe for those who commit injustice.
At the end of this dialogue, Socrates wants to persuade the sophists by using
their own weapons. They seem to have agreed that pleasure is the goal. If this is
so, Socrates deduces, one should aim for the greatest of them. He observes that
immediate pleasures differ from pleasures and pains that come at a later time
only by the relative weight of pleasure or of pain involved:
[…] for there is no other way that they could differ.⁷¹ Weighing is a good analogy; you put
the pleasures together and the pains together, both the near and the remote, on the balance
scale, and then say which of the two is more. For if you weigh pleasant things against
pleasant, the greater and the more must always be taken; if painful things against painful,
the fewer and the smaller. (356 a 8 – b 5)⁷²
Once Protagoras assents to the thesis that one has to perform the action in which
the pleasant prevails, Socrates starts his counterattack. As things look larger be-
cause they are near at hand, and smaller when seen from a distance, the art of
measuring is essential if we are not to become confused by the power of appear-
ance. And here Plato introduces his own conviction that pleasures and passions
have a kind of ‘natural measure’, in the way physical objects do. The argument
constitutes a turning point. It is not a question of getting the most intense pleas-
ures at all cost (something the sophists would happily agree on), but of using the
Pythagorean art of calculating or measuring the authentic pleasures of life, so as
not to get confused on the matter:
 He is referring to sensible pleasures and pains of the same type, and is likely comparing
different pleasures that satisfy the appetites. As such, they cannot be ranked. For a parallel
passage in the Phaedo (69 a 6 – c 2) see Bossi (2001). Exchanging less intense pleasures for
greater ones in terms of the appetites is in Plato’s view not worth doing, and typical of slaves,
and the philosopher should exchange them all for the attainment of a single treasure: wisdom.
For wisdom constitutes the virtue that can on every occasion help us decide whether a particular
pleasure or pain or feeling of fear or love is good for us.
 οὐ γὰρ ἔσθ᾽ ὅτῳ ἄλλῳ. ἀλλ᾽ ὥσπερ ἀγαθὸς ἱστάναι ἄνθρωπος, συνθεὶς τὰ ἡδέα καὶ συνθεὶς τὰ
λυπηρά, καὶ τὸ ἐγγὺς καὶ τὸ πόρρω στήσας ἐν τῷ ζυγῷ, εἰπὲ πότερα πλείω ἐστίν. ἐὰν μὲν γὰρ
ἡδέα πρὸς ἡδέα ἱστῇς, τὰ μείζω ἀεὶ καὶ πλείω ληπτέα: ἐὰν δὲ λυπηρὰ πρὸς λυπηρά, τὰ ἐλάττω
καὶ σμικρότερα.
While the power of appearance often makes us wander all over the place in confusion,
often changing our minds about the same things and regretting our actions and choices
with respect to things large and small, the art of measuring, in contrast, would make the
appearances lose their power by showing us the truth, would give us peace of mind firmly
rooted in the truth and would save our life (…) What if our salvation in life depended on our
choices of odd and even, when the greater and the lesser had to be counted correctly, either
the same kind against itself or one kind against the other, whether it be near or remote?
What then would save our life? Surely nothing other than knowledge, specifically some
kind of measurement, since that is the art of the greater and the lesser? In fact, nothing
other than arithmetic, since it is a question of the odd and the even? (…) Since it has turned
out that our salvation in life depends on the right choice of pleasures and pains, be they
more or fewer, greater or lesser, farther or nearer, does not our salvation seem, first of
all, measurement, which is the study of relative excess and deficiency and equality? (356
d 4– 357 b 3)⁷³
This way, knowledge is identified with the art of measuring or calculating the au-
thentic pleasures and pains of life. Nothing is stronger or better than knowledge,
which always prevails, whenever it is present, over pleasure and everything else,
and those who make mistakes with regard to the choice of pleasure and pain, in
other words, with regard to good and bad, do so because of a failure to measure
(Protagoras 357 b-e).
Plato uses ‘knowledge’ because he is comparing it to arithmetic, which is a
science, but he also calls it an ‘art or technique’, while on other occasions in this
dialogue he refers to it as ‘wisdom’. I understand that the best way to translate
the referent is ‘practical wisdom’ for it is the knowledge we need to lead our lives
and achieve serenity and emotional stability. This way we do not need to adopt
an Aristotelian perspective that attributes an intellectualistic doctrine to Socra-
tes.⁷⁴
 ἢ αὕτη μὲν ἡμᾶς ἐπλάνα καὶ ἐποίει ἄνω τε καὶ κάτω πολλάκις μεταλαμβάνειν ταὐτὰ καὶ
μεταμέλειν καὶ ἐν ταῖς πράξεσιν καὶ ἐν ταῖς αἱρέσεσιν τῶν μεγάλων τε καὶ σμικρῶν, ἡ δὲ
μετρητικὴ ἄκυρον μὲν ἂν ἐποίησε τοῦτο τὸ φάντασμα, δηλώσασα δὲ τὸ ἀληθὲς ἡσυχίαν ἂν
ἐποίησεν ἔχειν τὴν ψυχὴν μένουσαν ἐπὶ τῷ ἀληθεῖ καὶ ἔσωσεν ἂν τὸν βίον; […] τί δ᾽ εἰ ἐν τῇ τοῦ
περιττοῦ καὶ ἀρτίου αἱρέσει ἡμῖν ἦν ἡ σωτηρία τοῦ βίου, ὁπότε τὸ πλέον ὀρθῶς ἔδει ἑλέσθαι καὶ
ὁπότε τὸ ἔλαττον, ἢ αὐτὸ πρὸς ἑαυτὸ ἢ τὸ ἕτερον πρὸς τὸ ἕτερον, εἴτ᾽ ἐγγὺς εἴτε πόρρω εἴη; τί
ἂν ἔσῳζεν ἡμῖν τὸν βίον; ἆρ᾽ ἂν οὐκ ἐπιστήμη; καὶ ἆρ᾽ ἂν οὐ μετρητική τις, ἐπειδήπερ ὑπερβολῆς
τε καὶ ἐνδείας ἐστὶν ἡ τέχνη; ἐπειδὴ δὲ περιττοῦ τε καὶ ἀρτίου, ἆρα ἄλλη τις ἢ ἀριθμητική; […]
ἐπεὶ δὲ δὴ ἡδονῆς τε καὶ λύπης ἐν ὀρθῇ τῇ αἱρέσει ἐφάνη ἡμῖν ἡ σωτηρία τοῦ βίου οὖσα, τοῦ τε
πλέονος καὶ ἐλάττονος καὶ μείζονος καὶ σμικροτέρου καὶ πορρωτέρω καὶ ἐγγυτέρω, ἆρα πρῶτον
μὲν οὐ μετρητικὴ φαίνεται, ὑπερβολῆς τε καὶ ἐνδείας οὖσα καὶ ἰσότητος πρὸς ἀλλήλας σκέψις;
 I cannot argue for my interpretation against Aristotle’s intellectualistic reading of the Pro-
tagoras here. See Bossi (2003) and (2008).
302 Beatriz Bossi
In the Republic, Plato uses the divine method to classify pleasures into the
pure ones that offer real replenishment, and the mixed ones that only satisfy
for a while and are preceded by pain or need:
And which kinds partake more of pure being? Kinds of filling up such as filling up with
bread or drink or delicacies or food in general? Or the kind of filling up that is with true
belief, knowledge, understanding, and in sum with all of virtue? Judge it this way: That
which is related to what is always the same, immortal, and true, is itself of that kind,
and comes to be in something of that kind, this is more, don’t you think, than that
which is related to what is never the same and mortal, is itself of that kind and comes
to be in something of that kind? (585 b 12 – c 5)⁷⁵
Here we find a justification for Plato’s thesis that knowledge is superior to sen-
sible pleasure, as it is akin to what is ‘always the same and true’, i. e. to the
Forms, while in the Philebus Plato appeals to the relation of knowledge to
Limit to claim its superiority. And Limit, being a principle, is ‘always the
same’. But one of his arguments, too, goes in the same direction, for when Soc-
rates explores the nature of pleasure, he claims that if every pleasure consisted
of a certain process of generation, it would be merely instrumental in regard to
the being constituting its final end (54 a 5), and in this sense it could not be a
good. That is why sensible intense necessary pleasures cannot be included in
the final hierarchy of the good as such.
In the Republic Plato has Socrates ask:
And isn’t it generally true that the kinds of filling up that are concerned with the care of the
body share less in truth and being than those concerned with the care of the soul? (585 d
1– 3)⁷⁶
He then argues as follows:
If being filled with what is appropriate to our nature is pleasure, that which is more filled
with things that are more, enjoys more really and truly a more true pleasure, while that
 πότερα οὖν ἡγῇ τὰ γένη μᾶλλον καθαρᾶς οὐσίας μετέχειν, τὰ οἷον σίτου τε καὶ ποτοῦ καὶ
ὄψου καὶ συμπάσης τροφῆς, ἢ τὸ δόξης τε ἀληθοῦς εἶδος καὶ ἐπιστήμης καὶ νοῦ καὶ συλλήβδην
αὖ πάσης ἀρετῆς; ὧδε δὲ κρῖνε: τὸ τοῦ ἀεὶ ὁμοίου ἐχόμενον καὶ ἀθανάτου καὶ ἀληθείας, καὶ αὐτὸ
τοιοῦτον ὂν καὶ ἐν τοιούτῳ γιγνόμενον, μᾶλλον εἶναί σοι δοκεῖ, ἢ τὸ μηδέποτε ὁμοίου καὶ
θνητοῦ, καὶ αὐτὸ τοιοῦτον καὶ ἐν τοιούτῳ γιγνόμενον;
 οὐκοῦν ὅλως τὰ περὶ τὴν τοῦ σώματος θεραπείαν γένη γῶν γενῶν αὖ τῶν περὶ τὴν τῆς
ψυχῆς θεραπείαν ἧττον ἀληθείας τε καὶ οὐσίας μετέχει;
which partakes of things that are less, is less truly and surely filled and partakes of a less
trustworthy and less true pleasure. (585 d 11-e 4)⁷⁷
The crucial distinction between true and false pleasures, analyzed in full in the
Philebus, and adumbrated in the Protagoras, stands firm. But the justification for
it is here related to ontological truth. As the Forms are the truly real, any expe-
rience that is related to them is more real and more revealing and more pleasant
than any other.
Those who have no experience of reason and virtue but are always occupied
with feasting and the like, are said to be ‘wandering’ throughout their lives, like
those people in the Protagoras who cannot calculate authentic pleasures. The
majority of people ‘never look up and never taste any stable or pure pleasure’,
but ‘like cattle’, they live ‘with their heads bent over the dinner table, feeding,
fattening and fornicating’, for their desires are insatiable, like a vessel full of
holes (586 a – b). The comparison reminds us of the myth of the Gorgias, and
the description parallels a passage at the end of the Philebus (67 b).
VIII
In conclusion, not only is the ‘Pythagorean/Philolaic’ method essential for doing
research into a certain subject, but the ontological and ethical results of Plato’s
investigation of pleasure and the good are ‘Pythagorean/Philolaic’ as well.
In the Gorgias, Socrates appeals to geometry and the cosmic order resulting
from measure to teach Callicles that he should impose measure and limit upon
his unlimited desire for sensible pleasure and power, since otherwise his search
for infinite pleasure will turn out to be an endless, frustrating, painful experi-
ence.
In the Protagoras, Socrates appeals to arithmetic as a form of knowledge
analogous to the one we need to save us from confused wandering about, and
then repenting as we finally distinguish true pleasures and pains from ones
that deceive us by their immediate intensity. Pleasure admits of a ‘natural meas-
ure’, and this needs to be calculated.
In the Republic we are told that one should calculate which are the purest
and highest pleasures by considering their relation to the Forms. The criterion
 εἰ ἄρα τὸ πληροῦσθαι τῶν φύσει προσηκόντων ἡδύ ἐστι, τὸ τῷ ὄντι καὶ τῶν ὄντων πλη-
ρούμενον μᾶλλον μᾶλλον ὄντως τε καὶ ἀληθεστέρως χαίρειν ἂν ποιοῖ ἡδονῇ ἀληθεῖ, τὸ δὲ τῶν
ἧττον ὄντων μεταλαμβάνον ἧττόν τε ἂν ἀληθῶς καὶ βεβαίως πληροῖτο καὶ ἀπιστοτέρας ἂν
ἡδονῆς καὶ ἧττον ἀληθοῦς μεταλαμβάνοι.
304 Beatriz Bossi
for superiority remains analogous in the Philebus, for what is firmly ‘the same’ in
itself, even when multiple, like the Forms in their new status after the Sophist,
sets the pattern for classifying the various types of pleasure and knowledge
into a formal ranking.
‘Limit’ saves pleasure, and ‘measure’, ‘the measured’ and ‘the timely’ come
first in the hierarchy of what is good outlined at the end of the dialogue (Cf. 66 a-
d). They have to come first, because measure is the key characteristic of the good,
since it causes the proper mixture (cf. 64 d-e), and, in my view, also causes or
determines the other two aspects of the good, namely, beauty and truth.
The second rank goes to the well-proportioned and beautiful, the perfect and
self-sufficient. For as there is no beauty without proportion, symmetry and the
like, and no self-sufficiency or real fulfilment without calculation and self-con-
trol, these clearly derive in some way from the occupant of the first rank in
the hierarchy, measure.
The third rank is bestowed upon reason and intelligence, a decision which
‘cannot stray from truth’. Intelligence is the efficient cause which produces the
cosmos by applying Limit to the unlimited, and human intelligence is in charge
of configuring our micro-cosmos by introducing measure and limit into our lives.
It is not difficult to see how measure should also determine truth, since a true
statement requires that the parts of speech, which according to the Sophist are
always true, keep a proper relationship among themseves, and that relationship
depends on a certain ‘proportion’ between what is said and what is the case,
which, in Plato’s view in the Sophist, implies that the seeker after truth has
the appropriate Models, the Monads, always in sight. Truth is produced in scien-
tific discourse when the relationship between the parts of the speech displays
the exact number of species that belong to the Monads, as is said at the begin-
ning of the Philebus, in the passage analyzed above.
Sciences, skills and true opinions come next in the hierarchy: they are more
akin to the good than to pleasure because they are akin to limit and measure, and
are hence able to capture unities and their various species. ‘De-fining’ means set-
ting out limits, which requires perceiving clear contrasts and similarities. Practi-
cal wisdom, can even impose limits on unlimited pleasures. The pure painless
pleasures attached to the sciences and even to sense-perception (such as the
pleasures afforded by some perfumes, and by the sight of various geometrical
configurations) come last in the ranking, because, as was indicated earlier,
they are measured by nature.
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Fernando Santoro
Epicharmus and the plagiarism of Plato¹
The study of Pythagorean philosophy, as well as the study of philosophy of the
Pre-Socratics in general, is inseparable from the study of its transmission and re-
ception by subsequent philosophers and other authors. This is due not only to
the contingent fact that in most cases only quotations and allusions survive
from pre-Platonic philosophy, but also, particularly in the case of the Pythagor-
eans, to the fact that their very precepts included prescriptions about what can
and cannot be said in public, precepts that thus also imply what can or cannot
be written. Even when a doctrine of theirs could be written, the way it was writ-
ten probably varied according to the intended audience, in order to be appropri-
ate to the audience’s degree of initiation. However, these limits did not prevent
the spread and success of the ideas attributed to Pythagoras, whether these ideas
went back to the Master himself, being transmitted from members belonging to
the inner circle, or came from other sources that show, nevertheless, some doc-
trinal resemblance to those teachings. Instead of preventing the spread of these
doctrines, it is possible that this emulation even stimulated it, first of all because
of the curiosity that situations of secrecy and mystery generally arise in people.
Therefore, Pythagoreanism as a historical category was constructed neither from
a precise lineage of teaching nor from a well defined doctrinal corpus, but rather
it took its form as a fluid, diffuse assemblage of ideas which were themselves
equally fluid and diffuse, and which were concerned with matters ranging
from dietary rules to moral prescriptions and even political ideology to views
about the nature of life, the universe and the fundamental constitution of beings
in general.
Thus, historical and literary categories such as ‘authentic’, ‘false’ or ‘spuri-
ous’ do not make the same sense as when we use them in order to evaluate and
interpret the corpora of other schools and of other more well-defined authors. If,
on one hand, from a historical viewpoint, Pythagoras, his teachings and the cir-
cle of his disciples belong much more to the realm of legend, on the other hand
 Philosophy Department of Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

A first, quite different, version of this paper has been published in Portuguese: “Platão e o plágio
de Epicarmo”, Archai 8, jan-jun 2012, p. 11– 20. – I am very grateful to Gabriele Cornelli for
having invited me to participate in the Brasilia Conference On Pythagoreanism in August 2011; to
Richard McKirahan and Constantin Macris for their helpful proof-reading and comments on this
paper; to Carla Francalanci for the translation into English; to Luc Brisson for bibliographical
information and generous discussion, and especially to Livio Rossetti for his philosophical
gastronomic advice.
308 Fernando Santoro
it does not prevent us from examining the ideas conveyed by these legends. In
particular, it does not prevent us from studying the ideas that, for whatever rea-
son, the tradition associates with these legends. Thus we can broadly say that
Pythagoreanism, taken as a historical category, can be determined by the simple
expression of an author’s intent to link a particular group of ideas to the Pytha-
gorean lineage. From this point of view there is no such thing as a pure or au-
thentic ‘Pythagoreanism’; we can talk only about a certain ‘Pythagoreanism’
which shows forth according to this or that source text. This mention of the
source or route of transmission would spare us the necessity of classifying any
text as false or inauthentic. It means that the desire to simulate Pythagorean pre-
cepts, ideas and texts is precisely what was built through history as the move-
ment of transmission and propagation of ideas which we call nowadays ‘Pytha-
goreanism’. I would like to emphasize this point: what constitutes what I refer to
in this paper as Pythagoreanism is not the supposed criterial work of doctrinal
and textual preservation, which is the aim and task of a philologist, but the de-
sire to emulate as a disciple, or rather, the desire to emulate the master and to
simulate his ideas.
I will also argue that this very broad and generous definition of Pythagorean-
ism as a historical category has a more rigorous epistemological postulate than
the one which intends to distinguish authentic testimonies from false ones. I
claim it because the definition I present does not depend on the illusion shared
by philological positivism, in which one believes that it is possible to reach the
very object of emulation or simulation given by tradition: following this direc-
tion, one converts the research into a desire for an ‘original lost object’. However,
it is obvious to me that the criterion for evaluating a text cannot be its lost refer-
ence, but only the source of transmission itself. It is in this source text that we
find both an effectively formulated expression and the intention to emulate and
simulate something or someone. In the other approach rigor lies in the authorial
assignment of the source and in the scrutiny of its intention of emulating a mas-
ter, and therefore of imitating or simulating his ideas. A consequence of this epis-
temological postulate, which I intend to unfold in the following lines, is to con-
sider philosophical and historiographical texts in the light of categories of as-
sessment belonging to the analysis of purposefully fictional texts; I intend to
use, for example, categories belonging to Poetics such as ‘imitation’, ‘mimesis’,
‘likelihood’, and other categories that come from the Rhetorics of representation.
These categories contain a lot of philosophical issues which can enlighten us,
especially concerning the rhetorical strategies used for the expression of wis-
dom.
From this perspective I would like to examine a particularly controversial
testimony on the reception of the texts written by the comediographer Epichar-
mus, who is one of the earliest thinkers (sophoi) associated with the Pythagor-
eans. This testimony occurs in a long passage about Plato, which appears in Di-
ogenes Laertius’ Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers 3.9. This testimony
interests me first of all because it explicitly brings to light a situation about trans-
mission and imitation in general, since the text is presented as evidence in a
case of alleged plagiarism, which is a particularly problematic case of imitation.
Moreover, the case of plagiarism lies within the context of a classic controversy
involving the foundation of a genre which presents great importance for the de-
velopment of philosophical discourse – the Socratic dialogue. Livio Rossetti has
called much attention to this issue in recent years, particularly in his latest book,
which bears this very title.² The passage in question is also important for the his-
tory of philosophy since it provides help in reconstituting the guidelines of the
thought of Plato and the Academy, especially regarding their Italic³ sources, as
Giovanni Casertano explored in a masterful way in the “Eleatica 2011” seminar,
in which he dealt with the transmission of ideas ‘from Parmenides’ poem to Pla-
to’s Parmenides’.⁴ This charge of plagiarism also evokes somehow the discus-
sions of what Harold Cherniss (1945) called ‘the riddle of the early Academy’
in the book he wrote under this title. Another concern of mine is about the eval-
uation of the criteria for authenticity employed in the philological reception of
Epicharmus, which are operative in the critical editions of his works. Omar Alvar-
ez has contributed a lot to this discussion; without his remarks, we would not be
able to assess the charge against Plato for plagiarizing Epicharmus.
I will begin by setting out the passage and will then proceed to investigate it
in accordance with the issues I have just pointed out.
First I intend to present the context of the passage. Diogenes Laertius pro-
poses that we understand Platonic philosophy as a “mixed” philosophy. In his
booklet Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Nietzsche resurrects this
term when he compares this Platonic mixed philosophy with the pure, unmixed
one professed by the pre-Platonic thinkers. According to Diogenes Laertius, the
elements of this mixture in Plato are three: Heraclitean inquiry of sensible be-
ings, Pythagorean investigation of intelligible beings and Socratic remarks on
Politics.
Mίξιν τε ἐποιήσατο τῶν τε Ἡρακλειτείων λόγων καὶ Πυθαγορικῶν καὶ Σωκρατικῶν· τὰ μὲν
γὰρ αἰσθητὰ καθ’ Ἡράκλειτον, τὰ δὲ νοητὰ κατὰ Πυθαγόραν, τὰ δὲ πολιτικὰ κατὰ Σωκράτην
ἐφιλοσόφει. (D.L., III.8.6 – 10)
 Livio Rossetti, Le dialogue socratique, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2011.

 I use ‘Italic’ to refer to the region of Italia in Magna Grecia (actually Sicily and South Italy).
 Giovanni Casertano, Da Parmenide di Elea al Parmenide di Platone, forthcoming.
In what follows, Diogenes Laertius attests the way in which Plato became ac-
quainted with the teachings of Pythagoras: according to the testimony of a Peri-
patetic biographer named Satyrus, Plato once asked his friend Dion of Sicily to
buy him three Pythagorean books by Philolaus.⁵ He then quotes Alkimus, a late
fourth-century BC historian, who was supposed to have stated, in a work called
Against Amyntas, that Plato took advantage of Epicharmus in many of his works.
πολλὰ δὲ καὶ παρ’ Ἐπιχάρμου τοῦ κωμῳδοποιοῦ προσωφέληται τὰ πλεῖστα μεταγράψας,

καθά φησιν Ἄλκιμος ἐν τοῖς Πρὸς Ἀμύνταν. (D.L., III.9.6 – 8)
Next he quotes the accusation of plagiarism made by Alkimus:
Φαίνεται δὲ καὶ Πλάτων πολλὰ τῶν Ἐπιχάρμου λέγων. σκεπτέον δέ· ὁ Πλάτων φησὶν αἰσθη-
τὸν μὲν εἶναι τὸ μηδέποτε ἐν τῷ ποιῷ μηδὲ ποσῷ διαμένον ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ ῥέον καὶ μεταβάλλον,
ὡς ἐξ ὧν ἄν τις ἀνέλῃ τὸν ἀριθμόν, τούτων οὔτε ἴσων οὔτε τινῶν οὔτε ποσῶν οὔτε ποιῶν
ὄντων. ταῦτα δ’ ἐστὶν ὧν ἀεὶ γένεσις, οὐσία δὲ μηδέποτε πέφυκε. νοητὸν δὲ ἐξ οὗ μηθὲν
ἀπογίνεται μηδὲ προσγίνεται. τοῦτο δ’ ἐστὶν ἡ τῶν ἀιδίων φύσις, ἣν ὁμοίαν τε καὶ τὴν
αὐτὴν ἀεὶ συμβέβηκεν εἶναι. (D.L., III.9.10 – 10.5)
It is evident that Plato often employs the words of Epicharmus. Just consider. Plato asserts
that the object of sense is that which never abides in quality or quantity, but is ever in flux
and change. The assumption is that the things from which you take away number are no
longer equal nor determinate, nor have they quantity or quality. These are the things to
which becoming always, and being never, belongs. But the object of thought is something
constant from which nothing is subtracted, to which nothing is added. This is the nature of
the eternal things, the attribute of which is to be ever alike and the same.⁶
Alkimus begins by summarizing Plato’s theory of the nature of the sensible and
the intelligible realms, in which number appears as the permanent essence of
things and as the nature of what is eternal. In what follows, Alkimus quotes Ep-
icharmus’ sayings about the sensible and the intelligible in order to compare
them with the doctrines professed by Plato.
καὶ μὴν ὅ γε Ἐπίχαρμος περὶ τῶν αἰσθητῶν καὶ νοητῶν ἐναργῶς εἴρηκεν·
 D.L., III, 9 = fr. 10 ed. Stefan Schorn (Satyros aus Kallatis: Sammlung der Fragmente mit
Kommentar, Basel, Schwabe, 2004).
 Translation by R. D. Hicks (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Harvard Uni-
versity Press [Loeb Classical Library], 1925).
Both this quotation and the following one are written in verse: forty-one tetrame-
ters divided between trochaic and iambic trimeters. It is also important to remark
that the first two quotations are written in the form of a comic dialogue:⁷
{ – } ἀλλ’ ἀεί τοι θεοὶ παρῆσαν χὐπέλιπον οὐ πώποκα,

τάδε δ’ ἀεὶ πάρεσθ’ ὁμοῖα διά τε τῶν αὐτῶν ἀεί.
{ – } ἀλλὰ λέγεται μὰν χάος πρᾶτον γενέσθαι τῶν θεῶν.
{ – } πῶς δέ κα; μὴ ἔχον γ’ ἀπὸ τίνος μηδ’ ἐς ὅ τι πρᾶτον μόλοι.
{ – } οὐκ ἄρ’ ἔμολε πρᾶτον οὐθέν; { – } οὐδὲ μὰ Δία δεύτερον,
τῶνδέ γ’ ὧν ἁμὲς νῦν ὧδε λέγομες, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ τάδ’ ἦς.
αἰ πὸτ ἀριθμόν τις περισσόν, αἰ δὲ λῇς πὸτ ἄρτιον,

ποτθέμειν λῇ ψᾶφον ἢ καὶ τᾶν ὑπαρχουσᾶν λαβεῖν,
ἦ δοκεῖ κά τοί γ’ 〈ἔθ’〉 ωὑτὸς εἶμεν; { – } οὐκ ἐμίν γα κά.
{ – } οὐδὲ μὰν οὐδ’ αἰ ποτὶ μέτρον παχυαῖον ποτθέμειν
λῇ τις ἕτερον μᾶκος ἢ τοῦ πρόσθ’ ἐόντος ἀποταμεῖν,
ἔτι χ’ ὑπάρχοι κῆνο τὸ μέτρον; { – } οὐ γάρ. { – } ὧδε νῦν ὅρη
καὶ τὸς ἀνθρώπως· ὁ μὲν γὰρ αὔξεθ’, ὁ δέ γα μὰν φθίνει,
ἐν μεταλλαγᾷ δὲ πάντες ἐντὶ πάντα τὸν χρόνον.
ὃ δὲ μεταλλάσσει κατὰ φύσιν κοὔποκ’ ἐν ταὐτῷ μένει
ἕτερον εἴη κα τόδ’ ἤδη τοῦ παρεξεστακότος.
καὶ τὺ δὴ κἀγὼ χθὲς ἄλλοι καὶ νὺν ἄλλοι τελέθομες
καὖθις ἄλλοι κοὔποχ’ ωὑτοὶ κατά 〈γα τοῦτον〉 τὸν λόγον.”
D.L., III.10.7– 11.13 (DK 23 B 1 e 2)
a. But gods there always were; never at any time were they wanting, while things in this
world are always alike, and are brought about through the same agencies.
b. Yet it is said that Chaos was the first-born of the gods.
a. How so? If indeed there was nothing out of which, or into which, it could come first.
b. What! Then did nothing come first after all?
a. No, by Zeus, nor second either, at least of the things which we are thus talking about
now; on the contrary, they existed from all eternity…
a. But suppose someone chooses to add a single pebble to a heap containing either an odd
or an even number, whichever you please, or to take away one of those already there; do
you think the number of pebbles would remain the same?
b. Not I.
a. Nor yet, if one chooses to add to a cubit-measure another length, or cut off some of what
was there already, would the original measure still exist?
b. Of course not.
a. Now consider mankind in this same way. One man grows, and another again shrinks;
and they are all undergoing change the whole time. But a thing which naturally changes
 For a careful examination of the dialogical form present in these two quotations, see Omar
Alvarez Salas, “I frammenti filosofici di Epicarmo: una rivisitazione critica”, Studi italiani di
filologia classica (4 Ser.) 5.1 (2007), p. 23 – 72, at p. 32.
and never remains in the same state must ever be different from that which has thus
changed. And even so you and I were one pair of men yesterday, are another to-day, and
again will be another to-morrow, and will never remain ourselves, by this same argument.
Alkimus then returns to his review of the Platonic theory of Ideas and talks about
the Ideas themselves (αὐτὰς καθ’ αὑτὰς διελέσθαι τὰς ἰδέας), the relations that
hold between them (τῶν ἰδεῶν συνιδεῖν ὅσαι πρὸς ἀλλήλας εἰσίν) and the partic-
ipation in them of the things that bear the same names they have (ἃ παρ’ ἡμῖν διὰ
τὸ μετέχειν ἐκείνων ὁμώνυμα ἐκείνοις ὑπάρχει). He carries the comparison for-
ward, citing what Epicharmus states about the Good and the Ideas:
{ – } ἆρ’ ἔστιν αὔλησίς τι πρᾶγμα; { – } πάνυ μὲν ὦν.

{ – } ἄνθρωπος ὦν αὔλησίς ἐστιν; { – } οὐθαμῶς.
{ – } φέρ’ ἴδω, τί δ’ αὐλητάς; τίς εἶμέν τοι δοκεῖ;
ἄνθρωπος; ἢ οὐ γάρ; { – } πάνυ μὲν ὦν. { – } οὐκῶν δοκεῖς
οὕτως ἔχειν 〈κα〉 καὶ περὶ τἀγαθοῦ; τὸ μὲν
ἀγαθόν τι πρᾶγμ’ εἶμεν καθ’ αὕθ’, ὅστις δέ κα
εἰδῇ μαθὼν τῆν’, ἀγαθὸς ἤδη γίγνεται.
ὥσπερ γάρ ἐστ’ αὔλησιν αὐλητὰς μαθὼν
ἢ ὄρχησιν ὀρχηστάς τις ἢ πλοκεὺς πλοκάν,
ἢ πᾶν γ’ ὁμοίως τῶν τοιούτων ὅ τι τὺ λῇς,
οὐκ αὐτὸς εἴη κα τέχνα, τεχνικός γα μάν.
D.L., III.14.1– 14.11 (DK 23 B 3)
a. Is flute-playing a thing?
b. Most certainly.
a. Is man then flute-playing?
b. By no means.
a. Come, let me see, what is a flute-player? Whom do you take him to be? Is he not a man?
b. Most certainly.
a. Well, don’t you think the same would be the case with the good? Is not the good in itself a
thing? And does not he who has learnt that thing and knows it at once become good? For,
just as he becomes a flute-player by learning flute-playing, or a dancer when he has learnt
dancing, or a plaiter when he has learnt plaiting, in the same way, if he has learnt anything
of the sort, whatever you like, he would not be one with the craft but he would be the
craftsman.
Alkimus does not stop at this point. He goes on to present Plato’s theory of
knowledge, which includes the doctrines of the immortality of the soul and of
anamnesis. This time, however, he does more than summarize; he alludes to Pla-
tonic theories and opinions and cites the philosopher himself, although the quo-
tation does not refer to the title of any dialogue we know, but to a ‘remark on
ideas’. This quotation, however, is not found among the Platonic texts that we
possess; it does not even belong to the Parmenides ⁸, which has the subtitle On
Ideas in Thrasyllus’ division of Plato’s works into tetralogies. Could it be the
case that there was a lost Platonic dialogue thus named? It does not, however,
belong to Diogenes Laertius’ very list; it only appears there as a subtitle. In
the case of Plato, we are lucky – with a kind of luck that very seldom befalls An-
cient authors – because we know and possess the entirety of the writings he
composed for publication. And yet references of the title On Ideas ascribed to Ar-
istotle appear not only in Diogenes Laertius’ list of his works, but also in many
other lists of Aristotle’s works from the Hellenistic period. If we are to trust
Alexander of Aphrodisias’ transcriptions of some passages which appear in
his commentary on the Metaphysics, On Ideas discussed many issues having
to do with the Platonic theory of Ideas, and paid special attention to some prob-
lems raised in the Parmenides. We find this very content in Alkimus’ charge, as
well as in a few other passages in which he refers to the doctrines that Plato was
supposed to have plagiarized from Epicharmus. This would not be the first time
that Peripatetic commentators confused Aristotle’s works with Plato’s, since the
best disciple (Aristotle) systematically wrote commentaries on his master’s
works,⁹ and these commentaries used to bear similar titles.¹⁰ I guess that Alki-
mus is talking about the content that we find in Aristotle’s On Ideas as if it
were Plato’s Theory of Ideas. I believe that this is not an irrelevant point to
 Luc Brisson compares this passage with Phaedo 96b and Parmenides 128e. However, his term
of comparison is not the textual identity, but some resemblance in content. Cf. Diogène Laërce,
Vies et doctrines des philosophes illustres (dir. M.-O. Goulet-Cazé), Paris, Librairie Générale
Française, Pochotèque, 1999, p. 429, n. 6.
 I follow Diogenes Laertius for Aristotle’s index librorum (5, 1, 22– 27), where there are at least
seven Platonic titles (Sympósion, Sophistēs, Politikós, Menexenos, Ta ek tōn nomōn Platōnos, Ta
ek tēs politeias, Ta ek tou Timaíou kai tōn Archyteíōn) and seven Platonic subtitles (Perì rhētorikēs
[Gorgias], Perì psychēs [Phaedo], Perì ideōn [Parmenides], Perì dikaiosynēs [Respublica], Perì
euchēs [Alcibiades II], Peri epistēmēs [Theaetetus], Perì philías [Lysis]). On Ideas, according to
Thrasyllus, is the subtitle of Plato’s Parmenides, so I understand it as a comment of the dialogue
or of some of its problems, like “the third man argument”.
 The same confusion appears, for instance, in the references to On philosophy, περὶ φιλο-
σοφίας, which Aristotle assigns to Plato (De Anima 404b 18) and Themistius to Aristotle; Sim-
plicius and Philoponus assign to him still another Platonic writing: On the Good, περὶ τἀγαθοῦ;
cf. L. Boulakia, “Platon héritier d’Aristote ou Des differents sens de la séparation”, in H.
Cherniss, L’énigme de l’ancienne Académie, suivi en appendice de E.N. Tigerstedt: Le système
caché, Paris, Vrin, 1993 (French translation of The riddle of the early Academy by L. Boulakia), p.
15 – 69. For the Aristotelian writings and comments on Plato, see W.D. Ross’ index in Aristotelis
Fragmenta Selecta, Oxford University Press, 1979.
our investigation. Luc Brisson¹¹ has translated and discussed this passage, which
is explicitly connected to the content we found in Alexander’s transcription, hav-
ing the highly controversial dossier on Plato’s unwritten doctrines (ágrapha dóg-
mata) in mind. And he points to Aristotle’s texts, too, as the basis for the Hellen-
istic historian’s accusation that Plato plagiarized the Pythagoreans. According to
Prof. Brisson Aristotle never alluded to any plagiarism. But in Metaphysics Book I
Aristotle refers to the Pythagoreans, along with Heraclitus and Socrates, as the
major influences on Plato’s intellectual development. This passage was well
known to Hellenistic philosophers and historians, and we can imagine that Di-
ogenes Laertius ‘bought it’ without further discussion when he points to the
mixed character of Platonic philosophy. I cite the passage as it appears in Aris-
totle:
Μετὰ δὲ τὰς εἰρημένας φιλοσοφίας ἡ Πλάτωνος ἐπεγένετο πραγματεία, τὰ μὲν πολλὰ τού-
τοις ἀκολουθοῦσα, τὰ δὲ καὶ ἴδια παρὰ τὴν τῶν Ἰταλικῶν ἔχουσα φιλοσοφίαν. ἐκ νέου τε
γὰρ συνήθης γενόμενος πρῶτον Κρατύλῳ καὶ ταῖς Ἡρακλειτείοις δόξαις, ὡς ἁπάντων
τῶν αἰσθητῶν ἀεὶ ῥεόντων καὶ ἐπιστήμης περὶ αὐτῶν οὐκ οὔσης, ταῦτα μὲν καὶ ὕστερον
οὕτως ὑπέλαβεν· Σωκράτους δὲ περὶ μὲν τὰ ἠθικὰ πραγματευομένου περὶ δὲ τῆς ὅλης
φύσεως οὐθέν, ἐν μέντοι τούτοις τὸ καθόλου ζητοῦντος καὶ περὶ ὁρισμῶν ἐπιστήσαντος
πρώτου τὴν διάνοιαν, ἐκεῖνον ἀποδεξάμενος διὰ τὸ τοιοῦτον ὑπέλαβεν ὡς περὶ ἑτέρων
τοῦτο γιγνόμενον καὶ οὐ τῶν αἰσθητῶν· ἀδύνατον γὰρ εἶναι τὸν κοινὸν ὅρον τῶν αἰσθητῶν
τινός, ἀεί γε μεταβαλλόντων. (Metaphysics, A 6, 987a 29 – b 7)
After the systems we have named came the philosophy of Plato, which in most respects fol-
lowed these thinkers, but had peculiarities that distinguished it from the philosophy of the
Italians. For, having in his youth first become familiar with Cratylus and with the Heracli-
tean doctrines (that all sensible things are ever in a state of flux and there is no knowledge
about them), these views he held even in later years. Socrates, however, was busying him-
self about ethical matters and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the
universal in these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions;
Plato accepted his teaching, but held that the problem applied not to sensible things but
to entities of another kind – for this reason, that the common definition could not be a def-
inition of any sensible thing, as they were always changing.¹²
It seems evident to me that both Alkimus’ and Diogenes Laertius’ interpretations

of Plato have a clear Aristotelian basis; at least it seems that they came from de-
 Luc Brisson, “Diogène Laërce, ‘Vies et doctrines des philosophes illustres’. Livre III: structure
et contenu”, ANRW II.36, 5 (1992), p. 3619 – 3760, at pp. 3646 – 3651; Id., “Les accusations de
plagiat lancées contre Platon”, in Monique Dixsaut (ed.), Contre Platon I. Le platonisme dévoilé,
Paris, Vrin, 1993, p. 339 – 356 (reprint in L. Brisson, Lectures de Platon, Paris, Vrin, 2000, p. 25 –
41), at p. 352.
 Transl. by W.D. Ross.
bates in the Academy in the time when Aristotle frequented it¹³. After quoting
this ‘Aristotelian Plato’, Alkimus proceeds to quote Epicharmus, from whom
he claims Plato took these doctrines. At this moment he no longer presents us
a comic dialogue, as was the case in the other quotations, but instead we find
lines that look more like a comic chorus:
Εὔμαιε, τὸ σοφόν ἐστιν οὐ καθ’ ἓν μόνον,

ἀλλ’ ὅσσα περ ζῇ, πάντα καὶ γνώμαν ἔχει.
καὶ γὰρ τὸ θῆλυ τᾶν ἀλεκτορίδων γένος,
αἰ λῇς καταμαθεῖν ἀτενές, οὐ τίκτει τέκνα
ζῶντ’, ἀλλ’ ἐπῴζει καὶ ποιεῖ ψυχὰν ἔχειν.
τὸ δὲ σοφὸν ἁ φύσις τόδ’ οἶδεν ὡς ἔχει
μόνα· πεπαίδευται γὰρ αὐταύτας ὕπο.
D.L., III.16.1– 7. (DK 23 B 4)
Wisdom is not confined, Eumaeus, to one kind alone,

but all living creatures likewise have understanding.
For, if you will study intently the hen among poultry,
she does not bring forth the chicks alive,
but sits clucking on the eggs and wakens life in them.
As for this wisdom of hers, the true state of the case is known to Nature
alone, for the hen has learnt it from herself.
And also:
θαυμαστὸν οὐδὲν ἁμὲ ταῦθ’ οὕτω λέγειν

καὶ ἁνδάνειν αὐτοῖσιν αὐτοὺς καὶ δοκεῖν
καλὼς πεφύκειν· καὶ γὰρ ἁ κύων κυνὶ
κάλλιστον εἶμεν φαίνεται καὶ βοῦς βοΐ,
ὄνος δ’ ὄνῳ κάλλιστον, ὗς δέ θην ὑί.”
D.L., III.16.9 – 16. (DK 23 B 5)
It is no wonder then that we talk thus

and are pleased with ourselves and think
we are fine folk. For a dog appears
the fairest of things to a dog, an ox to an ox,
an ass to an ass, and verily a pig to a pig.”
This long libelous passage by Alkimus is eight chapters long and contains four
quotations from Epicharmus’ comedies, a total of forty-one lines. In order to
complete it, Diogenes Laertius adds one more passage on his own account,
which was probably extracted from a parabasis belonging to one of Epicharmus’
 Cf. Harold Cherniss, The Riddle of the early Academy, San Francisco, UCP, 1945, p. 18 ff. and
H.S. Macran, The Harmonics of Aristoxenus, Oxford, Oxford Classical Texts, 1902, p. 30 – 31.
comedies; in these lines the comic poet praises himself, predicting his own em-
ulation:
ὡς δ’ ἐγὼ δοκέω – δοκέων γὰρ σάφα ἴσαμι τοῦθ’, ὅτι

τῶν ἐμῶν μνάμα ποκ’ ἐσσεῖται λόγων τούτων ἔτι.
καὶ λαβών τις αὐτὰ περιδύσας τὸ μέτρον ὃ νῦν ἔχει,
εἷμα δοὺς καὶ πορφυροῦν λόγοισι ποικίλας καλοῖς
δυσπάλαιστος ὢν τὸς ἄλλως εὐπαλαίστως ἀποφανεῖ.
D.L., III.17.6 – 10. (DK 23 B 6)
And as I think – for when I think anything I know it full well – that my words will some day
be remembered; some one will take them and free them from the metre in which they are
now set, nay, will give them instead a purple robe, embroidering it with fine phrases; and,
being invincible, he will make every one else an easy prey.
Now that we have seen the text of the indictment, let me now proceed to the con-
siderations on the subject which concerns us. The first one concerns the possible
contribution of Epicharmus to the genesis of the literary genre whose importance
for the study of the origins of philosophy was exalted by Livio Rossetti:¹⁴ the Soc-
ratic dialogue.
Rossetti includes in his book on The Socratic dialogue passages by Diogenes
Laertius on Plato’s plagiarism of Epicharmus among the textual elements which
constitute the dossier about the possible origins of this genre, which, according
to Rossetti’s account, was performed by lots of Socrates’ disciples and which
Plato made flourish. Epicharmus appears as one among the possible models
available at the time. But Rossetti discards too quickly his own hypothesis
that the comedies of Epicharmus were one of the models which were combined
in the formation of this genre. Associating it with the patterns of comedy is not
removing originality from the Socratic dialogue, and I am only claiming that it is
an important rhetorical ingredient for the creation of this new recipe of logoi.
Rossetti presents two counter-arguments for this point; my position is that
they are both true, although they do not apply to the whole scope of his own hy-
pothesis. The first one states that the points of contact between Plato’s and Epi-
charmus’ testimonies presented there are doctrinal and therefore alien to the
agencies of the speeches themselves:
a) Il s’agit de points de contact de caractère doctrinal (qui relèvent du contenu) et donc

étrangers à l’agencement des logoi (une formule, une stratégie de communication).
 L. Rossetti, Le dialogue socratique, p. 40 – 41.

The second one maintains that Epicharmus lived in a relatively distant time from
the flourishing of the Socratic dialogue:
b) Épicharme appartient à une époque relativement lointaine.
There is no doubt that Alkimus and Diogenes Laertius in ancient times, as well
as readers like Brisson nowadays, focus on similarities which bear a doctrinal
character. But our examples show more than that; they also show similarities
in terms of discourse, even if Socratic speeches are in prose and not in verse,
which is the medium of comedies. I am not referring to the passages we attach
to the chorus, but specifically to the noticeable similarities to the dramatic parts,
which involve some dialogue, and which I cited from Diogenes Laertius, III,
chapters 10, 11 and 14. They show a clear resemblance to the strategy of short
speech employed by Socrates (brachylogy), consisting in argumentative sequen-
ces of questions and answers. In this sense, we can understand that Epichar-
mean speech not only represents, but also goes a step beyond the achievements
of the Italic logoi of his time, a step which announced, and in this sense came
close to, Socratic dialectic. Besides we can point to other details in style, such
as the playful response in 10:11: οὐδὲ μὰ Δία δεύτερον, which has the flavor of
expressions employed by Plato in order to present Socrates’ ironic character.
There appear also paradoxical syllogisms, as in 11.7– 13, where we find the use
of the so-called ‘growing argument’¹⁵, περὶ αὐξήσιος λόγος, the one used by
Plato in the Theaetetus (152d-e) to disclose the Heraclitean doctrine of becoming.
It is possible that this argument was an unfolding, or a version applied to the
problem of becoming, of a famous Pythagorean argument called ‘argument on
the large and the small’, also called by the esoteric and also blasphemous
name ‘indeterminate Dyad’. These paradoxical arguments and their absurd
names will be abundantly used in comedy in order to frame Socrates, as hap-
pens with the so-called ‘unjust argument’ which appears in Aristophanes’
Clouds, as well as in the Apology (19b) and Republic, Book 1 (called also ‘the
stronger argument’). It seems that arguments like these increased the fame of
many orators of this time; in certain cases the arguments gained fame independ-
ently of their possible creators.
And yet we see clearly, in the quotation from Diogenes Laertius, III.14, an Ep-
icharmean speech that is stylistically identical to Plato’s way of portraying Soc-
 Omar Álvarez Salas, “El κωμωιδεῖν de Epicarmo: una interacción escénica con la filosofia
magno-greca”, in D. García Pérez (ed.), Teatro griego y tradición clásica (Nova Tellus – Supple-
mentum 2), México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2009, p. 57– 94, at p. 79 ff.
ratic inductive arguments. The same choice of ordinary examples taken from ar-
tistic activities such as flute playing, dance and weaving are used in order to
reach thoughts on higher subjects such as ‘the Good in itself’. In fact, this sty-
listic identity was the argument for those who claim that it is a pseudo-Epichar-
mean fragment, because then it would be a result of plagiarism of Plato’s dia-
logues! Of course identity is a bi-univocal relationship, so it cannot be used as
proof of who wrote first.¹⁶ But before being a formal syllogism (an ἐπαγωγή clari-
fied by Aristotle), the inductive demonstration by simple questions and simple
examples was obviously a comical form of drama, and it certainly was first suc-
cessful on stage.
These are not only doctrinal elements; they certainly are part of the agency
of Socratic speeches as well. Therefore it will be useful to search for elements of
speech that are important in the construction of Socratic dialogue and of philo-
sophical speech itself, as written by Plato or other practitioners of the genre, in
order to investigate the appearance of these elements in expressions and rhetor-
ical strategies which belong to comic drama proper. It is clear for me that Ros-
setti is right about the inventive originality of Socratic dialogue, without which
philosophy would not have had the amazing success that it had in Greece in
the late fifth and early fourth centuries. However it is also true that the pita
would not have the same taste without the Sicilian olive oil and the tomatoes,
which were brought to it by comedy.
The second reason presented by Rossetti is also true, but I do not think that
the fact that Epicharmus belongs to a distant past is an insurmountable impedi-
ment to the possibility that he influenced, perhaps indirectly, both Socrates’
speeches and the Socratic dialogues composed by his disciples. An influence
of rhetorical ingredients and of a kind of invective spirit, which certainly made
spicier the new genre inspired by Socrates, may be due to him. Those who,
like Xenophon, employed it to a lesser extent obtained insipid results.
There is no reason to suppose that Epicharmus’ texts were not available in
fifth century Athens, since other texts of Italic origin were there; why would not
the Athenians have had as much access to them as they had to Parmenides’
poem? I believe that the dramatic texts of tragedies and, in a higher degree,
the artful texts of comedies provided models for the dramatization of Socrates’
conversations with his fellow citizens. After all, were not comedies the first
kind of text in which Socrates appeared¹⁷? Of course there are differences be-
 For a similar discussion of this fragment, cf. Nikos G. Charalabopoulos, Platonic drama and
its ancient reception, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 46 – 47.
 In 423, Aristophanes’ Clouds and Ameipsias’ Connos; in 421, Eupolis’ Flatterers.
tween the Socrates of comedy and the Socrates of the dialogues, since, despite
their similarities, the two genres are not the same: comedy highlights invective,
perplexity, irony, which certainly belong to Socrates’ character; but it will never
stress the mastership, the accuracy and the measure also shown by Socrates in
conducting his life and, consequently, his speeches.
However, it is possible that the influence that Italic comedy had on Socratic
rhetoric was also exerted in an indirect way, e. g. through the teachings on rhet-
oric by Gorgias of Leontini, who said that ‘you should kill your opponents’ ear-
nestness with jesting and their jesting with earnestness’ (τὴν μὲν σπουδὴν δια-
φθείρειν τῶν ἐναντίων γέλωτι, τὸν δὲ γέλωτα σπουδῆ)¹⁸. Thus it is likely that
Plato has used rhetorical models taken from comedy. Maybe the fact that
these models did not belong to the comedy which was closer and more contem-
porary to him allowed him to copy them without receiving the immediate charge
of plagiarism.
Since I have mentioned the Italic influence on Plato’s dialogues, I would like
to add one further remark relevant to the problems of philosophical heritage that
Giovanni Casertano stressed in his lectures in Eleatica 2011, a text that will soon
be published. Casertano identified the two original strands of the ontological dis-
cussion which reaches its unsurpassable performance in Plato’s Parmenides and
Sophist. The issues raised by Parmenides’ poem could have come to Plato’s
knowledge through a diligent disciple of Parmenides, who had explored the se-
quence of absurd conclusions taken from not following the ontological thesis of
the One, a disciple named Zeno. He could be the one who showed Plato all the
barriers he would need to overcome in order to talk about the multiple and the
becoming. But Parmenidean issues could also have reached Plato’s concerns be-
cause of a playful ‘anti-disciple’, Gorgias of Leontini, who had explored the for-
bidden hypothesis of Non-being to the point of forcing Plato to find in dialectics
a haven against this strange and elusive entity. These are Casertano’s original
claims that I will not explain or criticize here. But I would like to add a third
strand of Italic origin to contribute to the discussion of the formation of the Pla-
tonic dialogues. This strand has a comic character: it includes Epicharmus’ com-
edy, but if we row against the stream we can go up the river, through direct trans-
mission, until we reach Xenophanes of Colophon, as I intend to show elsewhere.
What I am suggesting, through this mischievous and playful discussion of line-
age, is that philosophy is not born and does not spread only through the trans-
mission of disciplined and obedient disciples, but also through invective, criti-
 Aristotle, Rhetoric, Γ 18, 1419b3, translated by W. Rhys Roberts.

cism and confrontation on the same or similar issues. And this is a practice that
ancient comic poets enhanced, reinforced, refined and disseminated.
Thus when we take a second look at the charges of plagiarism brought
against Plato, they seem to be included in the agonistic way in which Greeks
dealt with philosophically relevant issues, particularly the discussion about
the transmission of philosophy. But is it possible to be an apprentice and disci-
ple without emulating one’s master somehow? What is the point of the charge of
plagiarism which was raised by Alkimus and transmitted by Diogenes Laertius?
Is it true that Plato disrespected the copyrights of archaic comedy, or rather
should we say that he, as a “mixed” philosopher, would be just a great, indeed
the greatest, cook sage, who has widely used the ingredients of pure philoso-
phies as well as these literary spices that he masterfully combines and displays
in the lines of his characters?
We must examine the charge’s consistency once again more carefully. Saying
that it is plausible certainly does not mean that it is true. From the philological
perspective adopted by Kassel and Austin in their edition of the fragments of the
Poetae Comici Greci, which assembles all of Alkimus’ and Diogenes Laertius’
quotations in the section of pseudepicharmea, we see that these authors tend
to discredit the charge, claiming that the Epicharmus passages it contains are
spurious. Following this path, it will turn out in the end that Alkimus forged Ep-
icharmus’ passages, not that Plato plagiarized him. But Kassel and Austin are
not particularly careful in their examination of these fragments, since they do
not even state the difference between Alkimus’ text and the quotation added
by Diogenes Laertius, which they attribute to the so-called Alkimus’ plagiarism
(ex Alcimo)¹⁹. It seems that they were fooled by their assumption regarding phil-
osophical authorities; therefore they seem to have put more trust in Plato’s met-
aphysical honesty (a non-sense, of course) than in the litigious intentions of Di-
ogenes Laertius and his sources.
Omar Alvarez²⁰ takes the opposite view, which appears to me more consis-
tent, not because of the charge’s content but because of his proofs of the authen-
ticity of the Epicharmus passages. Alvarez analyzes its dialectal forms, its meters
and also the transmission of the notorious ‘argument of growth’ and concludes
that there is no reason to doubt their Epicharmean authorship. I agree with his
conclusion and I would like to add a comment on comic poetics which is related
to the parts of the staging. The first three quotes are excerpts from dramatic epi-
 R. Kassel & C. Austin (eds.), Poetae Comici Graeci, Berlin, W. de Gruyter, 2001, vol. I, p. 164.
 Omar Alvarez Salas, “Pseudepicharmea: alle origini di un corpus pseudepigrafo”, Nova
Tellus 25.1 (2007), p. 117– 153.
sodes, the following two come from choral interludes and the last one, the one
added by Diogenes Laertius, is a typical excerpt from a parabasis, so that all the
quotes perfectly fit within the structures of comic compositions. Therefore on the
one hand all the evidence is in favor of authenticity, while on the other hand the
only authority that is contrary to it shows flaws in his arguments.
Nevertheless, proving the authenticity of the Epicharmus’ passages does not
sustain Alkimus’ charge. In the first place, as we saw, the source of this doctrinal
content comes from Academic and Aristotelian readings of Plato more than from
the philosopher’s dialogues themselves. In the second place, I must stress that
even in the parts of comic dialogue, where the poet’s style resembles Socratic di-
alectic as it appears in the Platonic dialogues, we cannot say that it is just a copy
performed by Plato, since it is much more an example of a generic rhetorical
form which characterizes Socratic dialectic and therefore all kinds of the so-
called ‘Socratic dialogues’.
From the doctrinal perspective, on the one hand Alkimus does not forge Ep-
icharmus’ passages. On the other hand, his reading of Plato clearly comes from
indirect sources, and these were constructed on the basis of the Aristotelian as-
sumption that the influence of Pythagoreanism plays a decisive role in Plato’s
theory of Ideas. In this case, how should we interpret it? Was Plato really influ-
enced by the Pythagoreans? Or is this view of some kind of ‘Pythagorizing’ Plato
due to Aristotelian historians? The latter, of course, will only find what they have
already put there, Plato’s resemblance to the Pythagoreans! The answer is not so
simple, as it involves the understandings ancient thinkers themselves had of
their own lineages and the transmission of their ideas and doctrines. As much
as Alkimus is influenced by Peripatetic readings, Aristotle cannot be said to cre-
ate or state an absurdity when he claims the Pythagorean heritage of Plato’s
thought. Still, in terms of doctrine, it is less a case of plagiarism than of influ-
ence, as Aristotle himself pointed out in the first book of his Metaphysics. And
this influence will be mixed with two other philosophical sources before it be-
comes the typically Platonic form of composition.
From the formal point of view, the rhetorical resemblance is based, as I have
tried to show, less on plagiarism by Plato of Epicharmus than on the influence of
the poetic and rhetorical strategies used in comedies in this new genre appropri-
ate for the expression of wisdom that will eventually turn into the ‘Socratic dia-
logues’. Plato surely read and studied both Epicharmus’ and Aristophanes’
plays, as well as plenty of works by other authors that were available in his
time. If, as Diogenes Laertius suggests (III, 9), books were rare and difficult to
get, it did not prevent Plato from spending resources and efforts to get them,
as Diogenes Laërtius (III, 9) witnessed. Plato would not be the brilliant philoso-
pher and writer that he was if he did not have a particular agonistic impulse; this
impulse itself would lead him not to copy, but certainly to emulate his rivals and
to compete with them.
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Leonid Zhmud
Pythagorean Number Doctrine in the
Academy
1 Plato and the Pythagoreans

Estimates of how great was the contribution of the Pythagoreans to Plato’s phi-
losophy diverge substantially, varying across the range from ‘decisive’ to ‘insig-
nificant’. Plato himself is very reserved on this topic: even if he is indebted to
the Pythagoreans for a great deal, his dialogues cleverly conceal it. Plato’s Pytha-
goras established a particular way of life (Res. 600a-b), from which it does not
directly follow that he was a philosopher. Cebes heard from Philolaus something
vague about a ban on suicide (Phaed. 61e); Simmias and Echecrates shared a ma-
terialist theory of the soul which was refuted by Socrates. Hippasus, Alcmaeon,
Hippon, Archytas, Eurytus and the later Pythagoreans are absent from the dia-
logues. Theodorus, the mathematician, would be the only one whose work is ech-
oed here (Tht. 147d), perhaps because he did not engage in philosophy
(165a1– 2). In the only place where Plato mentions the Pythagoreans, he concurs
with them (i. e. with Archytas) that harmonics and arithmetic are kindred scien-
ces, while criticizing them for their inability to rise to the investigation of real
problems (Res. 530e-531c). There is a perception that the Seventh Letter attempts
to prove that Archytas is much weaker than Plato in philosophy and therefore
could not have had any influence on him.¹ Plato’s Timaeus of Locri is seen usu-
ally as a tribute to the Pythagoreans, but let us not lose sight of the fact that, in
order to set out the ‘Pythagorean’ doctrines, Plato chooses a fictitious character
from a city which produced not a single Pythagorean philosopher or scientist,²
while the actual Italian and Sicilian Pythagoreans are not even mentioned in
the dialogue. That Phaedo converses with Echecrates at Phlius, and Socrates be-
fore his death with students of Philolaus, is also seen as a tribute to the Pytha-
goreans, although it is Socrates who teaches the immortality of the soul to scep-
tically minded Pythagoreans, and not vice versa; it is he who explains to them
the difference between even and odd as such and specific numbers
(Phaed. 104a-105b). Clearly only a reader independently familiar with the philos-
 Lloyd (1990).
 The birthplace of Timaeus calls to mind rather the well-known doctor Philistion of Locri. The
physiology and medicine of the Timaeus owe much to Philistion. It is also material that he
reworked Empedocles’ doctrine of the four elements, which is so important in the Timaeus.
324 Leonid Zhmud
ophy and science of the Pythagoreans could recognize Pythagorean influence on

Plato. Against this background, the hypotheses that Plato in the Academy af-
firmed respect for Pythagoras as the founder of number metaphysics, or project-
ed onto him his own ideas, appear implausible.
Two waves of influence of Pythagoreanism on Plato are usually identified.
The first is linked to his first journey to Magna Graecia: meeting Archytas and
his circle provided the impulse for the dialogues of the middle period, in
which mathematics, scarcely mentioned before, comes to the fore (Meno) and be-
comes the path to mastering dialectic (the Republic); the Pythagoreans also ap-
pear, together with mathematics (Phaedo).³ The second wave is perceived in Pla-
to’s later philosophy: in the mathematization of the cosmos (Timaeus) and of di-
alectic (Philebus), and especially in the mathematization of the theory of Forms,
reflected in the unwritten doctrine of principles. Indeed, the influence on Plato
of the Pythagorean mathēmata is incontestable; Philolaus and Archytas were the
first to make mathēmata and numbers a subject of philosophy; to Archytas be-
longs the idea, so precious to Plato, of the beneficial effect of mathematics on
the soul (47 B 3). Nevertheless it would be too straightforward to perceive in
the mathematization of Plato’s philosophy its Pythagorization. Plato’s relations
with various Pythagoreans, the presence in his dialogues of mathematics and
its changing role, the mathematics of Archytas and the number metaphysics of
the late Plato – all these things are by no means necessarily or unambiguously
linked one with another. It is true that Aristotle regarded Plato and the Platonists
as continuing the Pythagorean number philosophy, but does that mean that
“Plato and his pupils saw themselves as continuators of Pythagoreanism”?⁴
When the forty-year-old Plato set off for Magna Graecia, he was no novice in
mathematics. Although mathēmata are mentioned much less frequently in the
early dialogues than in the middle and later, there is no doubt that Plato was fa-
miliar with the subject.⁵ His teacher in mathematics was Theodorus, a coeval of
Socrates, who lived in Athens at the end of the fifth century BC and taught there
all the sciences of the quadrivium. Theodorus appears as a character in the late
dialogues, Theaetetus, the Sophist, and the Republic, forty to fifty years after his
appearance in Plato’s life. The mathematics of the early dialogues is simple, but
 Vlastos (1988).
 Burkert (1972, p. 92); see also Dillon (2003, p. 153).
 Arithmetic and/or logistics in the early dialogues: Euthyd. 290b; Charm. 165e; Gorg. 450d-451c,
453e; Ion 531e3, 537e7; Hip. min. 366c-367c; Phdr. 274c; geometry: Charm. 165e; Euthyd. 290b;
Gorg. 450d-e, 465b, 508a; Hip. min. 367e; Prot. 318e; astronomy: Euthyd. 290b; Gorg. 451c; Hip.
min. 367e; Prot. 318e; Symp. 188b; even and odd numbers: Charm. 165e-166a, Euthyphr. 12c-d;
Gorg. 451a-c, 453e, 460e; Prot. 356e-357a.
Plato’s familiarity with more complicated mathematics discussed in the late dia-
logues, let us say the irrational numbers of Theodorus (Tht. 147d) or the five reg-
ular solids of Theaetetus (Tim. 47e–57c), still relates to the youth, not the old
age, of the philosopher. It should not be thought that Plato each time set out
in his dialogues what he had recently learnt; as a rule, they reflect the level of
mathematics of the fifth century BC. The mathematics of the unwritten doctrine
is rudimentary and not entirely (or not at all) mathematical.⁶
Plato’s attitude to mathematics in one essential aspect remained unchanged.
In the early Euthydemus (290c) we read: since the geometricians, arithmeticians,
and astronomers do not know how to make use of their discoveries, those of
them who are not utter blockheads must hand these discoveries over to the dia-
lecticians, who will find proper use for them. In the Republic (528b-c), the defi-
nition of the solid geometry, ἔστι δέ που τοῦτο περὶ τὴν τῶν κύβων αὔξην καὶ τὸ
βάθους μετέχον, clearly refers back to the problem of doubling the cube, which,
as we know, was brilliantly solved by Archytas (Eud. fr. 141). Plato, however, as-
serts that this area, because of its complexity, has not been studied, and hence
“the investigators need a director, without whom they will hardly discover any-
thing” (528b)! In the role of such an epistates he saw a dialectician, most prob-
ably himself. Echoing the Euthydemus, the late Philebus (58a) firmly asserts the
primacy of dialectic over mathematics: all who have a grain of intelligence will
admit that dialectic is the truest of all the sciences! A philosopher convinced of
his ability to see further and penetrate more deeply than any of those whose
knowledge he made use of could hardly consider himself the continuer of Pytha-
gorean mathematics. Nor could he see himself as the continuer of Pythagorean
number doctrine, of which there is no trace before him or in himself. Developing
Plato’s attitude to mathematics, the Academics represented him in the role of ‘ar-
chitect of science’, setting scientists the most important problems and pointing
out appropriate means of solving them. According to the Academic legend, the
famous problem of doubling the cube was solved by Archytas, Eudoxus, and Me-
naechmus, working under Plato’s control.⁷ Not a continuer of Pythagoreanism,
but a sovereign thinker and organiser of science, to whom mathematics owes
its highest achievements: that was how Plato was seen by his faithful pupils.
On the contrary, Plato’s dependence on the Pythagoreans is affirmed in tradition
 Ideal numbers are not mathematical numbers: first, they end at ten; second, they are in-
associable, i. e. they cannot be added, subtracted, divided, or multiplied, since the units making
up the two differ from the units of the three etc. See Arist. Met. 1080a15 f., 1080b37 ff. with the
commentary of Ross.
 Zhmud (2006, p. 106 f.)
326 Leonid Zhmud
critical of him, in Aristotle and the Peripatetics, or openly hostile, in stories of his
plagiarism from the Pythagoreans.⁸
2 The Platonists
The Academics were among the readers of Plato who knew the works of the Py-
thagoreans and were personally acquainted with some of them,⁹ and they did
nothing to hide their interest in Pythagoreanism. On Pythagorean Numbers of
Speusippus, Πυθαγόρεια of Xenocrates (in one book), On the Pythagoreans of
Heraclides of Pontus, as well as his dialogues Abaris and On the Woman who
Stopped Breathing, in both of which Pythagoras figured as a character, On the
Pythagoreans, Against the Pythagoreans, Against Alcmaeon, and On the Philoso-
phy of Archytas (in three books) of Aristotle: all the significant pupils of Plato
found it necessary to devote to this current one or more works. However the sig-
nificance of Pythagorean topics for the Platonists should not be overestimated. It
is suggestive that Aristotle wrote more on this subject than all the Platonists to-
gether; certainly, unlike them, he had a critical attitude to the Πυθαγόρειοι. In
the surviving treatises Aristotle very insistently and, unlike his fellow pupils, ex-
plicitly emphasises the similarities of the Pythagoreans to Plato. In fact he was
interested in the Pythagoreans above all as precursors of Academic number phi-
losophy.
Here we approach an important point. To Walter Burkert belongs the now
commonly accepted theory of two lines in the interpretation of Pythagorean phi-
losophy: 1) the Platonic, projecting Academic teachings onto Pythagoras and the
Pythagoreans; 2) the Aristotelian, reflecting the number doctrine of the Pythagor-
eans in a historically credible manner.¹⁰ The second part of this theory is quite
traditional, whereas the first part, on Pythagorizing Platonists, goes back to
Erich Frank. Burkert, however, on the one hand separated Aristotle from the Pla-
tonists,¹¹ and on the other linked to the Platonists the late Hellenistic tradition
 See Dörrie (1990, p. 30 ff.).

 Speusippus and Xenocrates travelled with Plato to Syracuse; Hermodorus was born there;
Heraclides ‘heard’ the Pythagoreans (fr. 3). Philip came from Medma in Southern Italy or lived
there.
 Burkert (1972, p. 53 ff., esp. 79 f.).
 According to Frank (1923, p. 259 – 260), Aristotle himself relied on the Pythagorizing Plato-
nists: “In dem, was Aristoteles über die Pythagoreer zu sagen hat, ist also wirklich nichts, was
aus den anderen Quellen als aus den pythagoreisierenden Werken der Platoniker seiner Zeit
geschöpft sein müsste”.
which ascribed to Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans Academic theories, in par-

ticular Plato’s unwritten doctrine on principles. Thus there came into being
the theory of two fundamentally differing lines, only one of which can be histor-
ically correct.
Attractive as this theory may be, it must be said that it is incorrect. There is
no reliable evidence that “Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Heraclides equate the
doctrine of their master Plato, and therewith also their own philosophical posi-
tions with the wisdom of Pythagoras”.¹² Such a thesis implies that Speusippus
and Xenocrates were the fathers of Neopythagoreanism.¹³ However, the tendency
to attribute to Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans the Platonic doctrine of the One
and the Indefinite Dyad first appears in pseudo-Pythagorean literature of the
first century BC and in Neopythagoreanism.¹⁴ Zeller referred it to the turn of
the first century BC, and that dating remains the most convincing.¹⁵ The late ori-
gin of that tradition follows from its transformation, under the influence of Sto-
icism, of the dualistic teaching of Plato in the spirit of monism: now it is the One
(the monad) which generates the Dyad.¹⁶ (In Aetius I,3,8, perhaps for brevity of
expression, this idea is omitted, but can easily be restored). Thus, this tradition
cannot be traced back to the Old Academy. As for the second line, it was Aristotle
and (on one occasion) Theophrastus (Met. 11a27-b7), who projected some ele-
 Burkert (1972, p. 82).

 They are so treated e. g. by Dillon (1996, p. 38); Dillon (2003, p. 204).
 Pseudo-Pythagoreans: Alexander Polyhistor’s Memoirs (D.L. VIII, 25 = p. 234.18 f. Thesleff);
Anonymus Photii (p. 237.17 f., 238.8 ff.); Brontinus (De intell. fr. 2); Callicratidas (fr. 1, p. 103.11);
Pythagoras (Hieros logos in Doric prose, fr. 2, p. 104.24); Archytas (De princ., p. 19 f.). Neopy-
thagoreans: Eudorus (Simpl. In Phys., 181.10 ff.); Moderatus (ibid., 230.34 f.); Numenius (fr. 52 Des
Places). Doxography: Aët. I,3,8 (= Dox., 281.6 – 12) and I,7,18 (relies on pseudo-Pythagorica);
Anonymus in Sextus Empiricus (Adv. math. 10, 261– 262); Anonymus in Hippolytus (Ref. 1,2,2,
2,6; 4,43,4– 4,44,3, 4,51,1– 5, 5,13,6, 6,23,1– 2, 6,52,2).
 Zeller (1919, I, p. 464ff; III.2, 103 ff.). The pseudepigraphic texts circulating under the names
of Brontinus, Callicratidas, Pythagoras and Archytas are dated to the first century AD rather than
a century earlier, Anonymus Photii to the first century AD. The key question is the dating of the
earliest of the Pythagorean pseudepigrapha, Alexander Polyhistor’s Memoirs, particularly its
doctrine of principles (D. L. VIII, 25). Like Zeller, Jacoby (FGrHist IIIa, 293 f.) dated the Memoirs to
the turn of the first century BC, Festugière (1945, p. 428 f.) to the second century BC; similarly De
Vogel (1966, p. 206 f.) and Mansfeld (1971, p. 98 n. 163 f.). Burkert (1966, p. 24 ff.) dated this text to
the end of the third century BC, joining it to the letter of Lysis. This combination was rejected,
see Thesleff (1971, p. 78); Du Toit (1997, p. 234 n. 83); the letter of Lysis is now dated to the first
century AD, see Städele (1980, p. 212 ff.); Du Toit (1997, p. 234).
 Festugière (1954, p. 18 ff., 43 ff., 49 f., 307 ff.); Rist (1965, p. 333 f.); Merlan (1967, p. 84 ff.); De
Vogel (1986, p. 130 f., 196 f.); Mansfeld (1992, p. 168 ff.).
328 Leonid Zhmud
ments of the Platonic Prinzipienlehre onto the Pythagoreans.¹⁷ On some impor-

tant issues Aristotle drew a distinction between the Πυθαγόρειοι and Plato
and the Platonists; the point is, however, that most of the theories of these ‘Py-
thagoreans’ are the fruit of his polemical interpretations. Hence there are no
grounds for asserting that his depiction of the Pythagorean number doctrine is
more historical than the evidence of the Platonists – that, of course, which ac-
tually belongs to them.
Let us look at Plato’s students individually.
Speusippus. The Kronzeuge of the theory of Pythagorizing Platonists is the
Latin translation of Proclus’ commentary on Parmenides, made by William of
Moerbeke; it quotes Speusippus’ words about the ‘ancients’.¹⁸ According to Bur-
kert, Speusippus attributes to the ‘ancients’, in whom the Pythagoreans and
even Pythagoras himself should be recognized, a typically Platonic pair, the
One and the Indefinite Dyad. Thus “Plato’s nephew and successor claimed
that the basic thought of the Platonic doctrine of ideal numbers was Pythagor-
ean”.¹⁹ Both editors of Speusippus’ fragments, L. Tarán and M. Isnardi Parente,
and also Proclus’ editor C. Steel, came out against this widely accepted interpre-
tation.²⁰ They are unanimous in stating that ‘Speusippus’ ascribes to the Pytha-
goreans an entirely Neoplatonic doctrine of the One, which is beyond Being and
has no relation to it, so that the One is not even a principle. This doctrine was
unknown in the Old Academy, and Speusippus could not therefore ascribe it
to the Pythagoreans: what we are dealing with is a Neoplatonic reinterpretation.
We have no other evidence that Speusippus projected the Platonic doctrine of
principles onto the Pythagoreans or moreover that he did so onto Pythagoras,
who does not figure in his fragments. Philolaus was possibly named in On Pytha-
gorean Numbers, yet it does not follow from the title of the work (if it came from
the author), and the text accessible to us, that Speusippus considered the doc-
trines he was expounding to be Pythagorean: it was only the numbers which
were Pythagorean!²¹ Figured, prime, even, and odd numbers, multiple and epi-
 In the age of Hellenism this interpretation was unknown: Aristotle’s Metaphysics was dis-
covered only in the mid-first century BC, and Theophrastus’ Metaphysics still later.
 Steel & van Campe (2009, p. 288 f.). For convenience I quote the editor’s reverse translation
into the Greek: Τὸ γὰρ ἓν κρεῖττον τοῦ ὄντος ἡγούμενοι καὶ ἀφ’ οὗ τὸ ὄν, καὶ τῆς κατ’ ἀρχὴν
σχέσεως αὐτὸ ἀπήλλαξαν. ὑπολαμβάνοντες δὲ ὅτι, εἴ τις τὸ ἓν αὐτὸ χωρὶς καὶ μόνον διανοού-
μενος ἄνευ τῶν ἄλλων καθ’ αὑτὸ τιθείη, μηδὲν ἕτερον στοιχεῖον αὐτῷ προσθείς, οὐδὲν ἂν
γένοιτο τῶν ἄλλων, τὴν ἀόριστον δυάδα τῶν ὄντων ἀρχὴν εἰσ‹ήγ›αγον.
 Burkert (1972, p. 64).
 Tarán (1981, p. 350 ff.); Tarán (1987, p. 228 ff.); Isnardi Parente (1984); Steel (2002).
 ‘[H]e uses Pythagorean notions in the course of putting forward his own mathematical and
metaphysical doctrines; and these doctrines are not only at variance with early Pythagorean
moric ratios, proportions and progressions – all these things discussed by Speu-
sippus do actually go back to Pythagorean arithmetic and harmonics. Speusip-
pus had reason to see in the Pythagoreans his predecessors, at least as regards
the mathematical material which he used for his own paramathematical purpos-
es. However, his reasoning on the perfection of the number 10 derives, not from
Pythagoreanism, but from the number ontology of late Plato.²² The sequence
point – line – plane – solid and the ‘magical’ transformation of the tetrad into
the decad (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10) also relate to this.²³
Xenocrates. Burkert believed that Xenocrates’ testimony on Pythagoras as
the discoverer of the numerical expression of concords²⁴ was related to his inter-
pretation of the Timaeus. Since, going further, late doxography attributes Xeno-
crates’ definition of the soul as a ‘self-moving number’ to Pythagoras (Aët.
IV,2,3 – 4), and this definition in turn relies on the Timaeus, the Academic sup-
posedly interpreted the ideas of the Timaeus as the teaching of Pythagoras. Ac-
cordingly the link between number and music also derives from Timaeus, not
from Pythagoras.²⁵ This construct collapses once we remove its main component:
to suppose that Xenocrates himself attributed his definition of the soul to Pytha-
goras is unfounded and implausible; it is clearly the work of later doxogra-
phers.²⁶ There is no evidence that he or Speusippus treated the Timaeus as a Py-
thagorean dialogue, or that he equated the doctrine of Plato, and therewith also
his own philosophical positions, with the wisdom of Pythagoras. The link be-
tween number and music is an entirely Pythagorean idea, attested in the tradi-
tion regarding Hippasus (A 12– 15), Philolaus (B 6), and Archytas (A 16 – 19).
Xenocrates left behind numerous works on all the sciences of the mathematical
notions but often incompatible with them’, Tarán (1981, p. 260, see 109, 269 f., 275 f., on the title:
262).
 Arist. De an. 404b19 – 24 = De philos. fr. 11 Ross.
 Aristotle mentions the tetrad exclusively when discussing Plato and the Platonists
(Met. 1081a 23, b15 – 22; 1082 a12– 34, 1084a23; 1090b23).
 Πυθαγόρας, ὥς φησι Ξενοκράτης, εὕρισκε καὶ τὰ ἐν μουσικῇ διαστήματα οὐ χωρὶς ἀριθμοῦ
τὴν γένεσιν ἔχοντα· ἔστι γὰρ σύγκρισις ποσοῦ πρὸς ποσόν· ἐσκοπεῖτο τοίνυν, τίνος συμβαί-
νοντος τά τε σύμφωνα γίνεται διαστήματα καὶ τὰ διάφωνα καὶ πᾶν ἡρμοσμένον καὶ ἀνάρμοστον
(Porph. In Ptol., 30.1 f. = fr. 87 Isnardi Parente).
 Burkert (1972, p. 64 f.).
 Dillon (2003, p. 153 f.), considers it possible that ‘Xenocrates himself was concerned to make
the connection’, but even a cursory reading of the section ‘On the Soul’ in Aetius shows that this
was a tendency of the doxographers, not of Xenocrates. For example, Plato’s doctrine on the
‘ever-moving’ or ‘self-moving’ soul is attributed here to Thales (IV,2.1). Outside Aetius’ doxo-
graphy and the sources dependent on it the connection of Xenocrates’ teaching on the soul with
Pythagoras is not attested.
330 Leonid Zhmud
quadrivium as a whole and individually (fr. 2 Isnardi Parente). Prominent among

them is the book On (Musical) Intervals (Περὶ διαστημάτων), and the fragment
about Pythagoras, which twice mentions τὰ ἐν μουσικῇ διαστήματα, matches
the subject matter of that book much better than it does a philosophical interpre-
tation of Timaeus.
Heraclides Ponticus. One of Heraclides’ dialogues introduces a fictitious con-
versation between Pythagoras and the tyrant Leon, in the course of which Pytha-
goras calls himself φιλόσοφος. This conversation is passed on by Cicero (the full-
est version, and directly from Heraclides), Sosicrates in Diogenes Laertius, and
once more briefly by Diogenes himself.²⁷ Replying to Leon’s question – who
are philosophers? – Pythagoras likens life to the Olympic Games and says: in
this life, to which we have come from another life, some serve fame, others
money, but those few who ardently contemplate the nature of things (rerum na-
turam studiose intuerentur), call themselves lovers of wisdom. The Platonic ex-
planation of the word ‘philosopher’ cited by Diogenes – “for no one is wise ex-
cept God” (cf. Phdr. 278d) – is absent in Sosicrates and Cicero and does not be-
long to Heraclides.²⁸ With it fails Burkert’s main argument, “that Heraclides put
into Pythagoras’ mouth Plato’s and only Plato’s ideas”.²⁹ There is a close parallel
to Heraclides’ story: Aristotle’s Protrepticus, which contains a comparison of life
with the Olympic Games, and (separately) Pythagoras’ reply to the question why
he was born: “To observe the heavens” (fr. 18, 44 Düring). Pythagoras, who
called himself θεωρὸς τῆς φύσεως, is as little a creation of Plato as is Anaxago-
ras, into whose mouth Aristotle puts similar words (Protr. fr. 19). The tradition
lying behind the choice of Pythagoras as the model, and in Heraclides also
the archegetes, of philosophy, understood as περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία, goes back
to the fifth century BC.
Πυθαγόραν δὲ ὁ Ποντικὸς Ἡρακλείδης ἱστορεῖ τὴν ἐπιστήμην τῆς τελειότη-
τος τῶν ἀριθμῶν τῆς ψυχῆς εὐδαιμονίαν εἶναι παραδεδωκέναι (fr. 44 Wehrli).
How should this testimony be understood: “knowledge of the perfection of num-
bers is the happiness of the soul” or “knowledge of the perfection of the num-
bers of the soul is happiness”? Cherniss, De Vogel, and Gottschalk preferred
the first variant; Burkert initially the first, then the second; the number structure
 Cic. Tusc. 5,3; Sosicrates without reference to Heraclides (D. L. VIII, 8); D. L. Prooem. 12.
 Here he only authenticates the origin of Leon of Phlius: φιλοσοφίαν δὲ πρῶτος ὠνόμασε
Πυθαγόρας καὶ ἑαυτὸν φιλόσοφον, ἐν Σικυῶνι διαλεγόμενος Λέοντι τῷ Σικυωνίων τυράννῳ ἢ
Φλειασίων, καθά φησιν Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικὸς ἐν τῇ περὶ τῆς ἄπνου· μηδένα γὰρ εἶναι σοφὸν
ἀλλ᾽ ἢ θεόν (D. L. Prooem. 12). See: De Vogel (1969, p. 81 f.); Gottschalk (1980, p. 26 f., 35 f.);
Riedweg (2004, p. 154 f.).
 Burkert (1960, p. 166).
of the soul finally turned out to be an Academic theory based on the Timaeus
which Heraclides attributed to Pythagoras.³⁰ τέλειος ἀριθμός and the number
structure of the World Soul are indeed in Plato, but they relate to different things.
Further, among the numbers constituting the soul in the Timaeus (35a-b) there is
no decad (τέλειος ἀριθμός); no one among the Academics wrote of the “perfec-
tion of the numbers of the soul”. On the contrary, “knowledge of the perfection
of numbers” as the highest aspiration of man and the greatest good for him is an
idea which Heraclides could certainly put into the mouth of Pythagoras in one of
his dialogues. Although the exact meaning of Heraclides’ words can hardly be
restored, it is likely that they also relate to his propaganda of the Academic
ideal of the contemplative life.
So we see that the Platonists were characterized by a benevolent attitude to
Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans and an interest in their scientific, philosoph-
ical, and religious theories. Number is found in the testimonies of all three Pla-
tonists, but we do not find in them a Pythagorean philosophy even remotely rem-
iniscent of number doctrine as described by Aristotle; this does not speak in his
favour. If theories which appeared 300 or even 500 years after the death of Plato
are not to be attributed to the Platonists, the thesis that the latter projected their
master’s unwritten doctrine onto Pythagoras hangs in mid-air. Plato himself slur-
red over his dependence on the Pythagoreans: why should the Platonists under-
state the originality of their teacher? Plato as a successor of the Pythagoreans is a
construction of Aristotle, not of his colleagues in the Academy. To all appearan-
ces he considered the unwritten doctrine of Plato to be a modification of Pytha-
gorean doctrine. There is, however, too much which suggests that number doc-
trine is a modification of Plato’s Prinzipienlehre, created by Aristotle on a basis
of Pythagorean and Academic material.
3 Aristotle on the Pythagoreans

Aristotle’s two monographs on the Pythagoreans, the material of which he used
later, were written in the Academy: he refers to them in the Metaphysics Α
(986a12), usually dated before 347. In general, the overwhelming majority of Ar-
istotle’s references to Πυθαγόρειοι are contained in the Physics, On the Heavens,
and those parts of the Metaphysics (Α, Β, Ι, Λ, Μ, Ν) which are taken to belong to
his early works. In the later treatises such references are sporadic and, with few
 Cherniss (1977, p. 100 n. 2); De Vogel (1969, p. 79); Gottschalk (1980, p. 114); Burkert (1972,
p. 65), cf. Burkert (1960, p. 162).
332 Leonid Zhmud
exceptions, free from polemics. If to these are added the Protrepticus, the early
dialogue On Poets (fr. 75), and the treatise On the Good (fr. 2 Ross), which reviews
the theories of Plato and the Pythagoreans, it turns out that almost all that Ar-
istotle had to say about Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans in general was said
during his stay at the Academy.³¹ Evidently the theories of the Platonists were
the background upon which he formulated his own approach to the Pythagorean
school.
Aristotle’s reports on the Pythagoreans in his surviving works may be divid-
ed into several groups. Firstly, information on individual Pythagoreans derives
from their writings and does not in itself pose particular problems.³² It is striking
though that, when Aristotle mentions these thinkers by name, he not once calls
them Pythagoreans, and conversely, when speaking of Pythagorean number doc-
trine, he adduces no names.³³ Thus the individual Pythagoreans and collective
Pythagoreans as bearers of number doctrine turn out to be two non-intersecting
groups. The second group of testimonia is the cosmological and astronomical
teachings of anonymous Pythagoreans.³⁴ These teachings correspond to the
level of Presocratic natural philosophy; although Aristotle does not tell us the
names of their authors, they undoubtedly belong to real Pythagoreans. The
third and largest group of testimonia, most of them coloured by polemics, relate
to the Pythagorean number doctrine in its two variants: the main one, that num-
bers are principles of things (Met. 985b23 – 986a21); and a subsidiary one, that
the principles are ten pairs of opposites: limit and unlimited, odd and even,
etc. (986a 22-b8). Aristotle presents the table of ten opposites as the teaching
of a separate group of Pythagoreans (ἕτεροι δὲ τῶν αὐτῶν τούτων), but it
does not follow from this that he had in mind any real group or individual.
We are dealing with a separate theory, which defined a specific number and
set of opposites and was at the same time linked with the main doctrine. Thus
identification of the pair ‘limit-unlimited’ with ‘odd-even’ is the cornerstone of
number doctrine, making it possible to proceed from numbers to physical things
 1) Academic period: APo – 1, Phys. – 5, Cael. – 8, Met. – 21, Rhet. – 1, MM – 2 (total 38); Protr.,
De bono and De poet. and three special works De Archyt., De pythagor. and Contra pythagor. also
relate to this period; 2) period of travel: De an. – 2, De sensu – 2, Mete. – 2 (total 6); 3) second stay
in Athens: EN – 3.
 Alcmaeon (Met. 986a27-b3; De an. 405a29; HA 492a14, 581a16; GA 752b25); Hippasus
(Met. 984a7); Hippon (Met. 984a4; De an. 405b2); Philolaus (EE 1225a30); Eurytus (Met. 1092b10);
Archytas (Met. 1043a21; Rhet. 1412a12; Pol. 1340b26).
 Apart from Eurytus, but he is mentioned in the context of criticism of Academic theories.
 Cael. 284b6, 285a10. b24, 290b12– 291a9, 293a19. b1; Phys. 203a3, 204a32, 213b22;
Mete. 342b29, 345a13. Some physical opinions also belong here: De sensu 439a29 f., 445a16 f.; De
an. 404a17 f.
(986a17– 21). It is clear that number doctrine as a unified theory existed only in
the mind of Aristotle, who interpreted material relating to various areas in the
same vein, as he viewed in it differing manifestations of one and the same teach-
ing.
In setting forth this number philosophy, Aristotle points to some fundamen-
tal premises, which the Pythagoreans relied upon.³⁵ Firstly, having been reared
on mathēmata, in which numbers by their nature came first, the Pythagoreans
regarded the principles of numbers as the principles of all things. Secondly, as
their point of departure they took ὁμοιώματα between numbers and existing
things. Strangely enough, Aristotle never names any sensible things. All his ex-
amples point to similarities between numbers and certain concepts. Evidently,
he took statements such as ‘Justice is 4, because it returns like for like’ seriously,
as philosophical definitions, in spite of their obviously metaphorical nature.
Does, however, the likening of justice to reciprocity and thus to the number
four indeed reflect a theory that things originated from and consist of numbers?
Thirdly, they saw that concords were also composed of numbers or in accordance
with numbers. Finally, relying on correspondences between numbers and har-
monies on the one hand, and with the cosmos on the other, they judged that
“the heavens are harmony and number”, or consist of numbers. These four prem-
ises led them to conclusions, that number is the first principle, ἀρχή, and that
the elements (στοιχεῖα) of numbers are the elements of everything that exists
(985b33 – 986a3, b15 – 21). The elements of numbers they saw as the even and
the odd, of which one was limited and the other unlimited, while the number
one (τὸ ἕν) comprised both of them, as it is both even and odd; number arose
from the one, and the whole world consisted of numbers.³⁶
Such a multi-levelled construction – (1) elements to which two pairs of op-
posing features were inherent, (2) the one, (3) number, (4) a world consisting of
numbers – has no precedent in early Greek philosophy. This construction most
closely resembles the system of derivations of Plato’s doctrine of principles: ἕν
and ἀόριστος δυάς generate ideal numbers, which in their turn generate Forms
and so on right down to τὰ αἰσθητά. This similarity is no accident, of course.
The overwhelming majority of Aristotle’s testimonia on number doctrine are
linked in one way or another with his interpretation of Plato’s teaching on prin-
 Met. 985b23 – 986a13. They are set out more systematically by Alexander of Aphrodisias, who
used Aristotle’s treatise On the Pythagoreans (In Met. 38.8ff = fr. 13 Ross = fr. 162 Gigon.).
 τοῦ δὲ ἀριθμοῦ στοιχεῖα τό τε ἄρτιον καὶ τὸ περιττόν, τούτων δὲ τὸ μὲν πεπερασμένον τὸ δὲ
ἄπειρον, τὸ δ’ ἓν ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων εἶναι τούτων (καὶ γὰρ ἄρτιον εἶναι καὶ περιττόν), τὸν δ’ ἀριθμὸν
ἐκ τοῦ ἑνός, ἀριθμοὺς δέ, καθάπερ εἴρηται, τὸν ὅλον οὐρανόν (Met. 986a17– 21).
334 Leonid Zhmud
ciples and the kindred theories of the Platonists.³⁷ Number doctrine is very sel-
dom featured independently (Cael. 268a11, but cf. Pl. Parm. 145a5 – 8). In a his-
toriographical survey in Metaphysics Α 3 – 7, the Pythagoreans are placed imme-
diately before Plato. Earlier philosophers knew only a material and an active
cause; the Pythagoreans also knew two, namely a material and a formal cause
(like Plato), since to them number was both the material substance of which
things consisted and their form.³⁸ According to the Pythagoreans, sensible things
exist by imitating (μίμησις) numbers, while in Plato they exist by participation
(μέθεξις). Since μίμησις is absent in the Pythagorean tradition and is not
found again in Aristotle’s testimonia on the Pythagoreans, there is hardly
need to attach particular significance to it. Μίμησις as a term belongs to Plato,
where, like μέθεξις, it describes relations between things and Forms.³⁹ Evidently
this is an unsuccessful attempt by Aristotle to find a suitable term for the resem-
blances discerned by the Pythagoreans, between numbers and ‘things’. Why he
selected one Platonic concept for this purpose and set it against another is un-
clear. What is clear is that, to Aristotle, Plato’s Prinzipienlehre acquires its histor-
ical meaning only against the background of the Pythagorean teaching. Like the
Pythagoreans, Plato believed that the elements of Forms were elements of every-
thing that exists. Great and small, that is, the Indefinite Dyad, which replaced the
Pythagoreans’ ἄπειρον, constitute the material cause, and the One (τὸ ἕν) – the
formal cause. Like the Pythagoreans, Plato regarded the One as a substance, and
not the predicate of something else, and saw in numbers the causes of the es-
sence of all other things. He differed from the Pythagoreans in separating the
One and numbers from things and, being engaged in investigating concepts,
he introduced Forms, whereas the Pythagoreans knew no dialectic (987b18 – 33).
 Phys. 203a3 f.; Cael. 300a14 f.; Met. 987a31, 987b10. b22. 29, 990a30 – 34, 996a6, 1001a9,
1002a11, 1028b16 – 19; 1036b15, 1053b10, 1078b30, 1080b15, b30, 1083b8 – 15, 1090a20 – 35,
1091a12 f.; cf. MM 1182a11: Pythagoras as a precursor of Plato. See also On the Good (test. and fr. 2
Ross = fr. 87 Gigon) and On the Pythagoreans (fr. 13 Ross = fr. 162 Gigon). Speusippus and the
Pythagoreans: Met. 1072b30 = fr. 42, EN 1096b5 – 8 = fr. 47.
 Number is the principle καὶ ὡς ὕλην τοῖς οὖσι καὶ ὡς πάθη τε καὶ ἕξεις (986a17), where πάθη
(properties) and ἕξεις (states) must stand in relation to form. More precisely, the Pythagoreans
only approached an understanding of the formal cause: being the first to define essence (περὶ
τοῦ τί ἐστιν ἤρξαντο μὲν λέγειν καὶ ὁρίζεσθαι), they did it superficially (987a19 f.). On the
Pythagoreans in connection with causa formalis, see: Zeller (1919 I, p. 448 f.); Ross (1958 I,
p. 147 f., 156); Cherniss (1935, p. 224 f.).
 Things ‘imitating’ Forms first occur in the Phaedo (Ross 1951, p. 24 f.). Plato uses various
concepts to express this relation (ibid., 228 f.); μίμησις is presented with particular clarity in the
Timaeus: 38a, 39e, 48e-f, 50c.
It is very probable that to Aristotle the basic function of Pythagorean number

doctrine lay in serving as a background to Plato’s unwritten doctrine of princi-
ples. That which he presents in concentrated form in his historical portrait of
Plato the metaphysician is reproduced in one form or another in virtually all
his references to number philosophy. As Tarán observed with regard to one
such passage,
Here and elsewhere Aristotle conflates Pythagoreanism and Platonism and yet distin-
guishes between them concerning the question of magnitudes because he wishes to discov-
er in the former the origin of certain Platonistic doctrines and because he puts forward his
own view of mathematicals as an intermediate one between the conceptions of the two
other schools. For him mathematicals exist neither apart from the sensibles nor actually
in them, but are potentially in the sensibles and can only be actualized in thought.⁴⁰
The Pythagorean view of numbers, which is at once mathematical and corporeal,

seemed to many scholars ‘primitive’ and ‘archaic’. The fact that it did not accord
with the concepts of Aristotelian philosophy was seen as a guarantee of its au-
thenticity and ‘Presocratic’ nature. Others, like Zeller and Ross, saw an Aristote-
lian interpretation in material number.⁴¹ But do we possess anything on the Py-
thagorean ontology of number besides Aristotle’s various interpretations, from
which everybody may select according to taste? The Pythagorean mathematical
definition is well known: number is a collection of units; for arithmetic nothing
more was needed.⁴² And why, exactly, should number be corporeal if not a single
thing consisted of it? After all, no corporality was required for justice or oppor-
tunity! We must acknowledge that the Pythagoreans’ corporeal number was no
archaic remnant, but the primitivizing antithesis of Plato’s ἀριθμὸς κεχωρι-
σμένος, number separated from things. Yes, Aristotle distinguished the Πυθα-
γόρειοι from Plato and the Platonists, but he also distinguished humans from
centaurs (APo 89b31), which did not lend any reality to the latter. The Pythagor-
eans’ number doctrine is just such a centaur, assembled partly from data of the
Pythagorean tradition, and partly from Aristotelian notions of what Plato’s pred-
ecessors must have looked like.
There is a certain irony of history in the fact that, of the two theories which
Aristotle compared, it was the Platonic, not the Pythagorean, which gave rise to
profound doubts – doubts which more than once caused it to be either dismissed
 Tarán (1979, p. 411).

 Zeller (1919 I, p. 486 ff.); Ross (1951, p. 217).
 Aristox. fr. 23. This definition coincides with that of Euclid (VII, def. 2). As to everybody else
before Plato, to the Pythagoreans number was not an independent essence (a hypostatized
abstraction). It was always a number of something.
336 Leonid Zhmud
or ignored. Plato’s unwritten doctrine was seen to be vulnerable because it was

not reflected in the dialogues (although it is now clear that this was not so),⁴³
and because, being schematic and dogmatic, it was contrary to the openness
of Plato’s philosophy. And yet Aristotle spent twenty years in the Academy,
and the intensity of his polemics against the unwritten doctrine is fully compa-
rable with the far-reaching influence of this teaching on the philosophical sys-
tems of Plato’s heirs, Speusippus and Xenocrates. While recognizing Aristotle’s
right to be mistaken, it is far more natural to see an error not in the fact that
his report of Plato’s famous lecture On the Good is a gross distortion of it – for
this report is confirmed by the accounts of other Academics – but rather in
the fact that here too we encounter Aristotle’s Pythagoreans, ubiquitous but in-
visible to everybody except him:
Both Plato and the Pythagoreans assumed numbers to be the principles of existing things,
because they thought that it is that which is primary and incomposite that is a first prin-
ciple, and that planes are prior to bodies …, and on the same principle lines are prior to
planes, and points (which mathematicians call semeia but which they called units) to
lines, being completely incomposite and having nothing prior to them; but units are num-
bers; therefore numbers are the first of existing things.⁴⁴
The derivation ‘point (or indivisible line) – line – plane – body’ belongs to Plato
and the Platonists, yet Aristotle repeatedly presents the conclusion based upon
it, that numbers came first in nature, as a premise for Pythagorean number phi-
losophy. If Pythagorean number doctrine is unthinkable without Plato’s, to
which Aristotle had direct access, there can be only one answer to the question,
which of them possesses more reality.
Aristotle perceived the origin of Pythagorean philosophy in the fact that the
Pythagoreans were brought up in mathematical sciences (Met. 985b23 f.). In rela-
tion to Philolaus, he was perhaps not far from the truth, but whereas Philolaus
regarded number from the perspective of its cognitive possibilities (B 3), Aristotle
took no interest whatever in the epistemology of the Pythagoreans as a whole or
of Philolaus in particular. Although he returned dozens of times to the theories of
the Pythagoreans, he never once touched on that topic.⁴⁵ He thought that the re-
sult of their mathematical studies, as with the Platonists (Met. 992a31), was num-
 Frede (1997, p. 403ff).

 Alex. In Met. 55.20 – 27 = De bono, fr. 2 Ross, tr. Ross.
 The passage of Iamblichus on Pythagorean epistemology (Comm. Math., 78.8 – 18), which
Burkert took to be a fragment of Aristotle (Burkert (1972, p. 49 f., 447 f.); followed by Huffman
(1993, p. 70 f.), 114 f.) and Huffman (2005, p. 552 ff.)), does not in fact belong to the latter; see
Zhmud (2007).
ber ontology: the principles of mathēmata are the principles of all that exists,
and numbers are by their nature the first of those principles, and therefore the
elements of numbers are the elements of all things. All this applies to Platonism
rather than to mathematics and Philolaus. What is meant, for example, by ἀρχαὶ
τῶν μαθημάτων? In mathematics there is no such concept, and when Philolaus
called geometry ἀρχὴ καὶ μητρόπολις of the other mathēmata (A7a), he did not
mean the ontological priority of its subject matter compared with other scien-
ces.⁴⁶ This, however, is precisely what Aristotle meant, when, like Plato, he
put arithmetic in first place. According to the Academic doctrine, ontological pri-
ority resides with that which can exist without another: body is less substance
than plane, plane than line, and line than unit or point.⁴⁷ Thus, numbers are
by nature first. Usually Aristotle ascribes this idea to Plato and the Platonists,
but it is also one of the main premises of Pythagorean number doctrine.⁴⁸ Is it
necessary to prove that it bears no relation to either the Pythagoreans or to math-
ematics?
Further, in mathematics there are no στοιχεῖα of numbers. A Greek mathema-
tician would be extremely surprised to learn that the even and the odd are ele-
ments of numbers, while the one comprises both, because it is both even and
odd. In themselves, τὸ ἄρτιον and τὸ περιττόν are not mathematical concepts.
Mathematics knew only even and odd numbers, of which the first are 2 and 3;
in other words, evenness and oddness are properties of number, not its elements.
Since in Greek mathematics number is a multitude made up of units, the one
was not considered a number. Both the Pythagoreans and Aristotle defined it
as a principle (ἀρχή) of number, which could therefore never be even-odd.⁴⁹ Re-
vealingly, the idea of the even-odd unit is found only among Aristotle’s Pythagor-
eans, and nowhere else, not even the Neoplatonists.⁵⁰ Aristotle explains it thus:
 See Huffman (1993, p. 193 f.).

 Met. 1002a4– 8, 1019a1– 4; 1017b6 – 21, etc.
 Pythagoreans: Met. 985b26, 986a1; Alex. In Met., 40.11 f. = fr. 13 Ross. Cf. on Speusippus: τὰ
δὲ μαθηματικὰ εἶναι καὶ τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς πρώτους τῶν ὄντων (fr. 34); see also fr. 30 and 33.
 Aristox. fr. 23: μονὰς μὲν οὖν ἐστιν ἀρχὴ ἀριθμοῦ, ἀριθμὸς δὲ τὸ ἐκ τῶν μονάδων πλῆθος
συγκείμενον. Cf. Arist. Phys. 220a27: Ἐλάχιστος δὲ ἀριθμὸς ὁ μὲν ἁπλῶς ἐστὶν ἡ δυάς. Evenness
and oddness as attributes of number: Top. 123a12; APo 73b18; Met. 1004b9, etc. The one:
Top. 108b25, 141b5; Met. 1016b18: τὸ δὲ ἑνὶ εἶναι ἀρχῇ τινί ἐστιν ἀριθμοῦ εἶναι; 1021a12– 14.
 See Theol. ar., 1.10 f. (from Iamblichus), in which the monad is endowed with almost all the
properties of numbers, as also in Procl. In Parm., 1085.5 f. Although Speusippus sometimes
treated the one as if it were an odd number (fr. 28 with commentary), this does not mean, pace
Tarán, that he had a special doctrine about it; see Mueller 1986, p. 119. From Xenocrates’ ‘table of
opposites’ (fr. 213), μονὰς–δυάς, περιττὸν–(ἄρτιον), it seems to emerge that the one was odd,
338 Leonid Zhmud
the one is inherent in the nature of both the odd and the even because, when
added to an even number it makes an odd, and when added to an odd number,
an even.⁵¹ This argument transfers to the one, which is not a number, the prop-
erty of any odd number: added to an even number, it produces an odd number,
and vice versa, which does not, of course, mean that three is an even-odd num-
ber!⁵² Corresponding propositions (not for addition, but for subtraction) appear
in the early Pythagorean theory of odd and even numbers (Euc. IX, 25 – 27). Its
crowning proof of the fact that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable
with its side (Euc. X, app. 27) uses reductio ad absurdum: one and the same num-
ber cannot be both even and odd. How is it that the very thing which the Pytha-
gorean mathematicians and Aristotle himself (APr 41a24 f., 50a37 f.) considered
ἀδύνατον and ἄτοπον turns out to be intrinsic to the one of Aristotle’s Pythagor-
eans? It appears that they were not, after all, brought up in mathematics, but in
Academic number metaphysics.
Pythagorean arithmetic, dividing numbers into even and odd, further iden-
tified four kinds of ‘mixed’ numbers from the point of view of their divisibility
(Euc. VII, def. 8 – 11): even-even (for example 8), even-odd (6), odd-even (12),
and odd-odd (9). Plato in the Parmenides (143d-144a), concerned to produce a
complete classification, names all four mixed kinds, Philolaus only one of them:
Number, indeed, has two kinds peculiar to it, odd and even, and a third derived from the
mixture of the two, even-odd. Each of the two kinds has many forms, which each thing it-
self indicates (B 5, tr. KRS).
Since Philolaus is discussing kinds of numbers, ἀρτιοπέριττον have traditionally

been seen as even numbers consisting of odd halves,⁵³ rather than the one,
which was not a number, much less a special kind of number.⁵⁴ In recent deca-
des an interpretation has spread, according to which Philolaus was implying
what Aristotle wrote about, that is, the one.⁵⁵ But in order to read into B 5 an
exotic doctrine which runs counter to mathematics and left no trace in the Pytha-
gorean tradition itself, one must have serious grounds, which I cannot see. On
the contrary, the fragment of Aristotle on ‘harmony’ from Ps.-Plutarch’s De mu-
sica, which demonstrates an indisputable Pythagorean influence, and in partic-
thus Huffman (2005, p. 487), but the same conclusion also follows from the Pythagorean table:
περιττὸν–ἄρτιον, ἓν–πλῆθος.
 Theon, Exp., 22.5 f. = Arist. fr. 199 = Archyt. A 21; Alex. In Met. 40.20 f., 41.15 f. = fr. 13 Ross.
 Guthrie (1962, p. 224); Lloyd (1966, p. 95 n. 1).
 Cf. Philo, Περὶ ἀριθμῶν, fr. 34b, 36a; Nic. Ar. I, 9; Theon. Exp., 25.19 f.
 Zeller (1919 I, p.445 n. 1); Heath (1922 I, p. 70 f.); Lasserre (1954, p. 169); Barker (2007, p. 332).
 Burkert (1972, p. 264); Huffman (1993, p. 186 f.); Huffman (2005, p. 486 f.).
ular the influence of Philolaus, assigns ἀρτιοπέρισσον to the even-odd numbers,

making clear at the same time why Philolaus confined himself to three kinds of
numbers.⁵⁶
Philolaus treated his principles, ἄπειρα and περαίνοντα (B 1– 3), separately
from even and odd numbers, and without any appeal whatever to mathematics.
Aristotle’s Pythagoreans identified ‘limit’ and ‘unlimited’ with the odd and the
even. Despite the fact that this thesis, bringing together the world of things
and numbers by identifying their principles, is by its nature fundamental, the
only explanation adduced by Aristotle is obscure, artificial, and unconvincing:
the Pythagoreans and Plato consider ἄπειρον to be a substance, not the predi-
cate of anything else, and the Pythagoreans locate it both beyond the cosmos
and in sensible things (because they do not separate number from things),
while Plato locates it in Forms and sensibles.
The Pythagoreans say moreover that the unlimited is the even, for this when it is enclosed
and limited by the odd, provides the unlimited element in existing things. This is illustrated
by what happens when gnomons are placed around numbers: when they are placed round
the one, and without the one, in the one case the figure produced varies continuously,
whereas in the other it is always the same (Phys. 203a3 – 16, tr. Guthrie).
This refers to the familiar construction of figured numbers with the aid of a gno-
mon: the addition of odd numbers produces a square number, which preserves
its form, while the addition of even numbers produces an oblong number, whose
sides always differ by one.
; n (n + 1) .⁵⁷
2
n Leaving aside the fact that this illustration
is not quite precise from an arithmetical point of view (a gnomon retains the
shape of an oblong number unchanged; only the ratios of the sides change:
2:3, 3:4, 4:5), it is clearly secondary and could not provide a basis for the iden-
tification of the two pairs of principles. However, Aristotle knew no other explan-
ation, and neither do we.⁵⁸ Square and oblong (number) complete the table of
ten opposites (Met. 986a22-b8); his recourse to them may have been inspired
by a wish to demonstrate the co-relation between all its pairs. Aristotle himself
 [Plut.] De mus. 23 = fr. 47 Rose = De philos. fr. 25 Ross; tr. Barker. See Lasserre (1954, p. 168 f.);
Barker (2007, p. 331 ff.).
 Heath (1922 I, p. 82 f.). For ancient interpretations, see: Burkert (1972, p. 33 n. 27).
 Cf. Zeller (1919 I, p. 490 ff.); Heidel 1901 (the identification of the two pairs came later);
Guthrie (1962, p. 241 f.); Burkert (1972, p. 34); Huffman (1993, p. 179 ff.).
340 Leonid Zhmud
observed more than once that individual pairs in the table are united by shared
features: the bad belongs to the class of the unlimited; the good to the limited
(EN 1106 b30); odd, straight, and square number (τὸ ἰσάκις ἴσον) belong to
the column τοῦ καλοῦ (Met. 1093 b12– 14); the Pythagoreans placed τὸ ἕν (EN
1096b6 – 7) in the same column (τῇ τῶν ἀγαθῶν συστοιχίᾳ). However, any at-
tempt to prove the sameness of all pairs inevitably leads into a blind alley: ἕν
will turn out to be odd; πλῆθος – even, and so on. Since the table is a product
of systemization undertaken by the Platonists, it is highly probable that the illus-
tration showing, by means of the last pair, that the first two pairs are identical
also belongs to the Academy. Aristotle had already mentioned in the early Cat-
egories that a gnomon placed round a square increased it without changing it
(15a29 – 33). This is precisely the kind of elementary mathematics which was
used in the Academy to illustrate philosophical problems. Without this mathe-
matics, another fundamental premise of Pythagorean number doctrine remains
suspended in mid-air.
Burkert called the table of ten opposites ascribed by Aristotle to a distinct
group of Pythagoreans ‘a continuous transition between Pythagorean and Pla-
tonic’.⁵⁹ This description, correct in principle, requires refinement. A methodical
comparison of the table with Pythagorean and Academic material shows that it
contains far more of the latter than the former. Is it in any case possible to imag-
ine a Presocratic with ten pairs of principles, including ethical, physical and
mathematical concepts? Of the early Greek thinkers, none went beyond two
pairs of physical principles (Empedocles). Everything points to the fact that
what we have is a compilation whose author had set himself the goal of raising
the number of paired principles to precisely ten. This number, which to Platonists
was the perfect number, is not attested in the Pythagorean tradition itself, it ap-
pears only in the interpretations of Speusippus (fr. 28) and Aristotle
(Met. 986a8 f.; fr. 203). Dualism, in the sense of a theory of opposite qualities
or elements, was characteristic of the philosophy of Alcmaeon, Menestor, Philo-
laus, Simmias, and Echecrates, but such pairs as warm and cold, dry and wet,
sweet and bitter, typical of the Pythagoreans and the Presocratics in general,
are absent from the table. True, it begins with the pair limit-unlimited, but is
that sufficient to guarantee its Pythagorean origin as a whole?
The connection between the right, the male, and the good, and between the
left, the female, and the bad, is traditional in nature and has nothing specifically
 Burkert (1972, p. 51).

Pythagorean about it.⁶⁰ Even and odd and square and oblong numbers go back
to early Pythagorean arithmetic; the first of these pairs is mentioned in Philolaus
in a mathematical context, linked with harmonics, as the parallel in Aristotle
shows.⁶¹ At the same time, the even and the odd are found in abundance in
Plato, who also has square and oblong numbers,⁶² and these same types of num-
bers were treated by Speusippus (fr. 28). The combination of even and odd with
left and right first appears in Plato’s Laws. ⁶³ According to Aristotle, the pairs at
rest and moving, and good and bad, are typically Platonic, being derived from
his ἀρχαί, the One and the Indefinite Dyad.⁶⁴ One and plurality are not only a
Platonic principle; they constitute the cornerstone of Speusippus’ philosophy.
The male-female pair was significant to Xenocrates, who linked it to another
pair, even-odd. It is known that Speusippus and Xenocrates had series of oppo-
sites similar to those of the Pythagoreans.⁶⁵ Aristotle twice links Speusippus with
the Pythagorean table.⁶⁶ Aristotle himself evidently thought in terms of a univer-
sal table of opposites, of which the Pythagorean table was a particular instance.
Sometimes he mentions it as if it were Academic.⁶⁷
The opposites in every series are akin to one another and ethically coloured;
odd, square, right, etc. correspond to even, oblong, left, etc., and cannot be
transposed from the ‘good’ series to the ‘bad’.⁶⁸ Alcmaeon’s and Menestor’s op-
posites, however, can easily be combined crosswise: warm and wet, cold and
dry, as was done to the full extent in the humoral theory of the Hippocratics.
In Philolaus, ἄπειρα and περαίνοντα have no ethical colouration, and when he
discussed spatial concepts (B 17), he insisted that ‘up’ and ‘down’ were relative,
 Parmenides (B 17) and Anaxagoras (A 107) linked the sex of a child, male or female, with
right and left.
 See above, 16 f.
 See above, 2 n. 6; Phaed. 105a7, 106b5-c5, Tht. 185d1– 3, 198a6, Res. 510c3, Leg. 946a4.
τετράγωνος–ἑτερομήκης (or προμήκης) ἀριθμός: Tht. 148a-b, Res. 510c3 – 5.
 The Athenian suggests allocating even and left to the honours rendered to the chthonic gods,
and odd and right to the Olympian gods (717a-b). This is not confirmed by the actual practice of
the ritual; after Plato, this idea is found in Plutarch (Numa 14.3; Quaest. Rom. 15), who refers
directly to the Laws (De Isid. 361a), then in Porphyry (VP 38). See Burkert (1972, p. 474 n. 56);
Schöpsdau (2003, p. 213 f.). Plato’s innovation is usually taken to be an echo of Pythagorean
teaching, but it is more likely that the real influence flowed in the opposite direction.
 Met. 1084a35, cf. Phys. 201b16ff; Eud. fr. 60; Ross (1958 I, p. 450 f.).
 Speusippus: Arist. Met. 1085b5, 1087b4, b25; 1092a35; Tarán (1981, p. 32 ff.). For Xenocrates
one could reconstruct the following table of opposites: μονὰς–δυάς, ἄρρεν–θῆλυ, Ζεὺς–μήτηρ
θεῶν, περιττὸν–ἄρτιον, νοῦς–ψυχή (fr. 213).
 Met. 1072b30 = fr. 42, EN 1096b5 – 8 = fr. 47.
 See for example: Phys. 189a1 ff., 201b21 ff.; Met. 1004b27 ff., 1093b11 f.
 See above, 18 f.
342 Leonid Zhmud
not absolute!⁶⁹ Among Aristotle’s Pythagoreans, things are the other way round:
“They called right, up and forward ‘good’, and left, down and backward ‘bad’.”⁷⁰
Is it accidental that these ethical coordinates coincide with those of Plato’s es-
chatological myth in the Republic (614c3-d1), where after judgement the souls
of the righteous go to the right and upwards, carrying their sentences in front
of them, while the souls of the sinners go to the left and downwards, holding
their sentences behind their backs? However much in its detail the table ulti-
mately derives from the Pythagorean tradition, in its final form of the ten pairs
of distinct kindred opposites, it was created by somebody very well versed in
the teaching of Plato and the Platonists.
Whatever aspect of the Pythagorean number metaphysics as described and
criticised by Aristotle we consider, we come to the same conclusion: it is under-
standable and indeed thinkable only in view of the Academic background. Thus,
the theory of the two lines in the interpretation of Pythagorean philosophy, the
Academic and the Aristotelian, the bad and the good, must be rewritten. The first
line appears to be practically nonexistent or, at least, invisible, while the second
unexpectedly acquires the dark colour of the first. We lose a lot of what we
thought we knew about Pythagorean philosophy, but get a more realistic ap-
proach to it.
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Giovanni Casertano
Early Pythagoreans in Aristotle’s account
1 Preliminary remarks
I have been working on the early Pythagoreans and their relation to the Eleatics
on many occasions and in different contexts in the last thirty years.¹ This is why I
will just discuss some of Aristotle’s accounts on the early Pythagoreans, and will
not consider here the Pythagoreans who lived from the mid-fifth to the fourth
century, like Philolaus and Archytas. I will review Aristotle’s accounts of those
known as “anonymous Pythagoreans”, starting from two assumptions, namely
that those testimonies somehow² mirror the ancient Pythagorean theories,³
and that a core of original Pythagorean doctrines can be distinguished from
the “biased” ones made up by Aristotle for critical, expository or merely polem-
ical reasons. My aim (and hope) is to try and offer some hints on the magnificent
and “prolonged symposium of ideas”⁴ that mark the Greek philosophical and
scientific culture in the fifth century.
Translation by Silvia Casertano

 Parmenide il metodo la scienza l’esperienza [1978], Napoli 1989; ‘Sapere filosofico e sapere
scientifico nella cultura greca del VI-V secolo a.C.’, in CIDI-Quaderni 4, 1980, nr. 6, 129 – 149; Il
piacere, l’amore e la morte nelle dottrine dei presocratici. I. Il piacere e il desiderio, Napoli 1983; ‘Il
numero-corpo, l’anima pulviscolo ed il respiro del tempo’, Bollettino della Società Filosofica
Italiana n.s. nr. 130, 1987, 53 – 62; ‘Due note sui primi pitagorici’, in Filologia e forme letterarie,
Studi offerti a F. Della Corte, vol. V, Urbino 1987, 5 – 25; ‘I pitagorici e il potere’, in I filosofi e il
potere nella società e nella cultura antiche, with an introduction and edited by G. Casertano,
Napoli 1988, 15 – 27; ‘Pitagorici’, in Dizionario degli Scrittori Greci e Latini, Milano 1988, 1635 –
1641; ‘Pensiero e scuole filosofiche’, in Storia del Mezzogiorno, I, II, Napoli 1991, 159 – 208;
‘Orfismo e pitagorismo in Empedocle?’, in Tra Orfeo e Pitagora. Origini e incontri di culture
nell’antichità (edited by Ghidini-Marino-Visconti), Napoli 2000, 195 – 236; Pitagorici ed Eleati, in
M. Bugno (ed. by), Senofane ed Elea tra Ionia e Magna Grecia, Napoli 2005, pp. 213 – 240.
 In this account I will mention theories or concepts that cannot, I believe, be referred to early
Pythagoreans, but rather to Pythagoreans of the fifth and fourth centuries. Aristotle’s accounts
of them are in chapter 58 of the collection by H. Diels-W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker,
Dublin/Zürich 196813, but they were extended by A. Maddalena first, and then by M. Timpanaro
Cardini. Hereafter I will use the DK numbering, but will refer to Timpanaro’s text, that contains
many more texts than DK, some of them extremely important.
 For a justification of this assumption see the works quoted in the two previous footnotes.
 This is an expression of Raven 1966, 175; the subtitle here is already symptomatic: “An
account of the interaction between the two opposed schools during the fifth and early fourth
centuries B.C.”.
346 Giovanni Casertano
Historiography has its trends too. For centuries Aristotle has determined the
way philosophy before him is interpreted, and that trend lives on in current
times. Whether this is because of the suggestive power of the theorical framework
in which he placed his readings, or the fact that the Western Church has always
sanctioned his auctoritas in Western culture, because his historiographic tables
are so easy to read and follow, or even because a great part of philosophical his-
toriography tends to be more or less uncritical and repetitive, all this is of no im-
portance to us here. Cherniss’ two volumes, one published in 1935 and the other
in 1944,⁵ opened (though with some exaggeration) an era of criticism that is far
from closed. However, Aristotle’s testimony is very complex, if not to some de-
gree self-contradictory, perhaps because of the particular quality of the works
that reached us. And his accounts of the Pythagoreans are no exception.
What is the picture of the Pythagoreans’ doctrines that Aristotle gives us? I
begin with two important points. 1) Aristotle does not give us just one picture,
but rather many different ones, and 2) he never refers to Pythagorean philosophy
as a religious cult. Point 1) means that already in Aristotle’s time it was difficult
to determine whether particular doctrines were indeed Pythagorean. Aristotle
only names Pythagoras twice: in a passage from the Rhetoric ⁶ which presents
a list of people honoured for their wisdom he claims that Pythagoras was held
in high esteem in Magna Graecia, and in a passage from the Metaphysics
which surveys Pythagorean thought he states that Alcmaeon reached his
acmé when Pythagoras was old.⁷ On the other hand, Aristotle’s account of Pytha-
gorean theories is the richest and most complete we have.⁸ So we can state with
confidence that these theories were ‘the outcome of a common and extensive dis-
cussion and work that went on for a long time’⁹. And actually the Pythagorean
school of thought was the very first “school” in Magna Graecia: Pythagoras was
undoubtedly its most distinguished representative. What is also clear is that the
early Pythagoreans did not care to assign doctrines that were developed and dis-
cussed in the context of that school to particular members of the school. Only
 H. Cherniss, Aristotle’s criticism of presocratic philosophy [1935], New York 1976; H. Cherniss,
Aristotle’s criticism of Plato and the Academy [1944], New York 1962.
 1398b16 = DK14, 5.
 Met. 986a29 = DK14, 7; this passage is deleted by Ross and by Jaeger as a later gloss.
 As Raven stresses, trying to reconstruct Pythagoreanism without taking Aristotle’s testimony
into account is like building on sand (p. 13). Raven, too, faced with the intricacy of Aristotles’
reconstruction, thinks one has to assume this intricacy as necessary and try to understand it
from the inside. Confronted with some of his inconsistencies, to think Aristotle is “confused”
means, moreover, to demolish the basis on which any reasonable reconstruction of Py-
thagoreanism can be founded (p. 63).
 Timpanaro III, 24.
later on were doctrines, and even works, assigned to Pythagoras or to early Py-
thagoreans, but as early as Aristotle’s times the various contributions were al-
ready hard to ascribe.¹⁰ Point 2) is important, for it helps get rid of one of the
many “Pythagorean legends” that arose early in Pythagorean historiography, cer-
tainly due to the uniqueness of Pythagoras, who must have made quite an im-
pression on Greeks during his time; this uniqueness explains why so many coun-
terfeits of his works were written through the years, into the imperial age.¹¹ It is
really interesting and worth noticing that, the later the age, the more detailed
and precise the information about him becomes, until about a thousand years
after his lifetime the “lives” by Porphyry and Iamblichus are full of the smallest
details. However, there’s no hint of any cult-like and religious features marking
Pythagorean thought in Aristotle’s account.¹² And this is all the more significant
 This is perhaps the simplest and most probable explanation of the Aristotelian expression
that has so long been considered “enigmatic” and loaded with other meanings (for instance by
Frank, p. VI and passim): οἱ καλούμενοι Πυθαγόρειοι, “those who are called Pythagoreans”, that
is simply the followers of a certain group of doctrines. In this sense I totally agree with Tim-
panaro III, 7 ff.
 On these see B. Centrone, Pseudopythagorica Ethica, Napoli 1990; Introduzione ai Pitagorici,
Roma-Bari 1996; ‘Cosa significa essere pitagorico in età imperiale. Per una ricostruzione della
categoria storiografica del neopitagorismo’, in La filosofia dell’età imperiale, Napoli 2000, 137–
168.
 Nowadays, though, it is still said that one of the features of early Pythagoreanism is that of
being a real “sect”: see, for instance, W. Leszl 1989, 197– 226. W. Burkert maintained that one
cannot talk about a proper Pythagorean science and philosophy before the first half of the fifth
century, in particular with Hippasus (passim, in particular 454– 456). According to A. Capizzi, La
repubblica cosmica, Roma 1982, 263 (referring to I. Lana, ‘Tracce di dottrine cosmopolitiche in
Grecia prima del cinismo’, in I. Lana, Studi sul pensiero politico classico, Napoli 1973, 231– 253):
Pythagoreanism is “the first major instance of a religious system based on cosmopolitanism, a
school independent of the cult traditions of individual cities”. That Pythagoras was a religious
prophet, pre-scientific, a shaman, was the classic thesis by K. Reinhardt, Parmenides und die
Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, Bonn 1916; and of E. Frank, who maintained that Py-
thagoreanism in the sixth and fifth centuries was just a mystic sect, promoting reformation on
the religious level but with no philosophical or scientific interests; by G. Rathmann, Quaestiones
Pythagoreae Orphicae Empedocleae, Halle 1933; by E.R. Dodds, I Greci e l’irrazionale [1950],
Firenze 1973, 180 ff.,. A. Frajese, La matematica nel mondo antico, Roma 1951 (especially pp. 47,
50, 52) firmly supports the hypothesis that science and philosophy, which constitute the starting
point for the scientific research of the fifth and fourth century, were practiced even in early
Pythagoreanism. Even C.H. Kahn 1974, 161– 185 (references below are to the Italian translation of
this essay, in W. Leszl 1982, 287– 314, even though it is sometimes inaccurate) not only asserts
the novelty of Pythagoras’ ethical and religious ideas (292– 293), but also identifies the presence
of philosophical elements based on mathematical and cosmological ideas, against Burkert. Even
L. Zhmud 1997 rejects Burkert’s thesis about Pythagorean “shamanism”, and supports the view
since Aristotle certainly knew the legends about Pythagoras that were current
during his own times, if we can trust Apollonius Paradoxographus¹³ (second cen-
tury B.C.), who quotes Aristotle as his source. But this is an aspect of Aristotle’s
account that I will not discuss here.
Aristotle describes Pythagoreanism in two fundamental ways, at least with
respect to what he thought was the most important philosophical and scientific
question, that of principles: 1) Pythagoreans thought that “numbers” are the
principle of all things; 2) Pythagoreans thought that “opposites” are the princi-
ples of all things. I will start with the second thesis, the one Aristotle considers to
being “normal”, whereas the first one, we’ll see later, presents some difficulties
for him.
2 The opposites
Aristotle thought there was a common feature in the intellectual legacy coming
from his precursors – opposition: ‘Everyone poses the opposites as principles’,
he states in the first book of his Physics. ¹⁴ “Everyone” clearly includes the Pytha-
goreans. The first question comes here. In the very well-known and often dis-
cussed passage of his Metaphysics, 986a15 (= DK58B5) Aristotle seems to make
a distinction between the two theses. After pointing out that the Pythagoreans
consider number as principle, he goes on to say that ‘some others in the same
school state there are ten principles, named in pairs of opposites (κατὰ συστοι-
χίαν)’¹⁵, and he refers to the well-known Pythagorean “table of opposites”, to
which we will soon return. He then continues: ‘It seems that even Alcmaeon
agreed on that, whether he derived his belief from them or they derived theirs
from him; he stated that the majority of human things are dualities (δύο τὰ
πολλὰ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων), but he did not name oppositions (ἐναντιότητας), as
they did, according to a definite criterion (διωρισμένας), but rather randomly
that the Pythagoreans, and Pythagoras were mathematicians and scientists, rather than reli-
gious reformers. P. Kingsley 1995, in particular 292 and n. 12, criticises Zhmud.
 The author of the Mirabilia, which is a compendium drawn from Aristotle, Theophrastus,
Aristoxenus and others, which has survived. The two stories we refer to (that in Caulonia,
Pythagoras forecasted the arrival of the white she-bear, and that Pythagoras stood up in a
theatre and showed the viewers his leg was golden) are in Mirab. 6 = DK14, 7.
 Phys. 188a19.
 Συστοιχία is a series of elements ordered in a particular way (see Timpanaro III, 80), and
since from the following passage it comes out to be an ἐναντιότης, thus τἀναντία, we can say “in
pairs of opposites”.
(τυχούσας). So both Alcmaeon and the others claimed that opposites are the
principles of things (τἀναντία ἀρχαὶ τῶν ὄντων)’.
This fundamental passage makes many claims which need to be carefully
discussed. First of all, it suggests that different and incompatible doctrines
were held by members of the school. According to it, some Pythagoreans said
that numbers are the principles, while others said that the opposites are the prin-
ciples. Described this way, the two theses seem to clash. But this is not the case,
in my opinion, as I will discuss later on. Something else is significant here: this
passage testifies to the fact that scientific discussions took place very early in the
history of the school and that all those who followed Pythagoras’ teachings took
part in them – a proof that the school was never a sect that dogmatically defend-
ed unquestioned theories. Furthermore, this passage is one of the few accounts
assigning a specific statement to an early Pythagorean: δύο τὰ πολλὰ τῶν
ἀνθρωπίνων: Alcmaeon stated, to quote a fascinating translation by my mentor,
‘human things are dual’¹⁶. Alcmaeon was in his ripe age when Pythagoras was
old, Aristotle says,¹⁷ and since it is very likely that Pythagoras arrived in
Magna Graecia after already having reached fame and prestige¹⁸ at home, Alc-
meon can be considered one of the first disciples of the school. What would dis-
tinguish him from the “other” Pythagoreans would then be that the others at an
early date tried to “systematize” a common thesis – that of opposition – in a cer-
tain order, whereas Alcmeon did not confine it to a table, since he thought it to
be the constant law pertaining to all things and reality itself. What is significant
here is not just that both the early Pythagoreans and Alcmaeon held the same
thesis, but also (and exactly due to Aristotle’s uncertainty about who influenced
whom) that the renowned “table of opposites” must have been posited very early
in the school, at least in its contents if not in its form.¹⁹
 G. Martano 1972, 46.

 Met. 986a29 = DK14, 7.
 See Kahn 1974, 295 ff. For a biography of Pythagoras see P. Gorman, Pythagoras. A life,
London-Henley-Boston 1979, who puts too much credence in Porphyry’s and Iamblichus’ bio-
graphies, which were written when Neoplatonism, Neopythagoreanism and emerging Chri-
stianity had turned Pythagoras into a mystic without any scientific interests.
 Here I do not agree with Timpanaro III, 79 – 80, who denies that the opposition represented
in this table can be ascribed to the earliest Pythagoreans, because, among other things, the
“decadic” canon developed late in the history of the school. This does not mean a lot, since the
coding handed down by Aristotle does not take anything away from the fact that he thought this
was an ancient thesis, as can be seen by the whole account, and thus one that reflected a
genuine Pythagorean concept. I agree instead with Maddalena 1954, 258 n. 13, and Introduzione,
claiming that the scheme of ἐναντιότης is early, even though I cannot accept his thesis that the
“philosophy of numbers” was developed later on. On “opposition” as the distinctive feature not
Let’s have a look at the “table of opposites”:
1) πέρας ἄπειρον
) περιττόν ἄρτιον
) ἕν πλῆθος
) δεξιόν ἀριστερόν
) ἄρρεν θῆλυ
) ἠρεμοῦν κινούμενον
) εὐθύ καμπύλον
) φῶς σκότος
) ἀγαθόν κακόν
) τετράγωνον ἑτερόμηκες
It is clear straightaway that these are twenty ἀρχαί, not ten: Aristotle says “ten
principles” exactly because he is thinking of ten pairs, each of them mirroring
the fundamental law of ἐναντιότης, which he has ascribed to all physiologists
and also to Alcmaeon and these “other” Pythagoreans. One more thing is
clear: the table includes principles drawn from very different areas – from arith-
metic (1, 2, 3) to geometry (7, 10), from physics (6, 8) to cosmology (4), from phys-
iology (5) to ethics (9) – in brief, the whole spectrum of contemporary culture
and thought. This is proof of the fact that Pythagoreans thought opposition, or
opposites, to be the law which all phenomena obey.
It is even likely that these opposites expressed a fundamental “opposition-
trait” found in reality and in every creature’s life, thus of mankind too, and
that this trait was indeed the contrast of “opposites” embodying respectively a
positive and a negative pole, so to say: the contrast of a positive and a negative
principle was a widespread feature not just in Greek culture but also in earlier
ones. Aristotle reports this himself: Pythagoreans ‘put number one in the column
of good’²⁰; ‘evil is intrinsic in the unfinished, good in the finished’²¹. Thus we
would have the left side of the table representing good, and the right one evil.
This, once again, is likely, but we do not have to hurry to the conclusion –
drawn from seeing the whole thing in a context which is exclusively human –
that all oppositions have an ethical meaning.²² We would otherwise incur
some inconsistencies, the first of which would be, coming to pair 6 and 7, that
just of philosophy and science but also of ancient culture, beginning from Homer, see Martano’s
essay quoted in footnote 16; see also G.E.R. Lloyd, Polarity and analogy [1966], translated into
Italian, Napoli 1992.
 E. N. 1096b5 = DK58B6.
 E. N. 1106B29 = DK58B7.
 This is also Cornford’s opinion: F.M. Cornford 1939, 7, the table of opposites represents ten
different expressions of a primary opposition in various spheres: one element is good and one is
evil.
the movement of celestial bodies, which is circular, would be an evil, whereas it

had always been regarded as an instance of perfect movement. In fact, the op-
posites in the table include a wide range of phenomena without being complete.
Aristotle himself, when he explains the difference between Alcmaeon and
“other” Pythagoreans in this very passage, mentions more pairs that were
given by Alcmaeon, including white and black, sweet and bitter and large and
small. This means that the Table is not a comprehensive, but rather an approx-
imate one: though the “freezing” of opposites in ten pairs might be a conse-
quence of the canon of ten that began prevailing with Philolaus, it expresses
an idea that certainly developed before him. Opposition is a rule for the whole
of reality, and this is the only reason why it also rules the life of man. And if
so, each pair expresses the rule in a given field, meaning that both of the oppo-
sites that constitute a pair are needed to express that particular reality and to un-
derstand it. This is all indirectly confirmed by Aristotle himself, one page after
the passage just quoted.
It is an exemplary account, even because it shows us the Aristotelian meth-
od of quoting, in particular his tendency to “adapt” the doctrines of others to his
own ideas, bending them literally, since they are different ideas that do not de-
rive from the same starting points. ‘Ancient philosophers’, Aristotle says,²³
Italians excepted, expressed themselves in a rather obscure way (μορυχώτερον)²⁴ on the

causes, except when giving two species of causes; and one of them [the efficient one],
some say is unique [Anaxagoras], some others that it is twofold [Empedocles]. Pythagor-
eans stated two principles in the same way (κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον), but added something
which is the characteristic feature (ὃ ἴδιον) of their doctrine: they thought that the unfinish-
ed and the one are themselves the substance of those things of which they are predicated
(αὐτὸ τὸ ἄπειρον καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ ἓν οὐσίαν εἶναι τούτων ὧν κατηγοροῦνται), thus that the
number is the substance of all things. They were the first ones to ask “what is this given
thing?” (περὶ τοῦ τί ἐστιν) and to try to give definitions (ὁρίζεσθαι), although they did it
simplistically (ἁπλῶς) and superficially (ἐπιπολαίως), claiming that the first term defining
a given thing is the substance of the defined thing (ὧι πρώτωι ὑπάρξειεν ὁ λεχθεὶς ὁ λεχθεὶς
ὅρος, τοῦτ᾿εἶναι τὴν οὐσίαν τοῦ πράγματος ἐνόμιζον), as if we thought that double and two
are the same thing just because double is first of all a predicate of two. But double and two
are actually not the same thing, or one would be many, a consequence they themselves
must definitely have drawn.
The question of causes is, as we all know, one of the main problems in the Met-
aphysics, and Aristotle gives himself credit for defining and settling it with his
theory of the four causes. He often admits that some of them were “sensed”
 Met. 987a9 = DK58B8.

 From μορύσσω = to stain, to blacken.
by his foregoers such as Empedocles and Anaxagoras, but, as he says here, they
did so “confusedly”. The Pythagoreans pose a duality of principles, so they do
not distance themselves from this τρόπον of thinking things, but an ὃ ἴδιον of
their doctrine is to understand αὐτὸ τὸ ἄπειρον καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ ἓν οὐσίαν εἶναι τού-
των ὧν κατηγοροῦνται. In this account, a clear overlapping of an Aristotelian
perspective – and question – with Pythagorean thought can be found. First of
all, the opposites just mentioned, the infinite and the one,²⁵ are actually in the
two opposite series of the table, but they are not part of the same pair. This, I be-
lieve, confirms what we had said about understanding the table as an indication
of the idea of opposition and not as an exhaustive account of the whole field of
the single oppositions: by referring to opposites that are not in the same pair,
Aristotle is elliptically indicating “oppositions”, all terms of which are needed
to understand the reality of phenomena. In doing so, however, he employs a
double overlapping: on the one hand, he links the thesis of opposition to the
one according to which number is the principle and substance of things; on
the other, as a consequence, another question comes to his mind, the question
of definition, first disclosed by the expression τούτων ὧν κατηγοροῦνται, and
then explicitly tackled.
Thus, that number is the principle and substance of things is still a Pytha-
gorean thesis – although understanding the one and the infinite as predicates
of definition of things is an Aristotelian idea. But by now the perspective has
been shifted, and indeed right after that Aristotle acknowledges that Pythagor-
eans “were the first” to ask the question of definition (ὁρίζεσθαι), that is of de-
termining the τί ἐστιν of each thing, even though they did it, of course, simplis-
tically (ἁπλῶς) and superficially (ἐπιπολαίως); and in this perspective, that is
now an Aristotelian and not a Pythagorean one, their faux pas is mistaking
the first predicate of a thing for its substance. The completely arbitrary conse-
quence of assigning to Pythagoreans the thesis that double and two are the
same thing just because double is first of all a predicate of two’ derives from
this. Apart from being arbitrary, this consequence is also absurd, since it is un-
thinkable that Pythagoreans, being such experts in mathematics, would be so
mistaken. This confusion comes from the fact that their theory cannot be assimi-
lated to Aristotle’s scheme of definition and judgment, to which he suddenly
jumps and which is superimposed on the structure of substance. Despite this
and in the elliptical style of this passage an important dialectical consequence
of the Pythagorean theory is attacked here: ‘But double and two are actually
 Raven 1966, 13, points out that Aristotle uses Plato’s One anachronistically in applying the
term to the Pythagorean limit: he uses the word “the One” synonymously with “Limit”.
not the same thing, or one would be many, a consequence they themselves must
definitely have drawn’. This confirms, though the concept is transferred into Ar-
istotelian terms, that both opposites, in this case one and many, are needed to
explain every aspect of reality.²⁶
3 Number, a concept with dimensions

I shall now consider the second feature of Pythagorean philosophy, the thesis
that number is the principle of all things. This thesis is widely discussed by Ar-
 A confirmation of the Pythagorean thesis about opposites can be found in a passage by

Theophrastus (Met. 33 p. XI a 27 Usener = DK58B14), where, with a similar reference to Aristotles
but in the ethical domain rather than in the logical-ontological one, an interesting perspective is
opened: the principles are opposite to each other (τὰς ἀρχὰς ἐναντίας). That is why not even god
can lead all things towards the better and, even when he does, he can only do so as far as he is
allowed to. Was then Plato’s idea, from the Republic through the Timaeus to the Laws, of a god
who is good but not almighty, also a Pythagorean one? The charge Aristotle makes against
Pythagoreans – being unable to define – is controverted in a different passage by Aristotle, E.N.
1132b21 = DK58B4: Pythagoreans used to define what is just as a “return for something one
received” (τὸ δίκαιον τὸ ἀντιπεπονθὸς ἄλλῳ). However, in Pythagorean “definitions” there was
an arithmological feature with which Aristotle was completely unfamiliar. As he himself tells us:
the Pythagoreans tried to define a few things, reducing concepts to numbers (τοὺς λόγους εἰς
τοὺς ἀριθμούς = Met. 1078b21 = DK58B4; see also the author of M. Mor. 1182a11 = DK58B4:
Pythagoras was the first to deal with virtue, but in an incorrect way, reducing virtues to numbers
– justice is not, indeed, a square number). “Reducing concepts to numbers” was for the Py-
thagoreans their particular way of constructing knowledge. Hence the many arithmological
debates that arose in the school, which were well known to Aristotle even though he smugly
dismissed them and which later generated that “number mysticism” that has nothing to do with
early Pythagoreanism. An example is indeed justice, as Alexander testifies (in Met., p. 38, 10
Hayduck [added by Timpanaro to DK58B4]: the particular features, ἴδιον, of justice are reci-
procation and equality (τὸ ἀντιπεπονθός τε καὶ ἴσον). Some claimed four was the number of
justice, because it is the first square number, it can be divided into equal parts and it is the
product of these parts (see also Anatolius, in Theol. arith. 23 – 29, 5 De Falco: The explanation is
that the square built on a side with value 4 has an area whose numeric value is equal to its
perimeter, 16, while for numbers preceding 4 the perimeter is greater than the area – a square
with a side 3 has indeed area 9 and perimeter 12 – and for those following 4 the perimeter is
smaller – a square with a side 5 has an area 25 and a perimeter 20, and so on); some others
claimed it was nine, the first squared number from an odd one. In this very passage of Ale-
xander we find confirmation to the fact that Pythagorean arithmology had an exclusively co-
gnitive aim: Pythagoreans thought numbers were the first elements of all nature and of what
naturally exists (πάσης τῆς φύσεως καὶ τῶν φύσει ὄντων) for nothing of what exists can exist or
be known separately from numbers (χωρὶς ἀριθμοῦ εἶναι μήτε γνωρίζεσθαι).
istotle, and since his treatment is overtly critical it is all the more trustworthy.²⁷
This Pythagorean doctrine appealed to Aristotle, but at the same time he criti-
cised it strongly. His interest in Pythagorean doctrines is shown not only by
the large number of passages we find in his extant works,²⁸ but also by the
fact that he devoted other works to them which have been lost, including a
book Τῶν Πυθαγορικῶν δόξαι, reported by Alexander with good authority, in
which he examined Pythagorean doctrines in a much more detailed way (ἀκρι-
βέστερον) than in the Metaphysics and the De caelo, as he himself states²⁹
and as Alexander confirms.³⁰
So for those philosophers called Pythagoreans the principles of mathematics
are the principles of all existing things (τῶν ὄντων ἀρχὰς πάντων); the first
among mathematical principles are naturally numbers, thus numbers are the
ἀρχαί of all things.³¹ But in the Pythagorean theory of numbers Aristotle found
a feature that was completely unacceptable to him, one that, though present
in the first Pythagoreans, would then disappear – as a result of Eleatic criticisms
and in particular those of Zeno – in the “second generation” of Pythagoreans,
who were surely known by Aristotle³² – the generation of Archytas and others.
This feature is one we also find difficult to understand, namely the “materiality”
of numbers. It is very clearly testified in Aristotles’ accounts, by assuming num-
ber as a principle (ἀρχήν), Pythagoreans seem (φαίνονται) to mean that it is both
the matter of existing things (ὡς ὕλην τοῖς οὖσι) and their determination and
characteristic (ὡς πάθη τε καὶ ἕξεις)³³; Pythagoreans say there is just one num-
ber – mathematical number – but they do not conceive of it as separate (κεχω-
ρισμένον) from things, indeed they say sensible substances (αἰσθητὰς οὐσίας) are
made of it (συνεστάναι). According to them units have a size (μονάδας ἔχειν
μέγεθος)… and they pose numbers as having a size (ἔχοντας μέγεθος)³⁴; since
 I do not share at this point the opinion of L. Zhmud 1997, according to which the philosophy
of numbers was not a doctrine, or anyway a perspective, of early Pythagoreanism, but rather an
arbitrary Aristotelian interpretation brought in mainly to identify the foregoers of Platonism. See
our discussion in note 19.
 Equal maybe only to those devoted to Atomists: two “schools” which he confronted carefully
and for a long time.
 Met. 986a12.
 Alex. in Met. 41, 1: and not just more precisely but rather much more extensively (ἐπὶ πλέον):
see Alexander’s testimony reported by Timpanaro III, 62 ff.
 Met. 985b23 = DK58B4.
 Which proves once more, even though indirectly, how old the theories mentioned by Ari-
stotle in the chapter on “anonymous Pythagoreans” really are.
 Met. 986a15 = DK58B5.
 Met. 1080b16 = DK58B9.
they found many characteristics (πάθη) of numbers in sensible things, Pythagor-

eans assume that real things (τὰ ὄντα) are numbers, not separate (χωριστούς)
from bodies, but indeed composing them³⁵; when they suppose physical bodies
as being composed of numbers, and thus make something without weight or
lightness compose something with weight and lightness, they seem to talk of an-
other world and other bodies, not the sensible ones³⁶; some Pythagoreans ac-
tually make nature “consist of” numbers (τὴν φύσιν ἐξ ἀριθμῶν συνιστᾶσιν).
But natural bodies have weight and lightness, whereas units cannot, even sum-
med up, form a body nor have a weight.³⁷
These passages prove that the early Pythagoreans held that number is ma-
terial.³⁸ This is further confirmed by passages in which Aristotle finds similarities
between Pythagorean and Platonic theories and describes their difference in this
very respect: Plato, in making the one the substance and not something of which
the one is predicated (καὶ μὴ ἕτερον γέ τι ὂν λέγεσθαι ἕν) was close to the Pytha-
goreans, and even in saying that numbers are to the other beings the cause of
their substance. He further conceived numbers as separate from sensible things
(παρὰ τὰ αἰσθητά), while they say that numbers are the very things (αὐτὰ τὰ πράγ-
ματα). He could tell the one and numbers apart from things and introduced ideas
as a result of his study in logic (ἐν τοῖς λόγοις). As a matter of fact, philosophers
before him did not concern themselves with dialectic (διαλεκτικῆς)³⁹. This report
 Met. 1090a20, not in DK.

 Met. 1090a31, not in DK.
 Cael. 300a14 = DK58B38. See also Met. 1083b19, on which cf. L. Brisson 1998, 27– 30.
 Raven 1966, 55 – 56, rightly points out that it is certainly contrary to the whole current of
early Greek thought to maintain that, while pre-Parmenidean Pythagoreans looked at incor-
poreal number and used expressions in a figurative sense, the second generation, understanding
the number as corporeal, interpreted those expressions literally. On the contrary, while all
Pythagoreans before Zeno regarded numbers as corporeal, there were other Pythagoreans who,
in response to Zeno’s attacks, abandoned this doctrine.
 Met. 987b22 = DK58B13. See also Met. 989b29 = DK58B22: ‘Moreover, even if we admit that
measures come from these principles, how do we have light or heavy bodies? For none of the
principles they pose do they refer to mathematical bodies rather than sensible ones’. According
to Raven 1966, 35, Aristotle here uses a certain argument against Pythagoreans that Parmenides
also knew. Sextus Empiricus, adv. math. X 281, II p. 360 Mutsch., gives us an explanation, which
is not Aristotelian – and we do not know how far it can be considered Pythagorean [not in DK,
added by Timpanaro a B25]: the body takes its consistency from a point, the point, by flowing,
forms the line, the line the plane, the plane the body, extended in three dimensions. These
passages pose one more question, i. e. to establish whether things are or imitate numbers.
According to Cornford 1939, 26, these expressions are two perfectly compatible ways of des-
cribing the relations of things to numbers; according to Raven 1966, 52– 57, these two views are
connected: there is in fact the fundamental ambiguity of ὅμοιος, which can refer to either
has to be combined with another one, in my opinion: some posed the unfinished
as a kind of principle of existing things (ὡς ἀρχήν τινα τῶν ὄντων). Pythagor-
eans and Plato posed the unfinished per se (καθ᾿αὑτό), as a substance (οὐσίαν):
Pythagoreans place it among the sensible things and think the unfinished is
even outside the heavens; Plato instead thinks that outside the heavens there’s
no body, not even Ideas, since they are in no place, and that the unfinished is
indeed in the sensible things and in Ideas. To Pythagoreans then, the unfinished
is the even number: it is intercepted and limited (ἐναπολαμβανόμενον καὶ περαι-
νόμενον) by the odd number, thus giving existing things their indefiniteness. A
sign (σημεῖον) of this is what happens with numbers: depending on whether or
not gnomons are applied around the unit, the species (τὸ εἶδος) of the number
becomes only one or different from time to time.⁴⁰
These two accounts show us many things. First of all, they confirm what is
said in DK58B8⁴¹ about the fact that the one and the apeiron are both, and with
complete or partial similarity, it can be either ὁ αὐτός or ἴσος. Aristotle, that is to say, uses the
two expressions “things are numbers” and “things imitate numbers” as if they were perfectly
compatible (62).
 phys. 202b36 = DK58B28. The last sentence in this passage cannot be understood as if εἶδος
has the usual Aristotelian meaning of “species.” As a matter of fact, the series of square and also
of oblong numbers and figures that result from the application of the gnomon to the unit and to
the number two are both always the same kind, that of square or oblong numbers and figures,
even though those figures have sides with different lengths. Aristotle says here that the εἶδος of
the square number is always one, i. e. the same, and that of oblong numbers and figures is
always different. This, then, must mean that the gnomon applied to number one does not just
always give the same figures (i. e. squares), but also that their relation – which is always one –
stays the same, even though the lengths of the sides change. On the other hand, the gnomons
applied to the number two give us figures that are indeed always of the same kind (in fact, they
are all oblong), but when the lengths of the sides of oblong figures change, their relation
changes. The infinite as an even number and the use of the gnomon to generate the two
fundamental series of numbers – square and oblong – can also be found in other accounts.
Simpl. in phys. 203a1, p. 455, 20 D. = DK58B28: the unfinished is the even number, for every even
number is divided into equal parts, and what is divided into equal parts is unfinished per
dichotomy (the partition into two equal parts can go on endlessly). The odd number, instead,
added to the even one, limits it, preventing its partition into two equal parts. Themist. paraphr. in
phys. III 4, p. 80, 8 Schenkl [added by TC]: the unfinished is even, for it is the cause of the
partition into equal parts, and this partition is unfinished, and because it generates the in-
definiteness of things in which it finds itself, but is then limited by the odd one. [Plutarch.] ap.
Stob. I pr. 10, p. 22, 16 W. = DK58B28: if the odd gnomons are successively wrapped around the
unit, the resulting figure is always a square; if they are wrapped around the two, each gnomon
has an even number of units and the reulsts are all oblong and unequal; none is a square
number.
 See page 351 (note 23).
the same right, principles of existing things – thus opposition is a principle of

what exists. Secondly, by marking this difference between Plato and the Pytha-
goreans, Aristotle was tackling a very important question, and with respect to
this question he sometimes prefers the one, sometimes the other theory. I am
talking about the question of the relationship between science and experience.
4 Science and experience

We have just seen what doubts the Pythagorean theory of material number raised
for Aristotle. He makes many objections against this theory that often lead to a
real alteration of the theory he is reporting. The theory was in fact a complex
one, but that complexity is characteristic of scientific and philosophical thought
of the sixth and fifth centuries; it would last until Plato and would be replaced
exactly by Aristotle’s “systematic” way of thinking. A feature of this complexity
that gets lost with Aristotle is the possibility of conceiving number as a founding
principle of things, a rule by which things happen, a principle by which things
are explained. From this point of view, as we discussed above, he seems to prefer
Plato, who at least had distinguished the material from the immaterial.⁴²
On the other hand and since it implies a strict bond between theory and ex-
perience – between logical-mathematical explanation and phenomena – the Py-
thagorean doctrine of number also implies a series of “qualifications” of that
bond that appeared very weird to Aristotle, and with which he was not able to
come to terms. Let’s go back to DK58B4⁴³ in some detail: contemporary to
these,⁴⁴ and even prior to them, were the philosophers called Pythagoreans.
The principles of mathematics are to them the principles of all existing things
(τῶν ὄντων ἀρχὰς πάντων). The first among mathematical principles are natural-
ly numbers, in which they thought they could see many similarities with what
exists and evolves (ὁμοιώματα πολλὰ τοῖς οὖσι⁴⁵ καὶ γιγνομένοις). Thus justice
 In the above mentioned account, it appears that Plato was the first to use dialectic, which
was unknown to earlier thinkers. However, in a different passage which has unfortunately been
handed down to us without context, Aristotle states that it was Zeno who discovered dialectic:
DL VIII 57 = Aristot. Soph. fr. 65 Rose = DK29 A10.
 Met. 985b23 – 986a12 = DK58B4.
 Either the Atomists, whom he has just mentioned; or, referring to 984b23, those who posited
a cause other than the material one.
 By “what exists” Aristotle probably is referring to the Platonic Forms, or Ideas, in a “Pla-
tonic” perspective, or rather the associated concepts, judging by what he says afterwards and by
the account in B22 (which we will discuss now); alternatively, he may have simply meant the
reality of things.
was a particular quality (πάθος) of numbers, as were soul, mind, opportunity,

and so on. As they then saw that the qualities and relationships of the harmo-
nious chords (τῶν ἁρμονιῶν τὰ πάθη καὶ τοὺς λόγους)⁴⁶ were made of numbers,
that nature as a whole seemed to assimilate (ἀφωμοιῶσθαι) to numbers, and that
numbers appeared first among all the things of nature, they thought that the el-
ements (στοιχεῖα) of numbers were the elements of all existing things and the
whole heaven was harmony and number. And they would try to make the events
and parts (πάθη καὶ μέρη) of heaven and the whole organization of the universe⁴⁷
correspond to numbers and musical relationships (ἁρμονίαις), by finding as
many concordances (ὁμολογούμενα) as they could, even operating some twist-
ing. Since the number 10 was perfect, but we only can see 9 stars, they create
the anti-earth (τὴν ἀντίχθονα ποιοῦσιν).⁴⁸ But we have dealt with this in other
works in a more detailed manner (ἀκριβέστερον).
We can distinguish two notions here: on one side a series of πάθη,⁴⁹ that per-
tain to numbers and to things at the same time (to heaven, in this case); on the
other side, a series of ὁμοιώματα, that also have both an intellectual and a phys-
ical feature (they belong to the “things that are”, to say it with Plato, and not just
to the evolving phenomena). There’s a “similarity”, then, between rational ele-
ments and phenomena, an “assimilation” of nature to numbers – a “concord-
ance” between numbers and celestial phenomena. In a different passage of
his Metaphysics,⁵⁰ which we will discuss later, Aristotle talks about things “com-
municating” (κοινωνεῖν) with numbers, things “falling under” (πίπτειν) num-
bers; in another passage he talks about “imitation”. As for participation (μέθε-
ξις), Plato just changed the name: Pythagoreans say things are “per imitation”
(μιμήσει: this is the only place where it is mentioned) of numbers, and Plato, re-
placing one name with another, says “per participation”. What this imitation or
participation are, none of them care to explain.⁵¹ This last remark is revealing, if
not actually malicious. It shows that Aristotle can no longer be in tune with the
Pythagorean way of thinking. The large numer of – or fluctuation among – words
used to define this relation between things and notions, between phenomena
 Timpanaro translates: “musical notes and intervals”, understanding the expression in a

more “technical” sense.
 On Pythagoras’ cosmology, and the theory of central fire, see Kingsley 1995, 172 ff.
 On this Aristotelian complaint see infra on the following page and footnotes 53 and 54.
 Elsewhere they are called “dispositions”, “properties” (ἕξεις), and “elements” (στοιχεῖα) of
numbers; they are, of course, odd and even: Met. 986a15 = DK58B5.
 1092b26 = DK58B27.
 Met. 987b10 = DK58B12.
and logos, testifies to Aristotle’s incapacity to enter into this mind-set, which he
offhandedly charges with superficiality and vagueness.
Yet another fluctuation of judgement on the Pythagoreans can be found in a
different passage of Metaphysics. ⁵² All in all, are these Pythagoreans simple “sci-
entists”, pure “physiologists” devoted to the observation of nature and only fo-
cusing on sensible things, or did they find “principles” and “causes” different
from the merely material ones studied by the other physiologists such as fire,
air and so on? This testimony clearly testifies to Aristotle’s difficulty in overtly
situating the Pythagoreans in one or the other grouping. Here is the whole pas-
sage:
Pythagoreans use principles and elements very different from those of physiologists, and
that’s because they did not infer them from sensible things (παρέλαβον αὐτὰς οὐκ ἐξ
αἰσθητῶν) – as a matter of fact mathematical entities are without movement, except
those pertaining to astronomy (ἔξω τῶν περὶ τὴν ἀστρολογίαν); nonetheless all subjects
they discuss and deal with pertain to nature: they make heaven come into existence and
when discussing about its parts (μέρη), its events (πάθη) and actions (ἔργα) they carefully
stick to the observation of phenomena. ⁵³ Their analysis of principles and causes starts and
ends with these subjects, as if they agreed with the other physiologists in thinking the only
possible reality (τὸ ὄν) is that which is the object of senses (τὸ αἰσθητόν) and which is con-
tained in what we call heaven. The causes and principles they set, though, could also be
referred to superior beings (ἐπὶ τὰ ἀνωτέρω τῶν ὄντων); and maybe more successfully
so than using them to explain natural events. They say nothing on how movement is gen-
erated, or how generation and corruption are possible without movement or change (ἄνευ
κινήσεως καὶ μεταβολῆς). Moreover, even supposing sizes (τὸ μέγεθος) derive from these
principles, how do light or heavy bodies develop? For none of the principles they assume
is referred preferably to mathematical more than to sensible bodies; so if they did not
state anything about fire or earth, that’s because, I guess (οἶμαι), they had nothing to say
that was peculiar (ἴδιον) to the objects of sense.
This passage clearly shows the difficulty Aristotle has in placing the Pythagor-
eans and translating their thought into his terms: on one side, like all “natural-
ists”, the Pythagoreans set themselves the task of explaining experience, the
 Met. 989b29 = DK58B22.

 Διατηροῦσι τὸ συμβαῖνον: διατηρέω = observe carefully; τὸ συμβαῖνον = what happens; thus,
what results (i.e., an effect, or, where reasoning is involved, a conclusion). Kingsley 1995, 157 n.
36 too calls the attention to διατηροῦσι. This note by Aristotle contradicts what he himself had
said on the changes Pythagoreans would insert in their doctrines to make phenomena and
theory match: see above, the account reported in DK58B4. On the other hand, strictly speaking,
theoretically supposing the existence of a celestial phenomenon, even though it cannot be
observed in practice, is not an anti-scientific fact per se: it is enough to recall the discovery of
Pluto by Tombaugh (1930) after the purely theoretical declaration of its necessary existence by
Lowell and Pickering, on the basis of the anomalies in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.
phenomena of subcelestial nature and heaven, as if sensible reality was the only
reality. Translated into Aristotle’s language, this means that the principles consti-
tuting reality are immanent in reality itself, part of the same natural order and
this is how they are understood by the human intellect that tries to conceive
them, turning them into principles of explanation. Here we are completely in
the realm of presocratic scientific thought.⁵⁴ On the other hand, according to
the Pythagoreans numbers are the principles of reality as a whole, and numbers
for Aristotle cannot be corporeal,⁵⁵ nor can they be deduced from nature. That’s
why he says that they are very far from physiologists, because they cannot have
deduced numbers from sensible realities, since numbers are far superior to sen-
sible things. In a word, Pythagoreans are not pure physiologists, but virtually
they are: their principles hold both for mathematical and sensible beings. Leav-
ing Aristotle’s language this means that for Pythagoreans, as for all scientist-phi-
losophers in ancient Greece, the explanatory principles of things are, so to say,
the logical side of one single reality, that is, they are one of the principles that
constitute all things: thus, they are themselves absolutely immanent in things.
All this, in the fourth century, is a problem for Aristotle, as is one more ques-
tion: the question of movement. Why does Aristotle state that the Pythagoreans
say nothing about movement, with the result that they cannot explain phenom-
ena like generation and corruption, which are impossible without movement or
change? If we look closely, we will see that this is one more incompatibility, the
same that will oppose him to the Atomists. Aristotle cannot conceive that move-
ment is something that explains and not something that has to be explained: to
him, movement has to have its proper and specific cause, and without this
cause neither it nor the phenomena related to it can exist. Instead the Pythagor-
eans think, like Atomists, that movement is something innate in beings, whether
these are atoms or corporeal numbers, that it is a feature by which all other phe-
nomena are explained, not a phenomenon that has to be explained; it is a fact of
which we want to find the rules and modalities, not the causes.
 It is worth noting that in this passage, too, Aristotle contradicts himself, with respect to the
“twisting” in Pythagorean theories reported, for instance, in DK58B4: here Pythagoreans are said
to strictly stick to the observation of phenomena.
 This is the fundamental point: Pythagoreans had a ‘spatial idea of number’, so that number
turns into a concept with dimensions; and μέγεθος is the right word to describe this ambiguous
nature, including both μαθηματικά and αἰσθητὰ σώματα: so Timpanaro III, 141.
5 Between testimonies and twisting

Aristotle has a very peculiar and significant way of giving us his testimonies: he
does not just comment on the theories he discusses, but “questions” them. That
is to say, he always interprets philosophers who lived before him, translating
them into his own language and adapting them to his own issues. This is not
an illegitimate operation in itself (that’s what we all do, isn’t it?), but his inter-
pretations became with time so canonical that in the end they got superimposed
on the very texts being interpreted, and they “reverberated” on them, so much as
to replace them in so many of their later renderings up until today (particularly
because the original texts of so many pre-platonic authors have been lost). Our
historiographic task is then, I believe, to try to untie this strong bond and thus
distinguish the testimony as such from the interpretation (the “twist”) as much
as possible, using the many “signals” in Aristotle’s text.
We could then ask ourselves (ἀπορήσειε δ᾿ἄν τις), Aristotle says,⁵⁶ what this
“good” deriving from numbers is. Indeed, the water and honey mixture is not
healthier than the relation of 3 times 3 (τρὶς τρία), and actually it could do
more good if it was more diluted. Besides, the relations in mixtures are a sum
of numbers, not a multiplication: for instance, we say 3 parts to two (τρία
πρὸς δύο) and not 3 times two (τρὶς δύο). The series of factors 1x2x3 is measured
by 1, while the series 4x5x7 by 4: thus the number of fire cannot be 2x5x3x7, nor
can the number of water be 2x3. If all things necessarily participate (κοινωνεῖν)
of number, many things will necessarily be the same. They think there is a num-
ber for the revolvings of the sun and the moon, for life, for age, and some of
these numbers are square, some cubic, some equal, some double: so one has
to wander (στρέφεσθαι) about them, if everything participates (ἐκοινώνει) in
number and if we hold that different things fall (πίπτειν) under the same num-
ber. Now if some things have the same number, then those having the same spe-
cies (τὸ αὐτὸ εἶδος) of number would be equal: thus, for instance, the sun and
the moon would be the same thing (αὐτά). But why would numbers be causes
(ἀλλὰ διὰ τί αἰτία ταῦτα)? … It seems to me (ἔοικεν), though, that the precious
natures in numbers and their opposites, and the characteristics of mathematical
beings in general – considered their way, the way of those who make them the
causes of nature – dissolve (διαφεύγειν), at least for those considering things
our way (οὑτωσί γε σκοπουμένοις), since none of them, in any of the ways we
have distinguished, can be a cause (κατ᾿οὐθένα γὰρ τρόπον τῶν διωρισμένων
περὶ τὰς ἀρχὰς οὐθὲν αὐτῶν αἴτιον).
 Met. 1092b26 = DK58B27.

The distance between testimony and interpretation, i. e. the questions Aris-

totle asks of those doctrines on the basis of his assumptions, could not be clear-
er. Pythagorean arithmology was clearly their method of understanding and an-
alysing all natural events. This meant that, in some way, numbers “express” phe-
nomena. Since this methodology is very different from Aristotle’s, he criticises it
severely. But precisely in criticising it, Aristotle sometimes changes the very
sense of the doctrines. For instance, consider the case of mead.
Aristotle seems to accuse Pythagoreans of wrongly using the mathematical
formula they themselves found out, which is simply absurd. Timpanaro⁵⁷ writes:
This remark implies that Pythagoreans used for the sum the same formula they used for
multiplication. In other words, according to Aristotle, they said the perfect relation for
mead was τρὶς τρία (three times three) instead of τρὶς πρὸς τρία (three to three)… It hardly
seems plausible that the Pythagoreans, who were experts in proportions and analogies,
could make such confusion – in fact, it is not plausible at all. [Alexander] p. 829, 12, ex-
plains: τρία μέλιτος, τρία ὕδατος, τρία κρόκου, i. e. he assumes a third ingredient to explain
the τρὶς τρία.
The third ingredient assumed by pseudo-Alexander is saffron, but if we consider

that honey was in Homer’s times mixed with milk and later with water, we can
also think of a mixture of water, milk and honey, and in both cases the formula
used by Pythagoreans would be the correct one.
The second charge against Pythagorean arithmology is equally captious.⁵⁸
Aristotle states (from his own point of view) that every product has its own meas-
ure: a solid, for instance, represented by 1x2x3 has 1 as its measure (repeated 6
times); one represented by 4x5x7 has 4 as its measure (repeated 35 times). If we
accept that, fire cannot possibly be represented by 2x5x3x7 and water by 2x3: Ar-
istotle does not actually say why this is absurd, but he thinks it is obvious – fire
and water would have the same measure, 2, so they would be the same thing.
This is an obvious result, as he explains right afterwards, of the εἶδος of the
unit of measurement, which also makes the sun and the moon be the same
thing. Here too we witness a superimposition of Aristotle’s criticism on the tes-
timony or, if you like, evidence of the impossibility of translating a different doc-
trine into his own pattern of thought. The introduction of an εἶδος for numbers,
actually an αὐτὸ εἶδος, cannot be Pythagorean, but even if it were so, the criti-
cisms appear quite captious. For the numbers 2x5x3x7 and 2x3 are clearly two
different numbers: even though they share one or more common factors, number
 Timpanaro III, 156.

 We partly agree with Timpanaro III, 157.
2, they are different anyway, so they must express two different things. So Aris-
totle’s criticism has no value. Even pseudo-Alexander, using terminology very
close to Aristotle’s, solves this fake difficulty:⁵⁹ If it is true that things are nothing
but numbers, and thus that we cannot define things outside numbers, let’s say a
horse and an ox are, hypothetically, cubic numbers, but the former is 8 (the cube
of 2) and the latter 27 (the cube of 3); now 8 is not equal to 27, even though both
are cubic numbers, for they would be like a boy and a giant, who would be equal
simply because they are both human beings, but certainly different from each
other.
Finally, it is not even true that any of the four kinds of Aristotelian causes
can be found in numbers. For as we have seen, Aristotle gave credit to the Pytha-
goreans for having recognised the formal cause, even though he rejected their
thesis that numbers are corporeal. Moreover, he admits that there is a significant
association of the numbers 3 and 7 with some phenomena in that he approved of
the Pythagorean thesis that the number 3 describes the whole and all individual
things (τὸ πᾶν καὶ τὰ πάντα).⁶⁰ And what’s more, if Syrianus’ ironic account⁶¹ is
true, he himself operated some arithmologic “twisting”, reducing for instance
the number of simple tastes and colours from the traditional 8 to 7.
6 The harmony of the heavens

A last question. There is one more point on which Pythagorean theories did not
seem “plausible” to Aristotle, their theory of heaven and void. Even before Phi-
lolaus’ and Archytas’ “ordering” work, the early Pythagoreans developed theo-
ries about the heavens and celestial phenomena, “translating” them into math-
ematical relations, the first principled attempt in Western thought to develop a
science of astronomy. Of course it was very different from modern astronomy,
and even though we do not have much information about specific theories, we
can piece together some very interesting general guidelines.
Celestial phenomena – stars, arrangements, movements, conjunctions, reg-
ularities and irregularities – can all be referred to mathematical relations: this
is the big achievement of Pythagorean thought. ‘The whole heaven is harmony
and number (τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν ἁρμονίαν καὶ ἀριθμόν)’, Aristotle testifies.⁶²
From the start the Pythagoreans discovered that movement causes sound, thus
 [Alexander] p. 832, 7.
 Cael. 268a10 = DK58B17.
 P. 192, 15 ff.
 Met. 985b23 – 986a12 = DK58B4.
the mathematical formula expressing movement is also a musical formula: as we

know, this finding was later elegantly developed by Archytas in the fourth cen-
tury. Heaven, then, is not just number, but also harmony. Alexander confirms Ar-
istotle’s account: they saw that even musical chords (τὰς ἁρμονίας) are made up
following a particular numerical relation (κατ᾿ἀριθμόν τινα): the octave in the re-
lation 1 : 2, the fifth in the relation 2 : 3, the fourth in the relation 3 : 4. The whole
heaven is made up following a particular harmonic relation (τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν
κατὰ ἁρμονίαν συγκεῖσθαί τινα): this is meant [by Aristotle] when he says the
whole heaven is number (τὸ καὶ τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν εἶναι ἀριθμόν).⁶³
Aristotle considered this an “odd” theory too, and consequently held that it
was not true. In De caelo he remarks:⁶⁴ saying that the movement of stars always
causes ἁρμονία is nice and cute (κομψῶς καὶ περιττῶς), but it is not a true state-
ment. Actually they believe that the movement of such big bodies has to cause a
noise (ψόφον), … such an extraordinary clash (ψόφον ἀμήχανόν τινα τὸ μέγε-
θος); supposing that the speeds caused by distances are related to each other
by consonances (τῶν συμφωνιῶν λόγους), they state that the revolving of
stars causes a harmonic sound (ἐναρμόνιον φωνήν). But since it would be
weird for us not to hear this sound, they say that’s because it is already there
when we are born, so it cannot be perceived by its contrast with silence, and
sure enough the perception of sound and the perception of silence are correlative
(πρὸς ἄλληλα γὰρ φωνῆς καὶ σιγῆς διάγνωσιν). Here Alexander confirms too:⁶⁵
Aristotle discusses these subjects both in the books of On the heavens and, in
more detail (ἀκριβέστερον), in Pythagoreans’ doctrines. The ten bodies move in
the cosmos according to harmonic relations (κατὰ τὰς ἁρμονίας) and with rela-
tion to distances (κατὰ ἀναλογίαν τῶν διαστημάτων). And in moving they pro-
duce sounds, from which, in harmonic relations, a musical resonance develops
(ἐξ ὧν γιγνομένων ἀναλογίαις ἁρμονικαῖς ἐναρμόνιον), that we do not hear be-
cause we are used to it since we were young.
Aristotle found this discovery “nice”, to him it was no more than a “cute
finding”, but we cannot miss first of all the consistent and logical nature of
this theory on the harmony of heavens: if all movements cause sound, even
the movement of stars must do, and since the numerical relations associating
movements, distances and speeds are “consonant”, the resulting sound cannot
be but harmony.⁶⁶ And we cannot also miss the strong dialectical feature intro-
duced by the Pythagoreans to justify the fact that we do not hear this harmony:
 Alex. in Met.. p. 38, 10 Hayduck [not in DK, added by Timpanaro].

 Aristot. Cael. 290b12 = DK58B35.
 Timpanaro, ibid. (n. 57).
 Aristotle’s change from ψόφον to ἐναρμόνιον φωνήν is significant.
we do not hear it because we have never ceased to hear it, from the time when
we were born. Now we know that in Archytas’s school⁶⁷ a different reason was
given for why we do not hear the harmony of heavens, the fact that our sense
organs have a minimum and maximum threshold: thus a sound beyond one
of the two cannot be heard. This, by the way, indirectly shows that the reason
given here by Aristotle and Alexander was an older one.
Assuming that the heavens, or the cosmos, or the whole, are “spherical”, or
made up of spheres, posed on the other hand the theoretical question of the
“void”. The Pythagoreans positively asserted that void exists, and this was an-
other point of fundamental disagreement with Aristotle, as we find in the Phys-
ics. ⁶⁸
They state there is void (κενόν) and that it gets into heaven from the unfin-
ished, as if the latter could breathe, apart from breath, also void (πνεῦμα ἀνα-
πνέοντι καὶ τὸ κενόν), which keeps the natures apart (διορίζει), almost as if
void was a kind of separation and distinction among consecutive things (χωρισμοῦ
τινος καὶ διορίσεως τῶν ἐφεξῆς). And void is in numbers, first of all: void is what
tells their nature apart.
The existence of void is fundamental for the first Pythagoreans, and it is
linked to the characterization of number as corporeal. Void is above all what sep-
arates and individates things like numbers, and things because they are num-
bers: it’s what makes us tell one unit from another, one number from another,
one thing from another. Thus it is necessary in order to explain the very identity
of things, i. e. the fact that one thing is different from another, that it is separated
and distinct from it. According to Aristotle’s account, in this primitive doctrine
an idea of void emerges as that which encloses heaven: void is what surrounds
our world, and it is characterised by the unfinished. But void is also what goes
from the unfinished through the universe.⁶⁹ It is possible that early Pythagorean-
ism used the metaphor of breathing or breathing in, further confirming the rela-
tion existing between opposites. Our world is definite, determined, measured
and expressed by numerical and harmonic relations: that’s its life. This life
wouldn’t be possible, though, without void, which comes from the unfinished,
but is necessary for the determination of things. Thus void is not the unfinished,
or rather it is the unfinished going into the cosmos and this way turning into a
 See DK47B1.
 Aristot. Phys. 213b22 = DK58B30.
 See Raven 1966, 49: void is derived from rather than identified with the unlimited.
determining factor. Space is then time, too, i. e. the determination of events hap-
pening in the world.⁷⁰
I shall not discuss here two more significant questions, which also caught
the attention of early Pythagoreans. (1) The question of right and left heaven.
On this question, too, Aristotle differs from the Pythagoreans. The latter actually
had a much more “modern” view, since they posited directionality in the heav-
ens that is independent from human observers⁷¹; and (2) the theory that the soul
is made up of dust particles in the air (τὰ ἐν τῷ ἀέρι ξύσματα), which humans
breathe all their life long.⁷² This theory, coupled with the more famous one
that the soul is the harmony of the body, (recorded by Plato in his Phaedo), is
a strong argument against the attribution of a theory of the transmigration of
souls to the early Pythagoreans.
 So Stob. I 18, 1c, page 156 W. (D. 316) = DK58B30: Aristotle in the fourth book of the Physics
writes that Pythagoreans claim there is void, and that it enters the heavens through the unfi-
nished breath (ἐκ τοῦ ἀπείρου πνεύματος), as if heaven could breathe (ὡς ἀναπνέοντι). And in
the first book of Pythagoras’ philosophy [we cannot say if it is a different book from Py-
thagoreans’ doctrines, mentioned by Alexander] he writes that there is just one heaven, and from
the unfinished – always separating (διορίζει) places (τὰς χώρας) from single things – time,
breath and void get into it (χρόνον τε καὶ πνοὴν καὶ τὸ κενόν). The question of time, recalled here
by Stobaeus and absent from Aristotle’s account in the Metaphysics, is indeed hinted at by him
in a further polemic passage (de cael. 279a5 – 15) against the existence of other bodies outside
heaven. In this passage, claiming that there are no more heavens, nor were there, nor will there
admissibly be, he provides the well-known definition of time as the “number of movement”
(χρόνος δὲ ἀριθμὸς κινήσεως). Timpanaro, III, 181– 183, refers to an account by Simplicius
(p. 651, 26 and following, where he explains that ἀναπνέοντι means εἰσπνέοντι, that is, “brea-
thing in” rather than “breathing”) and one by Philoponus (p. 615, 21, where he states that they
‘supposed the outer heaven to be an ἄπειρόν τι κενόν that they also called πνεῦμα, as if the
same thing could be called κενόν and πνεῦμα at the same time’; just before that – 391, 5 – he
had said that ‘Pythagoreans pose a certain ἄπειρον, or, strictly, void, or rather – maybe – body: ἢ
μᾶλλον ἴσως σῶμα outside heaven’), to infer then an inaccuracy of concepts in pPpythagorean
cosmology. In my opinion, it is a complex idea, far from Aristotle’s mind-set as it is of course
from ours, rather than an inaccuracy. And this distance is exactly the reason why this com-
plexity was later seen as inaccuracy. That same scholar, as a matter of fact, correctly writes
(p. 183): ‘it is also true that… they don’t care to determine whether void is an absolute void or it is
filled with air, but rather that its presence is necessary to the existence of πέρας delimiting
things’.
 On this Aristot. de Cael. 284b6, 285a10 especially 285b16 [added by Timpanaro] = DK58B31;
Simplic. in Cael. 284b6, p. 386, 9 Heib. = DK58B31.
 Aristot. de an. 404a16 = DK58B40.
7 Conclusion
We can now attempt to draw some preliminary conclusions from our discussion.
Aristotle’s account, though it has to be treated very carefully, making use of its
internal “cues”, is indeed essential to reconstruct the doctrines of the early Py-
thagorean school. Furthermore, we have seen that we can actually talk about a
Pythagorean “school”, in which, although it is impossible to indicate precisely
which doctrine should be ascribed to whom, a lively cultural discussion devel-
oped, which included most of the many different topics of interest at the time.
In early Pythagoreanism it is indeed already possible to partly find the terms
of a cosmological debate, apart from an arithmological one, an ethical one,
and so on. This debate becomes more complex in the fourth century, when
very important scientific characters and personalities start standing out, with
their own characteristics that differentiate them from early Pythagoreanism,
for instance Philolaus and Archytas. This is a later development, though,
which I chose not to include in my present contribution.
Above all, the early Pythagoreans initiated our history of mathematical as
distinct from philosophical thought. The fact that their “arithmetical” organiza-
tion of reality is the first firm stance in favour of an understanding of the cosmos
which is possible and can be organised – an understanding that opened up an
endless field of research where subsequent studies, including disputes and po-
lemics, were all in all factors of further acquisition – cannot be stressed enough.
And the fact that later Pythagoreanism, even after Philolaus and Archytas, then
became something else, a cabala of number, mysticism⁷³, even a religious sect, is
something pertaining to the later history of Pythagoreanism, not to the early Py-
thagoreans.
Bibliographical References
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Brisson, L. 1998 [1994]. Platone, Parmenide (Italian translation). Napoli.
 On Pythagorean number mysticism see Kingsley 1995, passim, in particular 174– 177 on the
incompatibility of number mysticism and an explanation of the cosmological system including
the counter-earth and the central fire. Kingsley, who finds it an exaggeration to think that
Pythagoreanism was a scientific school, also underlines the idea that the whole transformation
of the school started from Speusippus’ activity, in linking Philolaus’ tradition with the trans-
formation and modernization operated by the Academy. On Speusippus see especially M. Isnardi
Parente, Speusippo. Frammenti, Napoli 1980, and L. Tarán, Speusippus of Athens, Leiden 1981.
Burkert, W. 1962. Weisheit und Wissenschaft. Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaus und Platon.
Nürnberg.
Casertano, G. 1978. Parmenide il metodo la scienza l’esperienza. Napoli (2nd ed. Napoli
1989).
Cornford, F. M. 1939. Plato and Parmenides. London.
Frank, E. 1923. Plato und die sogenannten Pythagoreer. Halle.
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Pre-socratics. New York, pp. 161 – 185.
Kingsley, P. 1995. Ancient philosophy, mystery, and magic. Empedocles and Pythagorean
tradition. Oxford / New York.
Leszl, W. (a cura di) 1982. I Presocratici. Bologna.
Leszl, W. 1989. ‘Pitagorici ed Eleati’, in: G. Pugliese Carratelli (ed.), Magna Grecia III. Milano,
pp. 197 – 226.
Maddalena, A. 1954. I Pitagorici. Bari.
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Pfeiffer, H. 1975. Die Stellung des Parmenideischen Lehrgedichtes in der epischen Tradition.
Bonn.
Raven, J. E. 1966. Pythagoreans and Eleatics [1948]. Amsterdam.
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1958/1962/1964.
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5 Hellenistic and Late Antique traditions
André Laks
The Pythagorean Hypomnemata reported
by Alexander Polyhistor in Diogenes
Laertius (8.25 – 33): a proposal for reading
On various occasions, Aristotle uses a remarkable expression to refer to Pythago-
ras’ followers, calling them “those that are called Pythagoreans” (hoi kaloumenoi
Pythagoreioi)¹. Aristotle’s caution reflects, at an early date, the problematic na-
ture of the relationship between Pythagoras and his followers. This is true at
two levels. First, the use of the plural points to the problem of the relationship
between the group and the individual, if indeed the expression refers, in some of
the passages mentioned, to the work of Philolaos only²; second, and more impor-
tantly, the term kaloumenoi ³ shows that in Aristotle’s eyes, the relationship be-
tween those who were called (and who must have called themselves) “Pythagor-
eans” and Pythagoras himself was not a straightforward one: the expression
both identifies and denies the identification, thus opening a crack between Py-
thagoras and Pythagoreans, which the further history of the Pythagorean school
was to both deepen and fill in a variety of ways – from stories about the publi-
cation of secret doctrines to the abundant production of pseudepigraphic litera-
ture. By the time we reach the latter stage, the crack has become an abyss: in
most Neopythagorean texts, the name “Pythagoras” is no more than a substitute
for either Plato, Aristotle, or a syncretic combination of both.⁴ One can wonder
whether the main responsibility for Pythagoras’ Platonization – which is much
older, and also easier to understand, given Plato’s own clear if indirectly ex-
pressed Pythagorean inclinations, than his Aristotelization – belongs to Plato’s
immediate disciples Speusippus and Xenocrates, as is commonly held, or rather
to Aristotle himself, as L. Zhmud interestingly argues in the present volume.⁵ In
Many thanks to C. Huffman for revising the English and for useful comments. G. Journée and L.
Zhmud also sent me helpful remarks.
 Metaph. A 5, 985b23, cf. 989b29, De Caelo, 284b7, 293a20, Meteor., 342b30, 345a14.
 On this debated question, see Huffman 1993, p. 31– 34; on the relationship between common
and singular features in ancient Pythagoreanism, see Zhmud 2011.
 This is the most obvious reading of the participle, even if other interpretations have been
proposed. For a good discussion, see Huffman 1993, p. 32– 34.
 Texts in Thesleff 1965. The material is heterogeneous, but globally speaking, the pseudo-
Pythagorica belong to the history of Platonism; cf. Thesleff 1961, p. 55; Burkert 1961; Trapp 2007,
p. 349 f.; see also Bonazzi’s contribution to the present volume.
 See supra, p. 323 ff.
372 André Laks
any case, with respect to the line of development that stretches from Pythagoras
to the Neopythagoreans through the Ancient Pythagoreans, the Platonic Acade-
my, and Aristotle, the Pythagorean Hypomnemata (or Pythagorean Notes, as I
shall call them⁶) which Diogenes Laertius read in Alexander Polyhistor’s Succes-
sions and which he reproduced in Book 8 of his Lives (§§25 – 33), occupy an in-
teresting position.⁷ Although the date of redaction of this text is impossible to
settle exactly, there is scholarly agreement that it is both post-Academic and
pre-Neopythagorean, which means that it must have been written between the
late 4th and the 1st century BC.⁸ The interesting thing, however, is not that
the text is chronologically “in between”, nor even that much of what it says or
presupposes, as far as its content is concerned, undoubtedly pertains to this in-
termediate period; it is, rather, that these Notes offer a specific case of a pseudo-
Pythagorean production which, while reflecting various philosophical tenden-
cies and doctrines of its age, has also something “truly Pythagorean” (in some
sense of the term to be defined: authenticity in the chronological sense of the
term is not what is at stake here) about it. Hence Zeller’s early and fitting char-
acterization of the text as the product of an eclectic Pythagoreanism, which has
been very widely accepted.⁹ However, scholars have insisted more on the eclec-
ticism of the piece than on its Pythagoreanism. My own proposal aims to concen-
trate on the second term of the formula rather than on the first and, by now, well
studied one, although what is really at stake is the relationship between both
terms. I shall proceed at a fairly general level, leaving aside the detailed analysis
 The title Hypomnemata is difficult to translate. Memoirs, Commentaries, Notebooks, which one
finds in various authors, do not strike the right note. Notes might be the least confusing. Burkert
1961, p. 26 f. describes hypomnemata as being “Aufzeichnungen ohne schriftsellerischen An-
spruch, für den internen Gebrauch, nicht für die Veröffentlichung bestimmt”. In the same article
he also advances the hypothesis that our Pythagorean Hypomnemata must be identified with the
hypomnemata mentioned at the end of the pseudepigraphic Letter to Lysis, whose subject is the
public dissemination of Pythagoras’ doctrines. Contra, see Thesleff 1972, p. 78, and Du Toit 1997,
p. 234, n. 83.
 Alexander of Miletus, surnamed Polyhistor because of his vast learning, lived in Rome under
Sulla at the beginning of the 1st century (for further information, see Schwartz 1894). On do-
xographical excerpts in Successions-literature, see Mejer 1978, p. 64 f. (cf. Zhmud 2012, p. 59).
Alexander may have abbreviated the original text, and Diogenes the text he found in Alexander
(the kalei in § 29 or phesi in §32 are clear traces of report and hence intervention, but it is
impossible to be more specific). Rewriting might account for some of the text’s not infrequent
obscurities and oddities.
 Alexander Polyhistor, who worked in Rome after 82 – c. 35 provides, of course, a terminus ante
quem.
 Zeller 1923 [5th ed.], III/2, p. 107 and 108, cf. Wellmann 1919, p. 226. See most recently Long
2013, who entitles his article: “The eclectic Pythagoreanism of Alexander Polyhistor”.
The Pythagorean Hypomnemata reported by Alexander Polyhistor 373
of the different sections of the text with the many problems they raise in order to
focus on a single and, it seems to me, neglected aspect of the text.¹⁰
I would like first to recall the manner in which the editorial history of the
Pythagorean Notes reflects the interpretive oscillation of its content between
“Hellenistic eclecticism” and “authentic Pythagoreanism”. The Pythagorean
Notes did not feature in the first two editions (1903 and 1906) of H. Diel’s collec-
tion Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. This is certainly due to Diels’ initially rather
strong contempt for the text. Zeller had argued that the Notes present us with an
eclectic pseudo-Pythagorean doctrine that mixed Platonic with essentially Stoic
elements.¹¹ In an article published in 1890, Diels went further, arguing that the
Notes were no more than a “forgery” due to Alexander Polyhistor himself, an his-
torian whom he himself considered as a fraud.¹² Apparently, there was no place
for such a low-level falsification in his collection. Diels, however, was to change
his views after Max Wellmann published in 1919 an article – written in honor of
Diels’s 70th birthday¹³ –, where he claimed that the Pythagorean Notes, which he
dated from the 4th century, reflect a number of genuine pre-Platonic Pythagor-
ean doctrines. This led Diels to include the piece among the “supplements”
(Nachträge) in the 4th edition of the Vorsokratiker (1922). The Pythagorean
Notes finally acquired a firm place as a testimony of ancient Pythagoreanism
in W. Kranz’ 5th, revised edition (1934/37), where it comes in second position
(1a) in the section B (“Anonyme Pythagoreer nach altperipatischer Überliefer-
 For synthetic presentations of the piece, the reader may consult Centrone 1992, p. 4196 – 4202
and Long 2013. Detailed analysis and discussions are to be found above all in Wellmann 1919,
Delatte 1922, and Festugière 1945.
 Zeller also detected Jewish reminiscences, as in the case of the expression epi ton hupsiston
in § 31. Many of the subsequent interpreters tend to reduce the importance of Stoic influence. For
Zeller’s general view that Neopythagoreanism had close contacts with Jewish thought, cf.
Thesleff 1961, p. 49 f.
 “…dessen thörichte Polyhistorie einer unglaubliche Anzahl plumper Falschungen auf allen
Gebiete der Historie zum Opfer gefallen ist”, Diels 1890, p. 462, cf. 470 – 472 (Diels refers to
Freudenthal 1875). On p. 471 Diels suggests that the Pythagorean Hypomnemata could be
identical with the three books (paideutikon, politikon and phusikon) mentioned by Diogenes
Laertius in 8, 6 and extracts of which he quotes in 8, 9 and 10. Contra Delatte 1922, p. 236 and
note 3.
 The preliminary note informs us that “das Manuskript dieser Abhandlung ist am 18 Mai 1918
Hermann Diels als Huldigung zu seinem 70. Geburtstag überreicht worden. Durch die Zeit-
verhältnisse hat sich die Drucklegung bis jetzt verzörgert”.
374 André Laks
ung”) of the chapter dedicated to the Pythagorean school (“Pythagoreische

Schule” [= 58])¹⁴.
This move, and the thesis it reflects, has been broadly criticized, most impor-
tantly by Festugière, whose 1945 article aimed at removing the text from its pro-
gressively acquired new status.¹⁵ By and large, his article has produced a new
consensus around the idea that not only is the redaction of the Pythagorean
Notes at least post Academic (something which nobody has ever denied), but
more importantly that its doctrinal contents are also “late” – the latter term
being susceptible of being specified in a variety of ways, according to different
sections of the text and to each interpreter’s own views.¹⁶ The upshot is that,
in any case, the Notes cannot be used as a testimony for ancient, pre-Platonic
Pythagoreanism, contrary to what the collection of Diels and Kranz suggests.¹⁷
Now the question of whether the text can or cannot teach us something
about pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism is more interesting from a methodological
point of view than for the results for which one can hope. Interpreters have
looked for relevant material in various places, of which I give a representative
list, proceeding from the most promising down to the more dubious ones:
1) The ritual precepts mentioned at the end of the report (§33) have the most
serious credential to antiquity, for they correspond to well attested ancient
 Diels’ (and Kranz’) view must have been strengthened by the publication, in 1922, of Del-
atte’s edition and commentary on Diogenes Laertius’ book 8, which took the same line as
Wellmann, as far as the Notes are concerned.
 Festugière quotes a number of earlier negative reactions to Wellmann’s and Delatte’s thesis:
R. Harder (Ocellus Lucanus, Berlin, 1926, p. III, n. 1), J. Moreau (L’Ame du Monde, Paris 1939, 154–
157), and F. Cumont (Le Symbolisme funéraire des Romains, Paris 1942, p. 58, n.1).
 Thus, for example, Festugière thinks that the section on the soul reflects Diocles of Carystus’
doctrine, either directly or through Erasistratus (1945, p. 419 – 428).
 “Ces Mémoires Pythagoriques ne peuvent aucunement servir de source pour la connaissance
du pythagorisme originel. Et il faut donc les retirer de la place indue qu’ils occupent dans la
dernière édition des Vorsokratiker” (p. 429). Festugière’s general position, if not every detail of it
(cf. infra, n. 25) is endorsed by Burkert 1961 (p. 27, with n.1) and Centrone 1992; cf. most recently
Zhmud 2012, p. 14 f.: “Unlike the search for secondary sources, attempts to reconstruct authentic
Pythagorean texts from the fifth and fourth centuries brought no result. The idea that the
Pythagorean Memoirs transmitted by Alexander Polyhistor are a fourth-century source was
rebutted by Willy Theiler, and later by Festugière”. Needless to say, Festugière’s recommenda-
tion did not have any effect on the latest editions of Diels’ and Kranz’ Fragmente der Vor-
sokratiker. Alexander’s excerpt is of course also to be found in editions which do not focus on
the Presocratics, such as the Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker (FGrHist 273) or W. Theiler’s
edition of Posidonius (reflecting his view that Posidonius is the source of the doxographical
report).
material.¹⁸ In this respect, a formally intriguing feature of Diogenes’ report is

that it rounds off Alexander’s excerpt by quoting a fragment from Aristotle’s
On Pythagoreans (= fr. 195 Rose) containing further Pythagorean precepts.
This welcome addition is meant to give further examples of Pythagorean
prohibitions (cf. infra, n. 37), but its collateral effect is to “authenticate” –
in a quasi-Burkertian way, one might be tempted to joke – the content of
Alexander’s report.¹⁹
2) The sustoikhia of opposites (§26), and especially the mention, within this
sustoikhia, of the pair light/obscurity, of course also has some claim to derive
from ancient Pythagoreanism.²⁰ One could add the role played by the “pro-
portions due to harmony” (hoi tes harmonias logoi) in the formation of the
human embryo in § 29 and more generally by harmony as a general principle
(§33).
3) The physiological section of the Notes (§28 – 31) could at some level reflect
Philolaos’ medical interests (which were revealed by the publication of the
papyrus known as the Anonymous Londinensis by Diels in 1893).²¹
4) The intriguing tripartition of the soul in §30 into nous, phrenes and thumos
obviously does not correspond to the Platonic division, since the nous repre-
sents here a discerning faculty common to animals and human beings,
whereas the phrenes refer to the intellectual (and immortal) part. Hence
the idea that it could take up a genuinely Pythagorean view.²²
5) It has been argued (by Wellmann) that the geocentric conception of the
world at the end of §25 – 26, which strikingly conflicts with Philolaos’ theory
 Cf. Kahn 2001, p. 82: “There is little in our text so far that can be identified as specifically
Pythagorean. But the final section on morality and religion suggests that the connection of this
very eclectic treatise with the name of Pythagoras is not altogether arbitrary”.
 Is this intentional? One might doubt it, for Diogenes Laertius is not reputed to be that acute
or even involved in discussions about authenticity, although he of course occasionally reports
that some works are considered as spurious. In any case, it is striking that Diogenes Laertius’
overall conclusion in § 36 (“this is what Alexander said he found in the Pythagorean Notes, and
what follows is Aristotle’s”) both distinguishes Aristotle’s fragment from Alexander’s excerpt
and integrates the former with the latter. There is some doubt, indeed, as to whether the
quotation from Aristotle does not belong to Alexander, who had also written a treatise entitled
On Pythagorean Symbols (FGrHist 273 F 94). Zhmud 2012, p. 132, n. 7, assumes this is the case. On
the basis of Diogenes’ final remark, I am inclined to think (with Mejer 1978, p. 4) that the
construction is his.
 Cf. Journée 2012.
 Wellmann 1919, p. 227. Cf. Huffman 1993, p. 292: “It is a good reminder of the inadequacy of
our sources to point out that if not for the discovery of the Anonymous Londinensis we would
never have known that Philolaus dealt with medical topics at all”.
 Cf. Delatte 1922, p. 222 f.
376 André Laks
of a central fire and thus seems to depend on Plato and Aristotle, could in
fact reflect an anti-Philolaic but still old Pythagorean doctrine: at Phaedo
108c6, Plato’s Socrates declares that he has been persuaded by “someone”
(hupo tinos pepeismenos) to adopt his geocentric worldview. This is usually
referred to Anaximander, but Wellmann suggested that this might also be
the view defended in the circle of Athenian (that is, not Italic) Pythagoreans,
and more specifically by Xenophilos, a contemporary of Plato.²³
6) Contrary to what Festugière argued, it is not certain that the curious doctrine
of the three species of ether (the pure, healthy, and superior one; the cold
and unhealthy one, which is air; the thick one, which is liquid) depends
on Plato’s doctrine of the three forms of air (Timaeus, 58d1– 4)²⁴. It could
be the other way round.²⁵ One could also argue that the importance and
functions attributed to the warm (to thermon) and its functions, which
have often been considered as reflecting Stoic doctrine, are in fact of pre-Pla-
tonic origin, and may even reflect Philolaic interest in fire and warmness.²⁶
As I said before, I shall not engage in a detailed discussion of any of these items.
It will be clear from the way in which I presented the preceding list that I think
that, whereas the first two items may straightforwardly be called “Pythagorean”
(although the second one may already reflect academic appropriation), the re-
maining entries are open to various types of objections. But I would like to
point to the general structure of the argumentation to which one can or must
recur when it comes to the possible identification of ancient Pythagorean (and
more generally Presocratic) material in the Pythagorean Notes. One strategy is
to insist on the diversity not only of Pythagoreanism in general, but especially
on the diversity of ancient Pythagoreanism. The point has been made in partic-
ular by Wellmann, who in his plea for the plausibility of a Pythagorean geocen-
trism, stresses that Aristotle’s presentation is by no means representative of this
diversity.²⁷ Another argument, also formulated by Delatte, derives from the ob-
servation (which is obviously correct) that a late formulation does not imply
 Wellmann 1919, p. 242– 245; cf. Delatte 1922, p. 204 f.

 Festugière 1945, p. 393.
 Cf. Boyancé 1967: “Le vraisemblable me paraît… que la doctrine de l’abrégé présente un état
à la fois archaïque et cohérent, par rapport au il convient de situer la doctrine de Platon, et non
inversement” (p. 205). On this point, Burkert seems to concur (cf. supra, n. 17).
 Wellmann 1919, Delatte 1922, Boyancé 1967; contra: Mansfeld 1971, p. 98 – 103. On the
question, see also Solmsen 1957. For the centrality of the hot in Philolaos thought, cf. Huffman
2007.
 Wellmann 1919, p. 242 ff. On the diversity of ancient Pythagoreanism, or rather Pythagoreans,
see Zhmud 2011.
that the corresponding content be equally late.²⁸ Of course, it is easy to misuse

both the principle of the variety of Pythagoreanisms and that of the necessity
to distinguish between form and content: their relevance must be tested case
by case, and one may well conclude in the end that they are irrelevant. The scep-
tical take on this matter has been well formulated by Burkert (who follows Fes-
tugière’s radical denial of the Wellmann/Delatte approach): “surely there is
much ancient there, but incorporated in a post-Platonic system, in the way Epi-
curean and Stoic physics also have incorporated ‘Presocratic’ physics”²⁹. Given
the nature of the material, there is little chance that identification of genuine Py-
thagorean tenets can rely, in the majority of cases, on more than the interpreter’s
personal inclinations.
What about the kind of “Pythagoreanism” we have to deal with this text? I
would like to sketch a possible approach to the question which, to my knowl-
edge, has not yet been explored, perhaps due to an excessive concentration
on the traditional and interrelated questions of chronology on the one hand
and sources or allegiances on the other hand. The point is not that these ques-
tions are not relevant, but that the interpretive procedures their treatment re-
quires tend to obfuscate one central feature of the Notes, which is no less impor-
tant and perhaps more interesting. These procedures, whose nature is “analyti-
cal”, imply 1) that the text under consideration be broken up into a number of
primary and in most cases heterogeneous units; 2) that a given doctrine, expres-
sion, or even word be identified as providing a terminus post quem for the dating
of the text, or more exactly for the portion of the text at stake. To take just a few
examples: the first sentence (§25), where the dyad, taken as equivalent to matter,
is derived from the One, which is presented as the origin of everything, and the
subsequent derivation from the one and the dyad of the series point, line, sur-
face, and perceptible and elementary bodies, obviously postdates the early Pla-
tonic Academy, for which such a derivation is characteristic³⁰; in §31, veins, ar-
teries and neura are said to be the bonds of the soul. The distinction between
veins and arteries is Hellenistic, and there is at least a possibility that neura re-
fers to “nerves” (although in § 28 the term must refer to sinews), in which case
the terminus post quem will be Erasistratus; finally, occurrences of terms such as
noeron (end of §25), pronoeisthai and heirmarmene (§27), are suggestive of a rel-
 Delatte 1922, p. 235 (with L. Robin’s quotation).

 “Gewiss is manches alt, doch eingearbeitet in ein nachplatonisches System, wie ja auch
epikureische und stoische Physik ‘Vorsokratisches’ eingearbeitet hat”, Burkert 1961, p. 26, n. 5.
 Cf. Merlan’s characterization of the parallel doxography in Sextus, Adv. Phys. II, 258 – 284:
“entweder akademisch oder pythagoreisch in demselben Sinne, wie z. B. Speusipps Zahlenlehre
pythagoreisch war” (1934, p. 41).
378 André Laks
atively “late” period, even if precise dating or school affiliation is not possible (it
can be Platonic as well as Stoic). Now the main problem with this way of ap-
proaching the text is not that one may disagree about whether some alleged ter-
minus post quem is really to be considered as such (that is, whether a given doc-
trine, or expression, or word is not older or more recent than assumed by a given
interpreter); it is, rather, that it leads to an atomization of the text under consid-
eration. The same is true when one considers that the text is constituted, in its
general structure, out of some more or less loosely connected units. Thus, Wiers-
ma distinguishes three totally heterogeneous sections: 1) the first, “Platonizing”
paragraph (§25)³¹; 2) a section (§26 – 30) deriving from a “strictly scientific work
(ein streng wissenschaftliches Werk), whose author would be “a Pythagorean doc-
tor from the 5th century” belonging to the “Sicilian-South Italian school”, and
presenting traces of Presocratic philosophy (in particular Diogenes of Apollonia)
as well as truly Philolaic elements³²; 3) three paragraphs of “theological content”
(§30 – 33) and of indeterminate source. Festugière, for his part, thinks that the
summary, at least as far as §§26 – 30 are concerned, basically follows the struc-
ture of Aetius’ doxographical handbook; this leads him to distinguish 5 units in
the text: 1° §25a, corresponding to Aetius I, 3 (On the principles); 2° §25b-27a, cor-
responding to Aetius II, 1– 31 (On the world, the sky, the stars, the sun, the
moon); 3° §26, corresponding to Aetius, III, 10 (On earth); 4°. §27b-28a, corre-
sponding to Aetius V, 3 – 5, 15 – 18, 19 – 21, 23 (On semen and embryology); 5°.
§ 28b-31, corresponding to Aetius IV, 2– 16 (On the soul, the sensations, vision,
hearing, etc.).³³ But this formal homogeneity does not have any real counterpart
as far as content is concerned, where Diocles of Carystus, for example, sits next
to the ancient Academy and Aristotle.³⁴
Thus, whether one focuses on global structure or on local considerations, the
text time and again appears in the scholarly literature as an heterogeneous
bunch of doctrines and the receptacle of various traces and influences – traces
of Presocratic philosophy here, traces of Academic doctrine there, traces of Aris-
totle, traces of the Sicilian medical school, traces of Stoicism, and even traces of
Pythagoreanism. Now it seems to me that it is important to see, beyond the nec-
essary inventory both at the terminological and at the doctrinal level, that the
 Cf. Wiersma 1942, p. 99 f.

 The (partly translated) quotations come respectively from p. 109, 108 and 107. Wiersma is
obviously indebted to Wellmann.
 Festugière 1945, p. 376. The parallel is not strict, and Festugière must acknowledge some
“anticipations” and “displacements”. Also, his numbering of the parts (6) do not fit Aetius’ book
division (5). Moreover, he does not consider the final section (31– 33), on which see below.
 See above, n. 16.
different sections and sub-sections of the text are tightly linked together into a
continuous and in some sense systematic whole.³⁵ In spite of some local difficul-
ties (especially in relation to the treatment of the soul), the overall dynamic of
the text emerges fairly clearly. We are led from the principles to the elements
(25a); from the elements to the world (25b-26); from earth (26) and stars (27) to
life (28); from the soul (its nature and localization) to physiology and sensation
(28) and embryology (29); and, last but not least, from further considerations
about the soul (from its parts, in 28 and 30a, its properties and above all its im-
mortality, 30b-32), to the final series of ethical considerations and ritual precepts
(32– 33).
What we apparently have to deal with here is an attempt to present Pytha-
goras’ or Pythagorean doctrine as an exhaustive system. It may be worthwhile re-
cording here that at 8, 45, Diogenes Laertius, speaking of the longevity of school,
calls Pythagoras’ doctrine a systema (“his systema maintained itself during nine
or ten generations”). As a matter of fact, what must strike a not straightforwardly
Quellenforschung-oriented reader is its claim to totality. It constitutes a fairly well
organized series of all the topics you can expect from a philosophical treatise – a
doctrine of principles, a cosmology, a psychology, a theology, and a code of
moral and religious practice. The fact that moral and ritual recommendations
round off the exposition is extremely important, and it is particularly unfortu-
nate in this respect that Festugière’s influential analysis leaves out these last
paragraphs, simply because they did not match his idea that the structure of
Alexander’s exposition runs parallel with the organization, both in terms of
books and chapters, of Aetius’ physical handbook.³⁶ More generally, it is a mis-
take to grant this last section a separate treatment, as most commentators do be-
cause of their analytic perspective. It may well be true that this section repre-
sents the only part of the summary whose content goes back to authentic, pre-
Platonic Pythagoreanism. But the important thing is to recognize, once this is ac-
cepted, that the precept section is conceived as the telos of the whole develop-
ment that precedes. As a matter of fact, there are a number of features in the
course of the cosmological and psychological exposition that appear, at least ret-
rospectively, as preparing the ground for a moral doctrine and its concretization
through a series of precepts, most of which insist (as might be expected) on pu-
 This is both recognized and denied by Centrone 1992, p. 4202: “sembra dunque di essere di
fronte a una frattura netta; è tuttavia difficile individuare il punto preciso di tale frattura; nel § 31
è visible il tentativo di tenere ferma la spiegazione fisiologica e armonizzarla con la successiva
escatologia”.
 See his somewhat offhand remark, p. 372, n. 6: “Je n’ai considéré que les trois premières
sections: sur les principes, sur le monde, sur l’âme. Ce sont les plus importantes”.
380 André Laks
rity (although it may be more difficult in some cases than in others to explain
why such and such behavior is deemed impure).³⁷ This is already the case, for
example, with the characterization of the spring as healthy and the autumn as
unhealthy in § 26, and the ensuing opposition between the bottom place
where mortal things live and perish in the grip of an unhealthy and immobile
atmosphere and an upper place which is always moving, pure, and healthy,
where things are immortal and hence divine (end of §26 – one is of course re-
minded of the final myth in Plato’s Phaedo); then you get in §28 the idea of
the soul differing from simple life in as much as it is a fragment of the divine
aither (apospasma aitheros).³⁸ so that the divide between the mortal bottom
and the immortal top appears to be not insuperable after all: evidently, the
soul’s special cosmological status creates the condition for a code of moral con-
duct which can be interpreted as a kind of purification. Confirmation of this is
given in the properly psychological section, where one reads that the phronimon
(which must be proper to human beings, as opposed to the nous, which is shared
by all animals) is athanaton (§30), and one finds the witty, and in some sense
beautiful idea that the bonds of the soul, when the latter is in full force and
acts by itself, are not the veins, arteries and neura, but its reasonings and
deeds (erga). The latter word is important, because, without precluding intellec-
tual achievements, it also draws attention for the first time to the practical di-
mension that will become prominent towards the end of the text. This moral
strain of thought then becomes fully explicit in § 32, where it is said that “he
[scil. Pythagoras] says that the most important thing in the domain of human af-
fairs is the act of persuading the soul either in the direction of the good or in the
direction of evil” – an interesting formulation, which implies not only that it is
good to comply with the recommendations that follow, but also that the very im-
parting of those recommendations is in itself the most important action that one
might conceive of. Read in this way, the last section of the text follows or at least
 “We should not give equal worship to gods and heroes, but to the gods always, with reverent
silence, in white robes, and after purification (hagneuontas), to the heroes only from midday
onwards. Purification (hagneuein) is by cleansing, baptism and lustration, and by keeping clean
from (kathareuein apo…) all deaths and births and all pollution, and abstaining (apekhesthai)
from meat and flesh of animals that have died, mullets, gurnards, eggs and egg-sprung animals,
beans, and the other abstinences prescribed by those who perform mystic rites in the temple”
(§33, tr. Hicks). The fragment from Aristotle which Diogenes then adds (see supra, n. 19) gives a
further list of such abstinences, with possible explanations (probably stemming from An-
aximander the Younger, see below in text) which, while not being focused on “purification”, are
of course perfectly compatible with such a preoccupation.
 One can wonder whether this refers to the human or the animal soul.
flows from an elaborate metaphysical, cosmological and psychological construc-

tion that begins with the One and ends with the soul.
Now if the point of the piece is the very articulation between the formulation
of moral precepts and an explicative account (whatever the origin of these var-
ious tenets may be), we find ourselves in a typically Pythagorean problematic,
one which, moreover, may even be an ancient one. In a well-known passage
of his Life of Pythagoras whose source is widely recognized as being Aristotle.³⁹
Iamblichus writes the following about Pythagorean precepts (which he calls
akousmata, but which are commonly known as symbola):
In some cases a reason why we should is added (for example, one ought to have children in
order to leave behind another in the place of oneself to worship the gods), but in other
cases there is no explanation. And some of the added explanations seem to have been at-
tached from the outset (ap’ arkhes), others later (prorro). For example, not to break bread,
because it is not advantageous for judgment in Hades.⁴⁰
Iamblichus (Aristotle) goes on to say that the “likely explanations which have
been added about such matters are not Pythagorean, but were devised by some-
one outside the school trying to give a likely reason”. The reference must be to
Anaximander’s (the Younger) Interpretation of the Pythagorean Symbola (usually
dated from the beginning of the 5th century BC), but it is important, I think, to
recognize that Iamblichus (Aristotle) distinguishes those later, and implicitly il-
legitimate additions, from older ones (ap’ arkhès), whose legitimacy is not de-
nied. If this is true, then explanation and justification as such may well have
been part and parcel of ancient Pythagorean precepts.⁴¹ This is hardly surprising,
since pressure for explanation and rationalization is always prompt to appear
whenever circumstances permit or demand it. But it does shed a light, I think,
on the Pythagorean Notes, which could be considered as providing both a specif-
ic instance – and a remarkable extension, of course, given the nature and the
scale of the explanation provided – of a traditional preceptual gar-clause: it is
because things are as they are that we should behave as old Pythagoras recom-
mended.⁴² In other words, the Pythagorean Notes would be not only a testimony
 With some possible interventions: cf. Zhmud 2012, p. 227, n. 63.

 Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, 86. What follows makes clear that the latter explanation is
taken to belong to the later ones.
 See J.C. Thom’s contribution in this volume, who rightly and crucially corrects Burkert’s
mistranslation (respectively “ideally suitable” and “far-fetched”, p. 174 of his 1972 book) of ap’
arkhes and prorro (supra, p. 95, n. 89).
 Cf. Riedweg 2008, p. 66 f. (but without explicit reference to the Pythagorean Notes): “[…] Over
time individual Pythagoreans strove to give maxims that proceeded chiefly from the religious
382 André Laks
of an eclectic Pythagoreanism, but also of an eclectic Pythagoreanism. ⁴³ And this

also means upgrading the text from the status of a testimony about symbola (in
its last bit) to that of a representative (as a whole) of their multisecular history.⁴⁴
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sinnverwandten Ausdrücken in der Literatur der Kaiserzeit. Tübingen.
ritualistic thought and that seemed increasingly old-fashioned a more intellectual meaning that
corresponded to contemporary philosophical discussion.” That was perhaps already Zeller’s
view, since he writes (1923, III/2, p. 107): “In dieser Darstellung [= the Pythagorean Notes] liegt
nun der Versuch vor, den Pythagoreismus nicht bloss als eine Form des religiösen und sittlichen
Lebens zur Geltung zu bringen, sondern ihn auch auf philosophische Theorie zurückzuführen (je
souligne)”. But the thought is not developed.
 This proposal is neutral as to the question of whether the text is evidence for the existence of
an actual Pythagorean community at the time of its composition (as Kahn 2001, p. 83, suggests),
or is a purely scholarly product (as Long 2013 is rather inclined to think).
 Huffman 2013 provides powerful support, I think, to the reading suggested here – namely
that the Pythagorean Notes, notwithstanding its dependence on a variety of late metaphysical
and physical doctrines, may reflect the practice of early Pythagoreanism – in an article which
shows that and how the question of the relationship between cosmology and way of life already
arises in Early Pythagoreanism. Many thanks to him for having made his paper available to me
before publication, as well as for the series of remarks and demands for precision he addressed
to me while revising the language of this paper.
Festugière, A.-J. (1948), “Les ‘Mémoires Pythagoriques’ cités par Alexandre Polyhistor”, Revue
des Etudes Grecques 58, pp. 1 – 65 (reprint in Id., Études de philosophie grecque. Paris
1971, pp. 371 – 435).
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Vandoeuvres-Genève.
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Reading Ancient Texts, Volume I: Presocratics and Plato, Essays in Honour of Denis
O’Brien. Leiden, pp. 57 – 94.
Huffman, Carl A. (2013), “Reason and Myth in Early Pythagorean Cosmology”, in: Joe McCoy
(ed.), Early Greek Philosophy: The Presocratics and the Emergence of Reason.
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(ed.), Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoreanism in the First Century BC. Cambridge,
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Philosophy. Assen.
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pp. 35 – 55.
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ed. 2008).
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Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Suppl. 94, 2 vols. London.
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Studies 77 (part 1), pp. 119 – 123.
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pp. 57 – 102.
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pp. 225 – 248.
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Philosophie”, Mnemosyne 10, pp. 97 – 112.
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Hyperboreus 17, pp. 287 – 303 (reprint in: D. Obbink & D. Sider (eds), Doctrine and
Doxography: Studies on Heraclitus and Pythagoras. Berlin [forthcoming]).
Zhmud, L. (2012), Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans. Oxford.
Zhmud, L. “Pythagorean number doctrine in the Academy”, in this volume.
Mauro Bonazzi
Eudorus of Alexandria and the
‘Pythagorean’ pseudepigrapha
1. In the controversial history of Pythagoreanism the pseudepigrapha are one of
the most controversial issues. On the one side it is now clear and commonly
agreed that these texts were not written by the authors to whom they are attrib-
uted. On the other side, however, divergences on their date, origin, nature and
scope are so wide that the temptation is strong to renounce entering the ‘bottom-
less pit’ of this research, to paraphrase a famous sentence by Guthrie on the his-
tory of Pythagoreanism.¹ But this is not, perhaps, the last word. For even though
a complete and exhaustive account of the entire Pythagorean apocryphal litera-
ture is probably impossible to obtain, from this it does not follow that it is also
impossible to reach positive results on particular and limited issues. On the con-
trary it may be claimed that this is the only viable way to work. For the major
mistake that must be avoided is to conceive of all Pythagorean literature as if
it were a coherent and unified corpus. As many authoritative scholars have cor-
rectly remarked, Pythagoreanism is the result of the combination of several tra-
ditions, emerging from different contexts, responding to different problems and
promoting different theories, which are not always and not necessarily compat-
ible. Indeed, it is clear that there was no single Pythagorean tradition. The prob-
lem, in other words, is that unitarian approaches inevitably tend to obscure the
variety of traditions which constitute Pythagoreanism in its long history. And this
applies also to the pseudepigrapha, which do not need to be taken a priori as all
together belonging to the same tradition.² In consideration of these remarks, the
aim of my paper is to concentrate on a coherent group of testimonies and try to
account for their origin and scope. The group consists mainly of treatises which
are attributed to Archytas, which scholars have paralleled with the testimonies
on Eudorus of Alexandria and other Early Imperial Platonists. In the first part
of my paper I will investigate these parallels in order to prove their compatibility
(by the way, this will make it possible to provide these apocrypha with a prob-
able date). In the second part I will offer a possible answer to the question of
why they were composed by concentrating on some doctrinal features of these
texts. An intriguing consequence of this discussion is that this group of pseude-
pigrapha is important for the history not so much of Pythagoreanism as of Pla-
 Guthrie 1962, 146 n. 1.

 Cf. e. g., Burkert 1972b; Centrone 1996, 144– 148.
386 Mauro Bonazzi
tonism. In itself this conclusion is not a striking novelty. But I hope that my
paper will call attention to the philosophical interest of these texts.
2. Admittely, that it is possible to circumscribe a group of treatises and texts, writ-

ten in an artificial Doric, mainly but not exclusively attributed to Archytas, and
sharing a similar doctrinal system was recognized long ago by many distinguish-
ed scholars, from Eduard Zeller to Heinrich Dörrie, Walter Burkert, Thomas Szle-
zák, Matthias Baltes, Paul Moraux, and Bruno Centrone.³ Further, the affinities of
these texts with the extant testimonies concerning the first century B.C. Platonist
Eudorus of Alexandria have not escaped the attention of these and many other
scholars. But a correct evaluation of this connection has been prevented by the
fact that scholars who recognized parallels failed to recognize the significance of
this fact. On the contrary, it appears to me that within the historical and philo-
sophical context of the early Imperial age the connection is important. Unfortu-
nately, given the scanty number of surviving testimonies on Eudorus, the com-
parison is reduced to few points, and this prevents an exhaustive analysis and
an overall interpretation of the whole Doric corpus (which, by the way, it is
not necessary to interpret as a single corpus). Nevertheless, the similarities are
striking and the apocrypha concerned are important. More precisely, it is pseu-
do-Archytas’ On Principles and On the Whole System [scil. of Categories] or On the
Ten Categories (henceforth On Categories), together with pseudo-Timaeus’ On the
Nature of the World and of the Soul that offer the most interesting parallels with
Eudorus, on important issues such as the doctrine of principles, the creation of
the universe and the categories.⁴
The first point I will discuss presents a most remarkable affinity. Both Eudo-
rus and pseudo-Archytas argue for a doctrine of three principles articulated on
two levels (immanent and transcendent, so to speak).⁵ As stated by pseudo-Arch-
ytas at the beginning of his treatise, there are two principles of things, the one
containing the series (systoichia) of ordered and determined things the other
containing the series of unordered and undetermined things (ἀνάγκα δύο
 Zeller 19235, 123; Dörrie 1963, col. 271; Burkert 1972b, 40 – 41 opposing Thesleff 1961 and 1972
(suggesting a third cent. B.C. date); Szlezák 1972, 13 – 19 (on pseudo-Archytas’ On the whole
System or On the Ten Categories); Baltes 1972, 20 – 36 (on pseudo-Timaeus’ On the Nature of the
World and of the Soul); Moraux 1984, 606 – 607; Centrone 1990 (on pseudo-Archytas’ ethical
treatises); Huffman 2005, 594– 620.
 By focusing on these texts only I leave aside the question of establishig which treatises in
Thesleff’s edition can be taken as part of this same group; useful remarks are found in Centrone
1990, 16 – 17 n. 9.
 Cf. Centrone 1992; Bonazzi 2005, 152– 157.
ἀρχὰς εἶμεν τῶν ὄντων, μίαν μὲν τὰν συστοιχίαν ἔχουσαν τῶν τεταγμένων καὶ
ὁριστῶν, ἑτέραν δὲ τὰν συστοιχίαν ἔχουσαν τῶν ἀτάκτων καὶ ἀορίστων;
19.5 – 7). The same is said by Eudorus, who likewise introduces the two systoichiai
with the sequence ordered-determined opposed to unordered-undetermined
(Simpl. In Phys. 181.25 – 27).⁶ A further point of similarity is that both authors
qualify the two series as the series of the good and the series of the bad respec-
tively (ps.-Arch. de princ. 19.16 – 17: ἀγαθοποιόν … κακοποιόν; Eud. ap. Simpl. In
Phys. 181.14– 15: τὸ μὲν ἀστεῖον … τὸ δὲ φαῦλον); and both suggest that the two
series are part of the world: they are the logoi intrinsic to reality (ps.-Arch. 19.16);
this statement corresponds to Eudorus’ claim that they are the stoicheia, the el-
ements of reality (Simpl. 181.15 – 16, 23). Admittedly, up to this point, it may be
correctly objected that such a dualism is not distinctive of pseudo-Archytas
and Eudorus alone, but is found in the entire Pythagorean-Academic tradition.
What is really important and distinctive is the claim that these two principles/el-
ements alone do not suffice to properly account for reality. For a third principle is
needed, which can bring the other two together: this principle, which is not prop-
erly speaking part of our reality, is the most important principle and is conse-
quently called God by both authors: the God above, Eudorus says (ὁ ὑπεράνω
θεός: Simpl. 181.10 – 11), who is further characterised by pseudo-Archytas as ar-
tificer and mover (τὸν μὲν θεὸν <τὸν> τεχνίταν καὶ τὸν κινέοντα: ps.-Arch. 19.25 –
27). Remarkably pseudo-Timaeus appears to share the same system in slightly
different terms (206.11– 12).⁷ In pseudo-Timaeus the two basic constituents
from which the sensible (αἰσθητόν) comes are equated to the nature of sameness
and of otherness (205.11, 206.4): the language is clearly reminiscent of Plato’s Ti-
maeus, but the doctrine is basically the same as in pseudo-Archytas and Eudo-
rus. As in pseudo-Archytas, these two are called form and matter/substance (ps.-
Tim. 206.11– 12; ps.-Arch. 19.18, 21), and as in both pseudo-Archytas and Eudorus
the third principle is called God (and, needless to say, demiurge: 206.12). Indeed,
the introduction of this third and most important principle produces a new doc-
trine of three principles which is difficult to find elsewhere in the Pythagorean
literature.⁸ Rather the affinity with Middle Platonism is clear, and this is one
major reason for dating the two treatises to the early imperial age.
The reference to pseudo-Timaeus points to a second important parallel. One
of the most hotly debated issues in the early imperial era was the creation of the
world, more precisely whether Plato’s account in the Timaeus (which was regard-
 One slight differene is that Eudorus uses ὡρισμένον instead of ὡριστόν.

 See Baltes 1972, 32; Centrone 1992, 92– 93.
 Mansfeld 1988, 103.
388 Mauro Bonazzi
ed as the true account of the creation) was to be read as literally arguing for a
creation in time or as allegorically endorsing that the universe is eternal.⁹ A tes-
timony from Plutarch informs us that Eudorus opted for the second reading, re-
storing the interpretation of the early Academics (Xenocrates and Crantor) in op-
position to the literalist interpretation which dominated during the Hellenistic
centuries (Plut. De an. procr. 1012d-1013b). Indeed, it has been correctly suggested
that Eudorus was the first, after centuries, to argue for such a reading – a reading
which soon became dominant (Baltes 1976). With regard to this problem, it is re-
makable that the same interpretation is argued for in pseudo-Timaeus (206.11) as
well. Admittedly, it may be objected that Eudorus’ novelty need not be overem-
phasized for he was simply recovering the interpretation of the Old Academy. In
consequence one may conceive of the parallel between Eudorus and pseudo-Ti-
maeus as simply depending by this common source (the Old Academy) and not
implying any strict relation. This might be correct. And yet the possibility of the
strict relation between the two still appears as more than plausible, and not only
on general grounds. For what is remarkable is not only that both in the same pe-
riod (if the standard dating is correct, as I think) were arguing for what was, at
that moment, the minority thesis; what is really remarkable is that both Eudorus
and pseudo-Timaeus employ the same expression, λόγῳ, which was not com-
mon at all in this debate.¹⁰ Again, it deserves to be mentioned that the thesis
that the universe is eternal is not attested in the original Pythagorean tradition
(cf. Aristotle On heaven I 10, 279b12). In sum, the evidence further suggests a dis-
tinctive connection.
Finally the categories.¹¹ The Neoplatonist Simplicius reports that Eudorus
commented on many problems of Aristotles’ Categories. Unfortunately many of
Simplicius’ reports are trivial and not very useful to reconstruct Eudorus’
thought. But in a couple of cases at least, the testimony is interesting and ena-
bles us to detect striking parallels with pseudo-Archytas. More precisely, both
Eudorus and pseudo-Archytas endorse the same sequence ‘substance, quality,
quantity’ (as opposed to the sequence ‘substance, quantity, quality’; Eud. ap.
Simp. in cat. 205.10 – 15, ps.-Arch. cat. 23.17– 24.16). The parallel need not be dis-
missed, for even though the problem of the sequence was scarcely relevant for
 See Baltes 1976.

 Baltes 1972, 48. A further remarkable piece of evidence which strongly speaks in favour of
the affinity between Eudorus and pseudo-Timaeus is the fact that both, when commenting on
the formation of the world-soul, appear to work on a text which is not the text of our manuscript
tradition; cfr. Opsomer 2004 and Bonazzi 2013.
 Theiler 1965, 205; Szelzák 1972, 17 and 132; Moraux 1984, 608 – 628; Huffman 2005, 595 – 597;
Tarrant 2009; Chiaradonna 2009.
Aristotle and is hardly interesting for us, it was the object of hot debates in the
early Imperial Age.¹² Secondly, and even more importantly, both Eudorus and
pseudo-Archytas appear to apply the category of substance to both the sensible
and the intelligible substance, adapting the Aristotelian system to a Platonist
problem.¹³
(A further, but more controversial, parallel regards ethics. In Bonazzi 2007b I
tried to argue that Eudorus’ account of ethics, as reported by Stobaeus, while em-
ploying a Stoic jargon endorses in fact a dualist psychology which does not fit
the Stoic system but can be paralleled, among other texts, with the pseudo-Py-
thagorean treatises; cf. ps.-Arch. de educat. eth. 43.14; ps.-Metop. de virt. 117.12–
14. It is interesting to add that this same dualist psychology is further regarded as
Pythagorean also by later Platonists such as Plutarch [cf. Donini 1999 on the de
virtute morali], whose acquaintance with Eudorus has been already mentioned.)
3. How are we to evaluate the affinity which links Eudorus and the pseudo-Py-
thagorean treatises? The best way to address this problem is to reconstruct the
sources of both, starting with one major problem: the relationship to the Old
Academy. What is sure, it might be objected, is that the doctrines endorsed in
these texts have very little to do with genuine Pythagoreanism (pre-Archytan Py-
thagoreanism, so to say). But what about the Old Academy? Thanks to the re-
search of Walter Burkert¹⁴ and of many other scholars following in his footsteps,
it is now well known that during the fourth century B.C. ancient Pythagoreanism
was progressively assimilated into the Academy: considering themselves as the
heirs of this philosophical tradition, Plato,¹⁵ Speusippus, Xenocrates, and their
pupils reinterpreted and modified ancient doctrines according to their require-
ments, to the effect that a new and metaphysically oriented version of Pythagor-
eanism replaced the original one. As I mentioned in the previous section, if we
come back to our texts, we find many references to this Academic Pythagorean-
ism (think for instance of the categorial bipartition kath’auto/pros ti in pseudo-
 Chiaradonna 2009, 97– 98.

 Chiaradonna 2009, 99 – 106.
 Burkert 1972, 15 – 96. Burkert’s reconstruction has been challenged by Zhmud 2012 (chap-
ter 12); see also his paper in this volume. Zhmud’s thesis is brilliantly defended and opens new
paths for research. For the time being, I limit myself to remark the affinity of Zhmud’s thesis with
the views defended in my present paper. By denying that the early Academics developed their
metaphysics in the footsteps of the Pythagoreans, Zhmud further emphasizes the importance of
Aristotle (in his opinion, Aristotle was the first to stress the close connection between Platonism
and Pythagoreanism) and of the Early Imperial Platonists (among the first to adopt such a view).
I will try to discuss this interesting study with the attention it deserves in a future paper.
 On Plato, see however Carl Huffman’s remarks in this volume, pp. 237.
390 Mauro Bonazzi
Archytas On Categories, of the non-literalist interpretation of the Timaeus cos-

mogony in pseudo-Timaeus and of the systoichiai in pseudo-Archytas On princi-
ples).¹⁶ The same applies also in the case of Eudorus’ testimonies and fragments,
where the same doctrines occur and links and references to the Old Academy are
explicit.¹⁷
In consequence of these parallels a ‘reductionist approach’ may be argued
for: there is no real and distinctive connection between Eudorus and the pseudo-
pythagorica, for both were simply promoting a return to the Old Academy. More
precisely: one may concede a connection between Eudorus and the pseudopytha-
gorica, but the importance of such a connection would be drastically reduced.
For their doctrines would be nothing but the Academic doctrines, and their
only relationship and interest would be that both were recovering the Academic
doctrines after centuries of oblivion (namely, the centuries of the sceptical Hel-
lenistic Academy) and transmitting them to Neoplatonists. Such an interpreta-
tion has been defended, consciously or not, by some supporters of the perennial
unity of Platonism.¹⁸ But it does not account for the problem in all its complexity.
For the divergences with the Old Academy are no less remarkable than the affin-
ities, and these too must be taken into account.
The cosmogony is the doctrine best suited to the ‘reductionist approach’. In-
deed, pseudo-Timaeus’ and Eudorus’ non literalist interpretation of the creation
of the world might be regarded as a mere recovery of the Academic interpreta-
tion. Nevertheless, it is remarkable, as I have already mentioned, that both pseu-
do-Timaeus and Eudorus present their position with a term which is not usually
adopted (λόγῳ, cf. supra, p. 388). Besides, important as it is, the problem of the
world’s creation remains a specific problem and it is not therefore very relevant.
It may perfectly well be the case that the pseudopythagorica and Eudorus re-
newed the Academic position on the specific issue of the cosmogony. But this
does not exclude the possibility that this specific doctrine was inserted in a sys-
tem that was not identical with the Old Academic one.¹⁹ In fact this is precisely
what emerges if we pass to more ‘structural’ doctrines, such as that of the cate-
gories and that of principles (those, by the way, in which the followers of an eter-
nal Platonism are more interested): the reference to the Old Academy does not
 More generally, cf. for instance Centrone 1996, 157.

 Bipartition: cf. Simpl. in Cat. 174.14– 16; cosmogony: Plut. De an. procr. 1012d-1013b (where
the names of Xenocrates and Crantor are mentioned); systoichiai: Simpl. in Phys. 181.10 – 13.
 Cfr. for instance Halfwassen 1992, 197– 209 and Thiel 2006.
 One further problem, which need not be addressed here but which is important for unitarian
reconstructions of Platonism, is whether it makes sense to speak of a single coherent Academic
system.
account for the most distinctive and striking details of our testimonies. First con-
sider the doctrine of the categories. It is true that the bipartition reflects the Aca-
demic classification. But in the extant evidence traceable to the Old Academy
there is no reference to early Academics combining the bicategorial scheme
with the ten categories, as we see in Archytas and Eudorus. Indeed, this combi-
nation is not attested before the first century B.C.²⁰
That the pseudopythagorica and Eudorus present an undeniably original
view is further confirmed by the doctrine of the principles, the most important
doctrine.²¹ In pseudo-Archytas and even more in Eudorus we can detect many
terms and concepts that are traceable to the Academy. But the Academic doc-
trines of principles, be it Speusippus’ or Xenocrates’, and most of the Pythagor-
ean tradition as well endorse a dualistic system. Here, as Jaap Mansfeld correctly
remarked, the introduction of the God above the series of the paired principles
can be paralleled neither from the Old Academy nor from Pythagorean texts se-
curely datable before the first century B.C.²² Indeed, both in the pseudopythagor-
ica and in Eudorus, the legacy of Academic and Pythagorean philosophy consists
more in the reception of conceptual and terminological material than in an at-
tempt to faithfully reproduce an old doctrine. Therefore, in order to understand
the nature and value of the pseudo-Pythagorean and Eudoran philosophy we
must concentrate on the elements of originality distinguishing them from
other ‘Pythagorean’ traditions.²³ And since these elements of originality patently
point to Plato and Aristotle, it is the relationship with Plato and Aristotle that
must be investigated.
4. References to Plato and Aristotle are patent, and scholars have easily detected
them. Just to limit ourselves to the three already mentioned treatises: pseudo-Ti-
maeus can be basically described as a summary of the Timaeus, pseudo-Archy-
tas’ On categories as a summary of Aristotle’s Categories, and pseudo-Archytas’
On principles as the result of a combination of Plato’s and Aristotle’s doctrines of
principles as we find them in the Timaeus and the Metaphysics. However, it has
 See Sedley 1995, 552, referring to Andronicus (ap. Simpl. In Cat. 63.22– 24, 134.5 – 7) and the
anonymous commentator to the Theaetetus (68.1– 7), along with Eudorus.
 Cf. Bonazzi 2007a for a detailed analysis.
 Mansfeld 1988, 99 – 100.
 It is worth stressing that these elements of originality distinguish these texts and testimonies
not only from the Old Academy but also from other versions of Pythagoreanism, most notably
the one preserved by Alexander Polyhistor in D.L. 8.24– 36 or the (rather mysterious) Roman
renovatio promoted by Nigidius Figulus, to mention just two broadly contemporary texts and
traditions.
392 Mauro Bonazzi
not always been observed that these ‘summaries’ are not neutral but rather serve
to convey a certain kind of interpretation of Plato and Aristotle. As I will try to
show, this is a most important point for correctly understanding the nature of
these pseudo-Pythagorean treatises. Take for instance pseudo-Timaeus’ and Eu-
dorus’ cosmogonical accounts. For both, Plato’s Timaeus is the reference point
on the assumption that Plato’s philosophy leads to truth. But in both cases it
is not a matter of simply paraphrasing the text (pseudo-Timaeus) or commenting
on it in an erudite way (Eudorus). On the contrary, both pseudo-Timaeus and Eu-
dorus, each in his own way, convey an interpretation, and in so doing, take po-
sition (the same position) on a hotly debated issue. From the days of Speusippus,
Xenocrates and Aristotle it was a matter of disagreement whether the Timaeus’
cosmogony was to be taken metaphorically or literally; while in the Old Academy
the first interpretation dominated, in the Hellenistic centuries, both inside and
outside the Academy, it was the latter that got the upper hand; against this pre-
vailing interpretation, pseudo-Timaeus and Eudorus promoted a return to the
Old Academic view. In this context what is remarkable is not only that pseu-
do-Timaeus and Eudorus are taking the same position in the debate but also
that their views strategically converge. Pseudo-Timaeus provides the original
from which Plato was supposed to have drawn: and on the specific issue of
the creation of the word a small word is added, λόγῳ, which explicitly indicates
how the account is to be interpreted (that is, metaphorically). And it is exactly to
this Pythagorean background, and with the same (and, in this context, rare)
word λόγῳ, that Eudorus refers (via the mediation of Xenocrates, who is explic-
itly connected to Pythagoras) when arguing for the metaphorical reading. In-
deed, the temptation is strong to claim a strict relationship between pseudo-Ti-
maeus and Eudorus, but unfortunately evidence is lacking and it is difficult to
say the last word on the issue. But it remains uncontroversial that this renewal
of interest in the Pythagorean philosophy was not an end in itself, but rather part
of the Platonist debate. We will come back to this problem later.
5. The situation becomes even more intriguing when we pass to the doctrine of
principles. References to Plato in pseudo-Archytas’ On Principles are explicit, but
for a correct assessment of these references a preliminary analysis of Eudorus’
‘Pythagorean’ Prinzipienlehre is needed. In the already mentioned quotation
from Simplicius’ commentary on Physics (181.7– 30) Eudorus is quoted as source
for the ancient Pythagorean doctrine of principles. But as we have already re-
marked, this three-principle doctrine, articulated on two levels, which we also
find in pseudo-Archytas’ On Principles, has nothing in common with genuine Py-
thagoreanism and depends only in part on Academic Pythagoreanism. So the
question remains what reasons prompted to its elaboration. Elsewhere I have ar-
gued that a possible solution points us towards Plato, specifically to the Ti-
maeus. ²⁴ Influence of other dialogues as well, such as the Philebus and the Re-
public, has been suggested. Needless to say, these references provide useful par-
allels²⁵; yet by themselves they fail to explain what appears philosophically most
important in the passage, namely the distinction between arche and stoicheion:
according to Eudorus, only the ‘God above’ or the first ‘One’ can properly be con-
sidered a principle, arche, while Monad and Dyad are called archai only in a sec-
ondary way. In fact, Monad and Dyad are rather stoicheia, elements, or more pre-
cisely, ultimate elements (anôtatô stoicheia), given their prominent role in the
systoichiai.
Strange as it may appear, among Plato’s dialogues it is the Timaeus that
helps us grasp the meaning of the distinction between arche and stoicheia. Ad-
mittedly, in the Timaeus we do not find a clear account of the distinction be-
tween arche and stoicheion. But it is a well known fact that Timaeus’ elusive
statement on the value of his discourse (an eikos muthos) could and did encour-
age Platonists to creatively recover the real meaning of Plato’s doctrine.²⁶ Eudo-
rus’ account of arche and stoicheia can be properly regarded as one of these ‘cre-
ative’ interpretations, as the analysis of the expression anotato stoicheia can
show. More precisely, Eudorus’ ‘Pythagorean’ doctrine appears to emerge from
a cross-reading of Tim. 48b5-c2 and 53c4-d7. In the first passage, the traditional
first elements are at once denied the status not merely of principles, but also of
first stoicheia,²⁷ whereas in the second the reduction of the four elements is con-
ducted explicitly to the geometrical figures, but implicitly even further: ‘this we
assume as the principle of fire and of the other bodies […]; the principles yet fur-
ther above these (anothen) are known to God and to such men as God favours’.²⁸
 See e. g., Bonazzi 2007a. The following section heavily depends on Bonazzi 2013.
 For the Philebus, see Dillon 19962, 127; for the Republic, Trapp 2007, 352.
 On the Platonists’ ‘creative’ exegesis, see Hadot 1987; Donini 1994, 5080 – 5082.
 Plat. Tim. 48b5-c2: τὴν δὴ πρὸ τῆς οὐρανοῦ γενέσεως πυρὸς ὕδατός τε καὶ ἀέρος καὶ γῆς
φύσιν θεατέον αὐτὴν καὶ τὰ πρὸ τούτου πάθη· νῦν γὰρ οὐδείς πω γένεσιν αὐτῶν μεμήνυκεν, ἀλλ᾿
ὡς εἰδόσιν πῦρ ὅτι ποτέ ἐστιν καὶ ἕκαστον αὐτῶν λέγομεν ἀρχὰς αὐτὰ τιθέμενοι στοιχεῖα τοῦ
παντός, προσῆκον αὐτοῖς οὐδ᾿ ἂν ὡς ἐν συλλαβῆς εἴδεσιν μόνον εἰκότως ὑπὸ τοῦ καὶ βραχὺ
φρονοῦντος ἀπεικασθῆναι. νῦν δὲ οὖν τό γε παῤ ἡμῶν ὧδε ἐχέτω· τὴν μὲν περὶ ἁπάντων εἴτε
ἀρχὴν εἴτε ἀρχὰς εἴτε ὅπῃ δοκεῖ τούτων πέρι τὸ νῦν οὐ ῥητέον, δι ἄλλο μὲν οὐδέν, διὰ δὲ τὸ
χαλεπὸν εἶναι κατὰ τὸν παρόντα τρόπον τῆς διεξόδου δηλῶσαι τὰ δοκοῦντα, μήτ᾿ οὖν ὑμεῖς
οἴεσθε δεῖν ἐμὲ λέγειν.
 Plat. Tim. 54c4-d7: Πρῶτον μὲν δὴ πῦρ καὶ γῆ καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ ἀὴρ ὅτι σώματά ἐστι, δῆλόν που
καὶ παντί· τὸ δὲ τοῦ σώματος εἶδος πᾶν καὶ βάθος ἔχει. τὸ δὲ βάθος αὖ πᾶσα ἀνάγκη τὴν
ἐπίπεδον περιειληφέναι φύσιν· ἡ δὲ ὀρθὴ τῆς ἐπιπέδου βάσεως ἐκ τριγώνων συνέστηκεν. τὰ δὲ
τρίγωνα πάντα ἐκ δυοῖν ἄρχεται τριγώνοιν, μίαν μὲν ὀρθὴν ἔχοντος ἑκατέρου γωνίαν, τὰς δὲ
394 Mauro Bonazzi
Contrary to most modern readings, for ancient Platonists it was only too natural
to proceed to the reduction process until we reach the ultimate elements/princi-
ples, the ingredient constituents of bodies. And these ultimate elements were tra-
ditionally identified as the Monad and the Dyad. That was a popular account in
Eudorus’ time, as the confrontation with many other texts easily shows.²⁹ If one
further adds that Plutarch’s above-mentioned testimony in the treatise On the
Generation of the Soul in the ‘Timaeus’ also reports that Eudorus found in the Ti-
maeus a reference to the Monad and the Dyad, it is more than reasonable to con-
clude that he too was ready (and perhaps was the first) to extract from the Ti-
maeus the pair of One/Monad and Dyad as the first anothen constituents (termed
both archai and stoicheia), from which bodies derive and of which they are con-
stituted.³⁰
But this is only half of the story. What is even more important is that the re-
duction of monad and dyad to (ultimate) elements paves the way for the individ-
uation of the real arche. To a theologically-minded reader the reference to God’s
knowledge at 53d6 – 7 would have hardly been disregarded. On the contrary, this
reference to God could easily be taken as referring to Plato’s divine Demiurge
(30a, c, d, 34a), and by consequence interpreted as introducing another causal
level, an external one. And if Monad and Dyad, taken individually, are partial
causes, Plato’s demiurgic God is the common cause of generation: while things
still were in a chaotic condition, ‘God began by giving them a distinct configu-
ration by means of shape and numbers’ (53b). In spite of the terminological im-
precision (but Timaeus’ account is said by Plato to be only probable), we can dis-
tinguish between two different levels, one transcendent and the other immanent;
in other words, between the real principle and the more ultimate elements, be-
tween God, who is external, and the pair Monad-Dyad, which is internal. It is true
that the Demiurge is not explicitly called a principle, but it is nevertheless clear
that insofar as he is the artificer, he is a principle. If this interpretation is correct,
therefore, it is against the background of the Timaeus that Eudorus’ account be-
comes relevant. Like pseudo-Timaeus and pseudo-Archytas the doctrine of what
ὀξείας· ὧν τὸ μὲν ἕτερον ἑκατέρωθεν ἔχει μέρος γωνίας ὀρθῆς πλευραῖς ἴσαις διῃρημένης, τὸ δ᾿
ἕτερον ἀνίσοις ἄνισα μέρη νενεμημένης. ταύτην δὴ πυρὸς ἀρχὴν καὶ τῶν ἄλλων σωμάτων
ὑποτιθέμεθα κατὰ τὸν μετ᾿ ἀνάγκης εἰκότα λόγον πορευόμενοι· τὰς δ᾿ ἔτι τούτων ἀρχὰς ἄνωθεν
θεὸς οἶδεν καὶ ἀνδρῶν ὃς ἂν ἐκείνῳ φίλος ᾖ.
 Particularly relevant here is Plutarch, a philosopher influenced by Eudorus, see Plat.
quaest. 1002a, De def. or. 428e-f; in relation to Pythagorenism see further Alex. Polyhist. ap.
Diogenes Laertius 8.24– 25, and anon. Vit. Pyth. ap. Photius, Bibl. 439a19 – 24 (on the latter’s
affinity with Eudorus, see Theiler 1965, 209).
 Burkert 1972, 24.
is presented as the original Pythagorean doctrine turns out to be heavily influ-

enced by Plato’s Timaeus. But the situation appears even more intriguing if we
further consider that the Timaeus alone does not solve all the difficulties.
In fact, the Timaeus alone does not suffice to account for Eudorus’ Pythagor-
ean doctrine. For even though it is possible to read into the dialogue an analysis
of the notions of principle and elements with the consequent introduction of an
external and divine cause, it can hardly be argued that the Timaeus alone pro-
moted it. The Timaeus is not so much the starting point as the fundamental au-
thoritative text for confirming a doctrine which borrowed from other material as
well.³¹ The problem is now to find its source of inspiration.
But if not in Plato, where is it possible to search for such a distinction be-
tween arche and stoicheia? This distinction is attested for different authors
and in different periods: it was notoriously important in Stoicism, and was
adopted by Antiochus; later, pseudo-Galen’s Historia philosophos will also
refer to it.³² But the use of the same words and notions presupposes different
uses with respect to Eudorus. In particular, neither the Stoics nor Antiochus ap-
pear to reserve any place to one single arche as a transcendent cause above the
elements. At most we can admit that Eudorus exploits terms and concepts which
were used by Stoics, adapting them into a different context. But the Stoics are
not Eudorus’ major influence. In fact it is rather to Aristotle that we have to
look for a possible source. For Aristotle not only provides a clear analysis of
the notions of principle and element (and of their differences), but also exploits
the distinction in favour of a divine and transcendent cause. An important text is
surely Metaphysics XII.4– 5, but other texts can be added, from De Gen. et Corr.
II.9³³ to the Peri Philosophias. ³⁴ In Metaphysics XII Aristotle argues that a theory
of principles reduced to a theory of first elements can hardly explain the causes
of reality; for the most one can say is that elements are the immanent constitu-
ents of things (i. e., they can be regarded as a sort of immanent cause), but still
an account of their interaction would be lacking, so that it cannot be properly
regarded as a proper causal theory of the generation of beings. If this is the prob-
 Baltes 1975, 258.

 See Diogenes Laertius 7.134 (= Posidonius, F5 Edelstein-Kidd), Cicero, Varro 26, ps-Galen,
Hist. phil. § 21. A similar distinction is also adumbrated in Alexander Polyhistor ap. DL 8.24.
 Cf. Pépin 1964, 65 – 67.
 Remarkably, the Peri Philosophias was quoted by Cicero and later by Plutarch and Philo of
Alexandria, which confirms its popularity in Eudorus’ age. It probably included both a scrutiny
of the Academic doctrine of principles and a defence of the divine cause; if that is the case, the
resemblances are noteworthy; a further point in common is the thesis of the eternity of the
world, which was shared by Eudorus as well, as we have already seen.
396 Mauro Bonazzi
lem, Aristotle also provides his own solution: ‘since not only what is present in
something is cause, but also something external, i. e., the moving cause, it is
clear that principle and element are different (ἐπεὶ δὲ οὐ μόνον τὰ ἐνυπάρχοντα
αἴτια, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ἐκτὸς οἷον τὸ κινοῦν, δῆλον ὅτι ἕτερον ἀρχὴ καὶ στοῖχειον;
1070b22– 24)’. Here element is equivalent to the notion of immanent cause, as
opposed to an external one, the real principle.³⁵ Since the actuality of things
(both in the sense of their coming to be and of their essential unity) is produced
not so much by their internal constituents as by the action of one external mov-
ing cause (which conveys form), this cause is definitely not an element, but the
proper arche. This external cause, which will be later specified as God, is first
and common to all things, insofar as it is the ultimate cause of all movement
(1072b35), because the existence of everything in the world depends on its ac-
tion.
If my reconstruction is correct, an intriguing situation emerges. First of all,
the parallel between Eudorus and pseudo-Archytas becomes uncontroversial.³⁶
In both cases the reference to ancient Pythagoreanism reveals a heavy depend-
ence on Platonic and Aristotelian texts and doctrines. Doctrines presented as Py-
thagorean turn out to be Platonic and Aristotelian developments. This calls for a
comparison with pseudo-Timaeus on the topic of the creation of the world. For
the analogies are clear, but there is an apparent novelty that is even more impor-
tant. In all cases, in the two pseudo-Pythagorean treatises as in Eudorus, it re-
sulted that the dependence on Plato (and most notably, on the Timaeus) is car-
dinal. Moreover, it also resulted that this dependence on Plato is not neutral, but
rather part of a more complex strategy. For in all cases a particular interpretation
of Plato is at stake, and it is this particular interpretation of Plato that accounts
for the function of the Pythagorean links: the references to the allegedly original
Pythagoreanism are the authoritative tool that serves to legitimate this interpre-
tation of Plato’s philosophy – a metaphysically and theologically minded inter-
pretation, which marks a radical break with the Hellenistic centuries. The Drei-
 Crubellier 2000, 144.

 Admittedly, it may be objected that in pseudo-Archytas’ On principles there is no occurrence
of the terms arche and stoicheion, which play such an important role in Eudorus’ account. In
fact, to this objection it may be replied that we possess only a small fragment of the work, and
that more than these terminological variants it is the identity of system that is remarkable.
Besides, the similarities between ‘Archytas’ and Eudorus become even more striking if Huff-
man’s suggestion is accepted that the treatise also included the brief testimony of Syrianus’ in
Met. 151.19 – 20 on Archytas, distinguishing between hen and monas (remarkably, the context of
Syrianus’ discussion is Aristotle’s critical account of the Academic doctrine of principles), cf.
Huffman 2005, 597.
prinzipienlehre, as we have found it in pseudo-Archytas and Eudorus, is the doc-

trine which will dominate the Middle Platonist interpretation of Plato.
So far so clear. But from the analysis of the doctrine of principles a possible
difference also emerges. For it may be that the metaphorical reading of the Ti-
maeus cosmogony faithfully represents Plato’s original view. But this cannot
be the case with regard to the doctrine of principles: in spite of its influence
on subsequent Platonists, this interpretation is a patent misinterpretation of
the Timaeus’ account. And this leads to a most important point. On this issue
it appears that the reference to Plato alone does not suffice, and neither does
the reference to the Old Academy. A fourth player enters, a player who was al-
ready there in one way or another from the very beginning: Aristotle.
6. The relation with Aristotle has traditionally constituted a major obstacle to any
attempt to keep Eudorus and the pseudopythagorica together. For it is commonly
assumed that Eudorus was a fervent opponent of Aristotle, a predecessor of Pla-
tonists like Atticus or Severus, who fiercly rejected the possibility of adopting Ar-
istotelian doctrines within the Platonist system.³⁷ On the contrary, the attitude of
the pseudo-Pythagorean texts is much more favourable and appears to point to
the opposite direction, towards a combination of Platonic and Aristotelian doc-
trines. If so, we are faced here with a real difference on a substantial issue. In
fact, as the previous section of this paper has shown, the situation is much
more complex and the simple opposition between symphatizers and enemies
of Aristotle is in danger of being misleading.³⁸ For we have seen that Eudorus
was not an opponent of Aristotle, as Severus or Lucius were (with regard to ei-
ther the categories or the doctrines of principles), nor was pseudo-Archytas sim-
ply paving the way for an eclectic combination of Aristotelian and Platonic doc-
trines. Once again the treatise On Principles provides the most interesting clue.
The adoption of Aristotelian terms and doctrines is evident; but it is no less evi-
dent that these terms and concepts are employed in a way that has nothing in
common with the Aristotelian doctrines: form and matter are set as metaphysical
principles, and the mover does not act on the heavens but on the two metaphys-
ical principles; these views clearly fit the Platonist theory of principles, not Ar-
istotle’s.³⁹ Similar remarks apply also to the categories, if one considers how
pseudo-Archytas adopted the category of substance to both intelligible and sen-
sible substances.⁴⁰ So it is not a matter either of opposition or of eclecticism, but
 Dillon 19962, 117– 135; Karamanolis 2006, 82– 84.

 See the interesting remarks in Chiaradonna 2008 reviewing Karamanolis 2006.
 Moraux 1984, 634; Bonazzi 2007a, 377.
 As far as the ethical treatises are concerned, see Centrone 1990, 25 – 30.
398 Mauro Bonazzi
rather of theories being adopted by a different system. Indeed, this fact is re-
markable from both a philosophical and an historical perspective. For the adop-
tion of Aristotelian doctrines is the first attestation of a tendency which would
dominate the history of later Platonism: the renewed attention paid to Aristotle
provided Platonists with new stimulus and ideas that prompted the development
of a new Platonist system. We have here a first attestation of the depth of Aris-
totle’s influence on Platonism. Moreover, this influence is also remarkable
from an historical perspective, for it is now agreed that Aristotle’s school treatis-
es were rediscovered and began to be studied again in the first century B.C. The
occurrence of these doctrines in the pseudopythagorica and in Eudorus further
confirms their date.
The relationship with Aristotle becomes much more intriguing if one consid-
ers more precisely which Aristotelian doctrines are at stake. Be it a matter of the
categories, of principles or of the eternity of the world, what is common is that all
these doctrines involve a polemic against Plato and his followers. It was against
the Academic bipartition between kath’auta and pros ti that Aristotle developed
his doctrine of the categories; likewise, it is well known that when Aristotle
claimed to be the first to have argued for the eternity of the world a major polem-
ical target was the attempts of Speusippus and Xenocrates to attribute the same
thesis to Plato and ancient Pythagoreans. Finally, even more striking is Aristo-
tle’s account of principles, which, as famous texts such as Metaphysics A 6 or
De Gen. et Corr. II 9 clearly show, developed in opposition to Plato’s (and the Aca-
demics’) failure to account for an efficient and transcending principle in addition
to the formal and material causes.
If we take this polemical background into account, the presence of Aristote-
lian views in the pseudo-Pythagorean treatises gains a strategic importance,
which enables us to account for at least some of the reasons for their creation.
On the assumption (which is taken for granted) that Plato depends on and devel-
ops Pythagorean doctrines, the occurence in allegedly Pythagorean texts of doc-
trines such as the categories or the eternity of the world legitimizes and orients
an interpretation of Plato which responds to Aristotle’s criticisms. In other
words, the renewed circulation of Aristotle’s school treatises influenced the Pla-
tonist systematization not only by providing concepts, ideas and doctrines but
also, more concretely, by providing a new textual basis for a polemical reversal
of his criticisms. Consider for instance the doctrine of principles under this per-
spective. Aristotle charged Plato and his followers with being incapable of ac-
counting for an efficient and transcending cause. But the testimony of pseudo-
Archytas’ On Principles, paralleled by Eudorus’ reports on the Pythagorikoi,
shows that the ancient Pythagoreans such as Archytas, the famous friend of
Plato, had already argued for such principles; and since Plato followed the Py-
thagoreans, as the clear reminiscences echoes of the Timaeus in both pseudo-

Archytas and Eudorus confirm, it is clear that this doctrine is found in Plato
too, pace Aristotle.⁴¹
The same remark also applies to the doctrines of the categories,⁴² and (per-
haps) the eternity of the world. In fact, on this latter point it may be argued that
Eudorus’ and pseudo-Timaeus’ claim that Plato and Pythagoreans such as Ti-
maeus argued for the eternity of the world need not imply an involvement and
a critical confrontation with Aristotle’s criticism in the On Heaven. Of course, Eu-
dorus and pseudo-Timaeus could simply have returned to the Old Academy with-
out any need of taking Aristotle into account. This latter hypothesis, however,
remains an intriguing possibility. A possible confirmation can be found in a
statement by another Platonist, Philo of Alexandria, who lived in Alexandria
in the same period and was acquainted with the new Pythagoreanizing Platon-
ism. In his treatise On the Eternity of the World, when dealing with the problem of
who first introduced this thesis, he remarks that “some say that the author of this
doctrine was not Aristotle but certain Pythagoreans, and I have read a work of
Ocellus the Lucanian entitled On the Nature of the Universe, in which he not
only stated, but sought to establish by demonstrations that the world was uncre-
ated (ageneton) and indestructible”.⁴³ Likewise, I have already stressed that Eu-
dorus, too, adopts the Old Academic interpretation of Pythagoreanism; on this
issue, too, a polemical move against Aristotle is not excluded.
7. We can now attempt to draw some conclusions. I am well aware that evidence
is lacking if one wants to demonstrate that the composition of these pseudopy-
thagorica must be traced back to Eudorus. But my aim was rather to emphasize
the strategical convergence between the surviving Eudoran evidence and some
pseudo-Pythagorean treatises. To further claim that the composition itself of
 Note that we know for sure that Eudorus was aware of at least one of the most important
Aristotelian passages (critically) concerning Plato’s theory of principles, that is Met. A 6; cf. Alex.
In Met. 58, 31– 59, 8 and Moraux 1969.
 Cf. Chiaradonna 2009.
 Admittedly, with regard to the eternity of the world, the evidence is more controversial, for it
can be suggested that this thesis was also defended before the first cent. B.C.: pseudo-Ocellus
was dated to the second cent. B.C. by its editor Harder (but the only evidence is a probable Varro
quotation in Censorinus, De die natali 4.3 which indicates a terminus ante quem; the other
treatise attributed to Ocellus, a Peri nomou, has been dated to the first cent. B.C. – first cent.
A.D., cf. Centrone – Macris 2005). Be that as it may, also other pseudo-Pythagorean treatises
argue in favour of the eternity of the universe, using arguments from Plato and Aristotle; par-
ticularly relevant (and close to pseudo-Timaeus) are pseudo-Philolaus On the soul, 150, 12– 20
and Aristaeus, On Harmony 52, 21– 53, 2, cf. Huffman 1993, 343 – 344 and Moraux 1984, 635 – 636.
400 Mauro Bonazzi
these treatises must be attributed to Eudorus or to his ‘circle’ is only an intrigu-

ing possibility which is difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate.⁴⁴ However,
even leaving this problem aside, I hope that, once strict affinity is acknowledged,
the importance of the pseudopythagorica becomes clear. For not only do we have
an important clue at our disposal that enables us to understand the nature, ori-
gin, and context of these pseudo-Pythagorean treatises; what is even more re-
markable is that thanks to the comparison with Eudorus we can better assess
the philosophical value of these texts. If my reconstruction is correct, the pseu-
do-Pythagorean treatises emerge as belonging more to Platonism than to Pytha-
goreanism (perhaps as a further chapter in the history of the Platonic-Academic
appropriation of Pythagoranism).⁴⁵ And this conclusion is extremely important,
for they emerge as being an early representative of a substantial turn in the his-
tory of Platonism, a turn which would have an important effect on the entire sub-
sequent history of Platonism.⁴⁶ The renewed attention to Pythagoreanism and
Aristotle may appear banal to our eyes, but it was not obvious in the early Im-
perial age. Indeed, it caused a real revolution, as can be seen by a comparison
between Hellenistic Academic and Imperial Platonist genealogies.⁴⁷ In the Hel-
lenistic Academic genealogies no mention was made of either Aristotle or the Py-
thagoreans (the absence of the latter is even more striking if compared with the
 A controversial consequence of this hypothesis regards the problem of the forgery. The
distance between us and the ancients is here bigger than usual (cf. in general von Fritz 1972). But
the phenomenon, at least in the early imperial age, can be partly explained, if one considers that
distinctive of this period is the desire to restore the ancient truth (in this very same period, for
instance, new ‘editions’ of Plato and Aristotle are produced): and part of this backwards-looking
movement could lead to the composition of texts, when the originals were missing.
 See already Dörrie 1963, 271; Baltes 1972, 20 – 21; Moraux 1984, 606 – 607; Centrone 1996, 159.
According to other scholars the aim of these treatises is rather to glorify the Pythagoreans at the
expense of Plato and Aristotle, see the status quaestionis in Huffman 2005, 95. A celebration of
Pythagoreanism is evident, but, as I tried to show, this recovery of Plato and Aristotle is not
neutral but rather depends on a precise view of what Platonism amounts to. Moreover, this
hypothesis, in order to be proved, would need the existence of some (Neo)Pythagorean philo-
sophers who opposed Platonists and Aristotelians. But a careful analysis of the evidence which
regards philosophers (and not miracle workers or charlatans such as Apollonius and Alexander
of Abunouteichos) shows that this is highly debatable, cf. Centrone 2000. In my opinion, to
regard the pseudo-Pythagorean texts as an engaged part of the Platonist turn still makes better
sense of the evidence at our disposal.
 On the importance of Pythagoreanism in later Platonism, see O’Meara 1989; on Iamblichus
and Simplicius, see Hoffmann 1980, Macris 2002 and Gavray 2011. Among the more interesting
testimonies of the Neoplatonists’ interest for (pseudo)Pythagoreans, cf. for instance Simpl. in
cat. 2.9 – 25 (on Archytas and the categories), Syrian. In met. 151.18 – 20 (Archytas on principles),
165.34– 166.8 (Archeaenetus, Philolaus and Brotinus on principles).
 Cf. for instance Donini 1999.
many Presocratics claimed as predecessors by Arcesilaus, Carneades and Philo

of Larissa), whereas the line Pythagoras – Plato – (Aristotle) was commonly re-
garded by Platonists of the imperial era as the only possible genealogy.⁴⁸ So the
emphasis on the ‘Pythagorean Plato’ was part of a polemical debate.⁴⁹
Even more important for the history of Platonism is the presence of Aristotle.
The relevance of this polemical background has been usually registered by
scholars and then dismissed on the tacit assumption that Aristotle is nothing
more than a Platonist, or somehow part of the history of Platonism.⁵⁰ But was
it really so? The issue is as controversial now as it was in Antiquity. Of course,
it is not possible to settle the question in the present paper. Here I will conclude
simply by saying that the importance of the pseudo-Pythagorean treatises is un-
derstood as soon as we acknowledge the importance of this issue. Thinkers such
as Eudorus and the authors of these treatises are the first to argue in favour of
this view.⁵¹ It is my hope that a more detailed investigation into this corpus
will contribute to the understanding of Platonism in this decisive period of its
history. That a better assessment of Platonism is an important result for our un-
derstanding of ancient (and modern) philosophy – this at least is not controver-
sial.
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Dominic O’Meara
Pythagoreanism in late antique Philosophy,
after Proclus
The following pages bring together some materials concerning the interest taken
in the figure of Pythagoras and in “Pythagorean” philosophy in the philosophical
schools of late antiquity, in a period going from the pupils and successors of Pro-
clus († 485) – Ammonius and Marinus, in particular – to the last members of the
Athenian and Alexandrian schools of the sixth century: Damascius, Simplicius,
Olympiodorus, Philoponus and others (I will also include John Lydus and Boe-
thius). This survey is bound to be incomplete, since it is, I think, the first. A
scholarly emphasis on reconstructing Pythagoreanism at its beginnings has
meant that references to sources from this late period tend to be neglected.
Even Thesleff’s repertory of The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period
(1965) is far from complete in reporting sources for these texts from our period.
In the second volume of the recent Cambridge History of Philosophy in late Antiq-
uity (2010), which concerns our period, there is very little reference to Pythagoras
(and none for the second volume in the index). It is to be expected, then, that a
first survey such as this will require additions and adjustments.
The purpose of the following is to describe the ways in which the philoso-
phers of this period saw Pythagoras, what he and his philosophy meant to
them. We will be considering, therefore, not the “original” Pythagoras, but his
“image”, his legend in the philosophical schools of the late fifth and sixth cen-
turies. I have chosen to begin with Proclus’ pupils and successors, since, in an
earlier work (1989), I discussed this legend in the period going from the second
century up to and including Proclus, in a decade of chapters, which seemed
enough! Here I propose to extend this research further, while following essential-
ly the approach used in the earlier work, examining how the philosophers of our
period understood Pythagoras’ importance in the history of philosophy, what
they thought was distinctive about his philosophy, and how this was integrated
in their own philosophical views, in particular in the fields of ethics, physics,
mathematics and metaphysics. It may be possible in this way to see how the
image of Pythagoras and his philosophy of this period relates to the image as
we find it before, in Iamblichus and Proclus.
I am very grateful to the participants in the Brasilia meeting for questions and suggestions, in
particular to Mauro Bonazzi and Gabriele Cornelli. Polymnia Athanassiadi gave me the idea of
looking beyond Proclus.
406 Dominic O’Meara
I
In the earlier study,¹ I sought to show that Iamblichus and Proclus interpreted
Pythagoras as being part, with other select philosophers, of a special group of
superior, pure souls, who, as such, had access to transcendent intelligible truths
(an access described in the celestial procession of Plato’s Phaedrus 247a ff,) and
who revealed these truths to mankind, providing philosophy, the sciences and
other arts as means for bringing souls back from their alienation in bodily exis-
tence to their intelligible “homeland”. The figure of Pythagoras as a superior
soul, benefactor of humanity through the gift of philosophy (a divine gift accord-
ing to Plato’s Timaeus 47b), of the sciences and arts, is impressively portrayed in
Iamblichus’ De vita pythagorica. Plato, for Iamblichus, was another of these
souls, who revealed the same knowledge in his texts: he was a Pythagorean. Pro-
clus essentially followed Iamblichus on these matters, emphasizing the symbol-
ic, enigmatic or concealed mode of communication characteristic of Pythagoras
and Pythagoreans, as compared to the clearer, scientific mode more often used
by Plato.
This way of seeing Pythagoras and Plato persisted after Proclus, as we can
see in a fragment from Damascius’ Vita Isidori, where Pythagoras and Plato
are described as divine souls inhabiting the “supra-celestial” realm, the “plain
of truth” of Plato’s Phaedrus (247c3, 248b6):
Among the ancient philosophers he [Isidore, Damascius’ teacher] worshipped as divine Py-
thagoras and Plato [considering them] to be among those winged souls who dwell in the
supra-celestial regions, in the plain of Truth, in the meadow of divine forms.²
The essential Pythagoreanism of Plato is often stressed, as we will see in more

detail below. Here it might suffice for the moment to give as an example the criti-
cism of Aristotle in Asclepius’ In metaphysica (reporting Ammonius’ lectures):
rather than saying, like Aristotle (Met. 987a30), that “many” things in Plato
come from Pythagoras, we should say that “all” come from Pythagoras.³ As
did Proclus, however, some authors contrasted the superior clarity and scientific
mode of exposition in Plato with the enigmatic, secretive style characteristic of
Pythagoreans.⁴
 O’Meara (1989: 37– 39, 149 – 152).

 Damascius, Vita Isidori, fr. 34D Athanassiadi (I cite her translation).
 Asclepius, In met., 44, 11– 12.
 Anonymous, Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy (6th century Alexandria), 8, 18 – 23, where
Plato is also said to be superior to Pythagoras in that the latter had to go to Persia to see the
The late Neoplatonists can also be seen to have cultivated (or at least ad-
mired as a model) a “Pythagorean” life-style. Thus, in speaking of his deceased
teacher Proclus, Marinus recalls Proclus’ belief that he was a reincarnation of the
Pythagorean Nicomachus of Gerasa (Vita Procli 28, 36). Proclus also followed the
principle “live unnoticed” (lathe biôsas), described as “Pythagorean” by Marinus
(15, 31) and others in late antiquity.⁵ And Proclus practised, Marinus says (17, 25),
the characteristic Pythagorean virtue of friendship (Philia). The association of Py-
thagoreanism and friendship, not only human but also cosmic (Empedocles was
considered to be a Pythagorean), is made fairly frequently in late antique texts,
for example in Olympiodorus⁶ and in Simplicius:
Now the goods of friendship I have mentioned are great … But the greatest and most divine
of its properties is ignored: that pure friendship, because it leads the friends’ souls to unity,
is the finest practice for unity with God. (It is impossible to achieve unity with something
superior, prior to unity with souls of the same kind.) So the Pythagoreans rightly honoured
friendship above the other virtues, and called it the band (sundesmon) of all the virtues,
because if any single virtue is neglected, friendship won’t develop.⁷
Another Pythagorean practice admired by our authors was that of silence, eche-
muthia,⁸ not only the five-year silence imposed on beginners,⁹ but also, at the
other extreme, the silence of a divine life transcending discursivity.¹⁰ Mediating
between these two silences could be found, for the beginner, a discipline of
words, “a social form of silence, which is more commensurate with human be-
ings” and is advised by Epictetus¹¹ and, for a sage such as Pythagoras who hon-
oured silence, a brachulogia in his teaching, a brachylogy that is the “neighbour
of silence”.¹² Isidore, too, according to Damascius, was a man of few words (Vit.
Isid. 37D).
mages, but the mages went to Athens to see the former (6, 23). Olympiodorus (In Alcib. 2, 152–
155) contrasts the greater sociability of Plato with the exclusiveness of the Pythagoreans.
 On this see the note ad loc (119 n. 12) in the edition.
 In Gorg. 181, 17– 24.
 In Epict. XXXVII, 273 – 283 (trans. Brennan-Brittain); see also XXXII, 110 – 111.
 See Iamblichus, Vita Pyth. XVI, 68; XVII, 72; XXXI, 195; XXXII, 225.
 See Philoponus, In de an. 117, 5.
 See Simplicius, In Epict. XL, 30.
 Simplicius, In Epict. XL, 30 – 31.
 Pseudo-Elias, In Is. 11, 32 (not to be confused with Laconian brachylogy, Plato, Laws 641e!).
The Pseudo-Elias is identified by P. Mueller-Jourdan (2007) as a course of lectures given in
Constantinople in the early seventh century; however it goes back to lecture materials used in
Alexandria in the sixth century, as can be seen from its closeness to the Prol. of Olympiodorus
and David.
II
What sources could late antique philosophers use for constructing their image of
Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism? Pythagoras, it was thought, had written noth-
ing.¹³ The late Alexandrian commentators elaborated an entertaining story to ex-
plain this.¹⁴ Pythagoras had not written, because books always say the same
things and do not answer our questions. (We recognize here Plato’s criticism
of writing in Phaedrus 275de, now attributed to Pythagoras.¹⁵) Instead of leaving
his work in inanimate vessels, books, Pythagoras has left it in animate vessels,
his pupils, whom he has educated and who can give answers in explanation of
his teaching. Among these pupils (mathetês) is Nicomachus (who thereby ac-
quires a surprising backwards promotion in time and proximity to Pythagoras).
But the story goes on: Pythagoras’ pupils, however, when asked for explanations,
just said: “He said so” (autos epha)! This is because the Master’s doctrine tran-
scends demonstration (apodeixis): the Neoplatonic theory of non-discursive
knowledge here comes to the rescue of what might be otherwise a philosophical-
ly unsatisfactory ending to the story of Pythagoras’ unwritten teachings.
But Pythagoras’ pupils wrote books. Among them, it appears, is Nicoma-
chus, whose importance for the late antique image of Pythagoras and Pythagor-
eanism, as we will see, cannot be overestimated. Among the other supposed pu-
pils or followers of Pythagoras to whom books were attributed one could name
Archytas, Philolaus, Timaeus of Locri and the other more obscure authors of
what we call today Pseudo-Pythagorean literature. I have suggested that this
pseudo-Pythagorean literature was collected and promoted in particular by Iam-
blichus: the fragments of it that we find in Stobaeus’ anthology are, I think, a
result of this Iamblichean Pythagorizing campaign.¹⁶ Iamblichus also empha-
sized the Pythagorean sumbola (sayings) and the Golden Verses in his Pythago-
rizing synthesis (in Book I, De vita pythagorica and Book II, Protrepticus).
The presence of this literature in post-Proclean Neoplatonism can be felt in a
number of texts. I mention here (with a few comments) some of the “Pythagor-
ean” authors cited in these texts,¹⁷ in the hope that this might be useful some day
in the compiling of a complete listing.
 On the history of this idea in antiquity, see Riedweg (1997).

 See Olympiodorus, Prol. 13, 37– 14, 1; David, Prol. 25, 28 ff.; Pseudo-Elias, In Is. 10, 14– 15.
 This idea seems to go back to Plutarch; see Riedweg (1997: 73).
 O’Meara (2003: 97).
 I do not mention non-Pythagorean sources of information on Pythagoreanism, for example
doxographical reports or information coming from Aristotle and his pupils. Nor do I distinguish
– Androkydes. This author is quoted by Philoponus, In Nicom. 1, 21, 18 – 24 and

by Asclepius, In Nicom. I, 19, 1 in a more extensive version than that given in
the corresponding passage of Nicomachus, Intro. Arith. 6, 11– 15.
– (Pseudo‐) Archytas. Simplicius, in his commentary on the Categories, ac-
cepts Iamblichus’ claim that Aristotle’s text derives from (Pseudo‐) Archytas,
On the universal logos. Simplicius not only quotes the Pseudo-Archytas in his
commentary (probably through Iamblichus): he also refers elsewhere to the
text, as do other late authors.¹⁸ Simplicius also refers to Archytas’ On oppo-
sites. ¹⁹ Archytas’ text On Law and Justice (excerpts of it are preserved in Sto-
baeus) seems to be the source of inspiration for Boethius, Instit. arith. II,
45.²⁰ Some quotes from Archytas in late commentaries on Nicomachus
may be simply taken over from Nicomachus.²¹
– Occelos. Quoted in Lydus.²²
– Onatas (Onetor?). Also quoted in Lydus.²³
– Philolaus. The metaphysical doctrine of the limit and unlimited of Plato’s
Philebus (16c, 23c) was thought by Proclus to derive from Philolaus.²⁴ Philo-
laus is quoted by Boethius, Asclepius, Philoponus and Damascius.²⁵
– Timaeus of Locri. As Aristotle’s Categories was thought to be based on Arch-
ytas, so was Plato’s Timaeus seen as being based on Timaeus of Locri’s On
Nature. This Iamblichean claim (which is intended, not as a criticism of
Plato, but as proof of his Pythagoreanism) was followed by Proclus.²⁶ Sim-
plicius subscribes to this position and quotes Timaeus in a number of pas-
sages of his commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo. ²⁷
– The Pythagorean sumbola. Some of the sayings, collected and explained by
Iamblichus at the end of the Protrepticus (ch. 21), are cited in Olympiodorus,
In Phaed. 1, 13 (associated with Philolaus); Simplicius In Epict. LXVIII, 18 – 19
between (pseudo‐) Pythagorean authors and later sources such as Nicomachus and Iamblichus,
since all were considered in late antiquity as belonging to the same tradition.
 Simplicius, In Phys. 785, 14; Olympiodorus, Prol. 82, 27; Boethius, In Cat. 1, etc.; cf. Huffman
(2005: 595 – 596).
 In cat. 407, 16; Huffman (2005: 596).
 See O’Meara (2003: 104); Huffman (2005: 599 – 606).
 For example, Philoponus, In Nicom. I, 21, 24; see Huffman (2005: 115).
 Thesleff (1965: 138).
 Thesleff (1965: 140); see Huffman (1993: 334– 335).
 Theol. Plat. I, 5; III, 8.
 See Huffman (1993: 364 ff. Boethius; 353 Asclepius; 272 Philoponus); see below, n. 61 (Da-
mascius).
 See O’Meara (1989: 179 – 180).
 In de caelo 517, 22; 564, 3; 573, 7 and elsewhere.
(a shortened version of the first sumbolon in Iamblichus Protr. 106, 19) and
especially in Philoponus, In de an. 116, 30 – 117, 24.
– The Golden Verses, interpreted by Iamblichus in Protrepticus ch. 3 (his com-
mentary on them seems to be lost) and by Hierocles, are cited by Ammonius,
Olympiodorus, Simplicius and Pseudo-Elias.²⁸ The Golden Verses, Epictetus’
Manual and Plato’s Gorgias were considered by the late Neoplatonists as
concerning the same curricular level, that of education in the ethical and po-
litical virtues. It is thus to be expected that they would be used conjointly
and that the Golden Verses be cited in commentaries on Epictetus and on
the Gorgias.
– Nicomachus of Gerasa. Nicomachus’ Introduction to Arithmetic became a
fundamental source for Pythagoreanism in the Neoplatonic schools, due
to his promotion by Iamblichus (not only in the In Nicom.), who also cleared
up some metaphysical obscurities in the work (see below, section IV). A
basic text in the curriculum, the Intro. Arith. was used by Ammonius in Alex-
andria: his lectures are to some extent reflected in the commentaries by
Asclepius and Philoponus. Nicomachus is also used by Boethius.
– Iamblichus. As a last and more recent source one might list Iamblichus’ On
Pythagoreanism, of which the unique manuscript archetype preserves only
the table of contents (pinax) and the first half of the work, Books I to IV
(De vita pythagorica, Protrepticus, De communi mathematica scientia, In Nic-
omachi introductionem arithmeticam). The second half of the work, probably
contained in a second manuscript volume, disappeared after the 11th century.
However, there is a report (in 1506) of a manuscript of a commentary by Sim-
plicius on Iamblichus’ On Pythagoreanism, in “three books”, as present in
Rome and a second report of a commentary by Simplicius, on three books
of Iamblichus’ work, as present in Venice in 1553.²⁹ However, no other
trace of this (or these) manuscript(s) of Simplicius’ commentary has been
discovered. It would have been very interesting to be able to read Simplicius’
commentary in order to see how he interpreted the work. We have already
noted that Simplicius follows Iamblichus’ lead in his commentaries on the
Categories and on the De caelo. In doing this, Simplicius does not just pay
lip service to Iamblichus: in some cases he defends the “Pythagoreans”
against Aristotle’s criticisms.³⁰ This aspect of Simplicius may seem surpris-
ing to those who think of him as the sober scholar of “Aristotelian” commen-
 Ammonius, In Is. 15, 19 ff.; Olympiodorus, In Gorg. 9, 8; 91, 1– 2; 130, 23; Simplicius, In Epict.
VII, 112; XXXVII, 205 – 206; Pseudo-Elias, In Is. 22, 20 – 21.
 See I. Hadot (1987: 28 – 29).
 O’Meara (1989: 63, 65); (2007).
taries. On the other hand we should remember that Simplicius’ teacher Dam-
ascius, in his continuous polemic with Proclus, advocated a return to Iam-
blichus.³¹
III
A number of introductory lectures courses (Prolegomena) given in the Alexandri-
an school in the 5th/6th centuries survive. These courses introduced the first stage
of a philosophical education (Aristotle’s logic prefaced by Porphyry’s Isagogê)
and are attributed to Olympiodorus, [Pseudo‐] Elias and David, or they intro-
duced the second stage (Plato’s dialogues), as in the case of the anonymous Pro-
legomena to Platonic Philosophy. In introducing philosophy, these courses give a
list of six definitions of philosophy: two define philosophy by its object (1.
“knowledge of being as being”; 2. “knowledge of divine and human things”),
two by its goal (3. “preparation for death”; 4. “assimilation to God”), one by
its supremacy (5. “the art of arts and science of sciences”), and one by its etymol-
ogy (6. “love of wisdom”). Of these the first two and the last are said to have been
introduced by Pythagoras, whereas Plato is the author of definitions 3 and 4, and
Aristotle author (only!) of definition 5.³²
This to us looks suspect, the “scores” seemed to be fixed: Pythagoras 3, Plato
2, Aristotle 1. We are more familiar with definition 1 as being Aristotelian and def-
inition 2 as being Stoic. However, the authority for the attributions of these def-
initions to Pythagoras is given: it is Nicomachus, in writings other than the Intro.
Arith. ³³ Since these “other” writings of Nicomachus are in large part no longer
extant, it is difficult to verify this claim. However, one can see from the first
pages of the Intro. Arith. how the attribution of definition 1 to Pythagoras
could be made: there Nicomachus speaks of philosophy as the science of
being (2, 1), as the science of true beings, the immaterial and unchangeable be-
ings which are being in the primary and proper sense (3, 12), in relation to which
 See Westerink (1971).

 Pseudo-Elias, In Is. 10, 13 – 21. David, Prol. 25, 26 – 27 attributes only two of the definitions to
Pythagoras, but this must be a mistake, since the following leads us to expect three definitions
(26, 10 – 13; 45, 31– 46, 1). The correct Greek text is preserved in the early medieval Armenian
translation: “It should be known that it was Pythagoras who discovered the two definitions
which follow from the subject and the one definition derived from etymology” (Definitions and
Divisions of Philosophy by David the Invincible Philosopher, trans. Kendall-Thomson, 61), which
suggests that some words are missing in our Greek manuscripts.
 Pseudo-Elias, In Is. 10, 16; cf. David, Prol. 26, 10 – 13. Definitions 1 and 2 are not attributed to
Pythagoras in Ammonius, In Is. 2, 22– 3, 7.
all other “beings” (material beings) are such only by participation.³⁴ The identi-
fication of Aristotle’s science of being as being with the Platonic science of true
immaterial being had been made, for example, by Proclus’ teacher, Syrianus,
and so it was a simple move to attribute Aristotle’s science of being as being,
identified with Nicomachus’ science of true being, to Pythagoras, author of the
science of true being according to Nicomachus. The attribution of definition 2
to Pythagoras³⁵ is somewhat more difficult to explain. However, to the extent
that, according to this definition, philosophy is a science of divine things and
that these things were identified with immaterial intelligible beings in later Neo-
platonism, one can see at least, as pseudo-Elias explains (In Is. 11, 28 – 29), that
the science of true being is the science of divine being. But what of the second
part of definition 2: philosophy as the science of “human things”? The explan-
ation given for this in pseudo-Elias seems somewhat construed: divine and
human are the summits of two extremes of reality and thus represent all reality.
Probably in an effort to collect the various definitions of philosophy, an earlier
teacher had associated the second definition, through its mention of the divine,
with Pythagoras.
If, through such associations, definitions 1 and 2 end up being attributed to
Pythagoras in the introductory courses of philosophy in 5th and 6th century Alex-
andria, we might also wonder if the process could not have gone further, to the
extent of also attributing definition 4 (“assimilation to god”) to Pythagoras, even
if its origin in Plato’s Theaetetus (176a) was obvious.³⁶ This possibility is suggest-
ed by a passage in Damascius, Vita Isidori (26B):
His [Isidore’s] actions were a clear illustration of the manner in which Pythagoras con-
ceived of man as most resembling god: eagerness to do good and generosity extending
to all, indeed the raising of souls above the multiplicity of evil which encumbers the
world below; secondly, the deliverance of mortal men from unjust and impious suffering;
thirdly, engagement in public affairs to the extent of one’s abilities.
Boethius also links becoming divine-like to the Pythagorean injunction “follow

God!” (Consol. I, 4) and divine assimilation is already an important theme in Iam-
blichus’ interpretation of Pythagoras (cf. Vita pyth. XV, 66).
Finally, the sixth and last definition of philosophy, “love of wisdom”, as
given in the Prolegomena, is attributed to Pythagoras in the opening lines of Nic-
 See also Iamblichus, Vita Pyth. 89, 23 – 90, 11; Boethius, De mus. II, 2.
 See also Philoponus, In Nicom. I, 33.
 Pseudo-Elias, In Is. 10, 19 – 20; 14, 8.
omachus’ Intro. Arith. Lest we think that this definition is of mere etymological
interest, our Alexandrian professors tell us:
Let Pythagoras be the beginning and end of the definitions of philosophy. For it is right for
a man who is truly perfect to imitate a circle by starting from himself and ending with him-
self. For if he told others that they should enter in themselves and go out from others, all
the more so should he himself do this.³⁷
An image of the transcendent One, the circle also suggests the metaphysical
movement of progress and return, proodos and epistrophê, encapsulated by Py-
thagoras in his joining, as their author, the first definition of philosophy with the
last, uniting the beginning with the end.³⁸
IV
From the first definition of philosophy we can see that Pythagorean philosophy
must be primarily knowledge of intelligible unchanging being (divine being in
the second definition). Indeed only such being can be the object of knowledge
in a strong sense, scientific knowledge. Thus Pythagoras inaugurated scientific
knowledge, as compared to the technical arts that were known before him.
This suggestion of Nicomachus at the beginning of the Intro. Arith. is taken up
by Iamblichus.³⁹ However, in Nicomachus, there remains some unclarity as re-
gards the relation of mathematics to scientific knowledge: are they the same,
or is mathematics rather a “bridge” or “ladder” (to use Nicomachus’ influential
images) to a higher knowledge? The same difficulty occurs concerning the ob-
jects of knowledge: are numbers the same or are they different from transcen-
dent Platonic Forms?⁴⁰ At any rate, beginning with Iamblichus’ reading of Nico-
machus, this uncertainty is settled: rather than working with a two-level system
of reality (immaterial unchanging beings [Forms = numbers?] / material chang-
ing beings), Iamblichus introduces a three-level system in which mathematical
objects are intermediate between higher transcendent beings and lower material
being.⁴¹ In particular, mathematical objects are related to the soul, as expressing
constituents of soul’s nature. So mathematics functions as a mediating knowl-
 Pseudo-Elias, In Is. 17, 1; cf. David, Prol. 45, 27– 46, 1.

 See Alkmaion fr. 2 (Diels-Kranz).
 O’Meara (1989: 40 – 41).
 On this question see Helmig (2007).
 O’Meara (1989: 44).
edge, between a sort of knowledge of material reality and scientific knowledge of

intelligible beings.⁴² Consequently, Pythagorean philosophy is primarily and es-
sentially metaphysics and secondarily mathematics, as a bridge to metaphysics.
This Neoplatonized version of Nicomachus’ Pythagoreanism is found again
in Philoponus:
Now those who preceded Pythagoras used the name of wisdom in a confused way in all
sorts of expressions, but he was the first to restrict the word, using the name of wisdom
only for the science of eternal beings, and he named philosophy as the love of this wisdom.
For this is the goal of wisdom, the knowledge of divine things, whereas that which leads to
this wisdom, as Plato and Plotinus thought, is mathematical science. For mathematics is to
be given, Plotinus says,⁴³ to the young, to accustom them to incorporeal nature.⁴⁴
It was indeed the Pythagoreans, Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles (all

Pythagoreans) who distinguished the supra-natural (ta huper phusin) from the
natural things to which were limited the enquiries of their predecessors.⁴⁵
If Pythagoreanism is primarly metaphysics and secondarily mathematics, it
can also be found to be present in the forms of knowledge subordinated to these
in the hierarchy of sciences which was current in the philosophical schools of
our period, a hierarchy (of Aristotelian inspiration) which went from the highest
science, metaphysics (or “theology”), down through mathematics to physics
(theoretical philosophy), continuing further down through practical philosophy
(ethics, “economics” and politics) to logic as the instrument presupposed by all
philosophy. The study of practical philosophy was thought to cultivate moral vir-
tue (the ethical and political virtues) in the life of our rational desires, this in
turn making possible the cultivation of the higher intellectual virtues through
the theoretical sciences, the process culminating in sharing in divine life in met-
aphysics (divine assimilation).⁴⁶ The process as a whole is attributed to the Py-
thagoreans by Olympiodorus:
One should know that aristocracy most of all flourished among the Pythagoreans. For aris-
tocracy is [the constitutional type] that makes citizens fine and good. They become fine and
good by having a perfect soul. But perfection of the soul occurs in no other way than
through life and knowledge. And again knowledge does not occur if [one’s] life is not
 The story of the inscription on the entrance of the Academy (“Let no one enter who has no
geometry”) is found only in late antique sources; cf. Saffrey (1968).
 The Plotinian citation (Enn. I 3, 3, 5 – 10) acquires an unexpected success in our period: cf.
the editio maior of Henry-Schwyzer’s edition of Plotinus, app. ad loc.
 In Nicom. I, 1, 43 – 49; cf. Ammonius, In Is. 9, 7– 23.
 Simplicius, In Phys. 21, 17– 19.
 Cf. e. g. Pseudo-Elias, In Is. 18, 11– 13.
first purified, for knowledge does not enter a soul that is foul. Thus the Pythagoreans first
purified life by accustoming themselves to the practice of silence and abstinence from
food… then communicating knowledge.⁴⁷
The ascent through practical philosophy (life) to theoretical philosophy (knowl-

edge) was practised in the curriculum of the schools of late Antiquity in two cy-
cles, a preliminary cycle based on Aristotle’s treatises (the “minor mysteries”)
and a main cycle based on ten Platonic dialogues, the whole being crowned
by a dyad of dialogues, the Timaeus (physics) and Parmenides (metaphysics).
Let us look briefly at various stages of this initiation of the soul through the sci-
ences,⁴⁸ to the extent that Pythagoreanism is given a role in them.
(1) Practical Philosophy. The Pythagorean Golden Verses, Plato’s Gorgias and
Epictetus’ Manual were thought to relate to the cultivation of the ethical and po-
litical virtues, as we can see from the commentaries by Hierocles, Olympiodorus
and Simplicius.⁴⁹ The speeches given by Pythagoras as represented in Iambli-
chus’ Vita Pyth. also appear to operate on the level of an education in the polit-
ical virtues.⁵⁰
(2) Theoretical Philosophy: Physics. The Pythagorean inspiration of Plato’s
Timaeus was much emphasized by Proclus (following Iamblichus), who went
so far as to set the text of Timaeus of Locri at the head of his commentary as
the source of Plato’s text.⁵¹ With this we might compare Simplicius’ approach
to an equivalent text in the lower (Aristotelian) cycle of the curriculum, the Phys-
ics. Both Proclus and Simplicius, at the start of their commentaries, provide brief
histories of physics: it will be instructive to compare these histories in as much
as they concern the importance of Pythagoras.⁵²
Proclus, in introducing the cosmology of the Timaeus, considers that most
philosophers before Plato (with the exception of the Pythagoreans) did not go
further than dealing with matter and with material causes. Even Anaxagoras,
who introduced an Intellect as cause, did not escape this limitation (Proclus re-
fers to the Phaedo). The philosophers who came after Plato (Proclus is thinking
of Aristotle and of others) also introduced form, with matter, as a cause of bod-
ies. Only Plato, following the Pythagoreans, dealt, not only with “auxiliary caus-
es”, causes immanent in bodies (matter and form), but also with “primordial
 In Gorg. 236, 3 – 12.

 On logic see above, section II.
 See above, section II.
 Staab (2002: 463 ff.) and my review (2004: 162– 163).
 Proclus, In Tim. I, 1, 13 – 15; cf. Marg (1972: 2).
 See Golitsis (2008: 89 ff.).
causes”, causes transcending bodies: efficient, paradigmatic and final causes.⁵³

In this Plato’s physics is a Pythagorean science of nature: it refers to transcend-
ing divine causes.⁵⁴
Similarly, in introducing Aristotle’s Physics, Simplicius speaks of the philos-
ophers before Plato, who only dealt with material causes in a confused way, as if
they were the causes of all beings (In Phys. 6, 31– 7, 1). An exception is Anaxago-
ras, but he did not make much use of his Intellect as cause (Simplicius also refers
to Plato’s Phaedo for this). However, the Pythagoreans, Xenophanes and Parme-
nides revealed the most perfect philosophy concerning natural things and what
is above nature. And Timaeus of Locri, as well as Plato’s Timaeus, presented
both the transcendent (efficient, paradigmatic, final) and immanent (formal
and material) causes. Plato gave greater clarity to the somewhat enigmatic say-
ings of his (Pythagorean) predecessors and represents, in Simplicius’ account,
the culmination of the story. Aristotle follows the Pythagorean Timaeus and
Plato in distinguishing matter and form (7, 24– 26). But what then is distinctive
about Aristotle’s contribution? Not very much, it appears: Aristotle spoke of the
“natural body” (rather than of the cosmos) and, unlike Plato, distinguished be-
tween privation and matter.⁵⁵ Aristotle also treated of Nature as an efficient
cause, whereas Plato saw it as an instrumental cause, but he did not remain
there, going up to a transcendent unmoved cause at the end of his treatise.
Comparing these two histories of physics, we can see that they are essential-
ly in agreement: the story is articulated around (before and after) the central fig-
ure of Plato, and Plato is Pythagorean.⁵⁶ Aristotle stands after Plato, in Plato’s
shadow, as it were, even if (in Simplicius) he is assigned some positive, albeit
somewhat minor, contributions.⁵⁷
(3) Theoretical Philosophy: Mathematics. The fundamental importance of
Nicomachus has been noted above, Nicomachus as interpreted by Iamblichus.
As well as Nicomachus’ arithmetic (the highest of the mathematical sciences ac-
 In Tim. I, 2, 1– 4, 5; cf. Elements of Theology, prop. 75.

 Cf. O’Meara (1989: 181).
 However, Simplicius indicates later that Plato did distinguish between privation and matter:
In Phys. 245, 19 ff.
 The centrality and pivotal place of Plato is already a feature of Plotinus’ account of his
predecessors in Enn. V 1, chs. 8 – 9, where Plato joins a select group of philosophers who
followed Pythagoras (analysis in O’Meara 2005). These Neoplatonist histories overturn (and are
also in some respects inspired by) Aristotle’s condescending surveys of his predecessors, where
his philosophy (not Plato’s) is the culminating point.
 Golitsis (2008: 91– 92) gives a somewhat more positive interpretation of Simplicius’ eva-
luation of Aristotle.
cording to Nicomachus), the late antique schools could also use Nicomachus’
harmonics, Euclid’s geometry and Ptolemy’s astronomy.⁵⁸
(4) Theoretical Philosophy: Metaphysics. The summit of the cycle of ten Pla-
tonic dialogues in the curriculum, corresponding to the highest science, meta-
physics, was occupied by the Philebus, to be surpassed only by the Parmenides
in the dyad crowning the cycle of ten. The Philebus was thought to be named
after a Pythagorean and to allude to Archytas.⁵⁹ Certainly a relation between
texts of Philolaus and the passages in the Philebus (16c, 23c) concerning the
limit and unlimited was established.⁶⁰ However, the metaphysical importance
of the dialogue tended to be progressively narrowed in late Neoplatonism, to
the point that in Damascius’ lectures (In Phileb. 6), the dialogue is thought to
have as its subject the good immanent in sentient beings. This must have
meant a greater emphasis on the Parmenides as Plato’s revelation of metaphys-
ical science. However, Pythagoras is not absent from the interpretation of the
Parmenides: he is referred to, as is Philolaus, in Damascius’ De principiis. ⁶¹ Per-
haps as a last homage to the metaphysical Pythagoras, as revived by Iamblichus
and adapted by Proclus, we might cite Boethius’ De hebdomadibus, not so much
regarding metaphysical first principles, as regarding Boethius’ application in this
work of the scientific (geometrical) method of divine science, which demon-
strates on the basis of axioms.
V
The evidence that has been collected above does not, I think, reveal any major
departure in the philosophical schools of Athens and Alexandria of late antiqui-
ty from the appreciation and interpretation of Pythagoras and Pythagorean phi-
losophy that these schools inherited from Iamblichus and from Proclus. Pytha-
goras remains for these schools a fundamental source of inspiration, both as a
model of the philosophical life and as a source of knowledge. The Pythagorean
 An interest was also taken in Pythagorean arithmology such as found in the [Pseudo‐]
Iamblichean Theology of Arithmetic, which discusses the properties of the decade; see David,
Prol. 49, 10 – 54, 26; Pseudo-Elias, In Is. 9, 14– 45.
 Olympiodorus, In Alcib. 2, 92– 3; cf. O’Meara (1999: 195 n. 4). M. Bonazzi has suggested to me
that the reason for this belief that Archytas is alluded to in the Philebus, even if he is not actually
named in the dialogue, is that a connection is made between the principles of the limit and
unlimited of the Philebus and those found in (Pseudo‐) Archytas’ On principles (a text excerpted
in Stobaeus), on which see Thesleff (1965: 19, 4– 7) and Huffman (2005: 597).
 O’Meara (1999: 196).
 I, 67, 15; 72, 13; II, 10, 21; 11, 23; 24, 15; 30, 4; 40, 8 and 10.
texts brought into the philosophical canon by Iamblichus, in particular those of

Nicomachus, remain popular and the superior clarity and scientific rigour of Pla-
to’s exposition of the knowledge revealed by Pythagoras was stressed, as they
had been by Proclus. It is possible that further research may reveal differences
in emphasis and detail among the philosophers of the period. However, it
seems unlikely that any major change from what we already find in the interpre-
tation of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in Iamblichus and Proclus will emerge.
At any rate, it is to be hoped that a systematic collection of the “Pythagorean”
sources cited by the philosophers of this period will be made, since at present
such a collection is lacking.
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6 Pythagorean heritage in Renaissance
and modern times
Thomas M. Robinson
Ficino’s Pythagoras
The legacy of Pythagoras and ancient Pythagoreanism has been brought to the
fore again in Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier’s recent book Pythagoras and Renais-
sance Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge Uinverisity Press, 2009). Among the
many remarkable figures discussed in the book is Marsilio Ficino (1434– 1499),
and in light of this discussion I should like to take the opportunity to look
again at his place in the history of Pythagorean theory and practice. The first
page of my paper will be just a brief description of the Pythagorean life Ficino
himself lived.¹ The body of the paper will be more philosophical in tone, and
will grapple with a couple of items which Ficino took to be central to Pythagor-
ean belief, and, more specifically, to the beliefs of Pythagoras himself: the im-
mortality of the soul and the role and status of ‘the One’ in the universal scheme
of things.
Let us begin with Ficino’s way of life and the grounds on which he based it.
Drawing for the most part on Iamblichus and Porphyry, along with texts in cur-
rent circulation like the Golden Verses of Pythagoras and the Symbola, he lives a
life which combines the virtues which he takes to characterize both Pythagor-
eanism as he understood it and Christianity. At the level of basic conduct one
can assume he found this relatively easy to do, given the analogousness and
sometimes near-identity of two of the basic moral claims of each system. The
Golden Verse ‘What brings you shame, do not yourself do or do unto others’,
for example, looks very like the Golden Rule of Christianity (Matthew 7:12),
and the Golden Verse ‘The highest of duties is to honour oneself’ seems to be
interestingly analogous, in its view of the self, to a well-known biblical injunc-
tion (Matthew 19:19). The same could be easily said of virtues stressed in Iambli-
chus’s On the Pythagorean Life and incorporated into Ficino’s system: simplicity,
frugality, and love of the other (philia).
Other features of his life he takes to be Pythagorean in provenience, whether
or not they fit easily with Christian belief. The famous koina ta ton philon is ac-
cepted as a basic norm, even if in a Christian context it seems only to apply to
the monastic life.
As far as Pythagorean beliefs are concerned, Ficino is a passionate devotee
of the basic numbers 3, 4, 7 and 10, and writes voluminously about them, as he
does of the doctrine of harmony in the universe, the music of the spheres, and
 I draw gratefully, in the next three paragraphs, on Joost-Gauthier 80 – 87 passim for a valuable
short account of the Pythagorean features of Ficino’s way of life.
424 Thomas M. Robinson
the role of music in calming the soul; we know he himself played the seven-
stringed lyre. And the same goes for his cultivation of the sun-god Apollo; cath-
olic priest or not, he says his prayers each morning to the rising sun.
In all of this of course he could point directly to Iamblichus as his source for
the Pythagorean way, and I shall not discuss it further. More intriguing, I find,
are two doctrines of some significance which he attributes directly to Pythagoras
and evidence for which is a lot less clear. These are the doctrine of the immortal-
ity of the human soul and the Plotinian ‘One’, which he equates with the God of
Judaism and Christianity.
Let us begin with his belief that the doctrine of soul’s immortality was first
asserted by Pythagoras. On the face of it, nothing in our sources, other than the
ipse dixit of Porphyry,² would appear to lead to any such conclusion. On the
other hand Ficino affirms it, and frequently, with what looks like complete con-
fidence.³ What can we make of this?
Let us begin with the fact that, though the object of his lifetime study was
Plato, he had in fact as a younger person read both the De Anima and Metaphy-
sics of Aristotle. So he might well have remembered what Aristotle had had say
in the De Anima (404a16 ff) about various doctrines of soul espoused by the Py-
thagoreans. “Some of the so-called Pythagoreans,” Aristotle says, “said that soul
is the motes in the air, others that it is what moves the motes.” Ficino might also
have remembered that Aristotle in the same work also attributes to Pythagoreans
the doctrine of soul as a harmonia, a doctrine Ficino undoubtedly knew that
Plato had affirmed trenchantly in the Phaedo to be incompatible with any notion
of soul’s immortality. Add to the list the doctrine of soul’s transmigrations, also
mentioned by Porphyry (see above, n.2), in the De Anima (407b20 ff), and Ficino,
on the face of it, had a few hurdles to overcome if he was going to convince skep-
tics of his claim that Pythagoras in fact believed in soul’s immortality, or at any
rate in soul’s immortality in the way that Ficino himself did.
 Life of Pythagoras 19. However, the possibility cannot be discounted that Ficino took Por-
phyry’s immediately subsequent reference (ibid.) to Pythagoras’s belief in transmigration to be a
claim by Porphyry that this belief and the belief in immortality were thought by Pythagoras to be
causally connected. But if he did so, he was on as shaky ground as was Plato later, in the
Phaedo. In Plato’s case, all that the famous argument from entailment proves is that there is no
such thing as a dead soul (or, put slightly differently, if x is a soul then it is alive), not that soul is
immortal. And likewise with any supposed causal connection between immortality and trans-
migration: What, if anything, a doctrine of transmigration would demonstrate is that there is no
such thing as a soul that has not migrated from a body other than the one it currently vivifies,
not that soul is immortal.
 See particularly the Theologia Platonica, where it is a major tenet.
Since he himself never tells us on what evidence he based such a claim, we

are left to look for it as best we can ourselves. My own view is that it might have
been something like the following. If life and movement go together, and soul is
our life-principle, it could well have been an early Pythagorean thought that,
since even in still air motes are perceived to be in constant motion, they manifest
life, and hence soul, of some sort. They could be said to be either themselves
alive or in the motion they are in thanks to the presence in some way of the mo-
tive force of soul.
If, argumenti causa, we assume that the latter view was the view of the his-
torical Pythagoras, Pythagoras might be thought to have further affirmed what,
on Aristotle’s testimony (De An. 405a29 ff), one of his pupils, Alcmaeon, appears
to have affirmed, and that is, that soul is ‘everlastingly in motion’. The doctrine of
transmigration could be fairly easily reconciled with such a view if it was also a
Pythagorean doctrine that the world was eternal, leaving Ficino only the awk-
ward-looking doctrine of soul as a harmonia to be dealt with. Though much
less awkward if the harmonia in question is understood as, not the analogue
of the attunement of a lyre, as Plato took it to be, but simply the inner harmonia
of soul’s component parts. And less awkward still if one finds one Pythagorean,
Philolaus, apparently affirming that the said parts are each located in specific
sections of the body (fr. 13).
As for the notion that soul is the harmonia of the body, one possibility open
to Ficino was to argue that Macrobius (Somnium Scipionis 1. 14. 19) had been mis-
led into ascribing such a notion to Philolaus by his over-reading of the Phaedo. ⁴
But we know that Ficino was well acquainted with the works of John Stobaeus,
so it seems reasonable to assume that, through his reading of Stobaeus, he was
also aware that for Philolaus the world’s first principles could never have been
‘arranged’ (kosmythenai) had harmonia not supervened (epegeneto), ‘in whatever
way it came into being’ (fr. 6). The tense of the infinitive kosmethenai clearly sug-
gests that Philolaus was talking of a cosmogony in time, but that he was himself
possibly unsure of what caused harmonia itself to come into being. So he clearly
did talk about harmonia. The question is: did he take such harmonia to be soul,
whether the soul of the cosmos or human soul or both? I shall return to this.
As far as the doctrine of soul’s putative immortality is concerned, Ficino
would certainly have been intrigued by a further passage in Stobaeus (= fr. 21,
now generally thought to be spurious, but unlikely to have been thought such
by Ficino), where he would have found the remarkable statement that the
world has in fact existed from all eternity, and that the ‘natures, i. e., shapes’
 C. A. Huffman, Philolaus of Croton (Cambridge University Press, 1993) 327.

of things (physeis kai morphas) would go on forever, each preserved as that exact
shape (morphan) in which ‘their father has begotten and fashioned them’.
What Ficino, assuming the passage to be genuinely that of Philolaus, could
have quite reasonably taken from it is that, drawing perhaps upon Pythagorean
sources in his possession – likely contained in the book of Pythagorean doctrine
that was said to have been bought from him by Plato – Philolaus was asserting
that it was a father, who ‘has begotten and fashioned’ the world and its natural
forms, who was the cause of harmonia’s supervening on the archai of things.
Given what he thought he knew about Plato’s having drawn much of the Timaeus
from a Pythagorean source, Ficino would have been unsurprised to find here a
reference to the pater of the universe which later on plays so central a role in
the Timaeus. If he had found it odd-looking that the same Philolaus claimed
that the world had existed ab aeterno, he might well have thought that Philolaus,
like Plato himself, apparently, later on in the Timaeus, wished to distinguish be-
tween the world as matter, which was eternal, and the world of formed objects
we see around us, which, while being everlasting, nonetheless, as such a world,
‘has come to be’ (gegonen).
More important for present purposes is Philolaus’s view, in fr. 21, that the un-
changing cosmos of the superlunary world, with its eternal, intelligent soul, will
never cease. Here Ficino might well have thought he had found the final corrob-
orative piece of evidence he was looking for that the notion of the immortality of
soul was Pythagorean in origin. He already knew from the De Anima that the ‘Py-
thagorean’ Alcmaeon had said that soul was always in motion, and ‘immortal
because of its likeness to the immortal’ (a view later picked up by Plato in the
Phaedo). Now he finds the Pythagorean Philolaus saying that the superlunary
world is everlasting, and also (a natural corollary) that it possesses an everlast-
ing, intelligent soul as its vivifier. So the immortality of soul was clearly, Ficino
could affirm, a notion central to Pythagoreanism.
In all of this I offer no comment on the genuineness or otherwise of Philo-
laus fr. 21. The important thing for purposes of the argument I am constructing is
that Ficino would have assumed it to be genuine, there being no commentaries,
ancient or contemporaneous, suggesting the contrary. If he adverted to the fact
that some of the assertions of the fragment – such as the doctrines of a father of
the universe and of a world soul, and the difference between a superlunary and a
sublunary universe – looked remarkably Platonic/Aristotelian (and let us as-
sume he did), he would presumably have thought that the concepts in question
were simply a Pythagorean source on which each philosopher drew in construct-
ing his own particular system, Plato pretty well directly from the book he had
purchased from Philolaus. Just as, had he read it, he might have inferred from
the Theologoumena Arithmeticae of Iamblichus/Nichomachus (25.17) (= fr. 13)
that the doctrine of soul’s placement in specific parts of the body, spelled out
later by Plato in the Timaeus, was also a belief of Philolaus. Other claims, like
the world’s eternity, he would certainly have remembered as having been also
voiced earlier by Heraclitus, and the phrase the ‘breath of nature’ he might
have felt to be vaguely Stoic but also very much in accord with a famous analogy
between air and the breath-soul drawn by Anaximenes two centuries earlier.
As for a Pythagorean concept of cosmic and/or psychic harmonia, the only
one we know of was proffered by Philolaus, and it refers to what ‘supervened’
on the archai of things (limiters and unlimiteds, presumably) in a way such
that they were arranged in such a manner as to form an attuned cosmos
(fr. 6). The description, by Philolaus, of harmonia (fr. 6a, a continuance of the
passage of Stobaeus = fr. 6) in terms of the ratios of the strings of a lyre was
clearly thought by Stobaeus to be directly relevant to the concept of a universe
in a state of harmonia, and Ficino would have recognized at once major affinities
between it and a similar description in the Timaeus, and seen this as yet another
piece of evidence for the Pythagorean provenance of that dialogue.
But even if, for the sake of the argument, all of this were conceded, there is
still nothing here to suggest that the world’s harmonia is its soul. All we are told
is that harmonia <of limiters and unlimiteds> ‘came to characterize’ (my interpre-
tation of the word epegeneto) a world previously not so characterized. On the
other hand, its ontological status does appear to be that of a state (that is, a
state of adjustment) of a substance, not a feature of a substance, and still less
itself a substance; so in this sense it is indeed very like the harmonia criticized
so severely by Plato in the Phaedo. But if it is not further claimed to be soul – and
it is not so claimed, from what I can see – it is not something the Phaedo was
attacking, and Ficino can breathe easily. What he now sees as Pythagorean
will only be two claims, not three: soul is a substance that migrates, and is ever-
lasting, but it is not claimed to be a harmonia analogous to the attunedness of an
attuned lyre.
Would he have been right, however, in inferring from what he finds in Sto-
baeus and Iamblichus and elsewhere that it was reasonable to conclude that Py-
thagoras himself thought soul to be immortal/everlasting? This is far from obvi-
ous. Even if Philolaus fr. 21 is genuine, all that it says is that he, Philolaus, be-
lieved that the soul of the cosmos comprising the realm of stars and planets is
eternal; and the sublunary realm where we ourselves dwell one of cyclical
birth and death; and that the ongoing ‘shaping’ of matter along lines laid
down by the world’s gennesas pater is also everlasting. Nothing is said however
about the possible everlastingness of the human soul. Or about whether this
(transmigrating) human soul, something Pythagoras may well have believed
in, was also thought by him to be everlasting.
So why does Ficino affirm it with such confidence? Before offering a com-
ment on this I should like to turn first to Ficino’s belief that the doctrine of
the One, so prominent, he thinks, in Plato’s Parmenides (a dialogue on which
he wrote a notable Commentary), is also something which has its origins in Py-
thagoras.
I hope I shall be forgiven for my temerity in looking once again at a hugely
discussed topic, and that is the subject of the bewildering set of hypotheses that
conclude the Parmenides. I shall concentrate on the First Hypothesis, since that
is the one which neo-platonic commentators, including Ficino, have fastened
upon.
In context, since Plato has been discussing the question of the one and the
many, the ‘one’ in question being the one Form (say Beauty) which goes with
many instantiations (a multiplicity of beautiful objects), it seems natural that
when he talks in Hypothesis One about to hen he is talking about the same to
hen which he was talking about up to that point (see, e. g., 129d1– 2, tou
henos, the ‘oneness’ in which Socrates, being one man, participates). This
seems to be corroborated at the very start of the discussion, where he talks
about the positing of ‘to hen auto’ (137b3), language he uses typically of Forms.
So as I understand it, the argument, which has as its basis problems involved
in the positing of one Form and many instantiations, has as its subject to hen, in
the sense of “the one <Form that goes with many instantiations>”. So I translate
the opening question as “If <the Form> Oneness is one, there is no way it could
ever be a multiplicity, is there?” This interpretation seems to me corroborated by
a question posed just a few lines before (137b3 – 4), when Socrates had asked
whether he should begin by “setting out his own hypothesis whether the one it-
self (to hen auto) is one or not one, and the consequences following from it,” and
Zeno had said he should.
So the problem at hand is not, as Cornford (Commentary, ad loc.) supposes,
whether there exists a Form to go with various multiples, but whether, on the
supposition (hypotheseos, 137b3) that such Forms do exist, they are to be char-
acterized as a single one for a given set of multiples or several. It is tempting
here, of course, to think that Plato might be finally asking himself the very mod-
ern question whether his Form talk is not in fact ruined by the fallacy of self
predication, but the temptation should, I think, be resisted. It is, of course, rea-
sonable to be alarmed (well, philosophically alarmed) by any suggestion that ho-
liness, say, is itself holy, or that the beautiful is itself beautiful, or, as in this in-
stance, that the Form ‘the one’ (or ‘oneness’) is itself one, but in this instance it
does not seem to be the question that Plato himself is concerned with. His ques-
tion rather, is whether there could conceivably be two or more Forms of holiness
or beauty or oneness. He is talking, in a word, not about predication but about

numerousness.
Once this is settled, he can then go on to argue that the Form Oneness has
many of the features which, one notices at once, also characterize to eon (‘the
real’) in Parmenides’ poem: it is partless, has no beginning or end, is not in
place, and does not come to be. But there the similarities cease. In his poem Par-
menides was talking about the defining characteristics of the real (to eon), and
more precisely, of the real as such and as a totality (pan; see Pl. Parmen. 128a8-
b1, to pan); the Parmenides of Plato’s dialogue of the same name is talking about
the defining characteristics of a very special Form, Oneness.
So why would neo-Platonists have concluded that Hypothesis One is really
talking about the One that underpins all reality, happily equated by Ficino with
the supreme transcendent principle of Plotinus and with the God of Judaeo-
Christian belief? And why would he call such an idea (and Parmenides himself)
‘Pythagorean’?
Let me begin with the first of these questions first. If one simply goes
through the list of epithets ascribed to to hen in the First Hypothesis without ref-
erence to context, it is in fact quite easy to see them as being for the most part
fairly well known features of a divine first principle. Being one and immaterial, it
cannot have parts or for that matter be characterized as ‘whole’, since the very
concept of being a whole seems to involve composition from parts. It has no be-
ginning or middle or end either, and in that sense can be described as not having
limits. Likewise, being immaterial, it cannot be said to be anywhere, or either in
motion or at rest, these being activities ascribable without qualification only to
the material.
On the same grounds it is outside of time; ‘was’, ‘shall be’, and ‘is’ are all
equally false descriptions of would-be phases of its activity. So it cannot, as a
consequence, be said to be at all – even if that meant nothing else than just
being ‘one’. Finally, it cannot be named or spoken of, and cannot be the object
of knowledge or perception or opinion.
This account is then immediately written off as impossible by Parmenides’
young interlocutor, a person not surprisingly bearing the same name as Plato’s
most famous pupil, and new approaches are subsequently considered. To a read-
er satisfied that Plato is talking about the defining features of a Form, ‘oneness’,
however, this turn of events is not particularly disconcerting, and he or she just
reads on in the hope if not expectation of enlightenment as new arguments
emerge and are discussed. But a neo-Platonist reader will see things differently.
The young Aristotle, he or she will affirm, has it all wrong; the First Hypothesis
in fact perfectly describes to hen, referred to earlier, and strikingly, by Plato in the
Republic as being epekeina tes ousias, and clearly referred to here when Parme-
nides talks of ‘the one’ as ‘not sharing in being (ousias),’ and hence as ‘in no
sense existing’ (141e9 – 10). Whatever else the subsequent Hypotheses finish up
saying, what the First Hypothesis has effectively described, thinks Ficino, follow-
ing a long neo-Platonic tradition, is the ‘One’ of Plotinus. And it forms the basis
for his understanding of the Parmenides as a masterpiece of philosophical the-
ology, and specifically, Pythagorean philosophical theology, routed through
the historical Parmenides, a philosopher Ficino – as I have just mentioned –
took to be a notable Pythagorean.
There is of course evidence that Parmenides was drawn to philosophy under
the influence of a Pythagorean, Ameinias, and Diogenes Laertius says bluntly
that he was a Pythagorean, a view in which he is followed by Iamblichus. But
on what grounds? On the face of it, Parmenidean monism seems to be the
very antithesis of Pythagorean dualism, and very likely a reaction against it. Ex-
cept for one mighty truth, as neo-Platonist interpreters saw it: Parmenides, along
with his predecessors Xenophanes and the Pythagoreans, espoused a doctrine of
‘the One’ which clearly foreshadowed major doctrines of ‘the One’ in Plato and
Plotinus.
These are big claims, and through neo-Platonism have had a long and pres-
tigious history. But how well do they stand up to examination? Let us start with
Xenophanes.
In a famous couple of verses he says:
One god, greatest amongst gods and men,

in no way similar to mortals either in body or in ascertainment (noema) (21 B 23 DK).
The sentence is incomplete, but presumably it went on to describe some partic-

ular activity of the god. The sentence does not say that there is one and only one
god. It says that one god (among a number of gods) who is totally unlike humans
in two critical respects…and then we are left to guess the missing conclusion to
the sentence. From the evidence of fragments 25 and 26 it seems reasonable to
think, with Aristotle (Met. A. 986b21 ff.), that this particular god will be in effect
the Universe (which he, Aristotle, refers to as ‘the One’), which manifests its total
difference from humans by being spheroid in body and by seeing, hearing, and
ascertaining (noein) as a totality (oulos), not with individual sense-organs. This
god is very likely Xenophanes’ highest god, who is a demythologized version
of what ordinary people were calling Zeus. But he is still one god among
many; there is no claim that there is only one god. Still less is there a claim
that this putative one god should be referred to as ‘the One’ (or even, for that
matter, a claim that the universe should be referred to as ‘the One’).
Turning to the Pythagorean Table of Opposites, we find only a reference to a

one (hen) that is contrasted with a plurality (plethos). That the Pythagoreans also
thought of the universe as one we can assume. But whether they called that uni-
verse ‘the One’ we do not know. Since ‘the One’ is one of several words for the
universe that Aristotle uses, his employment of it when talking about the Pytha-
gorean construction of their universe (Met. N. 1091a15) proves nothing. And even
if they had employed it, it would have been a reference to the universe, not to a
principle underlying the universe, and so would have been valueless for the neo-
Platonist case.
What about Parmenides? At Met. A. 986b 18 – 19 Aristotle, believing Parme-
nides’ poem to be about the universe (a belief I myself share – but that is another
story), claims that this universe (which he, Aristotle, again calls ‘the One’, as he
had just done in the case of Xenophanes) seems to be what it is, i. e., one, ‘by
definition’ (kata ton logon). But there is no assertion here that Parmenides him-
self ever called the universe – or anything else, for that matter – ‘the One’.
If we turn to the extant fragments of Parmenides’ poem themselves, we find
merely the assertion, though of course a powerful one, that the real (to eon) is
‘one’ (hen, 8. 6 DK). Whether he would have been willing to call that one reality
‘the One’ we do not know; though we do know that Melissus (for Ficino, another
Pythagorean) was happy to do so (fr. 8 DK). But even if he had, it would not have
helped the neo-Platonic enterprise, because it, too, would have been a descrip-
tion of the world, not of a putative principle underlying it.
What all this amounts to, as I understand it, is that the Plato of the Parme-
nides understands the poem of Parmenides to be about the existent world (to
eon) in its totality (pan), and also that he takes it that Zeno thought likewise.⁵
Whether he also thought Parmenides called that world to hen we do not know.
At the same time, using as his teaching technique a way of paradox pioneered
by the same Zeno, he looks specifically at the Form Oneness (also called to
hen, though more precisely to hen auto kath’ hauto, after the manner of all
other Forms; see Pl. Parm. 129d7-e1), and gets Socrates to grapple with some
of the problems involved in saying that such a Form is either one or multiple,
or can have ascribed to it several other epithets classically ascribed to it, or
can even be said to be real at all. Of these problems quite the biggest is that noth-
ing true can be said of the Form Oneness (and by extension, of any Form) if it is
taken simply as an atomic particular, without reference to at least one other
Form, ‘Being’ (ousia), a Form examined in Hypothesis Two.
 See Plato Parmenides 127b ff.

But all of this is within a context of a discussion of Forms; I find nothing to

suggest what Plotinus and Ficino are convinced Plato believes in an ultimate
Oneness transcending all else, including the Form-world, still less that such a
belief has its origins in the views of a ‘Pythagorean’ Parmenides. Even if one con-
cedes to Ficino the fairly obvious fact that there is a good deal of Pythagoreanism
in Plato, not least in the Timaeus and Philebus, there is no specific evidence there
to suggest that the doctrine of a transcendent One is part of it, still less that it is
Pythagorean in origin, and still less again that it might have been a belief of Py-
thagoras himself.
As far as the doctrine of soul’s immortality is concerned, it seems clear that
some Pythagoreans, such as Alcmaeon, may well have adhered to an early ver-
sion of it, and possibly even Pythagoras himself. But the evidence is not such as
to allow Ficino the conviction on the matter which he seems to have held.
Which leads me back to my original question: why did Ficino hold these two
beliefs – on the origin with Pythagoras of the doctrine of soul’s immortality and
the doctrine of a transcendental ‘One’ – so firmly, and on such flimsy evidence?
Following the most generous principle of hermeneutical generosity I can, I shall
discount the possibility that, with regard to Pythagoras’s supposedly being the
first to assert soul’s immortality, he simply took the ipse dixit of Porphyry on
the matter, without any further attempt on his own to examine any evidence
on the matter that sources other than Porphyry might have presented him. To
my previous account of avenues open to him in this regard I now add two further
reasons why I think he could have been misled on the matter.
The first is his apparent failure to distinguish a crucial ambiguity in the ad-
verb aei, which can be used of either everlastingness or occasionality. A soul de-
scribed as aei kinoumene by Alcmaeon (or by anyone else) could, of course, refer
to soul as being in everlasting motion, but it could also be simply a reference to
invariability – that is, whenever one finds an instance of soul one invariably
finds that it is in motion. And this would fit very well with the early Pythagorean
notion of soul as being either the moving motes visible in a sunbeam or that
which triggers their motion: either way, wherever you have motes you have con-
tinuous motion (synechos, De An. 404a15) – but you do not have to have motes!
Only in the context of a doctrine of eternally moving matter in an eternally ex-
istent universe could one feel confident that a doctrine of the eternality of
soul as moving force was being enunciated. If Alcmaeon is employing aei in
the sense of ‘everlastingly’ when he talks of soul as aei kinoumene, he may
well have had just such a notion in mind. But few, I think, even granting this
view, argumenti causa, to Alcmaeon, would be willing to ascribe such a doctrine,
without further evidence, to Pythagoras too, just as few would wish, without a
number of careful caveats, to call Plato a Pythagorean.
The second possibility is that, as a convinced Pythagorean, Ficino could well

have felt committed to the view that the oath of secrecy amongst the faithful ef-
fectively guaranteed that the words of the master had been transmitted without
error amongst his pupils with the passage of time. If he did, all that he himself
would then have felt any obligation to demonstrate was that some known Pytha-
gorean or Pythagoreans, such as Alcmaeon and Philolaus, believed that soul in
all its forms was everlasting. And with some ingenuity, and a certain amount of
hermeneutical generosity concerning the reliability of his sources on our part, he
could do this, as I have tried to show. But the only person he could be assured of
convincing on the matter was himself.
Much the same, I think, can be said of his views on the One and Pythagoras.
Even if, for the sake of argument, one grants Ficino his Plotinian understanding
of the First Hypothesis of the Parmenides, and even his claim that the notion of
the One originated with Pythagoras, the further understanding of such a ‘One’ as
one and the same as the God of the Judaeo-Christian tradition remains a very
hard sell. But it is certainly challenging and alluring. However, that will have
to be a topic for another day.
References
Huffman, Carl A. 1993. Philolaus of Croton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Joost-Gaugier, Christiane L. 2009. Pythagoras and Renaissance Europe. Cambridge:
Edrisi Fernandes
A modern approximation to
Pythagoreanism:
Boscovich’s “point atomism”
Las especulaciones de los grandes sabios tienen la virtud de arañar, por debajo de la contin-
gencia del tiempo en el que viven, la dimensión universal y perenne de los verdadeiros prob-
lemas humanos. (Bernardino Orio de Miguel)
Introduction
In a paper published in a scientific journal on physics, the Austrian physicist
Karl Svozil asserted that “one of the most radical metaphysical speculations con-
cerning the interrelation between mathematics and physics is that they are the
same, that they are equivalent. In other words: the only ‘reasonable’ mathemat-
ical universe is the physical universe we are living in! As a consequence, every
mathematical statement would translate into physics and vice versa” (Svozil
1995, pp. 1556 – 57). After quoting from Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Book I, 5¹;
Book XIII, 6²), Svozil states that “the Pythagoreans must have been the first to
believe in this equivalence” between the physical universe and its mathematical
translation. In the same line of thought, John Losee, in his book A Historical In-
troduction to the Philosophy of Science, defines the “Pythagorean orientation”, “a
way of viewing nature which has been very influential in the history of science”,
as a belief that “the ‘real’ is the mathematical harmony that is present in na-
ture”, next declaring that “the committed Pythagorean” is someone “convinced
that knowledge of this mathematical harmony is insight into the fundamental
 985b33 – 986a3 “(…) since, then, all other things seemed in their whole nature to be modeled
on numbers, and numbers seemed to be the first things in the whole of nature, they [the
Pythagoreans] supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things, and the whole
heaven to be a musical scale and a number” (Aristotle 1953, Metaphysics, 2 vols., tr. W D Ross,
revised text, Clarendon Press, Oxford).
 1080b16 – 21: “And the Pythagoreans, also, believe in one kind of number – the mathematical;
only they say it is not separate but sensible substances are formed out of it. For they construct
the whole universe out of numbers – only not numbers consisting of abstract units; they sup-
pose the units to have spatial magnitude. But how the first 1 was constructed so as to have
magnitude, they seem unable to say” (tr. W D Ross).
436 Edrisi Fernandes
structure of the universe” (Losee 2001, pp. 14– 15).³ Losee also speaks of a “Py-
thagorean commitment” by Copernicus (1473 – 1543) and Kepler (1571– 1630),
since the first “sought mathematical harmonies in phenomena because he be-
lieved they were ‘really there’” (p. 40).⁴ while Kepler “devoted his life to the dis-
covery of the mathematical harmony according to which God must have created
the universe” (p. 39).⁵
Roger Penrose began his massive exposition of the state of modern physics,
The Road to Reality: a complete guide to the laws of the universe (Penrose 2005),
with a defense of Pythagoreanism as a way of looking for “a deeper universal
order in the way that things behave” (p. 5), and moreover of Pythagoras as an
originator of the notion of mathematical proof ⁶ (p. 10),⁷ helping to establish
the foundation of mathematical understanding and therefore of science. In the
view of Arran Gare, from Swinburne University (Australia), “Pythagoreanism un-
derpins the quest by physicists for an ultimate ‘theory of everything’, that is [ac-
cording to John Barrow in his book Theories of Everything] ‘a single all-embrac-
 Losee pointed to Harré, R 1965, The Anticipation of Nature: a study of apriorism as a philosophy
of science (Hutchinson & Co., London), Chapter 4, “The Pythagorean Principles”, as an analysis
of the Pythagorean orientation.
 Copernicus and his disciples referred to the Pythagoreans to show that the notion of a moving
Earth wasn’t a new or revolutionary proposition. See Casini, P 1994, “Copernicus, Philolaus and
the Pythagoreans”, Memorie della Società Astronomia Italiana, vol. 65, pp. 497– 507, and the
references therein.
 See also Harburger, W (ed. & trad.) 1925, Johannes Keplers kosmische Harmonie, Insel, Leipzig;
Werner, E 1966, “The Last Pythagorean Musician: Johannes Kepler”, in J LaRue (ed.), Aspects of
Medieval and Renaissance Music: a birthday offering to Gustave Reese, W W Norton & Co., New
York (reprint 1978, Pendragon Press, Hillsdale, New York), pp. 867– 82; Walker, D P 1967, “Ke-
pler’s Celestial Music”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 30, pp. 228 – 50
(reissue 1978 in Studies in Musical Science in the Late Renaissance, E J Brill, Leiden, pp. 34– 62);
Field, J V 1988, Kepler’s Geometrical Cosmology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago; Ste-
phenson, B 1994, The Music of the Heavens: Kepler’s Harmonic Astronomy, Princeton University
Press, Princeton. For some remarks on certain anti-Pythagorean positions of Kepler’s musical
theory see Pesic, P 2005, “Earthly Music and Cosmic Harmony: Johannes Kepler’s Interest in
Practical Music, Especially Orlando di Lasso”, Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, vol. 11,
no. 1, URL = <http://sscm-jscm.press.illinois.edu/v11/no1/pesic.html>.
 See Proclus, In primum Euclidis elementorum librum commentarii [= In Eucl.], ed. G Friedlein, B
G Teubner, Leipzig, 1873, p. 15 ff.
 A view that was in disagreement with Walter Burkert’s Weisheit und Wissenschaft: Studien zu
Pythagoras, Philolaus und Platon (1962, revised version translated into English: Burkert 1972), so
much so that Reviel Netz proclaimed: “Pythagoras the mathematician perished finally A.D.
1962” (Netz, R 1999, The Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics: a study in cognitive history,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York/Melbourne/Madrid/Cape Town, p. 272).
A modern approximation to Pythagoreanism: Boscovich’s “point atomism” 437
ing picture of all the laws of nature from which the inevitability of all things seen
must follow with unimpeachable logic’⁸” (Gare 2006, p. 3).
We have to keep in mind the aforementioned remarks about what it could
mean to be a modern or contemporary Pythagorean in order to evaluate a prob-
able approximation to Pythagoreanism by the Dalmatian polymath Roger (Ruger-
ius) Joseph Boscovich (Ruđer Josip Bošković, 1711– 1787). This approximation has
been discretely suggested by Niccolò Tommaseo (1840, pp. 122– 3)⁹ and by Ernest
Regnault (1883, p. 354; see below), and was embraced with a greater enthusiasm
by Lancelot Law Whyte (1961a-c; see below). This paper aims to offer an appre-
ciation of the putative approximation of Roger Boscovich to Pythagoreanism re-
garding the form and content of his reasoning about the first principles of phys-
ical reality. The word “Pythagoreanism” is used here in a broad sense that in-
cludes the late heritage¹⁰ of “the so-called Pythagoreans” of Aristotle (Metaph.,
985b23) and of the Platonic-Pythagorean tradition, specially in relation to what
Luigi Borzacchini (2005, pp. 148 – 9) named “the ‘Pythagorean program’”, a
“semiotic triangle” connecting reality, geometry¹¹ (“in the place that from Parme-
 Barrow, J D 1992, Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate Explanation, Vintage, London,
p. 1.
 “Il Boscovich ha dimostrata (sic) rara potenza d’ ingegno, sostituendo alla materia le forze che
la governano. La solidità de’ corpi è resistenza all’attività nostra (…). E la solidità ha inseparabile l’
idea dell’ unità. Onde i latini dicevan solido per intero. Quest’ idea rischiara e (sic) la fisica e la
metafisica e la morale. Sarebbe da fecondare l’idea de’ pitagorici: ogni cosa è numero. Estensione
riducesi a numero. L’idea de’ corpi è idea de moltiplicità”.
 In 360 b.C. Aristoxenus (fr. 14 Wehrli, On Pythagoras and his pupils) declared that he met (in
Phlius) the last Pythagoreans [Wehrli, F 1967, Die Schule des Aristoteles, vol. 2: Aristoxenos (1945),
2nd ed., Benno Schwabe & Co., Basel/Stuttgart], and with the existing evidence it is impossible to
be sure about the precise contents of Pythagoras’ original teachings. According to Richard
Crocker, in some ways Archytas was the last Pythagorean: up to his time, Greek mathematics
was somehow synonymous with Pythagorean arithmetic; after him, the new geometry made
possible generalities that reduced arithmetic to a branch of mathematics, and incidentally the
Pythagoreans paled into relative insignificance (Crocker, R L 1964, “Pythagorean Mathematics
and Music”, part II, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 22, no. 3, 325 – 333, reprinted in
Crocker, R L 1997, Studies in Medieval Music Theory and the Early Sequence, Variorum, Brookfield,
Vermont). About “Pythagoreanism” in post-medieval times the Israeli scholar Joseph Agassi
wrote: “Who was the last Pythagorean? Perhaps it was Newton; perhaps the twentieth-century
[Luitzen] Brouwer and [Niels] Bohr shared it. Yet whatever it meant for Galileo, he opened his
first great book with an admission of guilt and the promise to clear the Pythagorean house of all
mumbo-jumbo” (Agassi, J 2003, Science and Culture, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht,
p. 148).
 The branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size and relative position of
figures, and with the properties of space. For a rationale of different theses about the con-
tribution of geometry to the learners’ epistemological development and its relation to their
nides onwards will be occupied by the ‘ideas’”), and arithmetic (as a form of lan-
guage).
Boscovich’s understanding of physical reality

The year 2011 marked 300 hundred years from the birth of Boscovich, a mathe-
matician, physicist, astronomer, philosopher, poet, diplomat, and theologian,
the author of at least 149 published titles.¹² Boscovich’s mature ideas on ultimate
microcosmic and macrocosmic physical reality appear in his Philosophiae natu-
ralis theoria reducta ad unicam legem virium in natura existentium (Vienna, 1758;
2nd ed. 1759, 3rd enlarged edition Theoria philosophiae naturalis, Venice, 1763).¹³
According to Lancelot Law Whyte (1961b, p. 4), “Boscovich’s ‘Theory’ was the for-
mulation of a programme for atomic physics which is still being carried out,
though some are unaware of this”. The American physicist Leon Lederman,
with scientific writer Dick Teresi, stated that
Boscovich had this idea, one that was real crazy for the eighteenth century (or perhaps any
century). Matter is composed of invisible, indivisible a-toms (…). Here’s the good part: Bo-
scovich said these particles had no size, that is, they were geometrical points. Clearly, as
with so many ideas in science, there were precursors to this – probably in ancient Greece,
not to mention hints in Galileo’s works. As you may recall (…), a point is just a place; it has
no dimensions. And here’s Boscovich putting forth the proposition that matter is composed
of particles that have no dimensions! We found a particle just a couple of decades ago that
fits such a description. It’s called a quark. (…) Boscovich would have been pleased; the
Manchester experiments¹⁴ backed up his vision (Lederman and Teresi 1993, pp. 103 and
156).
Boscovich suggested that Democritus might have been wrong in believing that
his “atoms” of infinite kinds which differ in shape and size are “uncuttable”,
proposing that “atoms” contain smaller parts, which in turn contain still smaller
parts, and so forth down to “fields of force” of identical point-like particles with-
intuitive or ordinary experience of the world see De Beaugrande, R 1991, “Knowledge and
discourse in geometry: Intuition, experience, logic”, Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft
und Kommunikationsforschung, vol. 6, pp. 771– 827 (reissue 1992, Journal of the International
Institute for Terminology Research, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 29 – 125).
 See Proverbio, E (ed.) 2007, Catalogo delle Opere a Stampa di Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich
(1711 – 1787), Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL, Roma, pp. 24– 25 ff.
 Boscovich added an appendix, De anima et deo, relating his theory to a metaphysics of God
and the soul.
 In the Cavendish Laboratory; see Lederman & Teresi 2006, p. 152 ff.
out extension. Today, most atomic physicists accept a modern form of this idea,
with a limited number of unextended particles in the background of their models
of physical reality. The Nobel physicists Murray Gell-Mann (1969) and Leon Le-
derman (1988) considered Boscovich’s theory as an anticipation of the modern
theory of quarks. More recently, the Italian physicist Gianpietro Malescio wrote:
The breakthrough in our modern understanding of forces between atoms can be traced
back to the introduction of the interparticle force law, first proposed around 250 years
ago by Roger Joseph Boscovich to explain the physical property of materials. (…) In 1758
Boscovich published Philosophiae naturalis theoria, which can be considered the corner-
stone of modern theories of atomic forces. (…) His law on interaction can be considered
as the first interatomic model (Malescio 2003, pp. 501– 2)
For Boscovich, the primary elements (prima elementa) of matter consist of infin-
ite and permanent identical points of matter (puncta; punctorum materiae) that
are perfectly simple, indivisible, unextended and separated from one another, in-
teracting in pairs under an oscillatory law.¹⁵ The arrangements of puncta
[through attractive or repulsive actions or forces (vires), achieving stable or un-
stable equilibrium] account for all physical properties. Boscovich’s “point atom-
ism”¹⁶ proposed that the interaction between two puncta of action at very small
 There is a lengthy presentation of Boscovich’s atomic theory in Brewster, D (ed.) 1830, The
Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, 18 vols, vol. III, William Blackwood & John Waugh, Edinburgh,
pp. 749 – 768, preceded by a biographical section (pp. 744– 749). For other valuable discussions
of Boscovich’s ideas on point-atoms see Thompson, W 1889, “On Boscovich’s Theory”, Nature,
vol. 40, pp. 545 – 547 (another issue: Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian
Institution, Volume 1889, Government Printing Office, Washington, pp. 435 – 439), and Marcović,
Z 1961, “Boscovich’s Theoria”, in: Whyte 1961a, pp. 127– 152. For an evaluation of Boscovich’s
position in relation to atomist and anti-atomist strains see Casado Vásquez, J M 2000, “Ruggero
Giuseppe Boscovich y el Atomismo”, Llull, vol. 23, pp. 551– 575. For a contemporary criticism of
Boscovich’s ideas on the structure of matter see Abramovic′, V 2004, The Problem of Continuity in
the Natural Philosophy of Leibniz and Boscovich, tr. M C′iric′, Klub NT, Belgrade (orig. 1985,
Lajbnicovo i Boškovic′evo Shvatanje Kontinuiteta, Doctoral thesis, Skopje Philosophical Faculty),
Holden 2004, pp. 236 – 272, Abramovic′, V 2009, “Geometry, Time and the Law of Continuity
(Theoria Philosophiae Naturalis… and Boscovich’s synthesis of the continuous and the discon-
tinuous; criticisms of Boscovich’s concepts of motion space and structure of matter)”, URL =
<www.chronos.msu.ru/EREPORTS/abramovic_geometry/abramovic_geometry.htm>, and Kragh,
H 2011, Higher Speculations: Grand Theories and Failed Revolutions in Physics and Cosmology,
Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 19 – 26.
 For this concept see Whyte 1961a, pp. 106 – 107. Whyte recalls that “Boscovich expressed a
doubt whether his theory should be regarded as ‘atomic’ in the sense then prevalent. For his
puncta had lost two attributes of matter: spatial extension, which the Greeks, Descartes, and
Newton had taken for granted, and mass, in the Newtonian sense of a continuous [dimensional]
distances is repulsive, and tends to become infinite as the distance approaches

zero, while an attractive interaction appears as the distance between two puncta
increases. As the distance increases, the action oscillates between attraction and
repulsion, until at a large distance only attraction operates.¹⁷ The situation of sta-
ble equilibrium (between repulsion and attraction) at several interpunctual dis-
tances accounts for the finite extension of gross material bodies and for different
physical states, while the conception of unrigid units of matter allows for the ca-
pacity of material change through thermoelastic modifications and through de-
composition. Boscovich developed the idea that all phenomena arise from
changes of spatial patterns of identical puncta interacting in pairs according
to an oscillation that determines their relative motion. Space, on the other
hand, is only the relation between puncta that, though unextended, are centers
of exertion of forces that have extension.¹⁸ Space and time are parallel, infinite
and continuous, consisting of reciprocally corresponding puncta. The complexity
of the world arises from the varied arrangement of different numbers of puncta,
and from the parameters determining the law of oscillation (Boscovich 1966, pas-
sim).
According to the physicist and scientific historian Lancelot Law Whyte,
One half of Kepler’s mind was Pythagorean; the whole of Boscovich’s was, if we may credit
to that school the great principle of blending number and nature. For Boscovich discarded
‘massy matter’, and developed a vision of the entire cosmos as a changing tapestry of
points, an open network of foci, each active everywhere in the universe except where it
was itself. This dream of a universe of fundamental structure preserves the spirit of Pytha-
goras, but extends it to cover all motions under a generalized super-Newtonian law.
The aspect of Boscovich’s theory which is philosophically most important is its rejection of
the ancient dualistic view – assumed by Newton – of the existence of two kinds of space:
space occupied by matter, and empty space. For this is substituted [by] a monistic concep-
tion of a single realm constituted by the spatial relations of the discrete puncta. This is Bo-
scovich’s great transcending of appearances (…). A monism of relations has replaced the
old dualism of matter and void. Even inertia is now relational, for motion is determined
relatively to observed objects (…) (Whyte 1961a, p. 107).
quantity determined only by measurement” (Whyte 1961a, p. 108). For Boscovich, “space” is the
frame of spatial relations between puncta, “time” the sucession of their changing spatial pat-
terns, and “mass” the number of puncta in a body (Whyte 1961a, pp. 106 – 107).
 See Heilbron, J L 1982, Elements of Early Modern Physics, University of California Press,
Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, pp. 58 – 9 with n. 29.
 A punctum exerts its action as an extended shell of force (Holden 2004, p. 238).
We may summarize the main innovations of Boscovich’s indivisibilist theory in

three ideas:¹⁹
1) Material permanence without spatial extension – rigid finite units of matter
of earlier indivisibilists are replaced by quasi-material puncta (point-centers)
of action without intrinsic size, mathematical points within spheres of force
(Mellor 1922, p. 112);
2) Spatial relations without absolute space – internal spatial coordinates (the
distances between the two members of pairs of puncta) are used instead
of external coordinates. The idea of continuous extension, impossible to
be generated from non-extended point-particles, is abandoned in order to
escape the trap of Zeno’s paradoxes;
3) Kinematic action without Newtonian forces – in modern dimensional terms,
Boscovich’s theory is kinematic rather than dynamic; it uses only two-di-
mensional quantities (length and time) instead of the three (mass, length,
and time) employed by Newton. Since all puncta are identical, the number
of point-particles in a system (an integral number) replaces Newtonian
mass. Boscovich’s reason for rejecting Newtonian mass rests on “Maclaurin’s
[or Boscovich’s] paradox” (Agassi 1996, pp. 225 – 6).²⁰
Pythagorean “atomism” or “dynamism”?

Borzacchini believes there was a diffuse tendency among ancient Pythagoreans
(exemplified by Ecphantus and Eurytus) towards forms of “number atomism”,
 These “three original features” were proposed by Roger Anderton in an internet Natural
Philosophy Alliance (NPA) chat on “Boscovich’s atomic theory” on June 17, 2010, URL = <http://
worldnpa.org/pipermail/memberschat_worldnpa.org/2010-June/008725.html>.
 “Boscovich noticed that the grand Newtonian theory was internally incoherent, indeed, self-
contradictory. The concept of action, ‘force × time’, which was essential to setting up Newton’s
third law, that in action by contact action and reaction are equal and opposite, required all such
action to take place in a finite time. But the Newtonian ontology required the ultimate material
particles to be truly hard, that is incompressible. It follows that all action by contact must be
instantaneous, since the ultimate contacting surfaces cannot deform. Forces in instantaneous
Newtonian impact would, according to the mechanical definition of action, be infinite. But there
is no place for infinite forces in the Newtonian scheme. A variety of strategems were developed
to try to resolve the difficulty. In general physicists in France tended to favour theories without
forces [D’Alembert (, J-B le R), 1796, Traité de Dynamique, Chez Fuchs, Paris (1st ed. 1743; 2nd
ed. 1758)], whereas the English and some of their continental allies tended to favour a mechanics
without matter [Heimann, P M & McGuire, J E 1971, “Newtonian Forces and Lockean Powers”,
Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, vol. 3, pp. 233 – 306], the so-called dynamical inter-
pretation”.
that is, “towards the possibility of representing real or ideal objects through little
points [dots] interpretable as whole numbers geometrically organized, and to-
wards the fact that the same numbers were ‘figured’; they had an eidos, a
‘form’. (…) Even the Pythagorean idea of a ‘point’ as a ‘monad having a posi-
tion’²¹ reflects the same figured perception of numbers” (Borzacchini 2005,
pp. 149 and 150). Are we authorized, in agreement with Whyte (1961a,
pp. 106 – 107), to consider Boscovich’s atomic theory as a descendent of Pytha-
gorean “number atomism”? Edward McKinnon wrote that “the eventual [contem-
porary] success of atomism provides an abiding temptation to overemphasize the
philosophical worth of the original doctrine” (McKinnon 1992, p. 14), but it must
be remembered that many sorts of atomist theories have concurred in the pre-
vailing contemporary views on the subject, and that the discussion about the
original doctrines of atomism are far from settled. On the other hand, Robert Pur-
rington (1997, p. 114) observed that although “it is easy to scorn the idea that
modern atomism owes anything to the Greeks”, some ideas from our Greek
past may have been “absorbed and accommodated” with the passing of time,
even without empirical evidence, by continuing discussion, and that such a proc-
ess of “preparing the ground for an idea, of making it plausible (…), is neither
easily quantifiable nor attractive to methodologists. Nonetheless, it has played
an important role in the reception of ideas”, and this is certain in the case of
atomism.
The question of a “Pythagorean atomism” is an especially problematic one,
and has been the subject of much speculation and polemic. The problem starts
by the discussion of the validity of speaking about a “Pythagorean atomism”.
David Furley, for example, said: “I do not believe that the early Pythagoreans
were atomists, in any but a trivial sense. There were certain important differences
between their ideas and those of Leucippus and Democritus, which make it thor-
oughly misleading to apply the name to both” (Furley 1967, pp. 44). Ernest Reg-
nault (1883) considered Pythagorean “dynamism” as a complete contrary to
atomism (“tout l’opposé de l’atomisme”; p. 354), with atomism taken in its
form of “pure or mechanical atavism”²² (“atavisme pur ou mécanique”; p. 353),
that is, considering extension as the essence of bodies and their component el-
ements. For Regnault, in “dynamism” “all bodies resolve themselves into simple
or unextended elements, essentially active forces that are called monads. This
 μονὰς προσλαβοῦσα θέσιν, “monad with a position” or “with position added” [Aristotle, De
Anima, 409a6, and Metaph., 1016b24 (an equivalent sentence, cf. also 1084b25); An. Post., 87a31,
88a33; Proclus, In Eucl., 95; 21– 2 Friedlein].
 Seen by Regnault (1883, p. 353) as represented mainly by Anaxagoras, Democritus and
Epicurus in old times, and by Descartes, Gassendi and Newton in modern times.
system has Pythagoras as a representative in antiquity; in modern times, it was

formulated by Leibniz, and later reprised and developed in a far more logical
form by Boscovich”²³ (Regnault 1883, p. 353). The strict identification of the con-
cept of indivisibles with “extended elements” (and the associated perception of
an incompatibility between the “corpuscular theories” of atomism and the “force
theories” of dynamism),²⁴ though accepted by some authors other than Reg-
nault, has not received universal acceptance.²⁵ Avoiding the strict taggings of
“atomism” and “dynamism”, James Ward (1903, p. 124 ff.), Nicolai Velimirović
(2008 [orig. 1916], p. 31) and Frederick Copleston (1960, p. 54) preferred to qualify
Boscovich’s physical theory as “dynamic atomism”.²⁶
An identification between indivisibles and a lack of extension has been pro-
posed since Aristotle,²⁷ at least at the mathematical level – and Theodor Gom-
perz (1912, p. 121) thought the Stagirite may have been “contending for the exis-
tence (…) of [indivisible] spatial units having the nature of points, such entities
as the ‘philosophical’ atoms devised by Boscovich”.²⁸ Karl Stiegler (1980 – 81), in
turn, sees the birth of the idea of unextended atoms in space as presupposed by
the paradoxes of Zeno, which was criticized by Aristotle along with discontinuity.
 “Tous les corps … se résolvent en éléments simples ou inétendus, forces essentiellement actives,
qu’on a appelées monades. Ce système a pour représentant dans l’antiquité Pythagore; dans les
temps modernes, il a été formulé par Leibnitz, puis repris et développé sous une forme beaucoup
plus logique par Boscovich”.
 See Meyerson, E 1908, Identité et Realité, Félix Alcan, Paris, p. 60 ff.; Boas, G 1930, A Critical
Analysis of the Philosophy of Emile Meyerson, The John Hopkins Press/H. Milford & Oxford
University Press, Baltimore/London (reprint 1968, Greenwood Press, New York), pp. 14– 15, 19 –
23, and passim.
 Isaac Newton, in his in his Principia of 1687, proposed a dynamic atomism replacing pure
mechanical interaction (through entanglement and collision) of atoms (whose only fundamental
properties are size, shape, and motion) with short-range interparticle forces of attraction and
repulsion (see Thackray, A 1970, Atoms and Powers: an essay on Newtonian matter-theory and the
development of chemistry, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts), while Friedrich
Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling [2004, First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature (1799),
tr. K R Peterson, State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, pp. 20 – 22 with notes]
proposed an “atomic dynamism” that conciliates dynamism and atomism.
 Others prefer the label “atomic dynamism”.
 Metaph., 1083b11– 16: “that bodies should be composed of numbers, and that these numbers
should be mathematical, is impossible. For (a) it is not true to speak of indivisible magnitudes
(οὔτε γὰρ ἄτομα μεγέθη λέγειν ἀληθές); (b) assuming that this view is perfectly true, still units at
any rate have no magnitude; and how can a magnitude be composed of indivisible parts? (εἴ θ᾽
ὅτι μάλιστα τοῦτον ἔχει τὸν τρόπον, οὐχ αἵ γε μονάδες μέγεθος ἔχουσιν: μέγεθος δὲ ἐξ
ἀδιαιρέτων συγκεῖσθαι πῶς δυνατόν)” (tr. W D Ross).
 Gomperz’s reasoning followed a line previously tackled by the Jesuit Francisco Suárez
(1548 – 1617; see Rossi 1999, pp. 73 – 6) and the “Zenonists” (see below).
“Zeno’s fundamental paradox”, the logical reasoning that an extended line con-
sists of unextended points, underlies his four paradoxes on motion (Ferber 2000,
p. 295). Before Aristotle, Leucippus had suggested that in physical reality the
atoms, infinite bodies that compose the plenum,²⁹ are indivisible on account
of the smallness of their mass.³⁰ After Aristotle, Robert Grosseteste (1168 –
1253) defended the existence of physical indivisibles without size,³¹ and Gottfried
Leibniz (1646 – 1716) didn’t hesitate in talking in his Theoria motus abstracti
(1671) about indivisibilia seu inextensa (Leibniz 1880b, p. 228), later arguing in
the Monadology (1714), 3, that “where there are no parts at all, no extension or
figure or divisibility is possible”³² (Leibniz 1991, p. 51).
Furley (p. 47) believed Paul Tannery was “the first to attribute a kind of
atomism to the Pythagoreans”³³ but this opinion neglects many early suggestions
of the existence of a Pythagorean atomism, as those of Giordano Bruno (1548 –
1600),³⁴ Henry More (1614– 1687), Francesco D’Andrea (1625 – 1698), and Isaac
Newton (1643 – 1727),³⁵ thinkers who belonged to an ancient tradition (represent-
ed by Aristotle, for example) that recognized the existence of two opinions about
the nature of the ultimate elements of which bodies are constituted: one that
proposed that matter is a composition of units incapable of further division
(the atoms, hence “atomism”), and another that thought there is no limit to mat-
ter’s divisibility (as in Aristotle’s own view).
There have been different forms of atomism since antiquity, and after Aris-
totle the attachment of Pythagoras’ name to some sort of understanding of
 παμπλῆρες ὄν or πλῆθος.
 Fr. 67 A7 Diels-Kranz (Aristot. De gen. et corr. A 8. 325 a23): (…) φησιν εἶναι· τὸ γὰρ κυρίως ὂν
παμπλῆρες ὄν. ἀλλ’ εἶναι τὸ τοιοῦτον οὐχ ἕν, ἀλλ’ ἄπειρα τὸ πλῆθος καὶ ἀόρατα διὰ σμικρότητα
τῶν ὄγκων.
 For Grosseteste, “extension itself depends on the infinite multiplication (or replication) of a
single dimensionless point of light” [Molland, G 2001, “Roger Bacon’s corpuscular tendencies (&
some of Grosseteste’s too)”, in C Lüthy, J E Murdoch & W R Newmann (eds.), Late Medieval and
Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories, Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden/Boston/Köln, pp. 57– 74
(see p. 59)].
 “Or là où il n’y a point de parties, il n’y a ni étendue, ni figure, ni divisibilité possible. Et ces
Monades sont les véritables Atomes de la nature, et en un mot, les Elemens (sic) des choses”.
 Tannery, P 1887. Pour l’histoire de la science hellène. De Thalès à Empédocle, Félix Alcan,
Paris, pp. 250 – 251.
 See Gemelli, B 1996, Aspetti dell’Atomismo Classico nella filosofia di Francis Bacon e nel
Seicento, Leo S Olschki, Florence, pp. 146 – 7; Gatti, H 2001, “Giordano Bruno’s Soul-Powered
Atoms: From Ancient Sources towards Modern Science”, in C Lüthy, J E Murdoch & W R New-
mann (eds.), Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theorie (op. cit.), pp. 163 – 180
(see pp. 172– 173).
 See ahead about More, D’Andrea, and Newton.
non-infinite divisibility of matter would surprise no one. Thomas Bradwardine (c.

1290 – 1349), in his Tractatus de continuo (between 1328 and 1335), mentioned
five opinions concerning the composition of continua, and their supporters³⁶
(Murdoch 1974b, p. 314):
1) a continuum is not composed of indivisibles (atoms) [Aristotle, Averroes, and most of the
moderns];
2) a continuum is composed of indivisibles:
2a) a continuum is composed of indivisible bodies [Democritus];
2b) a continuum is composed of indivisible points:
2b1) a continuum is composed of finite indivisible points [Pythagoras, Plato, Walter Chat-
ton];
2b2) a continuum is composed of infinite indivisible points:
2b2a) a continuum is composed of infinite indivisible points immediately joined to one an-
other [Henry of Harclay];
2b2b) a continuum is composed of infinite indivisible points which are mediate to one an-
other (mutually separated) [Robert Grosseteste].
Apart from these opinions, atoms can also be conceived as points without size
(opinion ascribed to Pythagoras) or as or particles with very small but finite
sizes (as in Democritus) (Rosenfeld 1988, pp. 191– 2).
Contemporary scientific historiography proposes “there have been only three
basically distinct and widely successful conceptions of atomic particles”: hard
 Tractatus de continuo (Ms. Toruń R. 4º, 2, p. 165; Erfurt, Ms. Amploniana 4º, 385, ff. 25v-26r):
“Pro intellectu huius conclusionis est sciendum, quod circa compositionem continui sunt 5 opi-
niones famose inter veteres philosophos et modernos. Ponunt enin quidam, ut Aristoteles et
Averroys et plurimi modernorum, continuum non componi ex athomis, sed ex partibus divisibilibus
sine fine. Alii autem dicunt ipsum componi ex indivisibilibus dupliciter variantes, quoniam De-
mocritus ponit continuum componi ex corporibus indivisibilibus. Alii autem ex punctis, et hii
dupliciter, quia Pythagoras, pater huius secte, et Plato ac Waltherus modernus, ponunt ipsum
componi ex finitis indivisibilibus. Alii autem ex infinitis, et sunt bipartiti, quia quidem eorum, ut
Henricus modernus, dicit ipsum componi ex infinitis indivisibilibus immediate coniunctis; alii
autem, ut Lyncul[niensis], ex infinitis ad invicem mediates. Et ideo dicit conclusionem: ‘Si unum
continuum componatur ex indivisibilibus secundum aliquem modum’, intendendo per ‘modum’
aliquem predictorum modorum; tunc sequitur: ‘quodlibet continuum sic componi ex indivisibilibus
secundum similem modum componendi’” [apud Murdoch, J E 2002, “Beyond Aristotle: In-
divisibles and Infinite Divisibility in the Later Middle Ages”, in C Grellard & A Robert (eds.),
Atomism in Late Medieval Philosophy and Theology, Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, pp. 15 – 38 (see
pp. 26 – 27 n. 37)].
atoms [Democrit; Newton], point-centers [Boscovich], and wave-particles [De

Broglie; Schrödinger] (Whyte 1961c, pp. 22– 3).³⁷ We can agree, anyway, with Ber-
nard Pullman saying that
with a small leap of imagination one can detect in (…) Pythagorean physics a premonition
of an atomism of sorts. Such is the opinion of Pichot,³⁸ who writes: “(…) While it does not
qualify as genuine atomism, the notion that things are made of particles could be construed
as presaging it. (…) The only concrete aspect of Pythagorean physics would be the outline
of a physical of particles, in which the units (which constitute numbers and things) have a
thickness and a consistency, and are indivisible; hence they are atoms” (Pullman 1998,
p. 26).
Pullman (pp. 28 – 9) believes “a little bit of imagination” reveals in Pythagoras’

doctrine “a glimpse of what amounts to a corpuscular physics, a sort of arithmet-
ic atomism”.
Understanding physics through mathematics:

background
For the purpose of our investigation about a possible Boscovichean approxima-
tion to “Pythagorean atomism”, it will suffice to remember from ancient philos-
ophy a few passages that deal with the relation between numbers and reality:
“(…) the so-called Pythagoreans applied themselves to mathematics, and were
the first to develop this science; and through studying it they came to believe
that its principles (archàs) are the principles of everything. (…) They [the Pytha-
goreans] assumed the elements (stoicheîa) of numbers to be the elements of ev-
erything, and the whole universe to be a proportion (harmonía) or number”³⁹ (Ar-
 “To these three primary ideas must be added various special conceptions of less value:
vortex rings and other rotating units, twists in a rotationally elastic jelly, dislocations or holes in
a close packing of spheres, negative atoms of various kinds, and so on. There is also Eddington’s
ghost-particle, from which he excluded all vestiges of materiality, so that it became merely a
‘carrier of variants’ or ‘a conceptional unity whose probability function’ is specified by certain
wave vectors” (Whyte 1961c, p. 24).
 Pichot, A 1991, La Naissance de la Science, 2 vols., vol. 2, Grèce Presocratique, Gallimard,
Paris, page not mentioned.
 (…) οἱ καλούμενοι Πυθαγόρειοι τῶν μαθημάτων ἁψάμενοι πρῶτοι ταῦτά τε προήγαγον, καὶ
ἐντραφέντες ἐν αὐτοῖς τὰς τούτων ἀρχὰς τῶν ὄντων ἀρχὰς ᾠήθησαν εἶναι πάντων. (…) τὰ τῶν
ἀριθμῶν στοιχεῖα τῶν ὄντων στοιχεῖα πάντων ὑπέλαβον εἶναι, καὶ τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν ἁρμονίαν
εἶναι καὶ ἀριθμόν. Quotations are from Aristotle 1989 (orig. 1933 – 1935), Metaphysics (Loeb
istotle⁴⁰, Metaph. 985b23 – 26; 986a1– 3); “(…) they construct the whole universe
of numbers, but not of numbers consisting of abstract units; they suppose the
units to be extended (monádas hypolambánousin échein mégethos)”⁴¹
(1080b18 – 20)⁴²; “(…) they construct natural bodies, which have lightness (kou-
phótêta) and weight (báros), out of numbers which have no weight or lightness”
(1090a32– 34)⁴³; “(…) from numbers [spring] points; from points, lines; from
lines, plane figures; from plane figures, solid figures; from solid figures, sensible
bodies”⁴⁴ (Alexander Polyhistor, FrGrHist 273 F 93).⁴⁵ The link between all these
Classical Library), Books I-IX, in Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Aristotle XVII, and Books X-XIV, in
Aristotle XVIII, tr. H Tredennick, William Heinemann/Harvard University Press, London/Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, 1989.
 Aristotle’s criticism of “Pythagorean atomism” results from his distinction between ma-
thematical unit (monàs), geometric point (stigmê) and a body with magnitude (Anal. Post. 87a36,
88a33; Physica, 227b27– 35; De Anima, 409a; Metaph., 1016b24– 26, 1080b, 1083b, 1069a12;
1090b16 – 21). The same applies to his remarks about necessary properties of a spatial conti-
nuum (Physica, 213b, 231a-b, 237a).
 τὸν γὰρ ὅλον οὐρανὸν κατασκευάζουσιν ἐξ ἀριθμῶν, πλὴν οὐ μοναδικῶν, ἀλλὰ τὰς μονάδας
ὑπολαμβάνουσιν ἔχειν μέγεθος.
 See also 1080b32– 33: “But all who hold that Unity is an element (stoicheîon) and principle
(archén) of existing things regard numbers as consisting of abstract units, except the Py-
thagoreans; and they regard number as having [spatial] magnitude (mégethos), as has been
previously stated” (μοναδικοὺς δὲ τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς εἶναι πάντες τιθέασι, πλὴν τῶν Πυθαγορείων,
ὅσοι τὸ ἓν στοιχεῖον καὶ ἀρχήν φασιν εἶναι τῶν ὄντων· ἐκεῖνοι δ’ ἔχοντας μέγεθος, καθάπερ
εἴηρται πρότερον).
 (…) κατὰ μέντοι τὸ ποιεῖν ἐξ ἀριθμῶν τὰ φυσικὰ σώματα, ἐκ μὴ ἐχόντων βάρος μηδὲ κου-
φότητα ἔχοντα κουφότητα καὶ βάρος.
 (…) ἐκ δὲ τῶν ἀριθμῶν τὰ σημεῖα ἐκ δὲ τούτων τὰς γραμμάς, ἐξ ὧν τὰ ἐπίπεδα σχήματα ἐκ δὲ
τῶν ἐπιπέδων τὰ στερεὰ σχήματα ἐκ δὲ τούτων τὰ αἰσθητὰ σώματα (…). The translated quo-
tation comes from Diogenes Laertius 1925, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 2 vols. (Loeb Classical
Library), VIII, 25, tr. R D Hicks, William Heinemann/Harvard University Press, London/Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts.
 In Alexander’s full quotation, Pythagorean and Platonic ideas (from the indirect tradition)
are not distinguished; see Riedweg, C 2008, Pythagoras: His Life, Teaching, and Influence (2007),
tr. S Rendall, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, p. 23. Similar ideas appear already in
Speusippus (c. 408 – 339/8 b.C) and Xenocrates (c. 396/5 – 314/3 b.C.). In a fragment of the treatise
“On the Pythagorean numbers”, preserved by Nichomachus apud Iamblichus, Speusippus
matches one, two, three and four respectively with the point, line, plane, and solid (fr. 44 A13
Diels-Kranz = fr. 28 Tarán; see also Aristotle, Metaph, 1085a31-b4 = fr. 51 Tarán; Topics, 108a-b).
Xenocrates thought that numbers and forms (ideas) have the same nature, and “it appears that
Xenocrates pictured the universe as unfolding in the sequence: (1) forms = numbers; (2) lines; (3)
planes [surfaces]; (4) solids; (5) solids in motion, i. e. astronomical bodies; …; (n) ordinary
perceptible things. Solid shapes aren’t mentioned in this sentence [Metaph., 1028b24– 27; As-
clepius’ commentary on this passage tells us that it deals with Xenocrates}, but they were earlier,
passages and Boscovich’s thought occurs through an identification between ele-

ments (units) of matter and “space”. Accoding to Giovanni Casertano, “Pythagor-
eans had a ‘spatial idea of number’, so the number turns into a concept with di-
mensions; and the word mégethos is just the right one to describe this ambigu-
ous nature, including both mathêmatiká and aisthêtà sômata”.⁴⁶ If the property
of a number to be endowed with magnitude (mégethos) is associated with mate-
riality (corporeality),⁴⁷ a number (or a monad) can be taken as a primary indivi-
sible “body”,⁴⁸ and an interpretation more consonant with the Aristotelian pas-
in 1028b17– 18, and they are a standard stage in this sequence” [Dancy, R 2009, “Xenocrates”, in
E N Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2009 Edition, URL = <http://plato.
stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/xenocrates/>]. Xenocrates and some associated thinkers
“construct spatial magnitudes out of matter and a number – two in the case of lines, three,
presumably, in that of planes, and four in that of solids” (Metaph., 1090b21– 23, tr. W D Ross). On
differences (already voiced in Metaph., 1076a20 – 21) between Speusippus and Xenocrates on
these topics see Cherniss, H F 1959, “Review of H. D. Saffrey, ‘Le Περὶ φιλοσοφίας d’Aristote et la
théorie platonicienne des idées et des nombres’”. Gnomon, vol. 31, pp. 36 – 51 (see p. 41 n. 2);
reprinted in Cherniss, H F 1977, Selected Papers (ed. L Tarán), E J Brill, Leiden, pp. 423 – 430 (see
p. 428 n. 2). About approximations between Speusippus and Xenocrates on these topics see
Dillon, J 2002, “Theophrastus’ Critique of the Old Academy in the Metaphysics”, in W W Fort-
enbaugh & G Wöhrle (eds.), On the Opuscula of Theophrastus – Akten der 3. Tagung der Karl- und
Gertrud-Abel-Stiftung vom 19.–23. Juli 1999 in Trier, Franz Steiner, Stuttgart, pp. 175 – 187 (see
p. 178).
 In the article published in the present volume.
 Aristotle 1953. Metaphysics, 2 vols., tr. W D Ross (op. cit.), vol. 2, p. 429. See also Raven, J E
1954, “The Basis of Anaxagoras’ Cosmology”, Classical Quarterly, new series, vol. 4, pp. 123 – 137
[p. 133: “(…) whereas, with the exceptions of the Milesians at one end of the story and the
Atomists at the other, every single one of the pre-Socratics was striving after an incorporeal
principle, their minds were yet so firmly possessed by the preconception that the only criterion
of reality was extension in space that one and all they ended in failure”]; Guthrie, W K C 1962, A
History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 1: The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge [pp. 234 & 280: “ (…) the notion of incorporeal reality was not yet
grasped by the Pythagoreans or any of their contemporaries… the only form of existence so far
conceivable is bodily substance; hence it {in Pythagoreanism, the void or air} is thought of as a
particularly tenuous form of matter”]; Pitagorici 1958 – 1962– 1964, Testimonianze e Frammenti,
ed. M Timpanaro Cardini, 3 vols., La Nuova Italia, Florence, vol. 3 [p. 92: “(…) per i Pitagorici la
realtà corporea era tale, che la sua esistenza era condizionata dalla presenza del numero; e questo
a sua volta trovava la sua espressione nella realtà corporea” (“to the Pythagoreans, corporeal
reality was such that its existence was conditioned by the presence of number, and this, on its
turn, found its expression on corporeal reality”)].
 See Aristotle, De Anima, 409a §19 [Aristotle 1902, Aristotle’s Psychology: A Treatise on the
Principle of Life (De Anima and Parva Naturalia), tr. W A Hammond, S Sonnenschein & Co.,
London (reissue 2009, Cornell Universtity Press, Ithaca, New York), p. 30]: “(…) there’s no
difference in speaking of monads and of small bodies” (οὐθὲν διαφέρειν μονάδας λέγειν ἢ
σωμάτια μικρά)].
sages just quoted can be given to a famous sentence of Ecphantus (a contempo-

rary of Archytas?): “(…) the first bodies are indivisible and there are three differ-
ences between them: magnitude (mégethos), shape (schêma) and power (dýna-
mis). And the number of them is limited (plêthos hôrisménon) and [the space?]
infinite (…)”.⁴⁹
According to Aetius, Ecphantus was the first Pythagorean to believe that the
monads are corporeal.⁵⁰ It is believed today that in early Pythagorean philosophy
the concept of space was confounded with that of matter; only later did Archy-
tas⁵¹ establish a distinction between place (topos)⁵² and matter (Jammer 1993,
pp. 9 and 10). As for the idea of unextended indivisibles as the minimal elements
of reality, it may have been proposed before Aristotle without originally having
any direct link with the paradoxes of Zeno: According to George McLean and Pat-
rick Aspell, after the discovery of irrational numbers,
Eventually the mathematicians incorporated the irrationals into their general number theo-
ry, but to minimize this “scandalous discovery” it was accepted as a lesser evil to produce
rational solutions that could approximate to any desired degree the exact irrational one.
This meant shrinking the original monadic point beyond any assignable limit, until it be-
came an actual infinitesimal (a unit-point-atom) (McLean and Aspell, 1971, p. 43).
In Boscovich’s thought, as we have seen, matter and space are different aspects
of a single reality, and because he rejected the absolute identification between
matter and extension (accepted by Descartes), the primary units of physical (cor-
poreal) existence are seen as unextended, thus providing an intermediary reality
between spirit and matter, and presenting the puncta as associated with materi-
ality through their grouping in increasing orders of magnitude (starting from a
pair of puncta, as in the atomist theory of the mutakallimûn).⁵³ The atomic theory
 Fr. 51 A1 Diels-Kranz: (Hippol. Ref. I 15 p. 18 [Dox. 566, W. 18]) (…) τὰ μὲν πρῶτα ἀδιαίρετα
εἶναι σώματα καὶ [I 442. 10 App.] παραλλαγὰς αὐτῶν τρεῖς ὑπάρχειν, μέγεθος σχῆμα δύναμιν, ἐξ
ὧν τὰ αἰσθητὰ γίνεσθαι. εἶναι δὲ τὸ πλῆθος αὐτῶν ὡρισμένον καὶ τοῦτο [?] ἄπειρον (…).
 Fr. 51 A2 Diels-Kranz (Aët. I 3, 19 [Dox. 286]): (…) τὰς γὰρ Πυθαγορικὰς μονάδας οὗτος πρῶτος
ἀπεφήνατο σωματικάς.
 See Simplicius, Physics, 108a. Aristotle praises Archytas for having offered definitions which
took account of both form and matter [fr. 47 A22 Diels-Kranz (Metaph., 1043a14– 26); the words
for “form” (εἴδους; μορφὴ) and “matter” (ὕλης) are Aristotelian].
 The Greeks had no word for the notion of space in the modern cosmological sense; see
Santillana, G 1961, The Origins of Scientific Thought: from Anaximander to Proclus, 600 B.C. to
300 A.D. (The History of Scientific Thought, vol. 1), University of Chicago Press/Mentor Books/
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Chicago/New York/London, p. 65.
 According to the Mutakallim Abû al-Hasan ʿAlî ibn Ismâʾîl Al-Ashʿarî (873/4– 935/6), the
juxtaposition of two atoms devoid of dimensions produces a mono-dimensional structure, the
of the mutakallimûn ⁵⁴ exerted an influence on Leibniz,⁵⁵ who was an important

influence on Boscovich (see ahead). Furthermore, Boscovich may have had some
knowledge of the atomic theory of Kalâm through the work of Moses Maimonides
(1135 – 1204). Many ideas from the mutakallimûn reached the Latin West through
translations of Maimonides’ Dalalât al-Hâʾirîn (“Guide of the Perplexed”), start-
ing with a first complete translation printed in Paris in 1520⁵⁶ by Augustinus Jus-
tinianus (Agostino Giustiniani) and ascribed to Jacob Mantino. The Greek back-
ground of the “atomism” of the mutakallimûn, though generally accepted, is
far from elucidated. Neopythagorean influences cannot be discarded; logical
parallels with Zeno’s ideas have been pointed out by Andrey Vadimovich Smir-
nov (2000).
Boscovich’s “point atomism” is a kind of middle term between physical
atomism (disavowed by Aristotle) and mathematical indivisibilism (prevalent
in the earlier fourteenth century) – “mathematical in the philosophical sense
of the atoms (…) being points or extensionless indivisibles” (Murdoch 1974b,
p. 312)⁵⁷; an indivisibilism or atomism proposed as “an anti-Aristotelian answer
juxtaposition of two mono-dimensional produces a duo-dimensional structure, and the juxta-

position of two duo-dimensional produces a three-dimensional structure [Al-Ashʿarî 1929 – 1933,
Kitâb Maqâlât al‑Islâmiyyîn wa Ikhtilâf al‑Muṣallîn (“Book of the Sayings of the People of Islam
and Controversies Among Those Who Pray”), ed. H Ritter as Die dogmatischen Lehren der
Anhänger des Islam, 2 vols. and index, Leipzig/Istanbul, 1929 – 1933; reprint 1963, 1980, Franz
Steiner, Wiesbaden, pp. 316 – 318]. In Friedländer’s translation of Moses Maimonides’ Dalalât al-
Hâʾirîn, chapter 73, first proposition, we read: “‘The universe, that is, everything contained in it,
is composed of very small parts [atoms] which are indivisible on account of their smallness;
such an atom has no magnitude; but when several atoms combine, the sum has a magnitude,
and thus forms a body’. If, therefore, two atoms were joined together, each atom would become a
body, and they would thus form two bodies, a theory which in fact has been proposed by some
Mutakallemim. All these atoms are perfectly alike; they do not differ from each other in any
point. The Mutakallemim further assert, that it is impossible to find a body that is not composed
of such equal atoms which are placed side by side” [Maimonides, M 1904, Guide for the Per-
plexed, tr. M Friedländer, revised 2nd edition (1st ed. 1881), G Routledge & Sons/E P Dutton,
London/New York (reprint 2008, Forgotten Books, Charleston, South Carolina), p. 261].
 See Dhanani, A 1997. “Atomism is Islamic Thought”, in H Selin (ed.), Encyclopaedia of the
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, Kluwer Academic Pu-
blishers, Dordrecht, pp. 139 – 142; Rosenfeld, B 1997, “Geometry in the Islamic World”, in H Selin
(op. cit.), pp. 375 – 377, and Rosenfeld 1988, pp. 193 – 5.
 See Jammer 1993, pp. 62– 64.
 Maimonides, M 1520, Rabbi Mossei Aegyptii Dux seu Director dubitantum aut perplexorum, in
treis libros diuisus & summa accuratione, Ab Iodoco Badio Ascensio, Paris (reprint 1964, Minerva,
Frankfurt am Main).
 A theory “in which atoms were held to be indivisible because they were nothing more than
geometrical points, without any extension. But such non-extended atoms could not easily be
to the question of the composition of continua” and “designed simply to explain

the structure of magnitudes, and specifically of space, time, and motion as mag-
nitudes” (Murdoch 1974b, p. 312).⁵⁸ Intellectual circumstances marking the tran-
sition from medieval times to modernity prepared the way for Boscovich’s “point
atomism”:
Natural philosophy asserted that quantities – including indivisibles such as points, lines,
and surfaces – really exist in substances as their accidental forms, although they are con-
sidered mathematically in abstraction from such substances. But when geometric indivisi-
bles such as points and lines, or purported physical indivisibles such as instants or exact
degrees of quality, were supposed to exist in reality (in esse), paradoxes ensued. (…) The
previously standard Aristotelian understanding of the relation between mathematics and
physics broke down: geometry could no longer be understood to deal with quantities exist-
ing in, but considered in abstraction from, physical bodies (Sylla 1997, pp. 148 and 149).
A new mathematization of nature occurred in the Renaissance,⁵⁹ and it may be

worth mentioning that an influential historian, the Franciscan scholar André
Thevet (1502– 1590), in his Vrais Pourtraits et Vies des Hommes Illustres ⁶⁰
conceived as taking part in physical explanations of extended entities” (Henry, J 2008, The
Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science, 3rd ed., Palgrave Macmillan, New York,
p. 71).
 The medievals perceived quite well that “normal [mathematical] definitions of points, lines,
surfaces, and instants in no way meant this had any effect upon points and the like in geometry
and even upon arguments against indivisibilism or atomism of any sort” [Murdoch, J E 2002,
“Beyond Aristotle: Indivisibles and Infinite Divisibility in the Later Middle Ages” (op. cit.), p. 25].
Cristophe Grellard thinks the cases of Gerard of Odo, William Crathorn, Nicholas of Autrecourt,
John Wyclif, and even Walter Burley, “seem to suggest that we should be more cautious” about
seeing the mathematical dimension of medieval atomism as a purely intellectual reaction to
Aristotle’s conception of the continuum [“Nicholas of Autrecourt’s atomistic physics”, in C
Grellard & A Robert (eds.), Atomism in Late Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 2002 (op. cit.),
pp. 107– 126 (see p. 107 n. 3)]. See also Rosenfeld 1988, p. 190 ff.
 See Roux, S 2010, “Forms of Mathematization (14th-17th Centuries)”, Early Science and Me-
dicine, vol. 15, no. 4– 5, pp. 319 – 337; Goulding, R 2010, Defending Hypatia: Ramus, Savile, and
the Renaissance rediscovery of mathematical history, Springer, Dordrecht/Heidelberg/London/
New York, p. 68 ff.
 Thevet, A 1584, Les Vrais Pourtraits et Vies des Hommes Illustres Grecz, Latins et Payens
recueilliz de leurs tableaux, livres, médailles antiques et modernes, 2 vols, La Veuve I Keruert (J
Kervert) et Guillaume Chaudière, Paris (reprint 1973 with an introduction by R C Cholakian,
Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, Delmar, New York); 2nd ed. 1671 as Histoire des Plus Illustres et
Sçavans Hommes de leurs Siècles, Tant de l’Europe, que de l’Asie, Afrique & Amerique, 8 vols.,
Chez François Mavger (Mauger), Paris; see vol. 1, pp. 199 – 206. Thevet’s work was written in
imitation of Plutarch’s Βίοι Παράλληλοι. A partial English translation of the Vrais Pourtraits et
Vies appeared in 1657 with the title Prosopographia: Or, Some select pourtraitures and lives of
(1584), treated Pythagoras as the “inventor of mathematics”.⁶¹ Inappropriate as

this opinion may be to readers of Walter Burkert, it has enjoyed a broad accept-
ance: recently a respected scholar, doctor in applied mathematics by the Califor-
nia Institute of Technology, considered Pythagoras as the “father of logical
proof,⁶² because of his proof of the well-known Pythagorean theorem”, and “fa-
ther of mathematics” as well, “because logical proof is the heart of mathematics”
(Ellison 1999, p. 429), while in a publication sponsored by the “Real Sociedad
Matemática Española” to mark the “International Year of Mathematics” the
mathematician and prolific writer on mathematical history Pedro Miguel Gonzá-
lez Urbaneja (2000, p. 30) called Pythagoras “the true creator of pure mathemat-
ics, transforming it into a liberal art”.⁶³
Links connecting Boscovich to the Pythagoreans:

language
Can we speak of an uninterrupted discussion linking Pythagorean number atom-
ism to Boscovich’s atomic theory? To answer this question, we may first separate
the idea of a discussion in its two components, form and content. One of the un-
doubted contributions of Pythagoreanism to science has been what Ladislav
Kvasz called the move “from symbolic language of arithmetic to the iconic lan-
guage of geometry” (Kvasz 2008, p. 24), resulting in an increase “in logical as
well as in expressive power”. As stated by Borzacchini (2005, p. 150), Pythagor-
ean thought conceives “on one side a relation between arithmo-geometry and
being, and on another side an almost ‘modelistic’ idea, in Archytas, of the pos-
sibility of representing being in geometric form in that which will become the
mental world: not by chance, terms of visual origin provide the initial vocabulary
both of the ‘verbs of knowledge’ and of ‘theoretical geometry’”.
Although the new language of geometry was originally developed in close
connection with arithmetic, “the discovery of incommensurability led the Greeks
ancient and modern illustrious personages, tr. G Gerbier, alias D’Ovvilly, et al., Abraham Miller for
William Lee, London (other ed. 1676, John Hayes for George Sawbridge, Cambridge).
 “(…) il a esté inventeur, à tout le moins principal illustrateur de toute la Philosophie, specia-
lement de celle que nous apellons Mathematique” (1671, vol. 1, p. 199).
 I have already pointed earlier to Proclus, In Eucl., as influential in the presentation of
Pythagoras as originator of the notion of mathematical proof. Robert Goulding has shown how
influential Proclus was on Renaissance humanists [Goulding, R 2010, Defending Hypatia (op.
cit.), p. XVff., 6 ff.].
 González Urbaneja’s opinion also stems from Proclus’.
to abandon the Pythagorean arithmetic basis of their new geometrical language⁶⁴

and to separate geometrical forms from the arithmetic content” (Kvasz 2008,
p. 24). But before that separation took place, the Pythagorean theory of figurate
numbers (or polygonal numbers) was able to convey an arithmetic content in a
geometric form. Kvasz explains thus that theory and its implications:
Using small dots in sand or pebbles (psêphos) it represents numbers geometrically – as

square numbers (i. e., numbers the psêphoi of which can be arranged into a square, like
4, 9, 16, …), triangular numbers (like 3, 6, 10, …) and so on.⁶⁵ With the help of this geomet-
rical form, arithmetical predicates can be visualized.⁶⁶ (…) This very fact, that arithmetic
properties become expressible in the language, makes it possible to prove universal theo-
rems (and not only particular statements, as was the case until then). (…) The language of
geometry is able to do this, thanks to an expression of a new kind – a segment of indefinite
length (Kvasz 2008, pp. 24– 5).
Another advantage of geometrical language is that “geometry allows, in effect,

the generalization of arithmetic calculations and the inclusion of irrational
quantities in those generalized calculations” (Michel 1950, p. 646).⁶⁷
 “The language of geometry is more general than that of arithmetic. In arithmetic the side and
diagonal of a square cannot be included in one calculation. We can either choose a unit com-
mensurable with the side, but then it will be impossible to express the length of the diagonal by
a number, or we can choose a unit commensurable with the diagonal, but then we will be
unable to express the length of the side. So the incommensurability of the side and diagonal of
the square reveals the boundaries of the expressive power of the language of elementary ar-
ithmetic” (Kvasz 2008, pp. 22– 3. The original quotation appeared in Kvasz, L 2000, “Changes of
Language in the Development of Mathematics”, Philosophia Mathematica, vol. 3, no. 8, pp. 47–
83).
 Pentagonal numbers are those which can be arranged into a pentagon (5, 12, 22 …). Oblong
numbers are those that can be arranged in a rectangle one unit wider than it is high; each is
twice a triangular number. Oblong numbers have sides in the ratios 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, 4:5, 5:6, and so
forth. The difference between two positive triangular numbers is a trapezoidal number.
 “For instance, an even number is a number the psêphoi of which can be ordered in a double
row. (…) The theorem that the sum of two even numbers is even can be easily proved using this
Pythagorean language. It follows from the fact that if we connect two double rows, one to the
end of the other, we will again get a double row. Therefore the sum of any two even numbers
must be even. (…), because the double row which represented an even number could be of any
length [– a segment of indefinite length (…); this was the essence of the Pythagorean innovation].
The geometrical form is independent of the particular arithmetical value to which it is applied”
(Kvasz 2008, pp. 24– 5).
 See Kvasz 2008, pp. 25 – 6.
While developing a qualitatively new kind of formal language,⁶⁸ the Pytha-

goreans connected this “geometrical language” with an interesting kind of
“arithmetical atomism”: “The Pythagoreans supposed every quantity, among
others also the side and the diagonal of a square, comprise a finite number of
units. So the proportion of the lengths of the side and the diagonal of the square
equals the proportion between the numbers of units, from which they are com-
posed” (Kvasz 2008, p. 22). In Pythagorean geometric representations, the basic
finite units of every quantity were points (dots), primitively represented by peb-
bles (psêphoi, latin calculi)⁶⁹; the early doctrine of odd and even numbers also
developed from arrangements of psêphoi, as can be seen in Epicharmos’ frag-
ment B2.⁷⁰ It is believed by some authors that the mental association between
the minimal units of reality as points (dots) and the transposition of the geomet-
rical reality of lines, planes and solids to empirical existence led to Pythagorean
“arithmetical atomism”, in which the minimal units of physical reality are num-
bers, “and since a physical existent is necessarily extensive, number is extensive,
which is to say that it is body or bodily (…). Numbers have the essential features
of body, namely, extensiveness, boundedness or limitedness, and fullness” (Le-
clerc 1972, p. 46 with n. 14).
In Walter Burkert’s words,
The “number atomism” interpretation goes back to Cornford.⁷¹ In his account of Pythagor-
ean doctrine, Aristotle speaks of a plurality of extended monads,⁷² and he often alludes to
the definition of the point as a “monad having position”.⁷³ If we interpret this as a compre-
hensive key idea, to be taken along with the pebble figures, the “star pictures” (constella-
tions), and the procedure of Eurytus, who would determine the “number” of a man or horse
 In this developmental process, “mathémata changed its meaning from ‘doctrines’, i. e.,
matters being learned, to ‘mathematics’, no later than the fifth century b.C.” (Høyrup, J 1994, In
Measure, Number, and Weight: studies in mathematics and culture, State University of New York
Press, Albany, New York, p. 10).
 Corresponding with the early Pythagorean view of number as a pattern of pebbles, prime
numbers were called rectilinear because they can only be represented as a line of pebbles,
compared to the composite numbers, which can also be arranged into equal size groups of
pebbles. Composite numbers were further distinguished as plane numbers (those containing two
dimensions, length and breadth) or solid numbers (those containing three dimensions, length,
breadth and depth).
 Fr. 23B2 Diels-Kranz (Diogenes Laertios, Vitae philosophorum III, 10 – 13).
 Cornford, F M 1922– 1923, “Mysticism and Science in the Pythagorean Tradition”, The
Classical Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 3 – 4, pp 137– 150; vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 1– 12; Cornford, F M 1939, Plato
and Parmenides, Kegan Paul, London, p. 56 ff.
 Met. 1080b19, 1083b15.
 See above and Burkert 1972, p. 67 nn. 86 & 87.
by making an outline picture with pebbles⁷⁴ – the result is the thesis that the Pythagoreans
understood the materialized point as a kind of atom.⁷⁵ They thought of all bodies as con-
sisting of such point-atoms, and therefore things “are” numbers in the most literal sense;
that is, they are the number of atom-point-units which they at any given moment contain.
Does not Aristotle himself say that the Atomists “in a way” claim that things “are numbers
or composed of numbers” (Cael. 303a8)? Still, though Aristotle’s refutation presupposes an
atomistic view [at Met. 1083b8 ff., Aristotle asserts, as refutation of Pythagorean views, that
there are no “indivisible magnitudes”], Cornford’s theory cannot claim to give the final an-
swer. (…) If Ecphantus was indeed “The first” to attempt an atomistic interpretation of the
number theory,⁷⁶ this is an attempt to modernize the theory, rather than a revelation of its
original significance (Burkert 1972, pp. 41 [with n. 70] and 42).
Let me go back to my proposal of separating the idea of a discussion linking Py-

thagorean number atomism to Boscovich’s atomic theory in its two components,
form and content – an intention not easily affordable due to the intimate relation
between these two parts of speech, a relation that must not be neglected since it
is known that in the mathematical domain the arbitrary separation between
form and content leads to errors and distortions of the “true character of ancient
mathematics” (Unguru 2004, p. 383).⁷⁷ We saw that Kvasz mentioned that there
was an evolution, promoted by the Pythagoreans, “from symbolic language of
arithmetic to the iconic language of geometry”. According to Sabetai Unguru,
There is (broadly speaking) in the historical development of mathematics an arithmetical

stage in which the reasoning is largely that of elementary arithmetic (…), a geometrical
stage, exemplified by and culminating in classical Greek mathematics (…), and an algebraic
stage, the first traces of which could be found in Diophantos’ Arithmetic [3rd century], (…)
but which did not reach the beginning of its full potentiality of development before the six-
teenth century in Western Europe (Unguru 2004, p. 396).
 Met. 1092b10 ff.; Theophr. Met. 6a19 ff., after Archytas. According to Frans de Haas, for the
Pythagoreans and some Platonists the notion of limit is representative of the general notion of
determination, and we often find together references to the limitation as well as the determi-
nation of physical entities, and sometimes determination and limitation are completely confused
(De Haas, F A J 1997, John Philoponus’ New Definition of Prime Matter. Aspects of its background in
Neoplatonism and the ancient commentary tradition, E J Brill, Leiden, p. 49).
 This may be exemplified by a connection between the “Pythagorean” definition of the point
as a “monad having position” (according to Aristotle and Proclus) and Euclid’s definition of a
point as “that which has no part (méros)” (I, Definition 1).
 Fr. 51 A2; 51 A4 Diels-Kranz.
 “Unguru’s article entailed a whole recalibration of the historiographical attitude towards
mathematics as done in the past” (Acerbi, F 2006, “Classics in the History of Greek Mathematics,
edited by Jean Christianidis” [review], Aestimatio, vol. 3, pp. 108 – 113; p. 110).
Unguru (2004, passim) warns that, by “reading ancient texts through modern
glasses”, we may illegitimately trace modern views back to antiquity. It is not le-
gitimate to visualize anything such as an “algebraic geometry” or “geometric al-
gebra” (algebra in a geometric disguise) in ancient Pythagoreanism; therefore,
atomism had to wait until the sixteenth century in order to be translatable
into symbolic algebra,⁷⁸ in due time giving rise to theoretical quantitative atom-
ism, initiated by Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727), Johann Bernoulli (1667– 1748) and
his son Daniel (1700 – 1782). Unguru nevertheless acknowledges that
The “figurative” numerical approach of the Pythagoreans contained somehow in germ an-
other possibility of generalization (and, potentially, of removal of contradictions) than that
actually taken by classical Greek mathematics (i. e., the purely geometrical approach), and
this is the possibility of distinguishing visually relations between numbers of the same
kind, by means of the gnomonic differences in their punctiform representation (…). For
the Greek mathematician living before the discovery of the irrational [numbers] and work-
ing within the tradition of arithmetical geometry, the very way of representing numbers
geometrically by points and punctiform figures contained intrinsic possibilities of grasping
visually numerical relations; in other words, the Pythagorean way of representing numbers
gave the Pythagorean mathematician an intuitive, visual means of generalization which,
undoubtedly, contributed to the progress of mathematics (Unguru 2004, p. 411).
If in the above sentence we substitute the “visual means of generalization” by

mental means of generalization (therefore shifting its intuitive content to a
more abstract one),⁷⁹ we move from mathematics to speculative philosophy,
and it is in the form of philosophical works that we may look for evidences of
a continued discussion connecting Pythagorean number atomism to Boscovich’s
atomic theory.
 See Mahoney, M S 1971, “Die Anfänge der algebraischen Denkweise im 17. Jahrhundert”,
RETE: Strukturgeschichte der Naturwissenschaften, vol. 1, pp. 15 – 31. According to Mahoney, the
“algebraic mode of thought” has three main characteristics: 1) it is characterized by the use of an
operative symbolism that represents the workings of the combinatory operations; 2) it deals with
mathematical relations rather than with objects (even when certain relations become themselves
objects), resting more on a logic of relations (because of the central role of combinatory ope-
rations) than on a logic of predicates; 3) it is free of ontological commitment; concepts like
“space”, “dimension”, and even “number” are understood in a purely mathematical sense,
without reference to their physical interpretation.
 According to Mahoney, the algebraic mode of thought can be characterized as an abstract
mode of thought (where existence depends on consistent definition within a given axiom sy-
stem), in contrast to an intuitive one.

history of ideas
It is generally accepted that modern discussions of atomism resulted mainly from
the rediscovery in 1417 of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura,⁸⁰ but Lucretius’ poem was
uninterruptedly discussed in the Middle Ages from the time of the Church Fa-
thers until the 12th century,⁸¹ However, “despite the fact that many indirect sour-
ces were present during the Middle Ages, there were no new atomist theories of
matter, nor detailed exegesis of ancient ideas, until the 12th century (…) in the
works of William of Conches”⁸² (Grellard and Robert 2002, p. 4). According to
Murdoch (1974a, p. 313; 1974b, p. 27), later medieval atomism was mainly an in-
tellectual reaction to Aristotle’s analysis of continuous quantity in the 6th book of
Physics, and not a development from ancient atomism or the result of physical
observations and experiments. Following Aristotle’s track, late medieval and
early modern speculations on the fundamental principles of the natural world
tended to conflate Pythagorean and atomist ideas in relation to arguments
about non-divisibilility and infinite divisibility first developed in detail by
Zeno of Elea (born c. 490 B.C.) in the form of his famous paradoxes.⁸³ Some in-
terpreters⁸⁴ think that at least in the last of his four arguments about motion –
the one about the bulks or masses (onkoi) in the stadium⁸⁵ – Zeno seems to
have been arguing against the Pythagorean opinion about the existence of indi-
visible corpuscles,⁸⁶ and Henry D. P. Lee (1936, p. 34), believed Zeno attacked “a
 See Serres, M 1977, La Naissance de la Physique dans le Texte de Lucrèce: Fleuves et tur-
bulences, Les Editions de Minuit, Paris; Brown, A 2010, The Return of Lucretius to Renaissance
Florence, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts/London.
 Phillipe, J 1896, Lucrèce dans la Théologie Chétienne du IIIe au XIIIe Siècle, et Spécialement
dans las Écoles Carolingiennes, Ernest Leroux/Félix Alcan, Paris.
 As “a result of different traditions, Platonist and medical”, and not as “a strict reading of
Ancient atomism” (Grellard & Aurélien 2002, p. 5).
 See Furley 1967, pp. 63 – 78; Kenyon Jr, R E 1994, Atomism and Infinite Divisibility, Doctoral
dissertation in Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Amherst, URL (in html format) = <http://
www.xenodochy.org/ rekphd/contents.html>.
 See Tannery, P 1885, “Le concept scientifique du continu: Zenon d’Elee et Georg Cantor”,
Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 385 – 410; Tannery, P 1887,
Pour L’Histoire de La Science Hellène (op.cit.), p. 250 ff.; Matson, W I 2001, “Zeno Moves!”, in A
Preus (ed.), Before Plato (Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy VI), SUNY Press, Albany, New
York, pp. 87– 108.
 Fr. 29 A28 Diels-Kranz (Arist. Physics, 239b33).
 For a broad view of the related polemics see Booth, N B 1957, “Zeno’s Paradoxes”, Journal of
Hellenic Studies, vol. 77, part II, pp. 187– 201 (see pp. 193 – 194); Booth, N B 1957, “Were Zeno’s
system which made the fundamental error of identifying or at any rate confusing
the characteristics of point, unit and atom”, accepting former identifications⁸⁷ of
the Pythagorean thesis of “a monad having a position” as Zeno’s target.
There’s also a possibility that late medieval and early modern appreciations
of continuous quantity owe something to mereological speculations⁸⁸ about the
eight hypothesis of Plato’s Parmenides: Jean Wahl (1969, p. 553) thinks that those
speculations put us into contact with a sort of Pythagorean atomism by which
the others (tà alla) are so different from the One that constitute blocks or masses,
of which each set is an unlimited plurality. Another approach to understanding
the connections between ancient atomism and modern atomic theories considers
the impact on atomism of the invention and use of optical microscopes in late
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in crystallographic studies, revealing
crystal structures that would have been associated with the Platonic solids⁸⁹
Arguments Directed Against The Pythagoreans?”, Phronesis, vol. 2, pp. 95 – 103; Guthrie, W K C
1965, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 2: The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Demo-
critus, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 94– 96; Furley 1967, pp. 72– 75; Vlastos, G
1967, “Zeno of Elea”, in P Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 8, Macmillan, New
York/London, pp. 369 – 79, especially p. 375 ff. (reprod. in Vlastos, G 1993, Studies in Greek
Philosophy, vol. 1: The Presocratics, ed. D W Graham, Princeton University Press, Princeton,
pp. 241– 63); Faris, J A 1996, The Paradoxes of Zeno, Avebury, Aldershot, pp. 114 ff.; Matson, W I
2001, “Zeno Moves!” (op. cit.), especially p. 96 ff.
 Milhaud, G 1900, Les Philosophes-Géomètres de la Grèce. Platon et ses prédécesseurs, Félix
Alcan, Paris, Tannery 1887 (op. cit.), Cornford 1922– 1923 (op. cit.).
 “Mereology” is the theory of the relations of part (Greek μέρος) to whole and of part to part
within a whole. Franz von Kutschera has a strong point in proposing that the eighth hypothesis
can be understood in the light of a logical theory regarding parts and wholes (Von Kutschera, F
2002, Platons Philosophie II: Die mittleren Dialoge, Mentis, Paderborn, pp. 185 – 198).
 See Burke 1966, pp. 14, 15, 18, 29, 57. In the footsteps of Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1685,
“Concerning the Various Figures of the Salts Contained in the Several Substances”, Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London, vol. 15, p. 1073), who reported on the geometrically
regular structure of particles of many salts, a detailed geometrical theory of crystal structure was
proposed by the Italian physician and mathematician Domenico Guglielmini (1655 – 1710), who
asserted in his Riflessioni Filosofiche Dedotte dalle Figure dei Sali (1688, Eredi d’Antonio Pisarri,
Bologne), and specially in his De Salibus Dissertatio Epistolaris Physico-medico-mechanica (letter
to Cristino Martinelli, August 4, 1704 [publ. Venice, 1707]; an extension and complementation of
the former work. Reissued 1719 in Opera Omnia, Sumptibus Cramer, Perachon & socii, Geneva,
vol. 2, pp. 73 – 200) that there are four basic forms for the particles of salts (the cube for the
common salt [“natrium muriaticum”], the hexagonal prism for potassium nitrate [“nitrum”], the
rhombohedron for copper sulfate [“blue vitriol”], and the octahedron for aluminium nitrate
[“alum”]), which combine to form other salts [Senechal 1990, p 44; Guareschi, I 1914, “Domenico
Guglielmini e la sua opera scientifica”, Supplemento annuale all’Enciclopedia di Chimica (Turin),
vol. 30, pp. 7– 33, appended with Guareschi’s transcription of the Riflessioni Filosofiche Dedotte
dalle Figure dei Sali at pp. 35 – 52, and with Mario Zucchi’s translation of the introduction and
and giving support to the idea that the minimal units of crystalline matter were
geometrically shaped structures (Burke 1966, p. 43).
Some portion of the “Pythagorean” content of Boscovich’s “atomic” theory
can possibly be traced to a less hypothetical ancient source. In 1744, the year
in which he completed his theological studies, was ordained priest and became
a full member of the Society of Jesus, Boscovich was accepted to the Accademia
degli Arcadi ⁹⁰ as Numenius Anigraeus, after the second-century Pythagorean
and Platonist Numenius of Apamea [Apama] (Hill 1961, p. 38). No written ac-
count of why this particular name was chosen is known, though Boscovich’s bi-
ographer Elizabeth Hill says without explanation that “the choice of such a
name for Boscovich is revealing”. Numenius’ ideas were available to Boscovich
through testimonies and fragments of his works mainly preserved by Origen Ada-
mantius, Proclus, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and especially by Eusebius of Caesarea
in his Praeparatio Evangelica.
Numenius is one of the persons thought to have introduced Plotinus to Neo-
pythagoreanism,⁹¹ and since it is known that by 1744 Boscovich was already
working toward the development of a middle way between Isaac Newton’s phys-
ical theory based on “hard atoms” and Leibniz’s metaphysical theory of monad-
points (theme of his De Viribus Vivis, of 1745), it is interesting to observe that Nu-
menius first god⁹² (the monad⁹³; fr. 26 Guthrie⁹⁴/11 Des Places⁹⁵), which offers a
sections I-CXXXI of the Riflessioni Filosofiche De Salibus Dissertatio Epistolaris Physico-medico-

mechanica at pp. 52– 66].
 In 1656 a society of men of letters, poets and scientists gathered around Queen Christina of
Sweden (who had abdicated the Swedish crown in 1654, and converted to Catholicism in the
same year), in her palace in Rome (the Palazzo Farnese), and a cultural society, the Arcadia
(inaugurated on January 24), flourished informally under her auspices. After her death (1689),
that cultural society was named Pontificia Accademia degli Arcadi (in 1690), and officially
founded to combat the corruption of public taste and to revive Italian poetry from baroque
barbarisms.
 Guthrie, K S 1917, Numenius, the father of Neo-Platonism: works, biography, message, sources,
and influence, George Bell and Sons, London; Dodds E R 1957, “Numenius and Ammonius”, Les
Sources de Plotin (Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique, No. 5), Fondation Hardt, Vandoeuvres
-Geneva, pp. 1– 32; Schroeder, F M 1987, “Ammonius Saccas”, Aufstieg und Niedergang der
römischen Welt II, vol. 36, no.1, pp. 493 – 526; Narbonne, J-M 1994, “Plotinus and the Secrets of
Ammonius”, Hermathema, vol. 157, pp. 117– 153.
 A development of Xenocrates first god/monadic male principle (Heinze, R 1892, Xenocrates,
Teubner, Stuttgart, Fr. 15; Senocrate & Ermodoro 1982, Frammenti, ed. M Isnardi Parente, Bi-
bliopolis, Naples, Fr. 213).
 The monad/first god “exists in himself”, “is simple”, “absolutely deals with none but
himself”, “is in no way divisible” (Fr. 26 Guthrie/11 Des Places). For Numenius, the dyad is
possible conceptual link between the Platonic idea of creation as a composition

of universal order (toû kósmou sýstasis)⁹⁶ and Plotinus’ view of the universe as
separation from the One (apóstasis toû henòs),⁹⁷ is both cause (aítion) of, and
connatural (sýmphyton) with ousía (fr. 25 Guthrie/16 Des Places), having the par-
adoxical characteristic of stasis, ontological stability (as being),⁹⁸ and kinêsis
sýmphytos, innate motion (as principle of change)⁹⁹ (Slaveva-Griffin 2009,
pp. 13 and 24).
Boscovich’s point-centers (puncta) of action harmonize the ideas of stasis
and kinesis by proposing these two conditions as different possibilities or mo-
ments of the same minimal unit of reality. As intermediaries between spirit
and matter, Boscovich’s puncta also help overcome an objection of Numenius
against the existence of material principles of matter, since matter, which is
changeable, unstable and disordered, cannot be explained by matter, but only
but something with permanence, stability and order (fr. 11– 12 Guthrie/3 – 4a
Des Places). Boscovich’s presentation of matter as formed by the grouping of
puncta in increasing orders of magnitude, starting from a pair, may have been
influenced by Numenius, who (in Calcidius’ report) calls God singularitas, and
matter duitas (fr. 14, 3 – 6 Guthrie/52, 2– 6 Des Places), though moving away
from Numenius radical dualism.¹⁰⁰
identified with matter in its disorganized state; the demiurge (second god) organizes matter by
looking to the first god (Fr. 32 Guthrie/18 Des Places).
 Numenius of Apamea, “The extant works”, in Guthrie, K S 1917, Numenius, the father of Neo-
Platonism: works, biography, message, sources, and influence (op. cit.), pp. 2– 93.
 Numénius 1973, Fragments, ed. É des Places, Société d’Édition Les Belles Lettres, Paris.
 Timaeus, 32c5 – 6.
 Enneads, VI.6.1.1 ff.
 The life of the first god is firm (ἐστώς; fr. 30 Guthrie/15 Des Places).
 It precedes the moving (κινούμενος) life of the second god (fr. 30 Guthrie/15 Des Places).
“Although Numenius does not further describe the innate motion of the First God, there can be
little doubt that this ‘motion’ is the activity of thought. That is required by his identification of
the First God as both intellect and idea, and it also explains how the inherent motion of the First
God can be the source of cosmic order and stability” (Bradshaw, D 2004, Aristotle East and West:
metaphysics and the division of Christendom, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 66).
 The dualist Numenius presents his own doctrine of matter (clearly developed out of Plato’s
Timaeus) as the work of Pythagoras. He considered (fr. 14– 16 Guthrie/52 Des Places) duitas
(doubleness) as a sort of matter that, while indeterminate (duitatem indeterminata), is cha-
racterized as unborn and ungenerated (sine ortu et generatione), and having the same age as the
god by which it is adorned/ordinated (aequavam deo a quo est ordinatum). While adorned/
ordinated or illuminated (illustratam) by the adjusting god (digestore deo), alternatively, the
duitas is determinate (limitata; limited) and generated (generata), therefore occupying a time
that is posterior. Sensible matter is bad due to the existence of a bad providence, a precedently
What sort of development was, then, Boscovich’s “atomism” in relation to

his precursors? If we acknowledge the fact that Roger Boscovich’s mother was
a member of an Italian merchant family, that in his native city (Ragusa/Dubrov-
nik) Italian was the “language of culture”, and that he received all his formal ed-
ucation from Italian Jesuits,¹⁰¹ it’s wise to look for antecedents of Boscovich’s
ideas on point-atoms not only in antiquity, but also in Church (especially late
Scholastic) sources and their Italian contributions – but not exclusively in
them, since one of the characteristics of modernity was the wide circulation of
ideas (favored by the use of Latin as the cultured language of philosophy and
science).
To a certain extent, Boscovich’s thinking was “an attempt (…) to go beyond
various kinds of Zenonism” (Pearson 2000, p. 7). The Jesuits Rodrigo de Arriaga
(1592 – 1667), Francisco de Oviedo (1602– 1651), Juan de Ulloa (1639-c. 1725) and
Luis de Losada (1681– 1748) were the main “Zenonists” in late scholasticism.¹⁰²
existing evil nature (providentia mala… de existente olim natura maligna) according to “Py-
thagoras” or an evil world-soul (maligna anima) according to “Plato” (fr. 15 – 16 Guthrie/52 Des
Places).
 First in Ragusa (in St. Nicholas’ Church and later in the Collegium Ragusinum) and then,
from October 31, 1765 (at the age of 15), in Rome (in the Collegium Romanum, predecessor of the
present Pontificia Università Gregoriana, and in other establishments of the Societas Iesu). On the
role of the Jesuits in mathematical teaching and studies see MacDonnell, J F 1989, Jesuit Ge-
ometers. A study of fifty-six prominent Jesuit geometers during the first two centuries of Jesuit
history, The Institute of Jesuit Sources/The Vatican Observatory, Vatican; Gorman, M J 1998, The
Scientific Counter-Revolution. Mathematics, natural philosophy and experimentalism in Jesuit
culture 1580-c. 1670, EUI PhD theses, Florence; Romano, A 1999, La Contre-Réforme Ma-
thématique. Constitution et Diffusion d’une Culture Mathématique Jésuite à la Renaissance (1540 –
1640), École Française de Rome, Rome [reviewed by Schubring, G 2003, “‘Reformation’ and
‘Counter-Reformation’ in Mathematics – The Role of the Jesuits”, Llul, vol. 26, no. 57, pp. 1069 –
1076], and many articles of the same author; Díaz, E A 2009, Jesuit Education and Mathematics:
review of literature on the history of Jesuit education and mathematics, VDM (Verlag Dr. Müller),
Saarbrücken.
 “Sin embargo, entre los escolásticos, se llamaban ‘zenonistas’ a aquellos que defendían la
tesis de que el mundo se compone de indivisibles: [Rodrigo or Roderigo de] Arriaga, [Francisco de]
Oviedo, [Juan de] Ulloa, [Luis de] Losada” (Gustavo Bueno, G 1974, La Metafísica Presocratica,
Pentalfa, Oviedo, p. 264. Bueno does not mention the Valencian “Zenonist” Benedictus Pererius/
Benito Pereyra/Benedetto Pereira; traces of “Zenonism” have also being pointed in Francisco
Suárez (Adams H P 1970, The Life and Writings of Giambattista Vico, Russell & Russell, New
York, p. 22; Rossi 1999, pp. 73 – 76). See also Beeley, P 1995, Kontinuität und Mechanismus: zur
Philosophie des jungen Leibniz in ihrem ideengeschichtlichen Context, Franz Steiner, Stuttgart,
pp. 298 – 300 with nn. 65 – 70; Rossi P 1999, pp. 67– 8, 76 – 65 & 89 ff.; Solère, J-L 2006, “The
question of intensive magnitudes according to some Jesuits in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries”, The Monist, vol. 84, no. 4 (“Physics Before Newton”), pp. 582– 616.
According to Massimo Lollini (2002, p. 60 n. 20), “the Zenonists of the sixteenth

century held that matter is composed of mathematical points to avoid the diffi-
culty implicit in the notions of atoms conceived simultaneously as particles and
as unextended points”. In his Theoria philosophiae naturalis Boscovich (§139;
“Synopsis of the whole work”, 131) explained his own position in these terms:
“From the idea of non-extension of any sort, and of contiguity, it is proved by
an argument instituted against the Zenonists many centuries ago that there is
bound to be compenetration; and this argument has never been satisfactorily an-
swered”. “By rejecting the idea of continuous extension, I remove the whole of
the difficulty, which was raised against the disciples of Zeno in years gone by,
and has never been answered satisfactorily; namely, the difficulty arising from
the fact that by no possible means can continuous extension be made up of
things with no extent” (Boscovich 1966, pp. 59 and 13).
The Pisan Galileo Galilei¹⁰³ (1564– 1642) argued that the continuum is com-
posed of indivisibles, and that they are physical realities¹⁰⁴ whose properties can
be studied mathematically,¹⁰⁵ while his Milanese disciple Bonaventura Cavalieri
(Cavalerio)¹⁰⁶ (1598?-1647), a Jesuate,¹⁰⁷ proposed a theory of indivisibles restrict-
 See Galileo 1843, “Postile di Galileo alle Esercitazioni [filosofiche] di Antonio Rocco [contro
il Dialogo dei Massimi Sistemi]” (1633). Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, prima edizione completa
condotta sugli autentici manoscritti palatini, 15 vols. plus a supplement (1842– 1856), ed. E Albèri,
Società Editrice Fiorentina, Florence, vol. 2, pp. 290 – 335 (see p. 330); Galileo 1638, Discorsi e
Dimostrazioni Matematiche, intorno à due nuove scienze attenenti alla mecanica & i movimenti
locali, Elsevier, Leiden (reprint 1966, Culture et Civilisation, Brussels), passim (in Salviati’s
words); Predari, F 1842, “Rassegna Critica Italiana. I. Nuova enciclopedia popolari”, Rivista
Europea. Giornale de scienze, lettere, arti e varietà, ano V, parte I, Vedova di A F Stella e Giacomo
Figlio, Milan, p. 329.
 See Cirino, R 2006, Dal Movimento alla Forza: Leibniz, l’infinitesimo tra logica e metafísica,
Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli, pp. 203 – 04.
 Edmund Husserl claimed that Galileo was the first to mathematize nature, substituting
concrete things of the intuitively given surrounding world by mathematical idealities [Husserl, E
1970, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. An introduction to
phenomenological philosophy (1954), tr. D Carr, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois,
section 9, pp. 23 – 59], and according to Raffaele Cirino (op. cit., p. 204), “Galileo was the first to
consider the infinitesimal entities as simple ‘artifices’ of calculation”.
 Cavalerio, B 1635, Geometria Indivisibilibus Continuorum Nova Quadam Ratione Promota,
Clemente Ferroni, Bologna (revised edition 1653, Ex Typographia De Duciis, Bologna); Cavalieri,
B 1966, Geometria degli Indivisibili (1635), ed. & trad. L L Radice. UTET, Turin; Cavalerio B 1647,
Exercitationes Geometricae Sex. I. De priori methodo indivisibilium. II. De posteriori methodo
indivisibilium. III. In Paulum Guldinum e‘ Societate Iesu dicta indivisibilia oppugnantem. IV. De
usu eorumdem ind. in potestatibus cossicis. V. De usu dictorum ind. in unif. diffor. gravibus. VI. De
quibusdam propositionibus miscellaneis, quarum synopsim versa pagina ostendit. Typis Iacobi
ed to geometrical realities.¹⁰⁸ The Neapolitan natural philosopher and jurist

Francesco D’Andrea (1625 – 1698),¹⁰⁹ author of an Apologia in Difesa degli Atom-
isti (1685),¹¹⁰ in his letters¹¹¹ in favor of the atomist ideas embraced by Leonardo
di Capua (1617– 1795) in his Parere (1681),¹¹² defended Pythagoras’ “atomism”
against the Jesuit scholar Giovanni Battista Benedetti (Giovan Battista de Bene-
dictis; “Benedetto Aletino”), author of the (five) Lettere Apologetiche in Difesa
della Teologia Scolastica e della Filosofia Peripatetica (1694).¹¹³ By that time,
there existed some attempts to conciliate atomism and scholasticism, while an
ecclesiastic reaction ensued: in August 5, 1693, the Inquisition proscribed Di Ca-
pua’s work and condemned the atomism of Democritus and Epicurus as contrary
to faith, but in the same occasion assured that this would not mean a damage to
the “doctrine of the Zenonists”, which postulates that bodies are constituted of
infinite indivisible parts (Beretta 2007, pp. 59 – 60). According to Paolo Rossi
Montii, Bologna. See also Andersen, K 1985, “Cavalieri’s Method of Indivisibles”, Archive for
History of Exact Sciences, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 291– 367.
 Member of a religious order founded in 1360 by Giovanni Colombini of Siena.
 Cavalieri modified Galileo’s ideas on indivisibles according to the classical “method of
exaustion” (from Eudoxus, Archimedes, and others) and to the principle of indivisibles crudely
used by Kepler in 1604 (Astronomiae Pars Optica), 1609 (Astronomia Nova) and 1615 (Nova
Stereometria Doliorum Vinariorum) while considering geometric figures in terms of the in-
finitesimal.
 See Mastellone, S 1962, “Note sulla cultura napolitana al tempo di Francesco d’Andrea e
Giuseppe Valletta”, Critica Storica, vol. I, pp. 369 – 398; Borrelli, A 1995, D’Andrea Atomista:
L’“Apologia” e altri inediti nella polemica filosofica della Napoli di fine Seicento, Liguori, Naples,
and the bibliography mentioned in Stone, H S 1997, Vico’s Cultural History: The production and
transmission of ideas in Naples, 1685 – 1750, E J Brill, Leiden/New York/Koln, p. 55 n. 11.
 Naples, Bibl. Oratoriana dei Gerolamini, ms. XXVIII.4.1; Bibl. Nazionale di Napoli, ms. I D 4,
f. 286 – 317. The Apologia in difesa degli atomisti was published in Borrelli A 1995, D’Andrea
Atomista (op. cit.), pp. 59 – 109. Borrelli also published, in the same book, other atomist texts
from D’Andrea: Dubii de’ quali si desiderarebbe maggior esplicazione nella scritura formata
contra gl’atomi e gl’atomisti (pp. 111– 130), Riflessione sopra la seconda scrittura circa la materia
degl’atomi (pp. 131– 140), and Lezioni (pp. 141– 160).
 Risposta a favore del sig. Lionardo di Capoa contro le lettere apologetiche del p. De Benedictis
gesuita, 1695 – 7 (Bibl. Nazionale di Napoli, ms. I D 4; Bibl. Angelica di Roma, ms. 1340); Risposta
del signor Francesco d’Andrea a favore del signor Lionardo di Capoa contro le lettere apologetiche,
1697– 8 (Bibl. Nazionale di Napoli, ms. IX A 66; and ms. Brancacc. I C 8).
 Di Capua, L 1681, Parere del Signor Lionardo di Capoa, divisato in otto ragionamenti, ne’
quali partitamente narrandosi l’origine, e’l progresso della medicina, chiaramente l’incertezza
della medesima si fa manifesta, Antonio Bulifon, Naples.
 Aletino, B 1694, Lettere Apologetiche in Difesa della Teologia Scolastica e della Filosofia
Peripatetica, Giacomo Raillard, Naples. Cf. ainda Aletino, B 1703, Difesa della Scolastica Teologia
[part I Lettera di Benedetto Aletino in difesa della teologia scolastica (reissue of the Lettere from
1694, with some modifications); part II Difesa della lettera precedente], Antonio de’ Rossi, Roma.
(2001, p. 470 [16]), “‘Zenonist’ (like ‘Scotist’) is not a term with univocal meaning.
But everybody knows that the Zenonists,¹¹⁴ beyond their differences, opposed
the Aristotelian theory of the continuum, made varied uses of the concept of
point, [and] believed in indivisible entities that are real and not constructed
by thought”.¹¹⁵
Giuseppe Valetta (1636 – 1715), another Neapolitan, also defended atomism;
in his Istoria Filosofica (1697– 1704)¹¹⁶ he suggested that this was a distinctive
characteristic of Magna Graecia, and presented Pythagoras as an atomist. This
was not an uncommon view at that time, and also not an original one:¹¹⁷ in Eng-
land, Henry More (1614– 1687)¹¹⁸ considered the Pythagoreans to be the founders
of Greek atomism (Hall 1990, p. 111), and (accompanied by his close friend Ralph
Cudworth¹¹⁹) that atomism was initially an immaterialist tradition (Hall 1990,
 “Una setta di filosofi gesuiti spagnoli e di Lovanio che vissero tra la fine del sedicesimo e
l’inizio del diciassettesimo secolo” (“a sect of Jesuit philosophers of Spain and Louvain that lived
between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century”) (Arthur 2003,
p. 335).
 “(…) zenonista (come scotista) non è un termine dal significato univoco. Tutti però sanno che
gli zenonisti, al di là delle differenze, si oppongono alla teoria aristotelica del continuo, fanno
variamente uso del concetto di punto, credono a entità indivisibili reali e non costruite dal pen-
siero”.
 Included in Valetta, F 1975, Opere Filosofiche (ed. M Rak), Leo Olschski, Florence. See also
Piaia, G 2010, “The General Histories of Philosophy in Italy in the Late Seventeenth and Early
Eighteenth Century”, in G Piaia & G Santinello (eds.), Models of the History of Philosophy, Volume
II: From the Cartesian Age to Brucker, Springer, Dordrecht/Heidelberg/London/New York,
pp. 213 – 297 (see pp. 252– 8).
 See Diogenes Laertius, Vitae, VIII, 25 (Alexander Polyhistor, FrGrHist 273 F 93); Stobaeus,
Eclog., I.16 (= Diels-Kranz 51 A2; 51 A4 on Ecphantus)
 More, H 1653, “Appendix to the Defence of the Philosophick Cabbala”, in Conjectura
Cabbalistica, or a Conjectural Essay of interpreting the Mind of Moses in the first three chapters of
Genesis, according to a threefold Cabbala, viz. Literal, Philosophical, Mystical [dedicated to Ralph
Cudworth], William Morden, London (2nd edition 1662).
 Cudworth, R 1678, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, Printed for R Royston,
London. See Sailor, D B 1964, “Moses and Atomism”, Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 25,
pp. 3 – 16; Rodney, J M 1970, “A Godly Atomist in Seventeenth Century England: Ralph Cud-
worth”, The Historian, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 243 – 249. More and Cudworth have taken some of their
ideas on the early history of atomism from Robert Boyle (Boyle, R 1661, The Sceptical Chymist: or
Chymico-physical doubts & paradoxes, touching the spagyrist’s principles commonly call’d hy-
postatical, as they are wont to be propos’d and defended by the generality of alchymists, J Cadwell
for J Crooke, London, p. 120.
p. 112).¹²⁰ Newton, on his turn, wrote in a scholium intended for a new edition of
the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica: ¹²¹
That all matter consists of atoms was a very ancient opinion. This was the teaching of the
multitude of philosophers who preceded Aristotle, namely Epicurus, Democritus, Ecphan-
tos [sic], Empedocles, Zenocrates [sic], Heraclides, Asclepiades, Diodorus, Metrodorus of
Chios, Pythagoras, and previous to these Moschus the Phoenecian [sic] whom Strabo de-
clares older than the Trojan War. For I think that same opinion obtained in that mystic phi-
losophy which flowed down to the Greeks from Egypt and Phoenecia, since atoms are
sometimes to be found to be designated by the mystics as monads (apud Guicciardini
1999, p. 101).
Thomas Holden (2004, pp. 239 and 245) believes in a “strong likelihood of an in-
direct influence” of Henry More on Roger Boscovich, through Samuel Clarke and
other Newtonians that accepted the existence of extended and metaphysically
indivisible (“indiscerpible”), though formally-divisible, spiritual substances¹²²
(instead of material atoms).
Gianbattista Vico (1668 – 1744), a Neapolitan, embraced in his De Antiquissi-
ma Italorum Sapientia (“Liber Metaphysicus”, 1710)¹²³ the suggestion that atom-
ism was a peculiar trait of Magna Graecia, but instead of material atoms pro-
posed, as Henry More (1614– 1687) in England had done before him, spiritual
ones (like Leibniz’ monads),¹²⁴ calling to his support Zeno (Vico 1944, pp. 127
and 319)¹²⁵ – who had been misinterpreted by Aristotle, according to Vico
(1944, pp. 151– 2)¹²⁶ – and Pythagoras. In a trend not uncommon in his time,
Vico attributed to the Stoic Zeno ideas more appropriate to the Eleatic one,¹²⁷
 See More, H 1646, Democritus Platonissans or, An essay upon the infinity of worlds out of
Platonick principles. Roger Daniel, Cambridge, and see also relevant sections of Conjectura
Cabbalistica.
 University Library, Cambrige, Ad. Ms. 3965.6, folio 270r.
 On the idea of substance in Boscovich’s “atomic” theory see Holden, 2004, pp. 250 – 252.
 Vico, G 1979, Liber Metaphysicus/De antiquissima Italorum sapientia liber primus (ed. S Otto
& H Viechtbauer), Wilhelm Fink, Munich; see also Otto S & Viechtbauer H (eds.) 1985, Sach-
kommentar zu Giambattista Vicos Liber Metaphysicus, Wilhelm Fink, Munich.
 See Grimaldi, A A 1958, The Universal Humanity of Giambattista Vico, S F Vanni, New York,
p. 106; Santillana, G 1968, Reflections on Men and Ideas, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
p. 208.
 See also Caparelli 1944, pp. 145 – 6 & 584; Stone, H S 1997, Vico’s Cultural History (op. cit.),
p. 185.
 See Grimaldi, A A 1958, The Universal Humanity of Giambattista Vico (op. cit.), pp. 104– 6.
 See Rossi, P 1998, “I punti di Zenone: una preistoria vichiana”, Nuncius, vol. 13, no. 2,
pp. 377– 426 (reissue in Rossi 1999, pp. 55 – 107); Rossi, P 2000. “Ritratto di uno zenonista da
giovane” (1998), in F Ratto (ed.), Il Mondo di Vico/Vico nel mondo, in ricordo di Giorgio Ta-
but this was probably an intentional act. Aristotle’s objections to Zeno inforced
in Vico an interpretive approximation between “Zeno” and Pythagoras:
Zeno, a supreme metaphysician, accepts the hypotheses of the geometers and, as Pythago-
ras did through numbers, interpreted the principles of things through points. (…). Aristotle
employs geometric demonstrations to deduce that any particle, no matter its minimal ex-
tension, is divisible to the infinite.¹²⁸ But Zeno remains undisturbed, and from those
same demonstrations confirms his metaphysical points (Vico 2005, p. 66).
Vico’s reasoning was that the geometric point resembles the metaphysical point
in that it is indivisible¹²⁹ (Vico 1971, p. 157); physical extension is an attribute,
and therefore divisible, as Aristotle said, while Pythagorean/Zenonian points
pertain to the essence, that is indivisible (Vico 1971, 159).¹³⁰ According to Massi-
mo Lollini (2002, pp. 59 – 60), “in the De antiquissima Vico intends to restore to
Zeno of Elea and to the Italic Pythagoras the theory of metaphysical points, as a
support to an animistic philosophy of nature in polemic either with the Aristote-
lian tradition or with the modern corpuscular theory of Descartes and Gassen-
di”.¹³¹
Leibniz had also proposed (after 1695)¹³² “metaphysical points”, “points of
substance”, “formal atoms”, or simply “force”¹³³ (the vis insita rebus),¹³⁴ as the
gliacozzo (Roma, April 15 – 16, 1999), Edizioni Guerra, Peruggia, pp. 181– 191 (another issue Rossi
1999, pp. 109 – 154); Rossi, P 1999, “Dimenticare Zenone? Conati e punti nella Scienza nuova”, in
F Ratto (ed.), Alfombra di Vico, Testimonianze e saggi vichiani in ricordo di Giorgio Tagliacozzo.
Edizioni Sestante, Ripatransone, pp. 327– 334 (another issue Rossi 1999, pp. 155 – 164); Mazzola,
R 2000, “Vico e Zenone”, in M Sanna & A Stile (eds.), Vico tra l’Italia e la Francia, Alfredo Guida,
Naples, pp. 311– 341. Vico had access to the 1st edition of Bayle’s Dictionnaire Historique et
Critique.
 See Aristotle, Phys. VI, 2, 233a21; VI, 9; VIII, 8, 263.
 “(…) che il punto geometrico sia una simiglianza del metafisico, cioè della sostanza; e che
ella sia cosa che veramente è, ed è indivisibile (…)” [Seconda Risposta: Risposta di Giambatti-
sta Vico all’articulo X del tomo VIII del Giornale de’ letterati d’Italia (1712)].
 “Aristotile sconvien da Zenone in cose diverse, convien nel medesimo: egli divide in infinito
l’estensione, l’attributo; Zenone dice indivisibile la sostanza, l’essenza” [Seconda Risposta (1712)].
See also Otto S & Viechtbauer H 1985, Sachkommentar zu Giambattista Vicos Liber Metaphysicus
(op. cit.), p. 65.
 “Nel De antiquissima Vico intende restituire a Zenone di Elea e all’italico Pitagora la teoria
dei punti metafisice, come supporto ad una filosofia animistica della natura in polemica sia con la
tradizione aristotelica che con la teoria corposcolare moderna di Descartes e Gassendi”.
 See Anapolitanos, D 1999, Leibniz: representation, continuity, and the spatiotemporal,
Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 78 – 93, especially p. 88 ff.; Garber, D 2009, Leibniz:
body, substance, monad. Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 303 – 349 and ff.
basic unit of reality, but Vico’s atoms, whose metaphysical status lay between
Leibniz’s monads and Boscovich’s puncta (Whyte 1961a, p. 118), “are more phys-
ical than Leibniz’s monads, for they possess location, give rise to extended
forms, and display tendencies to movement” (Whyte 1961c, p. 53). Outside
Italy, in 1734 Emanuel Swedenborg (1688 – 1772), also following Leibniz and
Vico, published in his Principia ¹³⁵ and in his The Infinite and Final Cause of Cre-
ation ¹³⁶ a doctrine of dimensionless material points, with a tendency to motion,
as the source of all physical phenomena. Apart from Leibniz and Swedenborg,
Lancelot Law Whyte (1961a, pp. 118 – 9; 1961c, pp. 55 – 6) saw other non-Italian
thinkers, John Michell¹³⁷ (1724– 1793) and Immanuel Kant¹³⁸ (1724– 1804), mov-
ing in parallel directions with respect to their theories of the constitution of mat-
ter.
In Boscovich’s time, two kinds of indivisibilism were recognized: metaphys-
ical and physical. Metaphysical atomism dealt with monads, physical atomism
 On his turn, Leibniz, in a letter of May 29, 1716, to Bartholomew des Bosses, refers explicitly
to “Zenonian puncta” (“de punctis Zenoniis”) [1875 – 1890. Die Philosophischen Schriften von
Leibniz, 7 vols. (ed. C I Gerhardt), Weidmann, Berlin (reprint 1971, George Olms, Hildesheim),
vol. 2, p. 520; cf. Corsano, A 1956, Giambattista Vico, Bari, Laterza, p. 126 n. 21].
 Universal internal force of all things, somehow related to alchemical and modern con-
ceptions of conatus (or of being as inner potentia or “conatus agendi”) and to Newton’s “vim
penetrantem spiritus”. A body and its force are related to the idea of mind (mens); in an undated
letter to Antoine Arnauld, Leibniz defined a body as “mens momentanea”, and mind as the
central point from where a body occupies space [Die philosophischen Schriften, ed. C I Gerhardt
(op. cit.), vol. 1, p. 73].
 Principia rerum naturalium sive novorum tentaminum phaenomena mundi elementaris phi-
losophice explicandi (1734. Friedrich Hekel, Dresden/Leipzig), the 1st volume of his Opera Phi-
losophica et Mineralia (3 vols.) and an improvement upon his Prodromus principiorum rerum
naturalium: sive novorum tentaminum chymiam et physicam experimenta geometrice explicandi
(anonymously published, 1721, John Oosterwyk, Amsterdam) and upon an unpublished ms.,
Principia Rerum Naturalium ab experimentis et geometria sive ex posteriori et priori educta
(mentioned in a letter from 1729).
 1734. Prodromus Philosophiae Ratiocinantis de Infinito, et Causa Finali Creationis; deque
Mechanismo Operationis Animae et Corporis, Friedrich Hekel, Dresden/Leipzig.
 “Perhaps independently”, in a letter to Joseph Priestley (Whyte 1961a, pp. 118 & 125 n. 12),
probably from “around 1760, the year in which he met Boscovich in Cambridge”. “Michell’s
fertile ideas were neglected and forgotten; he was too modest for his colleagues to take se-
riously” (Whyte 1961c, p. 56).
 See his Monadologia Physica, 1756, and a late reappraisal at Metaphysische Anfangsgründe
der Naturwissenschaft, 1786. Some authors have suggested that Kant may have been influenced
by Boscovich [see Cassirer, E 1981, Kant’s Life and Thought (1918), tr. J Haden, Yale University
Press, New Haven, p. 42; Supek, I 1976, “Boscovich’s Philosophy of Nature”, Poznan Studies in
the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, vol. 2, pp, 112– 120 (see p. 114)].
dealt with corpuscles (Kant 1997, p. 230). Kant thought that metaphysical atom-
ism is the same as mathematical (or absolute) atomism; Leibniz, however, had a
different view on mathematical atomism. Leibniz believed that
Atoms of matter are contrary to reason, quite apart from the fact that they are still com-
posed of parts (…). Only atoms of substance, that is to say real units [monads] absolutely
devoid of parts, can be the sources of actions, and the first absolute principles of the com-
position of things, and, as it were, the ultimate elements in the analysis of substantial
things. They might be called metaphysical points (…). Mathematical points (…) are nothing
but modalities; only metaphysical or substantial points (…) are exact and real, and without
them there would be nothing real (…) (Leibniz 1880a, pp. 482– 484).
In Richard Arthur’s interpretation, this implies that Leibniz’s unextended mo-

nads are presupposed by the physical continuum, but are not parts of it, and
that according to Leibniz physical points or atoms are only apparently indivisi-
ble, while mathematical points, strictly indivisible and unextended, cannot be
thought as parts of the continuum without falling into contradiction (Arthur,
2003). The Leibnizian continuum, composed of infinite unextended points
that, although smaller than any sensible magnitude, yet have parts that lie in
a certain situation and order, was criticized by Boscovich (Theoria philosophiae
naturalis, §138): “Those arguments that some of the Leibnitian circle put forward
are of no use for the purpose of connecting the indivisibility and nonextension of
the elements with continuous extension of the masses formed from them” (Bo-
scovich 1966, p. 59). Boscovich rejected the idea of continuous extension (abso-
lute space) while maintaining the existence of unextended point-centers of ac-
tion (real monads absolutely without parts), actively extended (in a bodyless vac-
uum) to form space (a “kind of” physical continuum). This was an attempt to rec-
oncile metaphysical and physical atomism, and to connect the indivisibility and
nonextension of the minimal elements of reality with the continuous extension
of the masses they form when grouped. Boscovich’s points differ from mathemat-
ical points in that they possess the property of inertia, and in that there is a force
acting between them.
Boscovich (1966, p. 59) said in his Theoria philosophiae naturalis (§138): “I
was not the first to introduce the notion of simple non-extended points into
physics. The ancients [veteres] after the time of Zeno had an idea of them, and
the Leibnizians indeed suppose that their monads are simple and non-extend-
ed”. The Ragusan argued (§§138 – 139) that Leibniz remained a Zenonist, and ad-
mitted (“Synopsis of the whole work”, 2) that his puncta were somehow similar
to “those simple and non-extended elements upon which is founded the theory
of Leibniz” (Boscovich 1966, p. 19). He thought, however, that it is necessary to
give up the idea of continuous extension – which cannot be generated from non-
extended particles – in order to escape the trap of Zeno’s paradoxes.
Since the publication of the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique by Pierre
Bayle (1647– 1706), the “doctrine of the Zenonists” was associated with Pythago-
ras and Plato:
[Zeno of Elea] is regarded as the founder of the sect that maintains that the continuum is
made up of mathematical points. (Arriaga¹³⁹ and a hundred other Spanish Scholastics call
‘Zenonists’ those who assert that the continuum is composed of indivisible and unextended
parts, an opinion that is very different from that of the Atomists.) It would be more reason-
able to attribute this view to Pythagoras and Plato as [David] Derodon has done, basing
himself on the testimony of Sextus Empiricus for [the attribution to] Pythagoras, and on
the testimony of Aristotle for [the attribution to] Plato (Derodon, Disp. de atomis, pages 4
and 5. He quotes Sextus Empiricus, Adv. math., book IX, and Aristotle, De generat., book
I, text VII) (Bayle 1720, p. 2916, with notes 135 and 136).
Bayle (loc. cit.) considered that Zeno of Elea did not maintain that the continuum
is made up of indivisible parts,¹⁴⁰ and mentioned an error that was very common
in his time, the belief that “the Zeno who denied motion, and whose arguments
Aristotle examined, was the leader of the Stoics”.¹⁴¹ Bayle cited the “Zenonist”
Francisco de Oviedo as someone who believed Zeno of Citium, the founder of
the Stoic school, to be the one against whom Aristotle had argued¹⁴² in defend-
ing the idea that a continuum is not composed of indivisibles. Bayle believed
that behind Aristotle’s argument against indivisibility one should see an attack
on a Pythagorean and Platonic assertion that “the continuum is composed of in-
divisible and unextended parts”, so what Rodrigo de Arriaga and many other
 Arriaga, 1632. See also Luna Alcoba, M 1994, “El problema del continuo en la Escolástica
Española: Rodrigo de Arriaga”, Fragmentos de Filosofía, vol. 4, pp. 137– 150; Beeley, P 1995 (op.
cit.); Feingold, F 2003, “Jesuits: Savants”, in M Feingold (ed.), Jesuit Science and the Republic of
Letters, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 1– 45 (see p. 28 ff.); Solère, J-L 2001 (op. cit.).
 “(…) il ne paraît pas que Zénon d’Elée ait enseigné que le continu fût composé de parties
indivisibles. Il se contentait de se prévaloir de la doctrine contraire, pour montrer que le mouve-
ment était impossible. Il disait même qu’un corps indivisible ne différe point du néant (…)”.
 “(…) le Zénon qui niait le mouvement, et dont Aristote examine les raisons, fût le chef des
stoïciens”.
 “Continuum ex partibus indivisibilibus constare contra Aristotelem constanter defendebat
Zeno stoïcorum princeps (…)” (Physic., controvers. XVII, section 1, p. 334, col. I [Bayle’s reference
is to Oviedo, F 1651, Cursus Philosophicus ad unum corpus redactus (1st ed. 1640): Tomus primus:
Complectens Summulas, Logicam, Physicam, Libros de Caelo, & de Generatione…, 2nd ed., Sumpt.
Philippi Borde, Laurentii Arnaud & Claudii Rigaud, Lyon]). See also Luna Alcoba M, 1996, “El
problema del continuo en la escolástica española: el Cursus Philosophicus de Francisco de
Oviedo”, Δαιμων. Revista de Filosofia, vol, 12, pp. 37– 47.
Spanish Scholastics (followed by citizens from other countries) treated as “Zen-

onism” was really, in its background, Pythagoreanism or Platonism. In fact, Ar-
riaga (disp. phys. XVI, §2) mentions Zeno, Pythagoras, Leucippus, all the Stoics
and many Jesuits as sharing the same opinion that the finite continuum is com-
posed of finite indivisibles¹⁴³ (Arriaga 1632, p. 460). While accomplishing a crit-
ical evaluation of “Zenonism”, Boscovich reintroduced the simple, indivisible
and unextended points of the Pythagorean/“Zenonist” tradition, but had to
abandon the idea of continuous extension because in his model of identical
point-particles interacting in pairs, the non-extension of puncta “is the direct out-
come of the unlimited increase in repulsive force when the distance between
bodies or particles becomes very small (…); if such elementary particles were ex-
tended, they would have to scatter, for the repulsive force would make it impos-
sible for any extended particle, however small, to persist” (Dadić 1987, p. 76).
Paolo Rossi thinks “a reading of Boscovich’s text through post-Newtonian
and post-Leibnizian eyes leads almost fatally to put in the shade the terrain –
frequently uncertain and always heavily scholastic – that constitutes the ‘tradi-
tion’ from which Boscovich’s synthesis received leavening” (Rossi 1999, p. 90).
Though “Zenonism” may have reached Boscovich through overt “Zenonist”
texts, he may also have read Bayle. However, his quotations about Zeno suggest
Vico as his intermediary and main “Pythagorean” and “Zenonist” source (Cap-
parelli 1944, pp. 146 and 584), with Leibniz, “the last great philosopher and sci-
entist who felt himself to be in the Pythagorean tradition” (Thesleff 1974,
p. 581),¹⁴⁴ as another important “Pythagorean” precursor. According to Whyte,
 “Celebris est enim sententia Zenonis, Pythagorae, Leucippi, omniumque Stoicorum do-
centium, continuum finitum componi ex indivibilibus finite. Eam defendunt recentiores multi et
graves e nostra Societate [Gesu]”.
 “The last philosopher to consider himself a Pythagorean was Gottfried Leibniz” [Honigs-
berg, A 1999, “Pythagoras”, in C D von Dehsen (ed.), Philosophers and Religious Leaders (Lives &
Legacies), Oryx, Phoenix, p. 157]. Leibniz said in the “Preface to the General Science” of The
Method of Mathematics (1677): “There is nothing which is not subsumable under number.
Number is therefore, so to speak, a fundamental metaphysical form, and arithmetic a sort of
statics of the universe, in which the powers of things are revealed” [Leibniz, G W 1951, Selections
(ed. P P Wiener). Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, p. 17]. Working out the classical idea of
mathesis, he thought he had found a universal and exact system of notation, a symbolic
language, a “universal characteristic”, “an infallible method of calculation” (an algebra), “the
true principle, namely, that we can assign to every object its determined characteristic number”
(Selections, p. 18). Dietrich Mahnke claimed that Pythagoreanism is a fundamental aspect of
Leibniz’s metaphysics [Mahnke, D 1939 – 1940, “Die Rationalisierung der Mystik bei Leibniz und
Kant”, Blätter für deutsche Philosophie, vol. 13, pp. 1– 73 (see p. 21)].
Boscovich had made a thorough study of the Greek geometers. And the ideas of the Pytha-
gorean school, of Democritus, Descartes, and Locke,¹⁴⁵ had helped to form his mind. But
his main conscious sources were Newton and Leibniz; Newton the geometer of forces
and Leibniz the philosopher of space, time, and the monads. (…) Boscovich may have re-
ceived some stimulus from Vico, either by personal contact or by reading. But it is equally
possible that he did not; that Leibniz’s monads did the trick, and by fertilizing the Newto-
nian matrix in Boscovich’s mind produced the most original¹⁴⁶ and influential work on the
mathematics of atomism (Whyte 1961a, pp. 117 and 118).
At least part of the “Pythagorean” content of Boscovich’s “atomic” theory can,

therefore, be traced back to Vico and Leibniz. Vico’s ideas on Pythagoreanism
were principally on the line of philosophical historiography,¹⁴⁷ while Leibniz
was influenced by “Pythagorean” ideas from Johann Heinrich Bisterfeld
(1605 – 1655)¹⁴⁸ and Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont (1614– 1699),¹⁴⁹ and, in
a less specific way, from the alchemist and Hermetic traditions.¹⁵⁰ Ancient Pytha-
 Locke minimized the importance of the concept of substance. Furthermore, Boscovich, in
the same way as Locke, held truth to be an unattainable goal in natural philosophy, focusing
instead on convenience, convincement, elegance, utility, etc. (cf. Nedeljković, D 1922, La Phi-
losophie Naturelle et Relativiste de R. J. Boscovich, Editions de la Vie Universitaire, Paris, pp. 13 –
18 & 189).
 On the aspects of this originality see Whyte 1961a, p. 118.
 In the tradition of Johannes Scheffer; see Micheli, G 1993, “Johannes Gerhard Scheffer
(1621– 1679)”, in G Santinello et al. (eds.), Models of the History of Philosophy, vol. 1: From its
origins in the Renaissance to the “Historia Philosophica” (1981), English language editors C W T
Blackwell & P Weller, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 150 – 154.
 Willy Kabitz discovered, in the Hannover library, a copy, annotated by Leibniz, of Bister-
feld’s works. For Leibniz’s relationship with Bisterfeld and the presence of Pythagorean ideas in
Leibniz’s writings see Kabitz, W 1909, Die Philosophie der jungen Leibniz. Untersuchungen zur
Entwicklungsgeschichte seines Systems, Carl Winter, Heidelberg; Mugnai M 1973, “Der Begriff der
Harmonie als metaphysische Grundlage der Logik und Kombinatorik bei Johann Heinrich Bi-
sterfeld und Leibniz”, Studia Leibnitiana, vol. 5, pp. 43 – 73.
 See Orio de Miguel, B 1993, “Leibniz y la tradición teosófico-kabbalista: Francisco Mercurio
van Helmont” (Doctoral thesis in philosophy, 1988), 2 vols., Universidad Complutense de Ma-
drid, Madrid; Coudert A P 1995, Leibniz and the Kabbalah, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Dordrecht, pp. 35 – 77 and passim (especially pp. 70 – 71).
 For the relations between Leibniz and the Hermetic (or Teosophic-Kabbalist) tradition see
Orio de Miguel, B 1993, “Leibniz y la tradición teosófico-kabbalista” (op. cit.); Orio de Miguel, B
1987, “Leibniz y la Philosophia Perennis”, Estudios Filosóficos, vol. 101, pp. 29 – 57; Orio de
Miguel, B 1992, Leibniz y el Hermetismo, 2 vols., Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Valencia;
Orio de Miguel, B 1994, “Leibniz y la Tradición Neoplatónica”, Revista de Filosofia, 3ª época,
vol. 7, no. 12, pp. 493 – 527; Orio de Miguel, B 2005, “Leibniz. Hermetismo y Ciencia Circular: Una
carta a Burcher de Volder (20 de junio de 1703)”, Thémata, vol. 34, pp. 297– 338; Orio de Miguel,
B 2009, “Leibniz y la tradición hermética”, Thémata, vol. 42, pp. 107– 122; Orio de Miguel, B
gorean ideas had passed through many channels, esoteric or scientific, pagan¹⁵¹
or Christian,¹⁵² until they reached modern times. Though Boscovich apparently
did not see himself as an overt Pythagorean like Leibniz, some aspects of his bi-
ography point to a life with traces that could be seen as not dissonant with the
traditional view of a modern heir of the Pythagoreans.
It is said that Boscovich discovered by himself the proof of the Pythagorean
theorem while still a teenager (Hill 1961, p. 29). He was interested in archaeology,
“his archeological involvement having always been related to mathematical and
astronomical interests” (Dadić 1987, p. 202), and he believed that a sundial he
had escavated at the western slopes of the Alban Hills, above Frascati (ancient
Tusculum), was the one mentioned in the writings of Vitruvius.¹⁵³ He was very
skilled in mathematics, and published numerous Latin dissertations that show
an important concern for geodesical and astronomical problems.¹⁵⁴ His opinions
2008, “Some Hermetic aspects of Leibniz’s mathematical rationalism”, in M Dascal (ed.),

Leibniz: What Kind of Rationalist? (Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol. 13),
Springer Science + Business Media, Heidelberg, pp. 111– 124.
 As in the fusion between revived Pythagorean doctrines with Platonism and Stoicism in
Neo-Pythagoreanism.
 In the 2nd century, Justin Martyr, in his Discourse (or Exhortation) to the Greeks, had already
moved towards a Christianization of Pythagoras [see Roberts, A & Donaldson, J (eds.) 1867, Ante-
Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A. D. 325, vol. II –
Justin Martyr and Athenagoras, T and T Clark, Edinburgh, p. 305; Heniger Jr, S K 1974, Touches of
Sweet Harmony: Pythagorean Mythology and Renaissance Poetics, The Huntington Library, San
Marino, California, p. 202], broadly accepted in Patristic literature and continued in modern
times (see Heniger, pp. 203 – 3 & 229 n. 9).
 See Boscovich, R 1746, “D’un’antica villa scoperta sul dosso del Tuscolo, d’un antico
orologio a Sole, e di alcune altre rarità che si sono tra le rovine della medesima ritrovate. Luogo
di Vitruvio illustrato”, Giornale de’ Letterati (Roma), April issue, article XIV, pp. 115 – 135. On
Vitruvius’ place within the Pythagorean tradition see McEwen, I K 2003, Vitruvius: writing the
body of architecture, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts/London, p. 40 ff.; Joost-Gaugier, C L
2006, Measuring Heaven: Pythagoras and his influence on art in Antiquity and the Middle Ages,
Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, p. 29.
 Among them can be mentioned: De Maculis Solaribus (1736); De Mercurii novissimo infra
Solem Transitu (1737); De Aurora Boreali (1738); De novo Telescopi usu ad objecta coelestia
determinanda (1739); De veterum argumentis pro telluris sphaericitate (1739); Dissertatio de tel-
luris figura (1739); De Circulis oscillatoribus (1740); De motu corporum projectorum in spatio non
resistente (1740); De inaequalitate gravitatis in diversis terrae locis (1741); De Annuis Stellarum
Fixarum Aberrationibus (1742); De observationibus Astronomicis, et quo pertigunt eorundem cer-
titudo (1742); De determinanda orbita planetae ope catoptricae ex datis vi celeritate, et directione
motus in dato puncto (1749), De aberrationibus, quas sibi mutuo videntur inducere Jupiter, et
Saturnus (1752; published as De inaequalitatis quas Saturnus et Jupiter sibi mutuo videntur in-
ducere praesertim circa tempus conjunctionis, 1756); Opera pertinentia ad Opticam et Astrono-
miam Maxima ex parte nova, et omnia hucusque inedita (5 vols., 1785), and the poem De Solis ac
were essential to the abolishment of papal censorship of the heliocentric

model,¹⁵⁵ which lasted until 1757 (Muller 2007, p. 277). Besides his work in astron-
omy, Boscovich also speculated on the essence of matter and the laws of na-
ture.¹⁵⁶ Furthermore, he was an important writer on geometrical crystallography,
and one of the inventors of the prismatic micrometer,¹⁵⁷ and is today considered
as the founder of modern refractometry and optical spherometry.

essential elements
The language employed by Boscovich in his scientific works is “geometrical”,
not only in the sense of the geometrical analysis as understood by Pappus of
Lunae defectibus (1760 London, 1761 Venice; final version 1779 Paris, with a French translation by
the Abbé de Barruel, Les Eclipses). As a hommage to Boscovich his name was given to an
asteroid (no. 14361) and to a lunar crater.
 On Boscovich and heliocentrism (accepted by him at least since 1739 with the Dissertatio de
telluris figura), see Dadić, Ž 1987, “Bosković and the Question of the Earth’s Motion”, in I Macan
& V Pozaić (eds.), Filozofija Znanosti Ruđera Boškovic′a/The Philosophy of Science of Ruđer
Bošković. Proceedings of the symposium of the Institute of Philosophy and Theology, Filozofsko-
Teološki Institut Družbe Isusove/Institute of Philosophy and Theology of the Society of Jesus,
Zagreb (distributed by Fordham University Press, New York); Casanovas, J 1988, “Boscovich as
an Astronomer”, in M Bossi & P Tucci (eds.), Bicentennial Commemoration of R G Boscovich:
Proceedings, Edizioni Unicopli, Milan, pp. 57– 70 (see p. 59).
 See, for example, De viribus vivis (1745); De materiae divisibilitate et de principiis corporum
dissertatio (1748; publ. 1757 in Istoria Naturale di diversi Valentuomini); Dissertationis de Lumine
pars prima (1748) and pars secunda (1748); Elementorum universae matheseos tomi tres (1754); De
continuitatis lege et ejus consectariis pertinentibus ad prima materiae elementa eorumque vires
(1754); De lege virium in natura existentium (1755); Philosophiae naturalis theoria reducta ad
unicam legem virium in natura existentium (1758; 1759; 1763).
 Boscovich, R 1777, “Account of a New Micrometer and Megameter”, Philosophical Trans-
actions of the Royal Society of London, vol. 67, pp. 789 – 798; abridged in C Hutton, G Shaw & R
Pearson (eds.) 1809, The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, from their
commencement, in 1665, to the year 1800; abridged. Vol. XIV. From 1776 to 1780, C and R Baldwin,
London, pp. 248 – 250). On Boscovich’s place in crystallographic studies see Lord Kelvin 1893,
“On the Elasticity of a Crystal according to Boscovich”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of
London, vol. 54, pp. 59 – 75; Mckenzie, A T 1998, “‘Nature doth everywhere geometrize’: Crystals,
Crystallization, and Crystallography in the Long Eighteenth Century”, Studies in Eighteenth
Century Culture, vol. 27, pp. 209 – 236 (see p. 219); Senechal 1990. On the application of the
prismatic micrometer to astronomy see Delambre, J-B 1827, Historie de l’Astronomie du XVIIIe
siècle [Historie de l’Astronomie, v. IV, posthumous], Bachelier, Paris (reprint 2004, Éditions
Jacques Gabay, Paris), p. 645.
Alexandria,¹⁵⁸ but also because he was accustomed to employ geometric images

to communicate information that in modernity is usually presented in algebraic
notation.¹⁵⁹ Boscovich’s views on the constituent parts of matter were closely re-
lated to hypotheses on the structure of crystals, and according to Marjorie Sene-
chal (1990, p. 43), Boscovich’s ideas about point-atoms were compatible, from
the geometric point of view, with two previous mathematical representations
of crystal structure: theories of crystal structure as space-filling polyhedra of
close-packed identical spheres,¹⁶⁰ and theories of crystal structure as space-fill-
ing polyhedra composed by particles of various shapes and sizes. All those
mathematical representations depended on what Alan L. Mackay called “a Py-
thagorean strain in our culture”, which “continually made congenial the idea
that somehow the symmetrical geometrical figures – the Five Platonic Solids
in Particular – are at the bottom of things” (Mackay 1986, p. 22).
Boscovich’s point-centers share the characteristic aspects of the Pythagorean
monad as defined by Clark Butler: “[It] has quantitative aspects: it can be repeat-
ed and then counted. Yet it is not a purely quantitative concept. It also has qual-
itative determinations, namely, variable relations of the limit (finite) and unlim-
ited (infinite)” (Butler 1997, p. 86).¹⁶¹ Boscovich’s “point-atomism” is also in
agreement with Pythagorean views about the role of the “void” in physical real-
ity, according to Aristotle’s testimony: “[For the Pythagoreans] the void distin-
guishes the nature of things, as if it were like what separates and distinguishes
the terms of a series. This holds primarily in numbers, for the void distinguishes
 See, for example, Robinson, R 1936, “Analysis in Greek Geometry”, Mind, vol. 45, no. 180,
pp. 464– 473 (reprinted 1969 in Essays in Greek Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
pp. 1– 15); Lafrance, Y 1978, “Aristote et l’analyse géométrique”, Philosophiques, vol. 5, no. 2,
pp. 271– 307; Behboud, A 1994, “Greek Geometrical Analysis”, Centaurus, vol. 37, pp. 52– 86.
 See Iltis, C 1970, “D’Alembert and the vis viva controversy”, Studies in History and Philo-
sophy of Science, vol. I, no. 2, pp. 135– 144 (see p. 139); Martinović I 1993, “Boscovich on the
problem of generatio velocitatis: genesis and methodological implications”, in P Bursill-Hall
(ed.), R J Boscovich – Vita e Attività Scientifica/His life and Scientific Work, Istituto della Enci-
clopedia Italiana, Roma, pp. 59 – 79 (see p. 67); Giorgilli, A [2011], “Roger Joseph Boscovich
between geometry and astronomy”, in P Pareschi (ed.), Proceedings of the Symposium Ruggiero
Boscovich: astronomo, uomo di scienza e di cultura a trecento anni dalla nascita (Memorie della
Società Astronomica Italiana), Milan, 18 may 2011 [forthcoming].
 Robert Hooke seems to have been the first person to consider the ultimate spheres to be
“atoms” or “atomical particles” (Hooke, R 1665, Micrographia: or, some physiological descriptions
of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and enquiries thereupon, J Martyn
and J Allestry, London).
 For more on the equilibrium between quantitative and qualitative aspects of numbers see
Butler 1997, p. 114 ff.
their nature”¹⁶² (Aristot. Phys., 213b23 – 27).¹⁶³ This passage may be compared
with a statement from the Theoria philosophiae naturalis (§88):
The whole of space is merely a continuous vacuum [with simple, non-extended and non-
adjacent points], and, in the continuous motion by a simple point, the passage is made
from continuous vacuum to continuous vacuum. The one point of matter occupies but
one point of space; and this point of space is the indivisible boundary between the
[void] space that precedes and the [void] space that follows. There is nothing to prevent
the moving point from being carried through it by a continuous motion, nor from passing
to it from any point of space that is in immediate proximity to it (Boscovich, 1966, p. 45).
Lancelot Law Whyte saw Boscovich’s “point atomism” as developing from the
Pythagorean idea (Pythagorean-Platonic, we may say) that physical reality orig-
inates from the dynamics of point-numbers, first to form a line, then a plane, and
finally a solid (body),¹⁶⁴ with this thought being changed to include a force em-
anating from the points, a single general force or “single law of interactions” in a
“monism of relations” (Whyte 1961a, 117 and 107) that is the idea behind Bosco-
vich’s magnum opus – whose title, Theoria philosophiae naturalis, can be trans-
lated as “Physics reduced to a single law of the forces existing in nature” (Natur-
am ex unica simplici lege virium derivandam, in the words of the typographer of
the 1763 edition, p. III). For Whyte, “Boscovich is Pythagoras extended to cover
process, Newton generalized, and Mach atomized” (Whyte 1961a, p. 124).¹⁶⁵ It is
generally agreed that, improving upon Newtonian and Leibnizian principles, Bo-
scovich provided the first general mathematical theory of atomism, and some-
how anticipated the physics of relativity, quantum mechanics and modern
field theory.¹⁶⁶ He was, nevertheless, continuing a long tradition that, instead
 Aristotle 1952, Physica, tr. R P Hardie & R K Gaye, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 7.
 Fr. 58B30 Diels-Kranz. Cf. also Gigon O (ed.) 1987, Aristotelis Opera (ex recensione Immanuel
Bekkeri, ed. 2), III: Librorum Deperditorum Fragmenta, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York,
pp. 415 – 6 (fr. 166).
 See Alexander Polyhistor, FrGrHist 273 F 93, but also Speusippus and Xenocrates.
 Boscovich is thought to have anticipated “Mach’s principle”, the idea that, in a material
spatial system, the forces presented by masses (for example, the local motion of a rotating body)
are determined by the large scale distribution of matter. All masses and all forces are relative.
“As Boscovich suggested in 1758, and Mach in 1872, it may be possible to base theory directly on
the changing spatial relations of physical entities, and to dispense with the introduction of co-
ordinate systems as a technique for representing observed relations” (Whyte 1961b, p. 13).
 Boscovich had the intention of integrating his scientific theories in three groups, a theory of
forces existing in nature (theoria virium in natura existentium), a theory of transformations of
geometric loci (theoria transformationum locorum geometricorum), and a theory of infinitesimals
(theoria infinitesimorum; theoria indefinitorum sive indefinite parva sint, sive indefinite magna).
of clinging to indivisible bodies, as physical atomists did, understood physical

reality as primarily composed of indivisible points and units.
The Eleatics abhorred non-being, and due to the metaphysical impossibility
of the conversion of being into non-being they confronted the idea of infinite di-
visibility. They can be thought of as metaphysical atomists. Pythagorean num-
bers correspond to being in the Eleatic tradition; therefore, the Pythagoreans
can somehow be thought of as arithmetical atomists. According to Aristotle,
the Pythagoreans supposed numbers to be extended (Metaph. 1080b18 – 20),
but without bulk (they have no weight or lightness; 1090a32– 34). The transition
from arithmetical reality and geometrical extension to physical substance was
considered an impossibility by Aristotle; where, then, would the essence of
bulk/corporeality find its origin? To the thinkers of the tradition that understood
physical reality as primarily not composed of indivisible bodies somewhere be-
tween mathematical and physical reality, a sort of pre-corporeal existence [as
with the special numbers in the arithmetic atomism of Plotinus (Enneads, VI.6
[34])] was proposed for unextended indivisible points (“point-atomism”), in
the place that in the geometric atomism of the Timaeus was occupied by trian-
gles. Prior to Boscovich, the way in which unextended pre-corporeal units as-
semble to form extended bodies was speculated by Neopythagoreans in their un-
derstanding of the commencement of materiality from a dyad (as in Numenius of
Apamea), but also by the mutakallimûn, who may have received some Neopytha-
gorean influence in their “atomism”, and by the “Zenonists”. These, according to
Bayle, should be understood to be in the same tradition as Pythagoras and
Plato – two thinkers who, according to Thomas Bradwardine, believed that a
continuum is composed of indivisible points.
The theory of forces appeared as his Philosophiae naturalis theoria/Theoria philosophiae natur-
alis (1758/1763), the theory of geometric transformations appeared in the 3rd volume of his
Elementorum universae matheseos (1754), but Boscovich died without completing his third
theory [see Martinović, I 1990, “Theories and inter-theory relations in Bošković”, International
Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 247– 262]. Nevertheless, according to Whyte
(1961b, p. 15) Boscovich’s ideas may serve as a basis for developments beyond the two great
physical theories of the 20th century: the classical foundation on which relativity and quantum
theories have been constructed “involves a double parametric redundancy: excessive dimen-
sionality and excessive analysis into separable entities, whereas the observed facts may only
compel the assumption of certain changing spatial relations of simpler non-analysable particles,
here called primary. These primary particles may be permanent Boscovichian point centres (a
class of stable nucleons?), appearing singly in different circumstances as neutrons and protons,
and displaying in complex extended systems propagated modes of system deformation identi-
fiable as electrons, photons, and the various other particle-fields. On this view ‘fields’ are modes
of deformation of systems of primary particles representable by collective co-ordinates”.
Henry More, the young Immanuel Kant and Boscovich, continuing a tradi-
tion widely held to represent Pythagorean-Platonic views, had in common
some theories that broke with cospuscular metaphysics and introduced a proc-
essual (field-theoretic) conception of matter (Holden 2004, pp. 236 – 272), and
therefore the “perfectly solid, sharply defined and – it would seem – metaphysi-
cally-divisible ‘atoms’, familiar from the main tradition of Gassendi, Boyle,
Locke and Newton, are each replaced with a difused shell of force projected
by an unextended central punctum” (Holden 2004, p. 238). For Boscovich, the
shift from forces to figures, corresponding to a transposition from metaphysical
to physical reality, lies behind the origination of a material (corporeal) reality out
of point-atoms devoid of corporeal dimensions. In contemporary physics, the
conversion from forces (energy) to figures (matter), or vice-versa, has become
universally accepted.
Conclusion
Boscovich’s approximation to Pythagoreanism is suggested by the form in which
he presents his ideas, with statements on physics translating into mathematics
and vice versa, and by the content of his ideas about nature; he saw physical
reality as originating from the dynamics of point-centers (simple, indivisible
and unextended, scattered in a vacuum; Boscovich 1966, pp. 21 and 144) that
share the characteristic aspects of the Pythagorean monad, and conceived a
“monism of relations” (Whyte) with a single law of forces (Boscovich 1966,
p. 8). Boscovich stands in a line of thinkers that connect ancient Pythagoreanism
with revolutionary mathematics. The theoretical physicist Frank Tipler, for exam-
ple sees physical reality as a subset of a much larger mathematical reality:
“physical reality is not ‘real’, only number – the integers comprising the true ul-
timate reality – is actually real” (Tipler 2005, p. 905). Hans Vaihinger (1922,
p. 606), believed it is impossible that matter is composed of point-atoms without
extension,¹⁶⁷ but that nevertheless it is useful to keep this false hypothesis in
order to achieve an easier calculation of the ponderal relations of matter. On
 This impossibility rests on the opinion that hypothesizing that a continuous body is made
of point-sized particles “runs counter to the concept of contact and therefore abolishes precisely
what makes up the essence of the continuum” [Brentano, F 1988, Philosophical Investigations on
Space, Time and the Continuum (posthumous; undated), tr. B Smith, Croom Helm/Routledge,
London/New York, p. 147]. However, if Boscovich refuted a coexistent continuum, he proposed a
successive one (see D’Ors [d’Ors Rovira], E 2009, Las Aporías de Zenón de Elea y la Noción
Moderna del Espacio-Tiempo, Ediciones Encuentro, Madrid, pp. 127– 128).
the other hand, Dean Zimmerman (1995, p. 98) suggested that “perhaps Bosco-
vich was right and every physical object is ultimately made out of a cloud of dis-
connected point-sized atoms”. Boscovich’s theory would be consonant with a
“fluid dynamic geometry of open space”, in which the central elements
“would not be the discontinuous and so lifeless, fixed, dimensionless points
of mass or force characteristic of closed space geometry, but dynamic relational
centres of flow. That is, they would be dimension-full ‘breathing points’ as dy-
namic configurations of space, that is, point-influences or local spheres of non-
local influence, not purely local point-forces or point-masses” (Rayner 2008,
pp. 99 and 100).
Visionary as it may seem, the approximation between Pythagoreanism and
contemporary physics isn’t so far-fetched when we have in mind the main inno-
vations of Boscovich’s indivisibilist theory, which incorporates and advances the
rich tradition of Pythagorean-Platonic forms of “number atomism” in its “dy-
namic atomism”: material permanence without spatial extension, spatial rela-
tions without absolute space, and kinematic action without Newtonian forces.
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Curricula
Alberto Bernabé is Professor of Greek Philology at Universidad Complutense de
Madrid. His research focuses on Greek religion, especially mystery religions and
their relationship to the Presocratics and to Platonism. He has published an ed-
ition of the Orphic Fragments in Bibliotheca Teubneriana and is the author of
Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets (Brill, Leyden, 2008)
in collaboration with Ana I. Jiménez San Cristobal.
Mauro Bonazzi teaches History of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Milan.

He has also taught at the Universities of Clermont-Ferrand, and Bordeaux, as
well as at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. He is the author
of Academici e Platonici. Il dibattito antico sullo scetticismo di Platone (2003), I
sofisti (2010), and Platone. Fedro (2011).
Beatriz Bossi is Associate Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Universidad

Complutense de Madrid. Among her publications are Virtud y Conocimiento en
Platón y Aristóteles (2000); Saber Gozar: Estudios sobre el Placer en Platón
(2008). Associate Researcher for the Scientific and Technological Council of Ar-
gentina (1980 – 1995). Author of more than fourty articles on Greek philosophy in
volumes published in Argentina, Chile, USA, Ireland, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Luc Brisson is Researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (Paris,
France). He has published widely on both Plato and Plotinus, including bibliog-
raphies, translations (inter alia, those of Plato’s Statesman and Laws with Jean-
François Pradeau), and commentaries. He has also published numerous works
on the history of philosophy, science and religions in Antiquity.
Francesc Casadesús is professor at the University of the Balearic Islands, and

president of the Iberian Society of Greek Philosophy. He has translated the So-
phist and the Stateman of Plato into Spanish and, as chief investigator of diverse
research projects, has carried out numerous studies related to the Mysteries, Or-
phic and Dionysiac religions, and their connection with Greek philosophy, espe-
cially the Pythagorean, Heraclitean, and Platonic ones.
Giovanni Casertano used to be Professor at the University “Federico II” of Na-

ples teaching and researching the History of Ancient Philosophy. He published
more than 250 works, specializing on Presocratics and Plato. Some of his latest
publications: Il nome della cosa. Linguaggio e realtà negli ultimi dialoghi di Pla-
484 Curricula
tone (Napoli 1996); Morte. Dai Presocratici a Platone (Napoli 2003); Sofista (Napoli
2004; São Paulo 2010); Paradigmi della verità in Platone (Roma 2007; São Paulo
2010); I Presocratici (Roma 2009; São Paulo 2011); Uma introdução à República de
Platão (São Paulo 2011); O prazer, a morte e o amor nas doutrinas dos Pré-socrá-
ticos (São Paulo 2012). In 2012 he was awarded the title of Doutor honoris
causa by the University of Brasília.
Gabriele Cornelli is associated professor of Ancient Philosophy at Universidade

de Brasília, Brazil. Coordinator of the Archai UNESCO Chair since 2001, is actual-
ly President of the Brazilian Classical Studies Society and President of the Inter-
national Plato Society. Among his publications are In Search of Pythagoreanism
(De Gruyter, 2013) and Plato and the City (Academia Verlag, 2010).
Edrisi Fernandes is an Associate Researcher in Philosophy at the Universidade

de Brasília, and a Collaborating Professor in the Postgraduation Program in Phi-
losophy at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, in Brazil. Besides
his philosophical activities he is a practicing physician and a numismatician. His
research interests cover broad areas of the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition and
shady corners of the history of the origins of Western thought.
Carl Huffman is Professor of Classics at DePauw University in Greencastle, In-

diana, USA. He has published editions of and commentaries on the fragments
of Philolaus (Cambridge 1993) and Archytas (Cambridge 2005). He has held fel-
lowships from the NEH and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and was a
visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton during the tenure of an
ACLS fellowship.
André Laks is Professor emeritus of Ancient Philosophy at the Université Paris-

Sorbonne. He is currently teaching at the Universidad Panamericana in Mexico
City. He taught for a long time in France at the University Charles de Gaulle,
Lille, and at Princeton University from 1990 to 1994. He has been a member of
the Institut Universitaire de France (1998 – 2007) and a fellow of the Wissen-
schaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin) in 1999/2000. Among
the studies he has devoted to archaic thought are his edition of Diogenes of Apol-
lonia (1983; 2nd revised ed. Sankt Augustin 2008), the essay Le Vide et la haine.
Eléments pour une histoire de la négativité dans la philosophie archaïque (Paris,
PUF, 2004), and his Introduction à la ‘philosophie présocratique’ (Paris, PUF,
2006). He is currently finishing with Glenn W. Most an anthology of Presocratic
philosophers to appear in 2014 in English in the Loeb collection and in French
with Fayard.
Curricula 485
Constantinos Macris is a Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Sci-

entifique (CNRS), in Paris (France). He specializes in ancient Greek philosophy
and its relation to religion, from the Presocratics to the late Platonists. After a
Doctoral dissertation on Iamblichus’ Pythagorean Way of Life (Paris 2004), he
has published numerous articles and book chapters on Pythagoras and the Py-
thagorean tradition, focusing on their Neoplatonic reception. He is also the au-
thor of a commentary on Porphyry’s Life of Pythagoras (Athens 2001), of which
an updated English transaltion is being prepared. Since 2004 he has been con-
tributing regularly to the Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques (ed. R. Goulet,
Paris: CNRS Editions). Forthcoming book: Under the Shadow of Pythagoras: Con-
tributions to an ‘Archaeology’ of the Pythagorean Tradition (in French, 2014). He is
currently directing a program entitled “Revisiting Monotheisms” at the Labora-
toire d’études sur les monothéismes, and co-editing the Acts of an international
research project on Ancient Mysticism: Greek, Jewish and Christian (Paris: Cham-
pion, 2013).
Richard McKirahan is the Edwin Clarence Norton Professor of Classics and Pro-
fessor of Philosophy at Pomona College in Claremont, California, USA. He has
published a book on Presocratic philosophy (Philosophy Before Socrates, Hacket
1994, 2nd ed. revised 2011) and several articles on Presocratic thought. He edited
the second edition of A.H. Coxon’s book on Parmenides, which received the Phi-
losophy Book of the Year award in 2009 from ForeWord Reviews. He is President
of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy, has been an Overseas Visiting Schol-
ar at St. John’s College, Cambridge and a Fulbrignt Senior Fellow in Greece, and
has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Marcus Mota is Professor of Theatre History at the University of Brasília, Brazil.

He has published The Musical Dramaturgy of Aeschylus (University of Brasilia
Press 2008), Homeric Steps. Performance, Philosophy, Music, and Dance in Antiq-
uity (Nos passos de Homero. Ensaios sobre performance, filosofia, música e dança
a partir da Antigüidade, São Paulo: Annablume, 2013), and several articles on
Performance and Classics. He also directs the Laboratory of Dramaturgy
(LADI) where musical plays based on Classical subjects are created and staged.
Dominic O’Meara, born in Ireland, studied at Cambridge University and in

Paris, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on Plotinus with Pierre Hadot. A Fellow
of the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies and of the Humboldt-Stif-
tung, he was professor of philosophy at The Catholic University of America
(1974– 1984), and Professeur ordinaire, Chair of Metaphysics and Ancient Philos-
ophy, at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland (1984– 2009).
486 Curricula
Christoph Riedweg (born 1957) read Classics and Musicology in Zürich, Oxford,
Leuven and Munich. Lic. phil. 1982, Diploma of Organ 1983, Dr. phil. 1987, Habil-
itation 1992 (Zürich). 1993 – 1996 C 4-Professor of Classics (Greek) at the Johannes
Gutenberg University of Mainz, and since 1996 at Zürich University. For 2005 –
2012 he has been appointed Director of the Swiss Institute in Rome. His main re-
search areas include: Late Archaic Poetry and Philosophy (in particular Orphism,
Pythagoreanism), Tragedy, Jewish-Hellenistic and Early Christian Literature, as
well as Platonism and its reception in the Early Imperial Period and in Late An-
tiquity.
Thomas M. Robinson is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Classics at the

University of Toronto. He is the author of Plato’s Psychology (1970, 1995), Heracli-
tus. A Text and Translation with a Commentary (1987), and Logos and Cosmos.
Studies in Greek Philosophy (2008), along with several other books on topics in
classical Greek philosophy. He is a former president of the International Plato So-
ciety and of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy, and currently serves as an
Honorary President of the International Association for Greek Philosophy.
Livio Rossetti has taught Storia della Filosofia Antica at the Università di Peru-
gia until 2009. After decades devoted almost exclusively to the study of Socrates,
Plato and the earlier Socratic literature, he is now publishing extensively on the
Presocratics, i.a. on the Milesians and Eleatics. Most recent books: Filosofia 2.0
(with M.Bastianelli: Milano 2013) and Le dialogue socratique (Paris 2011). In
preparation Parmenide e Zenone filosofi ad Elea (2014). After having played a
key role in the establishment of the International Plato Society in 1989, he
took the initiative of the Eleatica and Socratica periodical meetings (since
2004 and 2005 respectively) and served as coeditor of both series of proceedings.
Two books of his, Strategie macro-retoriche (1994) and Introduzione alla filosofia
antica (1998), have been translated in other idioms, while Le dialogue socratique
is expected to appear in Portuguese (São Paulo 2014). http://unipg.academia.
edu/LivioRossetti; http://www.rossettiweb.it/livio/
Fernando Santoro is Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Universidade Fed-

eral do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He has published editions of and commentaries on
the fragments of Parmenides and Xenophanes (Rio de Janeiro 2011) and a book
on Pleasure in ancient Philosophy (Rio de Janeiro 2007). He is director of the Lab-
oratório OUSIA of classical studies and editor of the review Anais de Filosofia
Clássica. He has held fellowships from CAPES Foundation and was a visitor at
the École Normale Supérieure de Paris in 2010/11 and winter 2013.
Curricula 487
Johan Thom studied ancient languages and philosophy in Stellenbosch and

Pretoria. He obtained his PhD at the University of Chicago in 1990 with a disser-
tation on the Pythagorean Golden Verses. He is currently Professor of Classics at
the University of Stellenbosch, Executive Editor of the journal Novum Testamen-
tum, and Co-editor of the Society of Biblical Literature series “Writings from the
Greco-Roman World”.
Leonid Zhmud, PhD in history (Leningrad University 1988), D.Sc. in philosophy

(St. Petersburg University 1995). Leading academic researcher at the Institute for
the History of Science and Technology in St. Petersburg (Russian Academy of the
Sciences). Books: Wissenschaft, Philosophie und Religion im frühen Pythagoreis-
mus, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997; The Origin of the History of Science in Clas-
sical Antiquity, Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2006; Pythagoras and the Early Pythagor-
eans. Oxford University Press, 2012.
Index of Topics
Academy; Academic(s) 22, 26 – 31, 35, Apollo 35 n88, 55, 165 – 168, 166 n49,
37 n91 and n92, 56, 204, 215, 216, 220, 167 n57, 174, 174 n80, 215 – 216, 230 –
226, 271, 294 n56, 295 n59, 309, 231, 246, 261 – 262, 424
313 n10, 315, 321, 323 – 329, 331 – 332, Arab; Arabic (see also Mutakallemin; Muta-
332 n31 and n33, 336 – 338, 340 – 3342, kallimûn) 34, 45, 208, 213, 419
346 n5, 367 n73, 372, 374, 376 – 378, Archai; Archē; Arkhē – see Principles
387 – 392, 389 n14, 390 n19, 391 n23, Archaeology 33, 472
395 n34, 396 n36, 397 – 400, 401 n48, Architecture 22 n49, 49 n9, 230, 472 n153
414 n42 Arithmetic; Arithmetical; Arithmeticians 30,
Acousma (akousma, pl. akousmata); Acou- 45, 125, 184, 186, 189, 193, 196, 255,
smatics 12 – 13, 12 n26, 64 – 65, 77 – 256, 260, 271, 287, 293, 301, 303, 323,
88, 86 n49 and n50, 93 – 98, 179 n1, 324 n5, 325, 329, 335, 337 – 339, 341,
245, 278 n24, 381 350, 367, 410, 416, 437 n10, 438, 446,
Aether (aither; see also Ether) 126, 380, 452 – 456, 453 n64 and n66, 470 n144,
383 476
Afterlife 106, 138 n111, 148, 156, 165, 244, Arithmology; Arithmologic; Arithmological
251 28, 353 n26, 361 – 363, 367, 417 n58
Air (aer; see also Breath; Atmosphere) 53, Arithmos – see Number(s)
126, 129, 133 – 134, 139, 164, 182, 219, Astronomy; Astronomical (see also Central
233, 267, 292, 359, 366, 366 n70, 376, fire; Cosmology; Cosmos; Counter-Earth;
425, 427, 448 n47 Geocentric theory; Heavens) 48 – 49,
Akousmata – see Acousma 209, 211, 221, 239, 255 – 257, 262, 267,
Alchemy; Alchemical; Alchemist 34, 34 n83, 324 n5, 332, 350, 359, 363, 417, 447 n45,
45, 467 n134, 471 472 – 473, 473 n157, 474 n159
Alexandria; Alexandrian 73, 79, 135, 157, Athena 53
170, 171 n73, 172, 209 – 210, 217, 385 – Athens; Athenian 14 n31, 145, 204 – 206,
386, 395 n34, 399, 403, 405, 406 n4, 204 n11, 217, 217 n63, 246, 249, 256,
407 n12, 408, 410 – 413, 417, 474 318, 324, 332 n31, 341 n63, 376, 405,
Algebra; Algebraic 455 – 456, 456 n78 and 407 n4, 417
n79, 470 n144, 474 Atmosphere (see also Air; Breath) 380
Alimentation – see Beans; Diet; Eggs; Flesh; Atom; Atomism (see also Corpuscles; Divisibi-
Food; Greens; Meat; Regimen; Vegeta- lity; Indivisible; Particles) 15, 23,
bles 23 n53, 199, 294 n57, 354 n28, 357 n44,
Anamnesis (anámnēsis; see also Memory) 360, 431, 435, 438 – 439, 339 n15, 339 –
26, 26 n63, 30, 164, 312 340 n16, 441 – 446, 443 n25, 444 n32,
Animal(s) (see also Beas; Beings) 32, 446 n37, 447 n40, 448 n47, 449 – 452,
32 n79, 49 – 50, 54, 82, 84, 121 – 122, 449 – 450 n53 and n57, 451 n58, 454 –
133, 144, 159 – 160, 162 – 163, 165, 168, 459, 461 – 471, 474 – 477, 474 n160
170 n67, 173, 175, 206, 292, 315, 375, Attic Middle Comedy (see also Comedy; Co-
380 mic) 9, 85
Apeiron (see also Infinite; Limit; Péras; Unli-
mited; Unlimitedness) 288, 339, 343, Babylon; Babylonian(s) 27 n66, 47 n1,
356, 365 – 366 n70 53 n29
490 Index of Topics
Bacchic (see also Dionysos; Dionysiac; Diony- Comedy; Comic (see also Attic Middle Co-
sism; Orphic; Orphism) 123, 169, medy) 9, 85, 120 – 121, 145, 311, 315 –
170 n67, 244 – 246 321
Beans (see also Diet; Food; Greens; Regimen; Continuum 275, 445, 447 n40, 451 n58, 462,
Vegetables) 49, 82, 84, 123, 160, 464, 468 – 470, 476, 477 n167
380 n37 Contraries (see also Opposites; Pairs) 297 –
Beast(s) 13 n29, 121, 134 298 n64
Being (Existence) 266, 272, 276 n15, 277 – Corpuscles (see also Atoms; Atomism; Divisi-
278, 280 – 281, 283, 286, 287, 289, 292, bility; Indivisible; Particles) 457, 468
296 n61, 302, 310, 319, 327 – 328, 411 – Cosmos (kosmos, World-order; see also Cha-
413, 425, 430, 432, 453, 460, 467 n134, os; Cosmology; Harmony) 47, 74, 173 –
476 175, 185, 185 n17, 191, 198, 242 – 244,
Being(s) (see also Creatures) 48 – 50, 60, 254, 257 – 265, 267, 272 – 275, 276 n18,
108, 120 – 122, 132 – 133, 154, 160 – 162, 279 – 280, 288 n45, 291 – 293, 295, 297,
167 – 168, 172 – 173, 247 – 248, 263, 273, 299, 299 n69, 304, 324, 333, 339, 364 –
273 – 274 n8, 279, 286, 289, 295, 307, 365, 367, 416, 425 – 427, 440
309, 355, 359 – 361, 363, 375, 380, 395, Cosmology (see also Astronomy; Central Fire;
407, 411 – 414, 416 – 417 Cosmos; Counter-Earth; Geocentric Theo-
Blood 50, 120, 122, 169 ry; Heavens) 15, 22, 33, 47 n2, 56, 67,
Body (see also Soma-sema theory) 81 n21, 77, 80, 179, 221, 267, 288, 294 n56, 350,
122, 129, 132, 133, 133 n92, 134 – 136, 358 n47, 366 n70, 379, 382 n44, 415,
147, 162, 164, 167, 169 – 175, 230, 248, 448 n47
248 n3, 252 – 253, 267, 297 – 298, 302, Counter-Earth (antíchtōn; see also Astro-
366, 423 n2, 425, 427, 430 nomy; Central Fire; Cosmology; Cosmos;
Body (Structure) 230, 232 – 233, 336 – 337, Geocentric Theory; Hestia) 182, 267,
355 – 356, 355 n39, 366 n70, 416, 294 n56, 367 n73
440 n16, 447 – 448, 447 n40, 447 – Creatures (see also Beings) 129, 131, 160,
448 n45, 450 n53, 454, 467 n134, 468, 170 n67, 247 – 248, 315
475, 475 n165, 477 n167 Cube; Cubic 203, 207 – 222, 225 – 226,
Body (bodies), heavenly 182, 293, 294 n56 230 – 231, 233, 258, 325, 361, 363,
Body of the universe 232 – 233, 416 458 n89
Book(s), Pythagorean (see also Notes, Pytha- Cult(s); Cultic (see also Daemon; God; Religi-
gorean) 26 n62, 57, 63 – 75, 310, 408 on; Ritual; Taboo) 29, 77, 79, 82, 84,
Breath; breathing (see also Air; Atmosphe- 93 n83, 94 n84, 139, 158, 245 – 249, 267,
re) 121, 133 – 134, 292, 365 – 366, 346 – 347, 347 n12
365 – 366 n70, 427, 478 Cure (see also Healing; Medicine) 155, 159
Cycle(s) (kyklos) 129, 134, 136 – 137, 162,
Calculus (see also Arithmetic; Mathematics; 169, 173, 174, 415, 417
Number) 299 n69
Central Fire (see also Counter Earth, Hestia) Daemon(s); Daímon; Daimones; Daemono-
7, 267, 292, 292 n51, 358 n47, 367 n73, logy 31, 31 – 32 n77, 80, 84, 97, 139 –
376 140, 148, 160
Chaos (see also Cosmos) 4, 311 Death (see also Afterlife; Hades; Immortality;
Christian; Christianity 57, 129, 349 n18, Religion; Suicide; Transmigration) 32,
423 – 424, 429, 433, 472 n152 97 n99, 125, 129, 131 – 132, 142, 147,
Circle(s) (see also Sphere) 50, 82, 181 n6, 160, 162, 164 – 165, 167, 173, 243, 248 –
223, 292, 413 251, 254, 323, 380 n37, 411, 427
Index of Topics 491
Decad 182, 210, 294 n56, 329, 331, 349 n19, Eggs (see also Diet; Food; Greens; Regimen;
417 n58 Vegetables) 122, 315, 380 n37
Delphic oracle (see Oracle) 80 – 81, 81 n25, Egypt; Egyptian (see also Alexandria) 7,
94, 216 27 n66, 34 n83 and n84, 90 n70, 123,
Derveni papyrus 94 n88, 119, 127, 131, 138 – 129, 139, 141, 158, 162, 169, 170 n67,
139, 148 215 n57, 230, 245 – 246, 465
Dialectic(s); Dialectical method; Dialectici- Eighth Hypothesis (of the Parmenides; see
ans 110, 257, 271, 273, 276 – 277, 280, also First Hypothesis; Second Hypothe-
284 – 287, 285 n39, 289 – 291, 299 n69, sis) 458, 458 n88
317, 319, 321, 324 – 325, 334, 352, 355, Eleatic(s); Eleaticism 15 – 16, 22 n50, 23 n55,
357 n42, 364 24, 271, 280 – 281, 345, 354, 457 – 458,
Diet; Dietary (see also Beans; Eggs; Flesh; 465 – 466, 476
Food; Greens; Meat; Regimen ; Vegeta- Elements (stoicheia; see also Archai) 15,
bles; Wine) 32, 32 n79, 35, 50, 52, 55, 126 – 127, 219, 267 – 268, 275, 275 n14,
77, 82, 84, 86, 98, 120 – 122, 145, 155, 289 – 291, 295, 323 n2, 333 – 334, 337,
166, 168, 307 348 n15, 353, 358 – 359, 379, 387, 393 –
Dionysos; Dionysiac; Dionysian; Dionysism 396, 435 n1, 439, 442 – 444, 446,
(see also Bacchic; Orphic; Orphism) 447 n42, 448 – 449, 468
122 – 123, 136, 174, 174 n80 Eleusis; Eleusinian 141, 145, 158, 244 – 245,
Divination 79, 139 251
Divisibility; Divisible (see also Atoms; At- Embryo; Embryology 142, 375, 378 – 379
omism; Corpuscles; Indivisibility; Mereo- Energy 477
logy; Particles) 338, 444 – 445, Ether (see also Aether) 126 – 127, 376
444 n32, 445 n36, 457, 459 n93, 465 – Ethic(s); Ethical 7, 8 n16, 13, 32 n79, 56,
466, 477 97 n99, 146, 173, 221, 294, 303, 314,
Dodecahedron 219 340 – 342, 347 n12, 350, 353 n26, 367,
Dorian(s); Doric 7, 8 n16, 10 n21, 18 n38, 379, 386 n3, 389, 397 n40, 405, 410,
327 n14, 386 414 – 415
Double; Doubleness; Doubling; Duplication
(see also Dyad) 203, 207 – 212, 214 – Figurate (Figurative; Figured) numbers – see
222, 225 – 227, 229 – 231, 258, 325, 351 – Numbers, figurate
352, 361, 453 n66, 460 n100 Finitude – see Limit; Péras
Dualism; Dualistic; Dualities; Duality (see Fire (element) 53, 82, 84, 97, 122, 154, 182,
also Contraries; Dyad; Monad; Monism; 219, 232 – 233, 242 – 243, 267, 273, 275,
One; Opposites; Pair; Unit) 174, 241, 359, 359, 361 – 362, 376, 393
289 – 290, 327, 340, 348, 351, 387, 389, Fire, Central – see Central Fire
391, 430, 440, 460, 460 n100 First Hypothesis (of the Parmenides; see also
Dyad (see also Contraries; Dualism; Monad; Second Hypothesis; Eighth Hypothesis;
One; Opposites; Pair; Unit) 241 – 242, Participation) 283, 428 – 431, 433
317, 327 – 328, 333 – 334, 341, 377, 393 – Flesh (see also Diet; Food; Greens; Meat; Re-
394, 459 n93, 476 gimen; Vegetables) 13 n29, 131,
380 n37
East; Eastern (see also Oriental) 5, 7 Food (see also Beans; Diet; Eggs; Flesh;
Education; Educational (see also Mathēmata; Greens; Meat; Regimen; Vegetables;
Quadrivium) 8 n16, 19, 64, 74, 90 n70, Wine) 32, 120 – 123, 155, 166, 297,
104, 107, 112, 230, 239, 258, 410 – 411, 302, 415
415, 461
492 Index of Topics
Form(s) (eidē; eidos; see also Matter) 25, 353 n26, 380 n37, 381, 387, 391, 393 –
80 – 81, 141, 168, 197 – 198, 206, 215, 394, 396, 407, 411 – 412, 424, 429 – 430,
232, 238, 241 – 242, 263, 266, 271, 273 – 433, 436, 438 n13, 459 – 460, 459 –
274 n8, 280 – 291, 280 n32, 281 n34, 460 n92 and n93, 460 n98, 460 n99 and
288 n45, 292 n51, 294 – 296, 302 – 304, n100
333 – 334, 334 n38 and n39, 338 – 339, Goddess 141, 297
376, 387, 396 – 397, 406, 413, 415 – 416, Gold tablet; Golden lamellae (leafs) 136,
428 – 433, 442, 447 – 448 n45, 448 n47, 138, 142
449 n51, 452 – 453, 453 n66, 458 n89, Golden thigh 164, 348 n13
467, 470 n144 Golden Verses 57, 408, 410, 415, 423
Forms (Ideas), Theory of 238, 241 – 242, Good, the 272, 283, 295 – 297, 302 – 304,
263, 266, 268, 273 – 274 n8, 280 – 291, 312, 313 n10, 318, 332, 336, 340, 342,
280 n32, 281 n34, 287 – 288, 288 n45, 380, 387, 417
291, 292 n51, 294 – 296, 302 – 304, 312, Greens 155
324, 334, 334 n39, 339, 357 n45, 406,
413, 415 – 416, 428-3251, 447 n45 Hades (see also Nether world; Underworld)
Fourthness – see Tetractus; Tetraktys (tetrak- 95 – 96, 121, 124, 133, 137 – 138, 142,
tys) 154, 155, 160 – 161, 160 n28, 165,
Friendship 55, 81, 173 n78, 233, 259 – 261, 165 n47, 168, 171 n72, 381
299, 407 Harmonics (see also Musical proportion)
49, 190, 197, 197 n34, 221, 239, 257 –
Geocentric theory; Geocentrism (see also As- 258, 267, 323, 329, 341, 417
tronomy; Central fire; Counter-Earth; Harmony; Harmonical (harmonía; see also
Cosmology; Cosmos) 267, 375 – 376 Cosmos; Proportion; Symmetry) 7, 47 –
Geometry; Geometric(al); Geometricians 49, 48 n3, 49 n9, 54, 56, 80 – 81, 94,
23 n52, 30, 113, 181, 183 – 184, 183 n13, 159, 173, 173 n78, 182 – 186, 185 n17,
203, 207, 209 – 211, 213 – 214, 215 n60, 191, 196, 198 – 200, 249, 257 – 258, 260,
216 – 220, 226 – 232, 255 – 260, 264, 262 – 264, 272, 279, 293, 297 – 298 n64,
267, 271, 287, 292 – 293, 295 – 296, 298, 333, 338, 358, 363 – 366, 375, 423,
299 – 300, 303 – 34, 324 n5, 325, 337, 435 – 436, 436 n5
350, 393, 414 n42, 417, 437, 437 n10 and Healing; Health (see also Cure; Medicine)
n11, 438, 442, 447 n40, 450 – 451 n57, 32 n79, 35, 54, 81, 139, 159, 297, 361,
451 – 456, 451 n58, 453 n64 and n66, 376, 380
458 n89, 459, 463, 463 n108, 466, Heart 50, 82,
466 n129, 473 – 474, 475 – 476 n166, Heaven(s); Heavenly (see also Cosmos; Cos-
476, 478 mology) 53, 130, 173 n78, 182, 257 –
– Geometry, solid (see also Stereometry) 260, 262, 291 – 294, 294 n56, 299, 330,
258, 267, 325 333, 356, 358 – 359, 363 – 366, 365 –
Gnomon; Gnomonic 339 – 340, 356, 366 n70, 397, 435 n1
356 n40, 456 Hellenism; Hellenistic; Hellenized 10 n21,
God(s) (see also Theos; to theion) 3, 31 – 32, 34 n84, 49, 140, 221 n71, 313 – 314,
32, 35 n88, 54 n35, 55, 72, 81 – 82, 95, 326, 328 n17, 373, 377, 388, 390, 392,
137, 139 – 141, 143, 155 – 156, 158 – 159, 396, 400, 405
164 – 167, 169, 172, 173 n78, 174, Hestia (see also Central Fire, Counter Earth)
174 n80, 227, 229 – 233, 242 – 243, 245, 294 n56
259, 261, 273, 276, 276 n20, 285, 290, Hieros Logos 123, 140, 158, 158 n12, 169,
297, 299, 299 n69, 311, 330, 341 n63, 175, 327 n14
Index of Topics 493
Hyperborean 35 n88, 164 – 165 264, 309, 314, 317 – 319, 323, 351, 376,
Homeric question (Quaestio Homerica); Ho- 378
meric tradition(s) (see also Parry-Lord
hypothesis) 103, 110, 112, 114 Justice 57, 85, 97 n97, 121, 156, 171 n72,
173 n78, 175, 182, 206, 259 – 261, 299 –
Ideal numbers – see Numbers, ideal 300, 333, 335, 353 n26, 357
Ideas, Platonic (eidē; eidos; see also Forms,
Theory of) 447 n45 Kalâm – see Mutakallemin; Mutakallimûn
Imitation (mímēsis; see also Participation) Katabasis (descent) 68, 124, 154, 158
285, 291 – 292, 308, 334, 334 n39,
355 n39, 358, 413 Life (bíos), way of; lifestyle 3, 6, 9 – 10,
Immortality; Immortal (see also Afterlife; 12 n27, 13, 34, 35 n86, 86 – 87, 104 – 105,
Death; Religion; Transmigration) 33, 155 n32, 57, 63, 78, 84, 104, 107, 120,
117, 127 – 132, 144, 147, 153, 160 – 164, 122, 144, 146 – 147, 168 – 169, 175, 204,
167 – 168, 168 n58, 171, 171 n72, 173 – 207, 221, 239, 245, 256, 260, 274 n9,
176, 249, 279, 281 – 282, 281 n33, 302, 276 n18, 299 n69, 300 – 301, 323, 330,
312, 323, 375, 379 – 380, 423 – 427, 382 n44, 407, 423, 423 n1
424 n2, 430, 432 Limit; Limited; Limiters (see also Apeiron; In-
Incarnation; Reincarnation – see Transmigra- finite; Péras; Unlimited; Unlimited-
tion ness) 185, 198 – 200, 241 – 242, 250,
Incommensurable numbers; Incommensura- 260, 267, 271 – 275, 273 – 274 n8, 274 n9,
bles – see Numbers, incommensurable 275 n14, 275 – 276 n15, 278, 282 – 283,
Incubation 64 285, 287, 288 n45, 289, 292, 294, 296 –
Indivisibility; Indivisibilist; Indivisible(s) (see 298, 296 n61, 302 – 304, 332 – 333,
also Atom; Atomism; Corpuscles; Divisi- 339 – 340, 352 n25, 356, 356 n40, 366
bility; Particles) 275 n15, 336, 438 – Line(s) (see also Point-Line-Plane-Body sche-
439, 441, 443 – 445, 443 n27, 445 n36, me) 182, 211, 215 – 216, 219, 223 – 224,
446, 448 – 451, 449 – 440 n53, 450 – 226 – 228, 329, 336 – 337, 355 n39, 377,
451 n27, 451 n58, 455, 457, 469 – 444, 447, 447 – 448 n45, 451, 451 n58,
460 n93, 461 n102, 462 – 470, 463 n108, 454, 454 n69, 475, 409, 417, 417 n59,
466 n129 e n130, 469 n140 e n 142, 427, 429, 444, 449, 454, 455 n74,
475 – 477 460 n100, 474
Infinite (see also Apeiron; Limit; Péras; Unfi- Logos 91 n75, 350, 409
nished; Unlimited; Unlimitedness) 53, Logos, Hieros – see Hieros Logos
126, 186, 273 – 274 n8, 275 n14, 281, Lyre (see also Music) 80, 118, 124 – 125,
285, 287 – 288, 297, 352, 356 n40, 440, 154, 159, 166, 180, 185 – 193, 424 – 425,
444 – 445, 474 427
Infinitesimal numbers; Infinitesimals – see
Numbers, infinitesimal Magna Greece; Magna Graecia (see also
Intellect (nous; see also Mind) 29 n70, 157, Italy) 7 – 8, 18 – 20, 18 n38, 20 n44,
227, 257, 267, 275 n14, 297 – 298 n74, 22 – 23, 33 n81, 38, 110, 309 n3, 324,
298, 304, 358, 360, 375, 380, 414, 416, 346, 349, 464 – 465
445 n36, 460 n99 Material numbers – see Number, material
Irrational numbers – see Numbers, irrational Mathēmata (see also Education; Quadrivi-
Italic; Italians; Italy (see also Magna Grae- um) 324, 333, 337, 454 n68
cia) 7, 15, 15 n32, 17, 17 n34, 21 – 22,
22 n49 and n50, 39, 241, 252 n6, 253,
494 Index of Topics
Mathematicians 12, 28, 183 – 184, 193, 196, Monism (see also Dualism; Dyad; Monad;
197 n35, 254, 256, 264, 271, 336, 338, One; Pair; Unit) 327, 430, 440, 475,
347 – 348 n12, 449 477
Mathematics; Mathematical (see also Alge- Motion; Movement(s) 48, 223, 228, 252,
bra; Arithmetic; Calculus; Geometry; 261 – 262, 267, 281, 350, 359 – 360,
Number) 7, 7 n15, 19, 27 n66, 28 – 30, 363 – 364, 365 – 366 n70, 396, 413,
28 n68, 29 n69 and n70, 47, 49, 180, 425 – 426, 429, 432, 440, 443 n25, 444,
182 – 183, 188, 190, 195, 197 n35, 208, 447 n45, 451, 457, 460, 460 n99, 467,
216, 221, 230 – 232, 237, 244, 247, 254 – 469, 475, 475 n165
261, 293, 324 – 325, 337 – 340, 352, 354, Music (see also Harmonics; Lyre; Monochord;
357, 360 n55, 405, 413 – 314, 416, 435, Octave; Sound) 8, 19, 29 n70, 47 – 49,
437 n10 and n11, 447, 451 – 452, 54 – 55, 154 – 155, 159, 179 – 180, 179 n1,
454 n68, 455 – 456, 455 n77, 471 – 472, 184 – 190, 194, 197 – 199, 197 n33, 207,
477 211, 221, 242 – 243, 251 – 252, 255 – 258,
Matter (see also Form) 25, 206, 354, 377, 260, 262 – 263, 275, 279, 291, 293,
387, 397, 415 – 416, 416 n55, 426 – 427, 329 – 330, 338, 358, 358 n46, 363 – 364,
432, 438 – 441, 439 n15, 439 – 440 n16, 423 – 424, 435 n1, 436 n5
441 n20, 444 – 445, 447 – 448 n45, 448 – Mutakallemin; Mutakallimûn 449 – 450,
449, 449 n51, 457, 459 – 460, 459 – 449 – 450 n53, 476
460 n93, 460 n100, 462, 465 – 468, Musical proportion(s) (see also Harmonics)
473 – 475, 475 n165, 477 48 – 49, 54, 159, 184, 194, 233, 261,
Meat(s) (see also Diet; Flesh; Food; Greens; 264, 291
Regimen; Vegetables) 50, 84 – 85, Mysticism 14 – 15, 28, 29 n70, 33, 353 n26,
120 – 122, 129, 144 – 146, 155, 168 – 169, 357 – 358, 367, 367 n73
380 n37 Myth(s); Mythemes; Mythology 5 – 6,
Medicine (see also Cure; Healing) 262, 14 n31, 32 n79, 33, 54, 67, 77, 80 – 81,
323 n2 84, 88, 94, 98, 113, 117, 122, 125, 133,
Memory (see also Anamnesis) 57, 141, 148, 136, 143 – 145, 147, 154, 160, 167,
164 – 165 171 n72, 174, 216, 243 – 244, 244 n2,
Mereology (Method of division) 276 – 277, 249 – 253, 258, 261, 272, 303, 342, 380,
283, 288 430
Metempsychosis – see Transmigration
Méthexis – see Participation Nature (phýsis) 6, 25, 48, 52, 91, 126, 135,
Middle Comedy – see Attic Middle Comedy 118, 174, 179, 182, 200, 231 – 232, 247,
Milesian(s) 52, 70, 74, 278 n24, 448 n47 249, 254, 259, 272 – 274, 273 n6, 273 –
Mimesis (mímēsis) – see Imitation 274 n8 and n9, 276 – 277, 276 n18, 283,
Mind (see also Intellect) 11, 19, 163, 285, 290, 292 – 293, 295, 298, 302, 304,
276 n18, 287, 301, 304, 357, 467 n134 307, 310, 314 – 315, 330, 333, 336 – 340,
Monad(s) (see also Dualism; Dyad; Monism; 353 n26, 355, 358 – 361, 365, 379, 386 –
One; Oneness; Pair; Unit) 271, 281 – 387, 399, 413 – 414, 416, 425, 427, 435,
286, 296, 304, 327, 337 n50, 393 – 394, 435 n1, 437, 440, 443, 444, 444 n32,
396 n36, 442, 442 n21, 444 n32, 447 – 447 n45, 448, 451, 460 – 461 n100,
449, 448 n48, 454, 455 n75, 458 – 459, 462 n105, 466, 473 – 475, 475 n166, 477
459 n92 and n93, 465, 467 – 468, 471, Neoplatonism 10, 34, 36, 57, 79, 119,
474, 477 119 n8, 129, 143, 148, 159, 176, 209, 217,
Monochord 49, 49 n9 328, 337, 347 n11, 349 n18, 388, 390,
Index of Topics 495
398, 400 n46, 407 – 408, 410, 412, 414, Octave (see also Lyre; Music; Sound) 47,
416 n56, 417, 428, 430, 455 n74 179 – 180, 182, 184 – 188, 190 – 191,
Neopythagoreanism 5, 6 n7, 8, 34, 57, 327, 192 n27, 194, 196 – 197, 199 – 200, 364
327 n14, 349 n18, 371 – 372, 373 n11, 387, One, the (to hén; see also Monad; Oneness;
399 – 400, 400 n45 and 46, 401 n48, Unit) 241 – 242, 262, 271, 280, 282,
450, 459, 470, 472, 476 285 – 288, 288 n45, 289 – 292, 296, 319,
Nether world; Netherworld (see also Hades; 327 – 328, 333 – 334, 337 – 339, 337 n49,
Underworld) 131, 138, 142, 146, 159, 341, 351, 352, 352 n25, 355 – 357, 377,
165, 412 381, 423, 428 – 431, 433, 460
Non-being 283, 319, 476 Oneness (henòs; see also Monad; One;
Notes (hypomnemata), Pythagorean 79 n13, Unit) 284, 428 – 429, 431 – 432
23 n81, 92 – 93, 372 – 382 Opposites (see also Contraries; Dualism;
Number(s) Dyad; Pairs) 183, 261 – 262, 280,
– Numbers, Figurate (Figurative; Figured) 295 n59, 332, 337 – 338 n50, 339 – 342,
294 n57, 328, 339, 442, 453, 456 341 n65, 342 n70, 348 – 353, 350 n22,
– Numbers, Ideal 325, 328, 333 353 n26, 361, 365, 375, 409, 431
– Numbers, Incommensurable 38, 294, Oracle(s) 80 – 81, 81 n25, 88, 90, 90 n68,
338, 452, 453 n64 94, 139, 167, 215 – 216, 226, 229 – 231
– Numbers, Infinitesimal 449, 462 n105, Oriental; Orientalist; Orientalizing (see also
463 n108, 475 n166 East; Eastern) 7, 32 – 33, 33 n82
– Numbers, Irrational 38, 183, 325, 449, Orphic; Orphism (see also Dionysos; Diony-
453, 456 siac; Dionysism) 33, 38, 68, 80,
– Numbers, Material (see also Number at- 93 n83, 94 n88, 117 – 148, 130 n74 and
omism) 292, 335, 357, 435 n2, 443 n27, n75, 153 – 176, 153 n1, 154 n2, 157 n10,
447, 447 n42, 448 – 449, 447 n40 and n42, 158 n12 and n18, 170 n67, 171 n71,
448 – 449 172 n76, 175 n83, 244 – 246, 248, 251,
– Numbers, Oblong 339, 341, 356 n40, 252 n5
453 n65
– Numbers, Square 181, 339 – 340, 353 n26, Pair(s) (see also Contraries; Dualism; Dyad;
356 n40, 453 Monad; Monism; One; Opposites;
– Number (Numerical) atomism; Mathematical Unit) 122, 153, 182 – 183, 185 – 187,
atomism (see also Number doctrine; Point- 189 – 190, 199, 241, 328, 332 – 333,
Line-Plane-Body scheme) 15, 23, 292, 339 – 342, 339 n58, 348 – 353, 348 n15,
294 n57, 335, 355 n39, 435 n2, 441 – 442, 375, 391, 394, 439 – 441, 449, 460, 470
443 n27, 447 n40 and n42, 447 – 448 n45, Paradoxes of Zeno – see Zeno’s paradoxes
452, 454 – 456, 468, 478 Parry-Lord hypothesis 107, 112
– Number doctrine; Number metaphysics; Participation (méthexis; see also First Hypo-
Number philosophy (see also Number at- thesis; Imitation) 282 – 283, 288 – 289,
omism) 271 – 272, 278, 278 n24, 290, 312, 334, 358, 412
293, 294 n56, 323 – 342, 349 n19, 353 – Particles (see also Atom; Atomism; Corpusc-
354 n27, 435 n2, 443 n27, 447 n40 and 242 les; Divisibility; Indivisible) 366, 438 –
– Number mysticism (see also Numerology) 439, 441, 441 n20, 443 n25, 445 – 446,
29 n70, 353 n26, 367, 367 n73 446 n37, 458 n89, 462, 466, 469 – 470,
Numerology 28 – 29, 29 n70 474, 474 n160, 475 – 476 n166, 477 n167
Pebbles – see Psēphoi
Oblong numbers – see Numbers, oblong Péras (see also Apeiron; Infinite; Limit; Unli-
mited; Unlimitedness) 366
496 Index of Topics
Philosophy (see also Number Philosophy; 274 n9, 275, 278 n25, 287 – 292, 288 n45,
Wisdom) 3 – 10, 8 n16, 12, 12 n27, 15 – 295, 302, 324, 328, 332 – 333, 334 n38,
17, 15 n32, 17 n34, 19 – 22, 21 n45, 23 n55, 336 – 341, 348 – 360, 353 n26, 355 n39,
24 – 25, 25 n60, 28 – 31. 28 n68, 31 n76, 379, 386 – 387, 390 – 398, 396 n36, 417,
33 – 38, 34 n83, 35 n86, 47, 51 – 52, 417 n59, 425 – 427, 429, 431, 437, 446,
52 n26, 53 n30, 54, 56, 87, 93 – 95, 138, 447 n42, 448 n47, 457, 459 n92, 460,
141, 157 n9, 158, 162, 169, 204 n9, 205 – 466, 468
206, 205 – 206 n16, 228, 237 – 241, Principles, doctrine of (see also Unwritten
240 n1, 243, 254, 258 – 259, 264 – 266, doctrines) 37 n92, 241 – 243, 268, 324,
268, 271 – 272, 278, 278 n24 and n25, 327 – 328, 327 n15, 333, 335 – 337,
290, 293, 294 n56, 307, 309, 314, 316, 395 n34, 396 n36, 397 – 399, 399 n41
318 – 320, 323 – 324, 326, 330 – 333, Proportion; Proportional(s) (see also Harmo-
335 – 336, 340 – 342, 346, 347 n12, nics; Harmony; Musical proportion; Sym-
349 n19, 353, 353 – 354 n27, 365 – metry) 48 – 49, 54, 159, 184, 194, 211,
366 n70, 378, 391 – 392, 396, 401, 405 – 215 – 212, 222 – 225, 227 – 228, 230,
406, 406 – 407 n4, 411 – 417, 411 n32, 232 – 233, 259, 261, 264, 276 n18, 279,
416 n56, 430, 435, 446, 449, 451, 456, 291, 295, 297, 297 – 298 n64, 299, 304,
461, 465 – 466, 471 n145 329, 362, 375, 446, 454
Phoenicia, Phoenician(s) 162, 245, 465 Psēphoi (see also Arithmetic, Calculus, Ma-
Physics 14 n31, 350, 377, 405, 414 – 416, thematics, Number) 53, 179 n1, 311,
435 – 436, 438, 446, 451, 468, 475, 453 – 455 (see also 294 n57), 453 n66,
477 – 478 454 n69
Platonic forms – see Forms, Theory of Pseudo‐; Pseudoepigrapha; Pseudoepigra-
Platonic solids (see also Solids) 219, 267, phic; Pseudopythagorica (see also Gol-
325, 458, 474 den Verses) 327, 327 n14, 347 n11,
Platonism; Platonist (see also Neoplato- 371 n4, 372 – 373, 386 – 401, 386 n3,
nism) 25 – 26, 37 n92, 221, 238, 264, 388 n10, 396 n36, 399 n43, 400 n45 and
314 n11, 335, 337, 354 – 355 n27, 371 n4, 46, 401 n49, 407 n12, 408 – 414, 408 –
387, 389 n14, 390, 390 n19, 398 – 401, 409 n17, 411n 32 and 33, 417 – 418,
400 n45 and 46, 401 n48, 455 n74, 470, 417 n58 and n59
472 Purification(s) (kathársis) 12 – 13, 12 n27,
Pneuma (see also Breath) 292, 365 – 13 n28, 30, 117, 139, 141, 146, 159, 380,
366 n70 380 n37
Point-Line-Plane-Body (Point-Line-Surface-So- Pythagoras (Pythagorean) theorem – see
lid) scheme 329, 336 – 337, 355 n39, Theorem, Pythagoras’
377, 447, 447 – 448 n45, 451, 454, 475
Politics (see also Justice) 7 – 9, 8 n16, 11 – Quadrivium (see also Education; Mathēma-
12, 17 – 22, 18 n38, 20 n42 and n44, ta) 256, 324, 330
21 n45 and 46, 27 n65, 30 – 31, 38, 47, Quantum physics 49, 475, 475 – 476 n166
52, 55 – 58, 64, 117, 146, 205, 205 n13,
221, 239, 294, 307, 309, 410, 415 – 415 Regimen (see also Beans; Diet; Eggs; Flesh;
Pre-Socratics; Presocratics (see also So- Food; Greens; Meat; Vegetables; Wine)
phoi) 9 n19, 24 – 25, 34, 52, 87 n51, 86
241, 254, 261, 267, 275, 307, 340, Reincarnation – see Transmigration
374 n17, 401, 448 n47 Religion (see also Afterlife; Cult; Daemon;
Principles (archai; sing. archē) 15, 47, 53, Death; God; Hades; Immortality; Incuba-
83, 182, 241 – 242, 260 – 261, 266, 272, tion; Reincarnation; Taboo; Transmigrati-
Index of Topics 497
on) 13 n28, 14 – 15, 29, 32 – 33, 38, 52, Silence 105, 130, 163, 168, 170, 364,
63, 68, 82, 230, 238, 246, 248, 251, 380 n37, 407, 415
375 n18 Solids; Solidity (see also Platonic solids)
Remembrance; Rememoration – see Anamne- 82, 217 – 219, 225 – 227, 230 – 233, 258,
sis; Memory 267, 325, 329, 362, 437 n9, 447, 454,
Ritual(s); Ritualism (see also Cult; Taboo) 5, 458, 474, 475
28 n67, 33, 47, 50, 63, 68, 70, 77, 83 – Soma-sema (sōma-sēma; body-tomb) theory
87, 84 n39, 85 n40, 96 n93, 97 – 98, (see also Prison) 134 – 136, 147, 169 –
97 n100, 105, 110, 113, 138, 146, 154 – 1172, 171 n73, 174 – 1175, 248, 248 n3,
155, 159, 169, 174, 341 n63, 374, 379, 252 – 253
381 – 382 n42 Sophoi – see Pre-Socratics
Soul (psychē) 6, 11, 33, 49, 54, 59, 117,
Sages, seven – See Seven sages 120 – 122, 124, 125 n44, 127 – 139, 142,
School(s) 6, 9, 14, 16 – 17, 20 n42, 23, 147 – 150, 153, 155, 159 – 176, 243 – 244,
23 n55, 38, 53, 95, 106 n7, 154, 170, 217, 247 – 254, 257, 264, 266 – 267, 269, 279,
217 n63, 220, 237, 307, 332, 335, 345 n4, 283, 297 – 298, 302, 312, 313 n10, 315,
346, 347 n12, 348 – 349, 349 n19, 323 – 324, 329 – 331, 342, 357, 366,
353 n26, 354 n28, 364, 366, 367 n73, 374 n16, 375, 377 – 381, 388 – 389, 394,
371, 374, 378 – 379, 381, 398, 401 n51, 399 n43, 402 – 403, 406 – 407, 412 – 415,
405, 410 – 411, 414 – 417, 440, 469, 471 419, 438 n13, 442 n21, 444 n34, 446 n40,
Science; scientific 5 – 7, 12 – 16, 21, 22, 26 – 448 n48, 460 n100, 467 n136.
30, 38 – 41, 44, 48, 52, 58 – 60, 76 – 77, Soul, World 6 n8, 264, 331, 388 n10, 426,
88, 98 – 100, 149, 159, 176, 182 – 184, 461
200, 208, 210, 213 n52, 214n n53, Sound (see also Lyre; Music; Octave) 47 –
215 n60, 218 n56, 227 – 228, 239, 257 – 48, 80, 91, 97 n99, 106 n8, 154 – 155,
258, 269 – 270, 272, 277, 278 n24, 280, 183, 208, 242, 255, 295 – 296, 363 – 365.
288, 301, 304 – 305, 323 – 325, 329, Space 23 n52, 48, 52, 110, 365, 437 n11,
336 – 337, 341 – 342, 344 – 345, 347 n12, 439 n16, 440 – 443, 448 – 451, 456 n78,
348 – 349 n18, 357, 359 n53, 360, 367, 467 – 468, 471, 474 – 478.
378, 382, 402 – 403, 406, 410 – 411, Sphere(s) (see also Circle) 7, 48, 48 n3, 54,
413 – 418, 435, 436 – 438, 444 n34, 82, 147, 159, 209, 262, 264, 292,
446 n38, 450n n54,57, 451 n59, 454 n71, 350 n22, 365, 423, 430, 441, 446 n37,
457 n84, 459 n90, 461 n101, 462n n105 – 474, 474 n160, 478
106, 465 n127, 467 n138, 469 n139, 470, Square; Squared 47, 180 – 181, 180 n4, 210,
471 – 473, 474 n159, 475 n166, 478, 212, 218 – 219, 221, 223, 294, 338 – 341,
479 – 481. 353 n26, 356 n40, 361, 453, 453 n64, 454
Second Hypothesis (of the Parmenides; see Square numbers – see Numbers, square
also First Hypothesis; Eight Hypothe- Stereometry (see also Geometry, solid)
sis) 431 210 – 211, 218, 220, 258
Secret(s); secrecy 50, 64, 74 – 75 153, 159, Stoic(s); Stoicism 148, 327, 373, 373 n11,
162, 172, 174, 248, 307, 371, 406. 376 – 378, 389, 395, 411, 427, 465, 469,
Sects(s); sectarian 13 n30, 52, 64, 117, 145 – 470, 470 n143, 472 n151
146, 149, 154, 163, 174, 176, 347 n12, Suicide (see also Death) 172, 240, 248, 323
349, 367, 464 n114, 469. Sun (see also Central fire; Hestia) 48, 68,
Seven sages 7, 81 – 82, 81 n24, 81 n25 and 80, 127, 292, 294, 361 – 362, 378, 424,
n26 432, 472
Sex; Sexual 32 n79, 246, 297, 341 n60
498 Index of Topics
Symbol(s) (sumbola; symbola; see also acou- 390, 396, 407, 446 – 447, 449,
sma); Symbolism 3, 9, 18 n38, 29 n70, 453n n64 – 65, 458, 460, 467, 471 n150.
32, 40, 56, 63 – 65, 77 – 79, 82 – 84, 86 – Unlimited; Unlimitedness (see also Apeiron;
88, 95, 97 – 99, 101, 142, 149, 168 n58, Infinite; Limit; Peras; Unfinished) 185,
245, 381 – 382, 406, 452, 455 – 456, 198 – 200, 241 – 242, 250, 267, 271 – 276,
470 n144 281 – 282, 284 – 292, 288 n45, 294 – 298,
Symmetry (see also Harmony; Harmonics; 303 – 305, 332 – 333, 339 – 340, 365 n69,
Proportion) 304 409, 417, 458, 470, 474.
Sungraphē; Syngraphē; Sungraphai; Syn- Unwritten doctrine(s), Plato’s (ágrapha dóg-
graphai 64 n1, 65 – 73 mata; see also Principles, doctrine of)
314, 324 – 325, 327, 331, 335 – 336
Taboo(s) 12 n26, 55, 63, 82, 84 – 86,
84 n39, 93 n83, 97 – 98, 118, 120, 122 – Vacuum – see Void
123, 123 n34, 145 Vegetables; Vegetarianism (see also Beans;
Tetrad 329, 329 n23 Diet; Food; Greens; Regimen) 49 – 50,
Tetractus; Tetractys (Tetraktys) 53 – 54, 55, 117, 120 – 22, 126, 137, 146
53 n31, 94, 113, 126, 179 n1, 182 – 183, Void (kenón) 292 – 293, 363, 365, 365 n69,
294 n56 365 – 366 n70, 440, 448 n47, 474 – 475,
Theorem, Pythagoras’ (Pythagorean) 47, 468, 475, 477
47 n1, 50, 210, 219, 237, 240, 247, 452,
472 Wine 85, 137
Theos; to theion – see God(s) Wisdom 3, 8 n16, 15 n32, 34 – 35, 50, 64,
Time 106, 110, 113, 132, 145, 164 – 165, 81 – 82, 84, 87 – 91, 91 n74, 93, 97 – 98,
165 n47, 182, 260, 304, 311, 365, 365 – 97 n99 and n100, 108, 111, 128, 143,
366 n70, 388, 425, 429, 439 – 440 n16, 156 – 158, 253, 259, 265, 287, 298,
440 – 441, 441 n20, 451, 460 – 461 n100, 299 n69, 300 n71, 301, 304, 308, 315,
471 321, 327, 329 – 330, 346, 401 n48, 411 –
Transmigration (metempsýchōsis; see also Af- 412, 414
terlife; Death; Immortality; Religion) 6, Women 108, 130, 171, 245 – 246, 253
13 n29, 26, 33, 55, 86, 86, 117, 122, 124, World(s) 28 n67, 47 – 48, 53 – 54, 84, 118,
127 – 133, 136, 144, 147, 161 – 169, 124, 126, 136, 142, 147, 165, 165 n47,
163 n53, 165 n47, 166 n53, 168 n58, 173 – 173 n78, 182, 185, 219, 233, 239, 242,
176, 238, 243 – 249, 251 – 252, 254, 264, 244, 257 – 261, 266 – 267, 271, 275 n14,
279, 366, 407, 424 – 425, 424 n2 275 – 276 n15, 279, 287 – 288, 288 n45,
Triangle(s) 47, 52, 55, 179 n1, 180 n4, 182, 293 – 295, 299, 311, 314, 333, 339, 355,
212, 219, 223 – 224, 267, 476 365, 375 – 376, 378 – 379, 387, 390,
395 n34, 396, 398 – 399, 399 n43, 425 –
Underworld (see also Hades; Nether world) 427, 431, 440, 457, 462 n105
142, 154 – 155, 159, 165, 251 – 253, 412 World-order – see Cosmos
Unfinished (see Apeiron; Infinite; Unlimi-
ted) 350 – 351, 356, 356 n40, 365, Zeno’s criticisms; Zeno’s paradoxes 15 – 16,
365 – 366 n70 23, 23 n52, 23 n54 and n55, 319, 354,
Unit, Unity (see also Dualism; Dyad; Monad; 355 n38, 428, 431, 441, 443 – 444, 449 –
Monism; One; Oneness; Pair) 14, 17, 450, 457 – 458, 466, 469
21, 23, 65, 70, 80, 183 n14, 23 – 33, 242, Zenonism; Zenonists 443 n28, 461 – 465,
275, 277 – 279, 281 – 285, 288, 291 – 461 n102, 467 n133, 468 – 470, 476
292, 296 – 297, 305, 337, 356, 362, 365, Zero 219, 293, 440
Index locorum
Acusilaus (DK 9) 829.12 362

A3 73 832.7 362
A4 73 Alexander Polyhistor
Aelian FGrHist 273 F 93 447, 475
Varia Historia Alexis
4.17 80, 82 fr. 27 Kassel-Austin 122
8.6 118 fr. 223.1 ff, Kassel-Austin 121
Aeschines Ammonius
3.137 119 Commentary on Porphyry’s Introduction
Aëtius 2.22 – 3.7 411
Placita 9.7 – 23 414
1.3 378 Anaxagoras (59 Diels Kranz)
1.3.8 327 A107 341
1.3.19 449 Androtion
1.7.18 327 324F 54a 118
2.1 – 31 378 Anonymous Geoponica
2.1.1 259 2.35.8 123
2.13.15 126, 158 Anonymous Commentary on Plato’s
3.10 378 Theaetetus
4.2 – 16 378 68.1 – 7 391
4.2.1 329 Anonymous Prolegomena to Plato’s
4.2.3 – 4 329 Philosophy
5.3 – 5 378 8.18 – 23 406
5.15 – 18 378 Anonymus Photii
5.19 – 21 378 237.17 f. Thesleff 327
5.23 378 238.8 ff. Thesleff 327
Alcmaeon (DK 14) Antiphanes
A13 10 fr. 133.1 f. Kassel-Austin 121
A16 10 fr. 178 Kassel-Austin 120
14,5 346 Apollodorus (of Cyzicus?)
14,7 348, 349 FGrHist 1095 F 1c 50
14.8 66 Pseudo Apollonius
14.8a 66 Mirabilia
14.21 259 3 167
Alexander 6 348
On Aristotle’s Metaphysics Apuleius
38.8 ff. 333 Apologia
38,10 353, 364 56 123
39 53 Archytas (DK 47)
40.11 f. 337 A7a 260
40.20 f. 338 A9a 254
41.15 338 A16 267
55.20 – 27 336 A16 – 19 329
58.31 – 59.8 399 A22 449
500 Index locorum
A24 267 405a29 332

B1 239, 257, 364 405a29 ff. 425
B2 330, 338 405b2 332
B 3 56, 324 407b20 ff. 424
B3.6 – 8 299 407b21 133
Pseudo Archytas 407b27 – 31 297
De Educatione Ethica 409a 447
43.14 389 409a6 442
De Principiis 410b27 133
19 Thesleff 327 De Bono
19.5 – 7 Thesleff 387 fr. 2 Ross (= fr. 28 + Rose, 87 – 88 + 92 –
19.16 Thesleff 387 93 Gigon) 332, 334, 336
19.16 – 17 Thesleff 387 De Caelo
19.18 Thesleff 387 268a10 363
19.21 Thesleff 387 268a11 334
19.25 – 27 Thesleff 387 279a5 – 15 366
Pseudo Aristaeus 279b12 388
Peri Harmonias 284b6 332, 366
52.21 – 53.2 Thesleff 399 284b27 371
Aristides Quintilianus 285a10 332, 366
De Musica 285b16 366
3.2 125 285b24 332
Aristophanes 290b12 364
Frogs 290b12 – 29 48
1030 – 32 145 290b12 – 291a9 332
1032 120, 169 291a7 – 9 48
Aristophron 293a19 332
fr. 12 Kassel-Austin 121 293a20 371
Aristotle 293b21 294
Analytica Posteriora 293b32 266
73b18 337 299a6 ff. 267
87a31 442 300a14 355
87a36 447 300a14 f. 334
88a33 442, 447 303a8 455
89b31 335 De Generatione Animalium
Analytica Priora 752b25 332
41a24 f. 338 De Generatione et Corruptione
50a37 f. 338 I, text. 7 469
Categoriae 2.9 395, 398
15a29 – 33 340 325a23 444
De Anima 325b24 266
404a15 432 De Philosophia
404a16 366 fr. 7 Rose = fr. 7 Ross = 26 + 27
404a16 ff 424 Gigon) 118, 157
404a17 f. 332 fr. 25 Ross = fr. 27 Rose = 908 Gigon)
404b18 313 339
404b19 – 24 329
Index locorum 501
De Poetis 1.6 399

fr. 75 Rose = fr. 7 Ross = 21.1 Gigon 12 395
332 12.4 – 5 395
De Pythagoreis 983b18 – 27 182
fr. 157 ff. Gigon = fr. 4 – 7 Ross, 194 – 197 984a4 332
Rose 50 984a7 332
fr. 190 – 205 Rose = fr. 1 – 17 Ross = 985b23 23, 371, 354, 437
fr. 155 – 179 Gigon 78 985b23 f. 336
fr. 191 Rose = fr. 1 Ross, 171,1 Gigon 985b23 ff. 25
94 985b23 – 26 447
fr. 191a Rose = fr. 1 Ross, 173 Gigon 985b23 – 986a12 363
165 985b23 – 986a21 332
fr. 191c Rose = fr. 1 Ross, 174 Gigon 985b26 337
167 985b27 – 31 182
fr. 192 Rose = fr. 2 Ross, 156 Gigon 54 985b33 – 986a3 333, 435
fr. 194 Rose = fr. 4 Ross, 158 & 177 986a1 337
Gigon 50, 82 986a1 – 3 447
fr. 195 Rose = fr. 5 Ross, 157 Gigon 81, 986a2 47, 258, 260, 262, 295
82, 96, 375 986a8 f. 53, 340
fr. 196 Rose = fr. 6 Ross, 159 & 174 986a8 – 12 183
Gigon 80, 94, 96 986a10 294
fr. 199 Rose = fr. 9 Ross, 165 Gigon 986a12 26, 354
338 986a15 348, 354, 358
fr. 200 Rose = fr. 10 Ross, 164 Gigon 986a16 295
142, 342 986a17 334
fr. 203 Rose = fr. 13 Ross, 162 Gigon 986a17 – 21 333
48, 53, 333, 334, 337, 338, 340 986a18 295
De Sensu 986a22 – 26 183
439a29 f. 332 986a22-b8 332, 339
445a16 f. 332 986a27-b3 332
Ethica Eudemia 986a29 348
1215a5 81 986b15 – 21 333
1225a30 332 986b18 – 19 431
Ethica Nicomachea 986b21 ff. 430
1096b5 350 986b23 – 986a13 333
1096b5 – 8 334, 341 987a9 351
1096b6 – 7 340 987a15 – 19 242
1099a27 81 987a19 f. 334
1106b30 340 987a27 199
1132b21 353 987a29 29
1106b29 350 987a29-b7 314
Historia Animalium 987a29 – 31 240
492a14 332 987a30 406
581a16 332 987a31 334
Metaphysics 987a32-b9 241
1 314 987b10 334, 358
1.6 398 987b11 ff. 51
502 Index locorum
987b18 – 33 277, 289, 295 1080b18 – 20 447, 476

987b20 – 31 241 1080b19 454
987b22 334, 355 1080b30 334
987b25 – 32 241 1080b32 – 33 447
987b27 266 1080b37 ff. 325
987b27 ff. 29 1081a23 329
987b28 295 1081b15 – 22 329
987b29 334 1082b17 – 18 447
989b21 – 29 278 1083b 447
989b27 ff. 25 1083b8 ff. 26
989b29 27, 355, 359, 371 1083b8 – 15 334
989b33 – 34 266 1083b11 295
990a 25 1083b11 – 16 443
990a3 – 5 53 1083b15 454
990a8 – 9 242 1083b19 355
990a30 – 34 334 1084a23 329
990a33-b1 241 1084a35 341
992a31 336 1084b25 442
996a4 f. 25 1085a31-b4 447
996a6 334 1087b4 341
1001a9 334 1085b5 341
1002a4 – 8 337 1087b25 341
1002a11 334 1090a20 355
1004b9 337 1090a20 – 35 334
1004b27 ff. 341 1090a30 26
1016b18 337 1090a31 355
1016b24 442 1090a32 – 34 447, 476
1016b24 – 26 447 1090b16 – 21 447
1017b6 – 21 337 1090b21 – 23 447
1019a1 – 4 337 1090b23 329
1028b16 – 19 334 1091a12 f. 334
1028b24 – 27 447 1091a15 431
1036b15 334 1092a35 341
1043a14 – 26 449 1092b10 332
1043a21 332 1092b10 ff. 455
1053b10 334 1092b12 180
1069a12 447 1092b26 358, 361
1070b22 – 24 396 1093b11 ff. 341
1072b30 341, 334 1093b12 – 14 340
1076a20 – 21 447 Meteorologica
1078b21 353 342b29 332
1078b30 334 342b30 371
1080a15 f. 325 345a13 332
1080b 447 345a14 371
1080b15 334 Magna Moralia
1080b16 354 1182a11 334, 353
1080b16 – 21 435
Index locorum 503
Physica Asclepius
6.9 466 Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics
188a19 348 44.11 – 12 406
189a1 ff. 341 Commentary on Nicomachus’ Introductio
201b16 ff. 341 Arithmetica
201b21 ff. 341 1.19 409
202b36 356 Athenaeus
203a1 356 Deipnosophistae
203a3 332 65 f. (2.72.2) 123
203a3 f. 334 10.77 79
203a3 – 16 339 4.157c 172
203b 275 Augustine
204a32 332 Contra Pelagium
213b 447 4 (15).78 135
213b22 332, 365
213b23 – 27 293, 475 Boethius
220a27 337 Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories
227b27 – 35 447 1 409
231a-b 447 De Consolatione Philosophiae
233a21 466 1.4 412
237a 447 De Institutione Arithmetica
239b33 457 2.45 409
263 466 De Musica
Politica 2.2 412
1290b40 27 Brontinus (DK 7)
1340b26 332 A2 162
Protrepticus Pseudo Brontinus
fr. 18 Düring 330 De Intellectu
fr. 19 Düring 330 fr. 2, p.57 Thesleff 327
fr. 44 Düring 330
fr. 60 Rose = fr. 10b Ross = 73 + 823 Pseudo Callicratidas
Gigon 135 fr. 1, p.103.1 Thesleff 327
Rhetorica Callimachus
1398b16 346 fr. 191.62 Pfeiffer 121
1412a12 332 fr. 191.59 Pfeiffer 166
1419b3 319 Censorinus
Sophist De Die Natali
fr. 65 Rose (= fr. 1 Ross, 39 Gigon) 357 4.3 399
Topica Chrysippus
108a-b 447 fr. 1103 140
108b25 337 Cicero
123a12 337 De Natura Deorum
141b5 337 1.38.107 118, 157
Aristoxenus 1.107 125
fr. 14 Wehrli 437 Tusculanae Disputationes
fr. 17 Wehrli 56 1.16.38 127, 162
fr. 23 335, 337 4.1 – 2 22
504 Index locorum
5.3 157, 330 Derveni Papyrus

Varro col. II 3 119
26 395 col. II 6 119
Clement of Alexandria col. II 9 119
Stromateis col. III 139
1.131 158 col. V 139
1.15.70.1 79 col. VI 139
1.21.131.4 118 Dionysius of Halicarnassus
1.21.131.3 134 58C6 78
1.21.131.3 124 Dicaearchus
1.15.66.2 90 fr. 36 Wehrli 166
3.3.17.1 135 fr. 40 Wehrli 56, 244, 245, 247
3.3.24.1 123 Diogenes of Oenoanda
3.17 170 fr. 40 132
5.8.49 158 Diogenes Laertius
5.8.49.3 127 Lives of the Philosophers
5.9.59.1 86 Prooem. 12 330
Clearchus 1.7 81
fr. 10 Wehrli 166 1.13 17
Critias 1.13 – 14 17
TrGF I 43 F 19 121 1.35 81
1.35 – 36 81
Damascius 1.36 81
De principiis 1.76 68
1.67.15 417 1.77 81
1.72.13 417 1.88 81
2.10.21 417 1.93 81
2.11.23 417 1.118 66, 162
2.24.15 417 1.120 91
2.30.4 417 2.22 167
2.40.8 417 2.103 255
2.40.10 417 3.6 255
Commentary on Plato’s Philebus 3.8.6 – 10 309
6 417 3.9 309, 310, 321
Vita Isidori 3.9.6 – 8 310
26B 412 3.9.10 – 10.5 310
34D 406 3.10 317
37D 407 3.10 – 13 454
David 3.10.7 – 11.3 311
Prolegomena Philosophiae 3.11 317
25 411 3.14 317
25.28 ff. 408 3.14.1 – 14.11 312
26 – 27 411 3.16.1 – 7 315
26.10 – 13 411 3.16.9 – 16 315
45.27 – 46.1 413 3.17.6 316
45.31 – 46.1 411 5.1.22 – 27 313
49.10 417 7.134 395
Index locorum 505
8.2 – 3 90 8.84 170

8.3 20, 245 8.85 264
8.4 142 9.12 167
8.4 – 5 165 9.23 74
8.6 87, 118, 157, 330, 373 Diodorus Siculus
8.9 137, 373 5.28.6 132
8.10 84, 373 8.4 56
8.11 165 10.6.1 131, 166
8.12 47 10.6.2 167
8.14 74. 136
8.17 97 Ecphantus (DK 51)
8.19 82, 124 A1 449
8.21 161 A2 449, 455, 464
8.24 395 A4 455, 464
8.24 – 25 394 Elias
8.24 – 36 79, 391 Commentary on Porphyry’s Introductio
8.25 327, 377, 378, 447, 464 14.30 123
8.25 – 33 371 Pseudo Elias
8.25a 378, 379 Commentary on Porphyry’s Introduction
8.25 – 26 375 9.14 – 45 417
8.25b-26 379 10.13 – 21 411
8.25b-27a 378 10.14 – 15 408
8.26 375, 378, 379, 380 10.16 411
8.26 – 30 378 10.19 – 20 412
8.27 379 11.28 – 29 412
8.27b-28a 378 11.32 407
8.28 377, 379, 380 14.8 412
8.28 – 31 375 17.1 413
8.28b-31 378 18.11 – 13 414
8.29 375, 379 22.20 – 21 410
8.30 375, 380 Empedocles (DK 31)
8.30 – 33 378 B6 126
8.30a 379 B109 253
8.30b-32 379 B117 168
8.31 138 B128 122
8.31 – 33 378 B129 129
8.32 139, 140, 380 B129.1 – 3 92
8.32 – 33 379 B136 122
8.33 81, 123, 245, 375 B137 122
8.34 82 B139 122
8.35 81, 82, 96 fr. 7 Wright 126
8.36 162, 375 fr. 118 Wright 122
8.41 161 fr. 120 Wright 122
8.42 158 fr. 122 Wright 122
8.45 379 fr. 124 Wright 122
8.46 249
8.57 357
506 Index locorum
Ennius 15.37.6 29
Annales
15 168 Galen
Epicharmus (DK 23) Historia Philosophus
B1.e2 311 56 126, 158
B2 454 Pseudo Galen
B3 312 Historia Philosophica
B4 315 21 395
B5 315 Golden Verses
B6 316 27 ff. 57
10.11 317 30 f. 57
11.7 – 13 317 39 57
Epiphanius of Constntinople 42 57
Adversus Haereseis. Gregory of Nazianzus
43.11 Kroll 129 Carmina arcana
Euclid 7.22 – 25 134
Elements 7.32 – 40 134
1 def. 1 455 Orationes
7 def. 2 183, 279 27.10 123
7 def. 8 – 11 338
7.2 195 Herodotus
7.17 195 Histories
7.33 195 2.53 145
9.25 – 27 338 2.81 118, 123, 130, 169
10. appendix 27 338 2.123 162
Eudemus 2.123.1 129
fr. 60 3.60 51
fr. 141 325 4.5 278
Eudoxus 4.93 – 96 161
fr. 325 Lasserre 50 Heraclides of Pontus
Euripides fr. 3 Wehrli 326
Alcestis fr. 41 Wehrli 123
357 – 62 154 fr. 44 Wehrli 330
962 – 70 154 fr. 89 Wehrli 131, 142
Cretes fr. 113c Wehrli 126
fr. 472.16 Kannicht 123 Heraclitus (DK 22)
Cyclops B40 9
646 – 49 154 B1 91
Hippolytus B2 91
948 – 957 145 B3 68
952 f. 120 B6 68
952 – 57 154, 169 B35 91
Fragments B40 38, 66, 71, 75, 91, 104, 157, 278
fr. 472 Kannicht 120 B50 91
Eusebius B57 91
Praeparatio Evangelica
15.30.8 126
Index locorum 507
B129 9, 38, 52, 54, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69, Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus
71, 73, 74, 75, 87, 90, 91, 93, 97, 111, fr. 74 Dillon 143
245 De Communi Mathematica Scientia
fr. 142 Mouraviev 68 25 278
Hermippus 76.17 – 77.2 83
fr. 23 Wehrli 142 De Vita Pythagorica
Hesychius 1 3
βύστραι 120 12 246
Hieronymus 13 – 19 90
Apologiae contra Rufinum 14 245
3.39 79 15 106
Adversus Iovianum 18 245, 246
2.14 120 25 106
Hippasus (DK 18) 37 – 57 10
A12 – 15 329 46 – 49 57
Hippolytus of Rome 60 160
Refutatio Omnium Heresium 60 – 62 160
1.2.2 327 61 160
1.2.18 90 62 144, 160
1.3.3 166, 167 63 166
1.15 449 65 f. 48
2.6 327 66 412
4.34.4 327 68 407
4.44.3 327 71 f. 52
4.51.1 – 5 327 72 407
5.13.6 327 77.27 135
6.23.1 – 2 327 80 12
6.27.5 96 81 83
6.52.2 327 82 80, 81, 83, 85, 94
Homer 82 – 86 80, 82
Iliad 83 81
16.806 – 15 166 83 – 85 82
16.849 – 50 166 84 82
17.51 – 60 166 85 82, 245
22.157 276 86 82, 381
Odyssey 87 83, 98
2.406 276 89.23 – 90 – 11 412
193 276 91 246
Horace 106.19 410
Ars Poetica 110 – 11 159
391 f. 120 114 159
134 164
Iamblichus 135 55, 246
Commentary on Nicomachus’ Introductio 140 55, 94, 165
Arithmetica 142 160
118.23 194 145 79
122.26 – 27 184 146 143, 158
508 Index locorum
151 141, 158, 245, 246 Marinus

153 – 56 84 Vita Procli
155 142 15.31 407
162 53 17.25 407
164 141 28.36 407
178 161 Pseudo Metopus
186 79 De virtute
195 407 117.12 – 14 389
225 407 Mnesimachus
238 (fr. XVIII) 125 fr.1 Kassel-Austin 121
248 – 57 10 Moschion
Protrepticus TrGFr I 97 F 6 121
21 104.26 – 126.6 79
21 112.2 79 New Testament
Ibycus Matthew
fr. 331 Page-Davies 74 7.12 423
Ion of Chios (DK 36) 19.19 423
B4.3 – 4 91 Nicomachus
fr. 116 Leurini 118, 128 Introductio Arithmetica
ISOCRATES 1.9 338
Busiris 2.1 411
28 90 2.22.1 184
JOSEPHUS 2.26.2 194
Contra Apionem 2.28.6 184
1.164 84 3.12 411
6.11 – 15 409
Leucippus (DK 67) Numenius
A7 444 fr. 11 – 12 Guthrie, 3 – 4a Des Places 460
Lucian fr. 14 – 16 Guthrie, 52 Des Places 460
Gallus fr. 14.3 – 6 Guthrie, 52.2 – 6 Des Places
4 123 460
Iohannes L. Lydus fr. 15 – 16 Guthrie, 52 Des Places 461
De Mensibus fr. 22 Des Places 327
2.12 125 fr. 25 Guthrie, 16 Des Places 460
fr. 32 Guthrie, 18 Des Places 460
Pseudo Justin Martyr
De Monarchia Olympiodorus
2.5 140 Prolegomena
Macrobius 82.27 409
Saturnalila 13.37 – 14 408
7.16.8 123 Commentary on Plato’s Alcibiades
Somnium Scipionis 2.92 – 93 417
1.14.19 425 Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias
9.8 410
91.1 – 2 410
Index locorum 509
130.23 410 487.2 142

181.17 – 24 407 488 136
236.3 – 12 415 491.3 141
Commentary on Plato’s Phaedo 493 142
1.13 409 507 119, 143
10.6 131 508 144
Orphicorum Fragmenta (numbering as in A. 509 140
Bernabé. 2004 – 2007. Poetae Epici Graeci. 547 I 145
Testimonia et fragmenta, Pars II, 567 120
Orphicorum et Orphicis similium testimona 582 123
et fragmenta. Fasc. 1 – 2. München and 625 120, 145
Leipzig: K.G. Saur; Fasc. 3. Berlin and New 626 120
York, De Gruyter.) 627 120, 145
1 I y IV 125 628 123
30 I 126 629 120
111 III 129 631 120
116 126 635 122
155 126 637 – 40 122
155 I 126 641 121
157 126 641 – 44 121
249 T 158 644 121
249a T 158 645 I 123
250 T 158, 159 646 123
318 Π 122 646 II 123
339 133 647 123
403 – 05 124 648 123
407 I 127 650 123, 130
417 124 651 123
418 – 20 124 677 II 143
421 133, 134 677 IX 143
422 133 697 125
424 130 700 I 125
425 132 701 125
426 132 705 = 317 Kern 53
428 131 797 142
428 II 131 889 125
431 II 137 1028 118
434 III 145 1108 II 129
448 138 1108 III 129
472.2 142 fr. 1 118
474.1 141 Orphic Hymns
475 142 77.9 f. 141
475.1 141 Ovid
475.4 142 Metamorphoses
476.12 141 15.156 ff. 132
477.1 142 15.163 f. 167
485.6 137
510 Index locorum
Oxyrhyncus Papyri B17.7 – 8 260

POxy 3710 68 B21 425, 426, 427
Pseudo Philolaus
Parmenides (DK 28) De anima
B8 431 150.12 – 20 399
B8.6 431 Philostratus
B17 341 VA 6.11 121, 123
Persius Ioannes Philoponus
Satires Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima
6.11 168 116.30 – 117.24 410
Pherecydes of Syus 117.5 407
fr. 2 Schibli 128 186.24 – 6 118
fr. 7 Schibli 127 Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics
Philo in Phys. 615.21 366
De Numeris in Phys. 391.5 366
fr. 34b 338 Commentary on Nicomachus’ Introductio
fr. 36a 338 Arithmetica
Philolaus (DK 44) 1.33 412
A7a 273, 300, 337 1.1.43 – 49 414
A9 273 1.21.18 – 24 409
A10 273 1.21.24 409
A13 7 Photius
A14 273 Lexicon
A16 273 βύστρα 120
A17 273 Bibliotheca
A18 – 24 273 249 401
A24 194 438b18 – 19 401
A26 273 439a19 – 24 394
A27 – 29 273 Pindar
B1 260, 274 Ol. 1 81
B1 – 3 339 Plato
B1 – 6 273 Apology
B2 260, 273 19b 317
B3 336 Charmides
B4 30, 185, 199, 242, 257, 263, 286, 286, 165e 324
291, 293 165e-166a 324
B4 – 7 273 Cratylus
B5 197, 199, 287, 292, 338 400c 130, 135, 170, 248, 252
B6 260, 262, 272, 275, 286, 298, 329, 402a 253
425, 427 405c 262
B6a 185 – 97, 257, 273, 427 413a 172
B6b 273 Epistles
B7 273 7.335a 1, 131
B13 273, 425, 426 7 339d 26
B14 135, 170 Euthydemus
B16 273 290b 324
B17 260, 273, 341 290c 325
Index locorum 511
Euthyphro Meno
7b ff. 299 81a 130, 171, 245, 253
12c-d 324 81b 247
Gorgias 81d 247
450d-e 324 Parmenides
450d-451c 324 129d1 – 2 428
451a-c 324 129d7-e1 431
451c 324 137b3 428
451c1 – 5 279 137b3 – 4 428
453e 324 141e9 – 10 430
460e 324 143d-144a 338
465b 324 145a5 – 8 334
493a 135, 252 Phaedo
504d 297 61d 240, 248
506d5 297 61d-e 172
506e-507c 261 61e 323
507e ff. 299 61e-62a 248
507e-508a 173, 259, 261 62b 248
507e6 – 508a8 299 69 299
508a 324 69a6-b2 301
525a 248 69c 145
528b 325 70a-b 162
Hipparchus 70c 131
228c-e 90 81d-82a 175
228d 90 88c-d 248
Hippias Major 104a-105b 323
285c-d 256 105a7 341
Hippias Minor 106b5-c5 341
366c-367c 324 108c6 376
367e 324 Phaedrus
Ion 247a ff. 406
531e 324 247c3 406
Laws 248b6 406
641e. 407 248c-d 175
673e 297 266b3-c1 276
717a-b 341 274c 324
780d 297 275d-e 408
782c 120, 145, 169 278d 330
853b 297 Philebus
870d-e 245 15b 286
872d-e 171 15b1-c2 281, 291
875d 297 15b1 – 8 283
946a4 341 15d4 – 8 281
Lysis 16b1 282
214b 253 16b5 – 7 276
216a 261 16b7 282
16c 243, 409, 417
512 Index locorum
16c-d 283 Republic

16c-17a 242 book 1 317
16c5 – 10 273, 274 book 7 256, 257, 258, 287
16c9 – 17a5 274, 283 363c 137
16d-e 242 378a 172
17e3 – 6 287 510c3 341
18c2 282 510c3 – 5 341
23c 409, 417 525c1-d1 279
23c12 282 528b-c 325
23e2 282 530c-531c 323
24a 242 530d 257, 239, 267
25a1 282 531c 239, 257, 267
25b6 282 546b-c 258
26b7-c1 297 583b 253
25d3 282 585b12-c5 302
26d 296 585d1 – 3 302
26d1 282 585d11-e4 303
26e2 282 587a 297
27a12 282 600a-b 239, 274, 323
31a 296 600b 104, 168
31a7 – 10 296 608d 162
32d3 – 6 298 614c3-d1 342
44b 254 617b-c 54
52c1-d1 297 Sophist
54a5 302 238b6 – 8 286
54c6 – 11 296 253d-e 291
58a 325 259e4 – 6 291
59a-d 286 Symposium
61c4 – 8 297 188b 324
64b6 – 8 298 202e 140
64d-e 295 Theaetetus
65a 295 143b 255
Politicus 146b 256
284d4 – 6 279 147d 323, 325
284e 262 148a-b 341
284e2 – 8 280 152d-e 317
284e11 – 285a3 277 161b 255
285a 262, 263 165a1 – 2 323
285a3-b7 277, 290 176a 412
Protagoras 185d1 – 3 341
318e 256, 324 198a6 341
356a8-b5 300 198c1 – 2 280
356d 299 Timaeus
356d4 – 357b3 301 20a 264, 265
356e-357a 324 27d-28a 266
357b-e 301 29e-47e 266
30a 394
Index locorum 513
30c 394 361 A 341

30d 394 364 A 127
32c-33a 267 De Musica
32c5 – 6 460 34 339
34a 394 De Placitis Philosophorum
34c-36d 264 888 f 126
38a 334 Numa
39e 334 3 341
47b 406 8 21
47e 266 Platonicae quaestiones
47e-57c 325 1002 A 394
48b-68d 266 Quaestiones Convivales
48b5-c2 393 8.7.1 21
48e-f 334 635E 123
49b-c 267 718e 300
50c 334 Quaestiones Romanae
53b 394 15 341
53c4-d7 393 Septem sapientium convivium
53d6 – 7 394 Mor. 153CD 81
54c4-d7 393 Mor. 153D 81
58d1 – 4 376 159C 120
91e-92c 175 Fragments
Pliny fr. *202 Sandbach 118, 125
Historia Naturalis Porphyry
NH 7.174 167 Life of Pythagoras
NH 34.26 21 1 31
Plotinus 6 168
Enneads 6 – 8 90
1.3.3.5 – 10 414 15 50
5.1.8 – 9 416 18 66, 163
6.6.1.1 ff. 460 18 – 19 9
6.6.34 476 19 132, 163, 424
Plutarch 23 160
Comparatio Cimonis et Luculli 42 82, 83
1.2 137 20 20
De Animae Procreatione in Timaeo 20 – 21 163
1012D-1013B 388, 390 21 20
1029 f. 53 23 – 24 160
De Defectu Oraculorum 23 – 25 54
415 139 26 164, 166
428E-F 394 30 48
De Esu Carnium 30 – 31 129, 163
996B 122 37 12, 86
De Genio Socratis 38 341
592C-E 167 41 80, 94, 127
De Iside et Osiride 42 96, 97
360D 140 45 166
514 Index locorum
54 20 B28 356
Commentary on Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblon B30 365, 475
30.1 f. 329 B31 366
De abstinentia B35 364
2.36 122 B38 355
Posidonius B40 366
F5 E-K 395 DK I, p.404n2 126
Proclus
Elements of Theology Sappho
prop. 75 416 fr. 27 D. 81
Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides Scholia in Homeri Iliadem
1085.5 f. 337 13.589 123
Commentary on Plato’s Republic Scholia in Homeri Odysseam
II 33.14 142 50 – 63 108
Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus Scholia in Vergilii Aeneada
I 1.13 – 15 415 6.119 124
I 2.1 – 4.5 416 Sextus Empiricus
I 7.19 – 22 265 Adversus Mathematicos
I 428.4 Diehl 126 2.31 121
II 48.15 Diehl 126 7.94 53
III 161.1 Diehl 143 9 469
III 168.9 Diehl 143 10.258 – 84 377
III 172.20 Diehl 126, 127 10.261 – 62 327
Commentary on the first book of Euclid’s 10.281 355
Elements Simplicius
15 ff. 436 Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories
65.7 – 11 183 2.9 – 25 400
66.15 – 17 183 63.22 – 24 391
95.21 – 22 442 134.5 – 7 391
On Plato’s Theology 174.14 – 16 390
1.5 143, 274, 409 205.10 388
1. 5.25 159 407.16 409
3.8 409 Commentary on Aristotle’s De Caelo
7.27 158 386.9 366
Pythagorean School (DK 58) 386.9 f. 342
B4 353, 354, 357, 359, 360, 363 517.22 409
B5 354, 358 564.3 409
B6 350 573.7 409
B8 351 Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics
B9 354 6.31 – 7.1 416
B12 358 7.24 – 26 416
B13 355 21.17 – 19 414
B14 353 108a 449
B15 126 181.7 – 30 392
B17 363 181.10 ff. 327
B22 355, 357 181.10 – 11 387
B27 358, 361 181.10 – 13 390
Index locorum 515
181.14 – 15 387 Syrianus

181.15 – 16 387 Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics
181.23 387 10.2 274
181.25 – 27 387 11.35 129
230.34 f. 327 151.18 – 20 400
245.19 ff. 416 151.19 – 20 396
651.26 366 165.34 – 166.8 400
784.14 409 192.15 ff. 363
Commentary on Epictetus
18 – 19 409 Tertullian
30 – 31 407 De Anima
110 – 111 407 28.4 167
112 410 44 167
205 – 06 410 Themistius
273 – 283 407 Paraphrase of Aristotle’s Physics
Speusippus 80.8 356
fr. 28 337, 340 – 1, 447 Theognis
fr. 30 337 1.255 – 56 81
fr. 34 337 Theon of Smyrna
fr. 37 337 Expositio Rerum Mathematicarum ad
fr. 42 341 legendum Platonem Utilium
fr. 47 341 22.5 f. 338
Stobaeus 25.19 f. 338
Eclogae 99.16 53
1 pr. 10 356 Theologoumena Arithmeticae
1.16 464 1.10 f. 337
1.18.1c 365 23 – 29,5 353
1.24.1 126 25.17 426
1.27.7d 272 48.6 125
1.204.21 126 52.8 – 9 79
3.21.13 81 78.6 125
3.41.9 118, 125 Theophrastus
3.151 125 Metaphysica
Strabo 6a19 ff. 455
14.1.16 90 11a27-b7 327
15.716 168 33 p.XI a 27 Usener 353
Suda Pseudo Timaeus
Ἀναξίμανδρος 78 205.11 387
Ἤδη 161 206.4 387
Ξενοφάνης 162 206.11 – 12 387
Ὀρφεύς 124, 125, 134 206.12 387
Πρόκλος 143 Timon of Phlious
Συριανός 143 SHell. 831 118
Φερεκύδης 128
IV 713 162 Vettius Valens
317.19 132, 133
516 Index locorum
Xenocrates B26 430

fr. 23 337 B25 430
fr. 213 341
fr. 225 140 Zeno of Elea (DK 29)
Xenophanes (DK 21) A10 357
B7 9, 54, 128, 162 A28 457
B23 430
Index nominum
Abaris 35 n88, 40, 164, 246, 326 Anaximander the Younger 78, 83, 86,
Abu al-Hasan Al-Sahari 449 380 n37
Acusilaos 67, 73 Anaximander 7, 17 n34, 52, 67, 70, 99, 101,
Adam, J. 253, 269 260 – 261, 275, 376, 449 n52
Adamantius, O. 459 Anaximenes 17 n34, 52, 67 – 68, 99, 182,
Adams, H.P. 461 n102 267, 427
Adamson, P. 403 Anderton, R. 441 n19
Adluri, V. 149 Androcydes 79, 83, 99, 409
Aeschylus 115, 251 Andronicus 391 n20, 403
Aethalides 141, 164 – 166, 168 Androtion 118
Aëtius 329 n27, 378 – 379, 449 Anigraeus, N. 459
Agassi, J. 437 n10, 441, 478 Annas, J. 244 n2, 269
Aglaophamus 119, 143, 149, 150, 158 – 159, Anthemius of Tralles 209
176 Antiochus 395, 403
Aguilar, R.M. 402 Antiphanes 120 – 121, 145 n133
Albertelli, P. 367 Antiphon 368
Albèri, E. 462 n103 Antisthenes 108 – 109
Alcaeus 68 Apollonius of Perga 209 – 210, 217
Alcimus 310, 312 – 315, 317, 320 – 321 Apollonius of Rhodes 165
Alcmaeon 293, 323, 326, 332 n32, 340 – Apollonius of Tyana 10, 121, 146, 400 n45
341, 346, 348 – 351, 425 – 426, 432 – 433 Apollonius Paradoxographus 348
Aletino, B. 463 Apuleius 123, 170 n67
Alexander of Abunouteichos 400 n45 Arcesilaus 401
Alexander of Aphrodisias 53 n30, 123, 313 – Archedemus 205
314, 333 n36, 353 n26, 354, 362, 364 – Archilochus 68
365 n70, 403 Archimedes 209, 215 n58, 463 n108
Alexander Polyhistor 79, 123, 138 – 139, Archytas 6, 19, 26, 31, 42, 56, 59, 183 n13,
327 nn14 – 16, 343, 371 – 373, 374 n17, 197 n34, 200, 203 – 215, 217 – 218, 220 –
375, 379, 383, 391 n23, 395 n32, 447, 224, 226 – 228, 230 – 231, 237, 239 –
464 n117, 475 n164 240, 253 – 254, 257 – 258, 260 – 261,
Alexis 121 264 – 267, 269, 299, 305, 323 – 325,
Alfieri, V.E. 23 n53, 39 327 nn14 – 15, 329, 332 n32, 343, 345,
Allard, G.-H. 480 354, 363 – 364, 367, 385 – 392, 394,
Alvarez Salas, O. 27 n66, 28 n68, 44, 311 n7, 396 – 400 n46, 401 n51, 402 – 403, 408 –
317 n15, 320 n20, 322 409, 417, 419, 437 n10, 449, 452,
Ameinias 430 455 n74
Ammonius of Alexandria 209, 228 – 229, Aristides Quintilian 125
405 – 406, 410, 411 n33, 414 n44, 418, Aristophanes 85, 120, 145, 317, 318 n17, 321
459 n91 Aristophon 121, 137
Anacharsis 239 Aristotle 6, 11, 14, 19, 22 – 27 n65, 29 nn70,
Anapolitanos, D. 466 n132 72, 31, 36, 40 – 43, 45, 47 – 48, 50 – 51,
Anaxagoras 17 n34, 26, 37 n93, 275 n14, 53 n30, 54, 78 – 82, 85, 94 – 96, 100 –
330, 341 n60, 351, 415 – 416, 442 n22, 101, 118, 133, 135, 142, 147, 157, 180 n4,
448 n47 182, 183 nn9 – 10, 199, 201, 203, 205 –
518 Index nominum
206, 207 n23, 210, 213, 237, 240 – 243, Barrow, J. 436, 437 n8
255, 257, 260, 262 – 264, 266 – 267, 269, Barruel, Abbé de 472 n154
274, 277, 278 n25, 280 n32, 288 – 292, Baumbach, M. 79 n12, 98
293 n53, 294 – 295, 297 n64, 301 n74, Baumgarten, A.G. 479
305, 313 – 315, 318, 319 n18, 321 – 322, Bayle, P. 465 n127, 469 – 470, 476, 478
324, 326 – 328, 329 n24, 330 – 355, Beaugrande, R. de 437 n11
356 n40, 357 – 366, 371 – 372, 375 – 376, Bechtle, G. 9 n18, 39, 86 n49, 87 n51, 98
378, 380 n37, 381 – 383, 388 – 389 n14, Becker, O. 28 n68, 39
391 – 392, 395 – 403, 406, 408 n17, 409 – Beeley, P. 461 n102, 469 n139
412, 415 – 416, 424 – 425, 429 – 431, 435, Behboud, A. 474 n158
437, 442 n21, 443 – 446, 447 n45, Bekker, I. 475 n163
448 nn47 – 48, 449 – 450, 451 n58, 454 – Benedetti (Benedictis), G.B. 463
455 n75, 457, 460 n99, 465 – 466, 469, Benedetto, B.P. 461 n102
474, 475 n162, 476, 479 Benson, H. 237 – 239, 240 n1, 269
Aristoxenus 9, 11, 13, 19 – 20, 21 n47, Beretta, F. 463, 478
37 n92, 45, 74, 78 n6, 203, 205 – 207, Bergin, T.G. 482
220, 249, 255, 270, 274, 315 n13, 322, Bernabé, A. 33, 39, 53 n28, 117, 118 n1,
348 n13, 437 n10 120 nn13, 17, 121 n19, 124 nn40, 43,
Armstrong, A.H. 343 125 n50, 130 nn74, 76, 135 nn97, 99,
Arnauld, A. 467 n134 137 n106, 138 nn111 – 112, 140, 145 n134,
Arriaga, R. de 461, 469 – 470, 478 147 – 149, 171 nn71, 73, 174 n79, 176,
Arthur, R.T.W. 464 n114, 468, 478 252 n5, 269, 305
Asclepiades 465 Bernoulli, D. 456
Asclepius 406, 409 – 410, 418, 447 n45 Bernoulli, J. 456
Aspell, P.J. 449, 480 Berry, G.G. 479
Assmann, A. 101 Bertermann, W. 11, 39
Athanassiadi, P. 406 n2, 418 Bénassy, M. 211 n43
Athenaeus 79, 172 Bialas, V. 48 n4, 58
Athenagoras 472 n152 Bias of Priene 68, 81 n25
Atticus 397 Bierl, A. 59, 343
Auerbach, E. 106 nn9 – 10, 115 Bindel, E. 43
Austin, C. 320, 322 Birkner, H.-J. 44
Averroes 445 Bisterfeld, J.H. 471
Blackwell, C.W.T. 471 n147
Baarda, T. 403 Bluck, R.S. 128 n63, 131 n78, 149
Bacon, F. 444 n34 Boas, G. 29 n72, 39, 443
Bacon, R. 444 n31 Boeckh, A. 3 – 4, 6, 8 n16, 39
Badaloni, N. 482 Boehm, F. 77 n2, 84 n38, 94 n84, 96 – 98
Baltes, M. 386, 387 n7, 388, 395 n31, Boethius 405, 409 – 410, 412, 417 – 418
400 n45, 401 – 402 Bohr, N. 437 n10
Baltussen, H. 403 Bonazzi, M. 59, 371 n4, 382, 385, 386 n5,
Banû Mûsâ 213 388 n10, 389, 391 n21, 393 n24, 397 n39,
Barbanti, M. 343 401 – 402, 417 n59, 419
Barker, A. 179 n2, 186 n19, 187 n21, 190 n24, Booth, N.B. 457 n86
196 n32, 200, 338 n54, 339 n56, 342 Borgeaud, P. 149, 176
Barnes, J. 91 n72, 98, 197 n36, 200, 273 n6, Borrelli, A. 463 n109 – 110
305 Borzacchini, L. 437, 441 – 442, 452, 478
Index nominum 519
Boscovich (Bosković, Bošković), R.J. 435, 179 n2, 184 n15, 200, 244 – 245, 253 –
437 – 443, 446, 448 – 452, 455 – 457, 254, 259 – 260, 269, 273 n6, 274 n9,
459 – 462, 465, 467 – 468, 276 n18, 295 n59, 299, 305, 324 n4, 326,
Bosses, B. de 467 n133 327 nn12, 15, 328 – 330, 331 n30,
Bossi, B. 271, 278 n26, 296 n60, 297 n63, 336 n45, 338 n55, 339 nn57 – 58, 340,
300 n71, 301 n74, 305 341 n63, 342, 347 n12, 367, 371 n4,
Bossi, M. 473 n155 372 n6, 374 n17, 376 n25, 377, 381 n41,
Bouchy, F. 48, 58 382, 385 n2, 386, 389, 394 n30,
Boudon, R. 54 n37, 58 401 n49, 402, 436 n7, 452, 454 – 455,
Boudouris, K. 45, 402 478
Boulakia, L. 313 n10, 322 Burley, W. 451 n58
Bourricaud, F. 54 n37, 58 Burnet, J. 12 – 15, 24 nn57 – 58, 26, 40,
Boyancé, P. 51 n17, 56 n50, 58, 131 n78, 149, 84 n39, 99, 232, 276n.18
262, 269, 376 nn25 – 26, 382 Bursill-Hall, P. 474 n159
Boyle, R. 464 n119, 477 Busse, A. 418 – 419
Bradshaw, D. 460 n99 Butler, C. 474, 479
Bradwardine, T. 445, 476, 481 Buxton, R. 149
Brancacci, A. 203 n4, 402, 419
Bremmer, J. 128 n64, 146, 148 – 150, 244, Calame, C. 103 n3, 115
246, 251 – 252, 269 Calcidius 460
Brentano, F. 477 n167 Callicles 173 n78, 253, 259 – 261, 299, 303
Brewster, D. 439 n15 Callimachus 121
Brisson, L. 124 n40, 128 nn64, 67, 129 n73, Calogero, G. 9 n20, 24 n57, 40
131 n78, 143 nn129, 131, 149, 157 n10, Cameron, A. 26 n63, 40
158 n18, 159 n19, 176, 203, 204 n9, Campbell, L. 263, 269
207 n23, 208 nn28, 30, 217 n63, 218 n65, Campe, L. van 328 n19, 343
305, 307 n1, 313 n8, 314, 317, 322, Cantor, G. 457 n84
355 n37, 367 Capparelli, V. 21, 40, 465 n125, 470, 479
Broek, R. van der 403 Carcopino, J. 32, 40
Broglie, L. de 446 Carneades 401
Brontinus 124, 134, 158, 327 nn14 – 15 Carr, D. 462 n105
Brouwer, L. 437 n10 Carrier, F. 48, 58
Brown, A. 457 n80 Carvalho, S. 151
Bruno, G. 444 Casadesús Bordoy, F. 119, 128, 148 – 149,
Burke, J.G. 458 n89, 459, 478 153, 162 n38, 167 n57, 169 n66, 176, 305
Burkert, W. 4, 6 n8, 9 n19, 10, 11 n25, 23, Casadio, G. 120 n13, 128 n64, 130 n74,
26 n62, 28 – 32, 37 – 38, 40 – 41, 43, 131 n78, 137 n106, 140 n116, 148 – 150,
47 nn1 – 2, 48 n3, 50 nn12, 15, 51 n17, 175 n81, 176
52 nn21 – 22, 25 – 26, 53 nn28 – 29, 31, Casado Vasquez, J.M. 439 n15
54 n34, 58, 63, 65, 68, 76, 77 n2, 78, Casanovas, J. 473 n155
79 nn11 – 13, 80 nn17 – 18, 81 nn21 – 22, Casertano, G. 22, 23 n56, 28 n68, 40,
25, 82 nn27 – 28, 83 – 87, 89 n67, 91 n74, 128 n67, 129 n73, 149, 309, 319, 322,
92 nn78 – 79, 94 nn84, 87, 95 n89, 345, 367, 448, 479
96 n93, 97 – 99, 117, 124 n43, 125 n45, Casertano, S. 367
128 n67, 130, 135 n99, 143 n131, 146, Casini, P. 22 n49, 40, 436
149, 157 n9, 160 n28, 165 n47, 166 nn49, Cassio, A.C. 44
53, 167 n57, 171 n73, 175 n84, 176, Cassirer, E. 467 n138
520 Index nominum
Cattanei, E. 277 n21, 279, 280 n32, 305 Corssen, P. 40, 79 n12, 99
Cavalieri, B. 462, 463 n108 Coudert, A.P. 471 n149
Cavallini, E. 76 Crantor 388, 390 n17
Cebes 172, 237, 248 – 249. 323 Crathorn, W. 451n.58
Cecrops 124; see also Cercops Cratylus 255, 269, 314
Centrone, B. 4 n2, 18, 22, 28 n68, 40, Creese, D. 49 n9, 58
79 nn12 – 13, 85 n40, 92 n79, 93 n82, 99, Cristofolini, P. 482
347 n11, 373 n10, 374 n17, 379 n35, 382, Critias 121 n19
385 n2, 386, 387 n7, 390 n16, 397 n40, Crocker, R. 337, 437 n10
399 n43, 400 n45, 402 Crubellier, M. 396 n35, 402
Cercops 125, 157, 158 n12; see also Cecrops Cudworth, R. 464
Cerri, G. 73 n10, 75 n12, 76 Cumont, F. 32, 40, 124 n43, 149, 374
Charalabopoulos, N.G. 318 n16, 322 Curd, P. 269
Charondas 239
Chartier, R. 103 n3, 115 D’Alembert, J.-B. le R. 441 n20, 474 n159
Chatton, W. 445 D’Andrea, F. 444, 463
Cherniss, H.F. 16 n33, 23 n54, 24 – 25, D’Anna, N. 49 n8, 58
27 n65, 33, 40, 237, 240, 269, 309, D’Ors Rovira, E. 477 n167
313 n10, 315 n13, 322, 330, 331 n30, D’Ovvilly 451 n60
334 n38, 342, 346, 447 n45 Dadić, Ž. 470, 472, 473 n155, 479
Chiaradonna, R. 388 n11, 389 nn12 – 13, Dalsgaard Larsen, B. 79 n15, 99
397 n38, 399 n42, 402 Damascius 131, 405 – 407, 409, 411 – 412,
Child, J.M. 478 417 – 418, 420
Cholakian, R.C. 451 n60 Dancy, R. 447 n45
Christianidis, J. 455 n77, 481 Dascal, M. 471 n150
Christidis, A. 115 David the Invincible 407 n12, 408 n14, 411,
Christina, Queen of Sweden 459 n90 413 n37, 417 n58, 418
Chrysippus 140 Dehsen, C.D. von 470 n144
Cicero 20, 21 n48, 157, 162, 330, 395 nn32, Delambre, J.-B. 473 n157
34 Delatte, A. 11, 18 – 19, 28, 40, 53 n31, 58,
Cirino, R. 462 nn104 – 05 77 n2, 78, 79 n16, 81 nn22, 25, 90 n70,
Clarke, S. 465 94 n84, 99, 131 n82, 143 n131, 149,
Claus, D. 128 n64, 149 373 nn10, 12, 374 nn14 – 15, 375 n22,
Clearchus 45 376 – 377 n28, 382
Clement of Alexandria 73, 79, 127, 135, 157, Delcomminette, S. 285 n39, 305
170, 171 n73, 172 Democritus 17 n34, 23 n53, 231, 438, 442,
Colombini, G. 463 n107 445 – 446, 457 n86, 463, 465, 471, 482
Combès, J. 418 Derodon, D. 469
Copernicus, N. 436 Descartes, R. 75, 208, 439 n16, 442 n22,
Copleston, F. 443 449, 466, 471, 478 – 479
Cornelli, G. 3, 6 n8, 40, 64 n3, 75 n12, 76, Detienne, M. 31 – 33, 40 – 43, 104, 114 – 115
108 n15, 115, 307 n1 Deubner, L. 11, 42, 83 n30, 418
Cornford, F.M. 14 – 17, 24 n57, 40, 91 n72, Dhanani, A. 450 n54
175 – 176, 350 n22, 355 n38, 367, 428, Dicaearchus 11, 19, 37 n92, 45, 66, 166,
454 – 455, 458 n87 244 – 245, 247
Corrigan, K. 383 Diels, H. 4, 9 – 12, 18, 24 n57, 40 – 41, 77 n1,
Corsano, A. 467 n133 99, 345 n2, 373 – 375, 382, 413 n38, 419,
Index nominum 521
444 n30, 447 n45, 449 nn49 – 51, Elias 407 n12, 410 – 412
454 n70, 455 n76, 457 n85, 464 n117, El-Koussa, K. 56 n44, 58
475 n163 Ellison, J.A. 452, 479
Dieterich, A. 137 n106, 149 Empedocles 8 – 9, 33 n81, 34 n83, 40, 42 –
Dillon, J. 79 n15, 95, 99, 143 n131, 305, 44, 92, 101, 122, 126, 129 – 130, 149 –
324 n4, 327 n13, 329 n26, 342, 393 n25, 150, 163, 168, 175, 205, 244, 253 – 254,
397 n37, 402, 447 n45 260 – 261, 267, 323 n2, 340, 345, 351,
Diocles of Carystos 374 n16, 378 368, 407, 414, 444, 465
Diocles of Magnesia 11 Ennius 168
Diocles 209 – 210 Epicharmus 307 – 313, 315 – 322, 454
Diodorus Cronus 465 Epictetus 407, 410, 415, 419
Diodorus of Aspendus 78, 85, Epicurus 17 n34, 442 n22, 463, 465, 479
Diodorus Siculus 131 Epigenes 124, 127, 147, 157
Diogenes Laertius 11, 17 n34, 20, 47, 65 – Epimenides 7
66, 68, 74, 79, 89 n63, 96, 99, 124 n39, Erasistratus 374 n16, 377
132 n87, 136 – 138, 142 n125, 154, 157, Eratosthenes 209 – 210, 214 – 217, 220 – 221,
161 – 162, 164, 166 – 168, 170 n68, 204 – 224 – 227, 230 – 231
205, 208 n30, 245 – 246, 255, 264, 309 – Erler, M. 39, 98, 203 n3
310, 313 – 317, 320 – 322, 330, 371 – 372, Erskine, A. 148
373 n12, 374 n14, 375 n19, 379, 380 n37, Euclid 181, 183, 195 – 196, 335 n43, 417,
382 – 383, 394 n29, 395 n32, 430, 436 n6, 455 n75, 479, 480
447 n44, 454 n70, 464 n117 Euclides of Megara 255
Diogenes of Apollonia 378 Eudemus 37 n92, 45, 207 – 208, 213 – 214,
Diogenes of Oenoanda 132 221 – 223, 255 – 256
Dion 204, 310 Eudorus of Alexandria 327 n14, 382, 385 –
Dionysius the Elder 170 n68, 204 403
Dionysius the Younger 205, 240 Eudoxus 50, 168, 212, 214 – 216, 218, 220,
Diophantus 455 224, 226 – 230, 325, 463 n108
Dixsaut, M. 203 n4, 269, 305, 314 n11, 322, Eumelos 73
419 Eupalinus 51, 59
Díaz, E.A. 461 n101 Euphorbus 132, 164 – 168
Dobelli, R. 55 n42, 58 Euriphamus 402
Dodds, E.R. 250 – 251, 253, 259 – 260, 269, Euripides 120, 123, 145, 148 – 149, 154 – 155
347 n12, 419, 459 n91 Eurymenes 50
Donaldson, J. 472 n152 Eurytus 249, 255, 294 n57, 323, 332 nn32 –
Donini, P.L. 389, 393 n26, 400 n47, 402 33, 441, 454
Dougherty, C. 115 Eusebius 29 n71, 459
Döring, A.G. 13 n28, 41 Eutocius 203, 207 – 218, 220 – 222, 224
Dörrie, H. 326 n8, 342, 386, 400 n45, 402 Euxitheus 172
Dumont, J.-P. 77 n1, 99
Durán Guardeño, A.J. 479 Faris, J.A. 457 n86
Düring, I. 206 n17, 330 Favorinus 11
Feingold, F. 469 n139
Echecrates 249, 323, 340 Feldman, L.H. 31 n76, 41
Ecphantus 294 n57, 441, 449, 455, 464 n117, Ferber, R. 444, 479
465 Ferguson, K. 48 n3, 58
Eddington, E.A. 446 n37 Fernandes, E. 435
522 Index nominum
Ferrari, G.R.F. 240 n1, 269 Geminus 214

Ferrero, L. 21 n46, 22, 41 Gentili, B. 103 n1, 115
Festugière, A.-J. 32 – 33, 41, 127 n57, Gerard of Cremona 208
128 n64, 150, 327 nn15 – 16, 343, Gerard of Odo 451
373 n10, 374, 376 – 379, 383 Gerbier, G. 451 n60
Ficino, M. 423 – 433 Gerhardt, C.I. 466 nn133 – 134, 480
Field, J.V. 436 n5 Gerson, L.P. 401 n50, 403
Filoramo, G. 59, 100 Giangiulio, M. 52 n20, 58, 77 n1, 82 n29,
Fisch, M.H. 482 85 n40, 92 n79, 99, 115
Forbes, P.B.R. 79 n12, 99 Giardina, G. 419
Fortenbaugh, W.W. 214 n53, 447 n45 Gigante, M. 133 n92, 150
Francisco de Oviedo 461, 469 Gigon, O. 78 n8, 99, 475 n163
Frank, E. 11, 26, 27 nn65 – 66, 28, 41, Giombini, S. 479
135 n99, 171 n73, 326, 343, 347 nn10, 12, Giorgilli, A. 474 n159
367, 477 Giovanni, P. Di 43
Frede, D. 269, 273 n8, 281 n34, 336 n43, Giustiniani, A. 450
343 Glaucus 215, 224 – 225
Frede, M. 401 n48, 402 Glucker, J. 401 n48, 403
Freudenthal, J. 373 n12, 383 Goffman, E. 103 n2, 115
Friedländer, F. 449 n53 Golitsis, P. 415 n52, 461 n57, 419
Friedlein, G. 418, 436 n6, 442 n21 Gomperz, T. 24 n57, 41, 443, 479
Fritz, K. von 11, 19 – 20, 28 n68, 29 n69, González Urbaneja, P.M. 452, 479
30 n74, 41, 44, 83 n30, 97 n100, 99, 344, Gorgias 319
382 – 383, 400 n44, 402 – 404 Gorman, M.J. 461 n101
Fuentes González, P.P. 215 nn57, 59, 61 Gosling, J.C.B. 243, 269
Furley, D.J. 442, 444, 457 nn83, 86, 479 Gostoli, A. 74 n12, 76
Gottschalk, H.B. 330, 331 n30, 343
Gagné, R. 134, 150 Goulding, R. 451 n59, 452 n62
Gaiser, K. 37 n92, 41 Goulet, R. 99, 206 n17, 209 n34, 402
Galileo 295, 437 n10, 438, 462, 463 n108, Goulet-Cazé, M.O. 208 n28, 313 n8, 322
478 – 479 Graeser, A. 39
Gallo, I. 148 – 150 Graf, F. 58, 128 n67, 143 n131, 149 – 150,
Garber, D. 466 n132 382, 402
Garcia Lopez, J. 402 Graham, D.W. 9 n18, 42, 104 n5, 115,
García Perez, D. 317 n15, 322, 126 n52, 129 n70, 269, 272 n4, 273 n8,
Gare, A. 436 – 437, 479 305, 457 n86
Gassendi, P. 442 n22, 466, 477 Granger, H. 90 nn68 – 69, 91 nn72, 74,
Gatti, H. 444 92 n77, 93 n82, 94 n84, 99
Gatti, M.L. 44, 59 Grant, E. 480
Gavray, M.A. 400 n46, 403 Graziosi, B. 114 – 115
Gaye, R.K. 475 n162 Gregory of Nazianzus 133, 136, 150
Gell-Mann, M. 439 Grellard, C. 445 n36, 451 n58, 457, 479
Gemelli, B. 444 n34 Grewe, K. 51 n19, 58
Gemelli Marciano, M.L. 23 n53, 33 n81, 34, Grimaldi, A.A. 465 nn124 – 126
35 n90, 39 n97, 41, 64 n2, 67, 76, 77 n1, Grosseteste, R. 444 – 445
87 n51, 88 n61, 89 n66, 90 nn68 – 69, Guareschi, I. 458 n89
91 nn74, 76, 92 n79, 93 n83, 99 Guglielmini, D. 458 n89
Index nominum 523
Guicciardini, N. 465, 479 115, 156 – 157, 159 – 160, 182, 241, 245,
Gustavo Bueno, G. 461 n102 250, 252 – 254, 269, 278 n24, 309, 314,
Guthrie, K.S. 459 nn91 – 93, 460 nn94, 98 – 383, 427
100 Hermias 209
Guthrie, W.K.C. 14, 16 – 17, 18 n38, 42, Hermippus 84, 142 n125, 170 n68
91 n74, 94 n84, 99, 128 n63, 131 n78, Hermocrates 265
150, 174 n80, 175 n83, 176, 237 – 238, Hermodorus 68 – 69, 167, 326, 459 n92
269, 338 n52, 339, 343, 385, 403, Hermogenes 255
448 n47, 457 n86, 459 – 460 Hermotimus 165, 167
Hero of Alexandria 209 – 210
Haas, F. de 455 n74 Herodotus 68, 88 n55, 118, 123, 129 – 130,
Haase, R. 49 n9, 58 145, 151 m 160 – 162, 169, 176, 278
Hackforth, R. 243, 269, 274 n9, 281 n34 Herrero de Jáuregui, M. 134 n95, 150
Haden, J. 467 n138 Hershbell, J. 95
Hadot, I. 410 n29, 419 Herzog, R. 81 n26, 99
Hadot, P. 35 n86, 42, 393 n26, 403 Hesiod 31, 40 – 41, 43, 45, 68 – 69, 71 – 73,
Halfwassen, J. 390 n18, 403 115, 137, 145 n138, 148, 157, 159, 161,
Hall, A.R. 464, 479 204
Hammond, W.A. 448 n48 Hicks, R.D. 118 n5, 136 n101, 138 n109,
Harburger, W. 436 n5 139 n113, 310 n6, 322, 380 n37, 447 n44
Harder, R. 374 n15, 399 n43, 403 Hierocles 410, 415
Hardie, R.P. 475 n162 Hieronymus 120
Harré, R. 436 n3 Hill, E. 459, 472, 479
Haussleiter, J. 122, 150 Hindemith, P. 49
Havlicek, A. 305 Hipparchus 67, 90 n69
Hayduck, M. 418 – 419 Hippasus 41, 256, 293 – 294, 323, 329,
Heath, T.L. 181 n6, 183 nn12, 14, 200, 207, 332 n32, 347 n12
210 nn36 – 37, 338 n55, 339 n58, 343 Hippias 247, 256
Hecataeus 67 – 68, 71, 90 n69, 157 Hippocrates of Chios 28 – 29, 183 n12, 211,
Hegel, G.W.F. 25, 60, 479 215 – 217, 225, 254, 256
Heiberg, J. 419 Hippolytus of Rome 79, 327 n15, 343
Heidel, W.A. 339 n58, 343 Hippon 293, 323, 332 n32
Heilbron, J.L. 440 n17 Hoche, R. 418
Heimann, P.M. 441 n20 Hoehn, A. 47 n1, 59
Heinze, R. 459 n92 Hoffmann, P. 400 n46, 403
Helicon of Cyzicus 229 – 230 Holden, T.A. 439 n15, 440 n18, 465, 477,
Helmig, C. 402, 413 n40, 419 479
Helmont, F.M. van 471 Homer 31, 40 – 41, 43, 45, 68 – 69, 72 – 73,
Heninger, S.K. Jr. 48 n3, 59, 472 n152 103 – 110, 114, 137 n106, 145 n138, 159,
Henry, J. 450 n57 161, 165 – 166, 239, 251, 253 – 254, 276,
Henry of Harclay 445 349 n19, 362
Henry, P. 414 n43, 419, Hooke, R. 474 n160
Heraclides Ponticus 11, 37 n92, 40, 45, 126, Hornblower, S. 99
131, 141, 164, 166 – 167, 326 – 327, 330 – Horneffer, E. 99
331, 343, 465 Hölk, C. 79 nn13, 16, 80 n18, 99
Heraclitus 9, 10 n21, 38, 52 n26, 54, 59, 63 – Høyrup, J. 454 n68
76, 87 – 94, 97, 99 – 100, 104, 111, 113, Huber, M. 47 n1, 59
524 Index nominum
Huffman, C.A. 6 n8, 28 n68, 30, 33 n82, 37, Jammer, M. 449, 450 n55, 479
42, 51 n17, 52 n26, 56 n51, 59, 63, 64 n2, Jiménez San Cristóbal, A. 120 n11, 150
67 – 68, 76, 87 – 89, 90 n70, 91 n74, 92 – John of Lydia see Lydus, J.
93, 100, 111 n17, 115, 135 nn97 – 99, Johnston, P. 148 – 150
171 n73, 176, 179 n1, 183 n13, 194 n31, Joly, R. 81 n26, 100
196 n32, 197 n36, 198 n37, 200, 203 – Joost-Gaugier, C.L. 22 n49, 42, 423, 433,
204, 205 nn14, 16, 206 nn18 – 21, 207 – 472 n153
208, 210 – 211, 213, 216, 222, 224, 226 – Justin Martyr 472 n152
231, 237, 240, 243 – 245, 249, 250 n4,
252, 254 – 255, 257 – 258, 260 – 261, 267, Kabitz, W. 471 n148
269 – 276, 292 n51, 299 n69, 305, Kahane, A. 103 n3, 115
336 n45, 337 nn46, 50, 338 n57, 339 n58, Kahn, C.H. 17 n35, 42, 47 n2, 48 n4, 50 n11,
342 nn69 – 70, 343, 371 nn2 – 3, 375 n21, 51 n17, 52 nn20, 25, 53 n31, 56 n47, 59,
376 n26, 382 n44, 383, 386 n3, 388 n11, 88 nn54, 61, 92 n79, 100, 115,
389 n15, 396 n36, 399 n43, 400 n45, 157 nn7 – 8, 179 n1, 200, 205 n16, 243 –
403, 409 nn18 – 21, 23, 25, 417 n59, 419, 244, 249, 254, 259, 264, 269, 273 n6,
425 n4, 433 274 n9, 275, 278 n24, 279, 282, 284,
Humperdinck, E. 48 288, 291 – 292, 299, 305, 347 n12,
Husserl, E. 462 n105 349 n18, 367, 375 n18, 382 n43, 383
Hutcheon, L. 112 n18, 115 Kahrstedt, U. 18, 42
Hutton, C. 473 n157 Kalbfleisch, C. 419
Hüffmeier, A. 77 nn1 – 2, 82 n29, 83 n33, Kant, I. 467 – 468, 470 n144, 477, 479, 481
86 n50, 100 Karamanolis, G. 397 nn37 – 38, 402 – 403
Hypatia 451 n59, 452 n62 Kassel, R. 320, 322
Kayser, H. 48 – 49, 59
Iamblichus 3 – 4, 10 – 11, 12 n26, 20, 39, 42, Kazazis, J.N. 106 n7, 115
44, 57, 79 – 80, 82 n29, 85, 96, 99, 100, Kelvin, Lord 473 n157
106 n8, 141 – 143, 149, 154, 158 – 159, Kendall, B. 411 n32, 418
161, 166, 176, 179 n1, 184 nn15 – 16, Kenyon, R.E. Jr. 457 n83
205 – 207, 245 – 246, 255, 265, 278 n24, Kepler, J. 48, 58, 60, 436, 440, 463 nn5,
336 n45, 337 n50, 344, 347, 349 n18, 108
381, 400 n46, 403, 405 – 406, 407 n8, Kerényi, K. 166, 176
408 – 413, 415 – 418, 420, 423 – 424, Kerferd, G. 31 n77, 42
426 – 427, 430 447 n45 Kerkops s.v. Cercops
Ibycus 76 Keydell, R. 124 n43, 150 – 151
Iltis, C. 474n.59 Kienast, H.J. 51 n19, 59
Ion of Chios 9, 91 – 92, 101, 118, 128 – 129, Kingsley, P. 28, 33 – 35, 41 – 44, 124 n40,
157 150, 246, 250, 269, 347 n12, 358 n47,
Irwin, T. 238 359 n53, 367 n73, 368
Isidore 406 – 407, 412, 418 Kirk, G.S. 78 n4, 85 n40, 87 n52, 91 nn72,
Isidorus of Miletus 209 76, 92 n78, 97 n99, 100, 130 n74, 150,
Isnardi Parente, M. 140, 328, 343, 367 n73, 179 n1, 200, 273 n6, 305
459 n92 Knorr, W.R. 207, 209 nn31, 35, 210, 212 n45,
Isocrates 71, 220 213, 215 n58, 217 n62
Körner, C.G. 41
Jacoby, F. 78, 79 n11, 327 n15 Kragh, H. 439 n15
Jaeger, W. 19, 37 n92, 42, 128 n63, 150, 346
Index nominum 525
Kranz, W. 9 – 10, 24 n57, 40 – 41, 99, Long, A.A. 100, 372 n9, 373 n10, 382 n43,
128 n67, 150, 345 n2, 373 – 374, 382, 383
413 n38, 444 n30, 447 n45, 449 nn49 – Long, H.S. 130 n74, 150
51, 454 n70, 455 n76, 457 n85, 464 n117, Lord, A. 107, 108 nn13 – 14, 112, 115
475 n163 Losada, Luis de 461
Kraut, R. 237 – 240, 269 Losee, J. 435 – 436, 480
Krämer, H. 37 n92, 42 Louguet, C. 99
Krische, A.B. 18, 42 López Férez, J.A. 148
Kuri, J. 56 n45, 59 Lucius 397
Kurke, L. 115 Lucretius 457
Kurokawa, S. 479 Luna Alcoba, M. 469 nn139, 142
Kutschera, F. Von 458 Lüthy, C. 444 nn31, n34
Kvasz, L. 452 – 455, 479 Lycurgus 239
Lydus, J. 125, 405, 409
La Rue, J. 436 n5 Lysis 327 n15, 372 n6
Lafrance, Y. 474 n158
Laks, A. 25, 43, 99, 151, 371 Macan, I. 473 n155
Lambardi, N. 124 n43, 150 MacDonnell, J.F. 461 n101
Lasserre, F. 50 n11, 338 n54, 339 n56, 343 Mach, E. 475
Lasso, Orlando di 436 n5 Mackay, A.L. 474, 480
Leclerc, I. 454, 479 Maclaurin, C. 441
Lederman, L. 438 – 439, 480 Macran, H.S. 315 n13, 322
Lee, H.D.P. 23 n54, 43, 457, 480 Macris, C. 55 n41, 59, 90 n68, 91 n74, 100,
Leeuwenhoek, A. 458 n89 307 n1, 399 n43, 400 n46, 402 – 403
Leibniz, G.W. 48, 439, 443 – 444, 450, Macrobius 425
461 n102, 462 n104, 465 – 468, 470 – Maddalena, A. 345 n2, 349 n19, 368
472, 478, 480 – 491 Mahnke, D. 470 n144
Leon 330 Mahoney, M.S. 456 nn78 – 79
Leonardo di Capua 463 Maimonides, M. 449 n53, 450
Lesher, J.H. 91 n72, 100, 128, 150 Malescio, G. 439, 480
Leszl, W. 278 n25, 305, 347 n12, 368 Mann, C. 52 n20, 59
Leucippus 17 n34, 442, 444, 470 Mansfeld, J. 25 n60, 43, 77 n1, 87 n52,
Lévy, C. 59, 419 91 n74, 92, 93 n83, 100, 214 n54,
Lévy, I. 11, 32, 43 327 nn15 – 16, 343, 376 n26, 383, 387 n8,
Linforth, I.M. 128 nn63, 67, 131 n78, 391, 403
137 n106, 143 n131, 150 Mantino, J. 450
Linnemann, M. 49 n10, 59 Maor, E. 47 n1, 59
Lipp, W. 55 n41, 59 Marcacci, F. 479
Lisi, F. 305 Marcović, Z. 439 n15
Lloyd, G.E.R. 204, 240, 269, 323 n1, Marcovich, M. 68, 76, 87 n52, 91 n75, 100
338 n52, 343, 349 n19 Marg, W. 415 n51, 419
Lloyd, J. 41 Marino, A.S. 39, 43, 59, 149, 151, 345 n1
Lobeck, C.A. 125 n50, 128 n64, 137 n106, Marinus 405, 407, 418
143 n131, 150 Martano, G. 349 n16, 368
Locke, J. 471, 477 Martin, A. 34 n83, 43
Lollini, M. 462, 466, 480 Martin, R. 103 n1, 115
Martinelli, C. 458 n89
526 Index nominum
Martinović, I. 474 n159, 475 n166, 478 Mohr, R. 264, 268 – 269
Masi, D. de 111 n16, 115 Molland, G. 444 n31
Mastellone, S. 463 n109 Mondolfo, R. 4 – 7, 21 – 22, 23 n53, 24 n57,
Mathieu, B. 204 n5 45
Matson, W.I. 457 nn84, 86 Montesinos, J. 478
Matteucci, G. 480 Montégu, J.C. 130 n74, 137 n106, 150
Mazzola, R. 465 n127 Montserrat-Molas, J. 305
McCoy, J. 383 Moraux, P. 206 n17, 386, 388 n11, 397 n39,
McGuire, J.E. 441 n20 399 nn41, 43, 400 n45, 403
Mckenzie, A.T. 473 n157 More, H. 444, 464 – 465, 477, 479
McKinnon, E.M. 442, 480 Moreschini, C. 134 n95, 418
McKirahan, R. 179, 307 Morgan, M.L. 35, 43
McLean, G. 449, 480 Morrison, J.S. 130 n74, 150
McVaugh, M.R. 481 Moschus 465
Meier, P.D. 49 Most, G. 151
Meinwald, C.C. 242, 269 Mota, M. 103, 108 n13, 115
Mejer, J. 372 n7, 375 n19, 383 Mouraviev, S.N. 68, 69 n7, 72 n8, 76
Mele, A. 22, 43 Mourelatos, A.P.D. 42, 305, 367
Mellor, J.W. 441, 480 Mueller, I. 337 n50, 343
Menaechmus 209, 212, 215, 217 – 218, 225 – Mueller-Jourdain, P. 407, 419
227, 325 Mugnai, M. 471 n148
Menelaus 164 – 167 Muller, K. 473, 480
Menestor 293, 340 – 341 Murari, F. 14 n31, 43
Meno 130, 149, 171, 210, 219 – 220, 244 – Murdoch, J.E. 444 nn31, 34, 445, 450 – 451,
247, 249, 253, 324 457, 480 – 481
Merlan, P. 327 n16, 343, 377 n30, 383 Musa ibn Shakir 208
Mertens, M. 34 n83, 45 Musaeus 137, 156
Metopus see Pseudo-Metopus Musti, D. 22, 43
Metrodorus 465 Mûsâ , sv. Banû Mûsâ
Meyer, B.F. 58, 149, 176 Müller, W. 220
Meyerson, E. 443 n24
Ménard, J. 480 Nagy, G. 103 n3, 115
Michel, P.H. 453, 478, 480 Naragon, S. 479
Micheli, G. 471 Narbonne, J.-M. 459 n91
Michell, J. 467, 471 Natalicio González, J. 41
Migliori, M. 305 Nazianzus 133, 136, 150
Migne, J.P. 418 Netz, R. 183 n12, 201, 212 n45, 436 n7
Milani, A. 40 Newmann, W.R. 444 nn31, 34
Milhaud, G. 458 n87 Newton, I. 437 n10, 439 n16, 440 – 441,
Miller-Jourdan, P. 407 n12, 419 442 n22, 443 n25, 444, 446, 456, 459,
Mimouni, S.C. 403 461 n102, 465, 467 n134, 471, 475, 477,
Minar, E.L. Jr. 18, 20 – 21, 28, 30, 40 – 41, 479
43, 269, 478 Nicander 228 – 229
Minos 215 – 216, 224 – 226, 250 Nicholas of Autrecourt 451 n58
Mitchell, J. 467 Nicomachus 10, 48 n7, 184 n15, 194 n31,
Mnesarchus 66, 87 – 88, 111, 143, 157 407 – 414, 416 – 419, 426, 447 n45
Mnesimachus 121 Nicomedes 209 – 210
Index nominum 527
Niemeyer, M. 41, 343 Parmenides 8, 15 – 16, 17 n34, 22, 23 nn55 –

Nietzsche, F. 8 – 9, 11 n24, 43, 309, 480 – 56, 24 n57, 33 n81, 35, 37 n93, 40, 44,
481 76, 250, 255, 275, 309, 318 – 319, 322,
Nilsson, M.P. 84 n39, 85 n40, 94 n84, 100, 341 n60, 345 n1, 347 n12, 355 n39, 383,
128 n63, 130 n74, 131 n78, 133 n91, 414, 416, 429 – 432, 454 n71, 457 n86
137 n106, 150 Parry, M. 107, 112
Nock, A.D. 124 n43, 150 Paterlini, M. 124 n43, 150
Norden, E. 11 n25, 43 Patillon, M. 218 n65
Nucci. M. 34 n83, 43 Pearson, K.A. 461, 480
Numa Pompilius 21, 56 Pearson, R. 473 n157
Numenius Anigraeus 459 Penner, T. 238
Numenius of Apamea 327 n14, 401 – 402, Penrose, R. 436, 480
460, 476 Pereira, B. 461 n102
Nussbaum, M. 271 n2, 273 n6, 275 n15, Pesic, P. 436 n5
293 n55, 306 Peterson, K.R. 443 n25
Pépin, J. 343, 395 n33, 403
O’Brien, D. 35 n89, 43 Pérez Jiménez, J. 317 n15, 322, 402
O’Meara, D. 48 n7, 59, 400 n46, 403, 405, Périllié, J.-L. 51 n17, 59 – 60, 240 n1, 269
406 n1, 408 n16, 409 nn20, 26, 410 n30, Pfeiffer, H. 368
413 nn39, 41, 416 nn54, 56, 417 nn59 – Pherecydes 66 n4, 101, 127 – 128, 151, 162,
60, 419 165 n47
Obbink, D. 383 Phillipe, J. 457 n81
Ocellus 374 n15, 399, 402 – 403, 409 Philo of Alexandria 338 n54, 395 n34, 399,
Odifreddi, P. 56, 59 403
Olympiodorus 131, 405, 406 n4, 407, Philo of Byzantium 209 – 210
408 n14, 409 – 411, 414 – 415, 417 n59, Philo of Larissa 401
418 – 419 Philochorus 78
Onatas 409 Philolaus 3 – 4, 6 – 7, 9, 10 n21, 15 – 16, 27 –
Onetor 409 28, 30, 33 n82, 39, 41 – 44, 135, 147,
Onomacritus 67, 90 n69 170 – 172, 176, 179, 180 n3, 182, 184 –
Orio de Miguel, B. 435, 452, 471 nn149 – 186, 188 – 194, 196 – 1200, 203, 227,
250 240, 242 – 243, 248 – 249, 252 – 255,
Orphea 154 257, 260, 262 – 264, 266 – 269, 271 –
Orpheus 39, 43, 47, 58, 117 – 120 n18, 122, 278, 280, 282, 286 – 287, 290 – 295,
123 n34, 124 – 129, 130 n75, 134, 136 – 297 n64, 298, 300, 305 – 306, 310, 323 –
137, 139 – 141, 143 – 151, 153 – 161, 170 – 324, 328 – 329, 332 n32, 336 – 341, 343,
172, 176, 297, 305, 345 345, 351, 363, 367, 371, 375, 376 n26,
Otto, S. 465n.123, 466 n130 383, 399 n43, 400 n46, 403, 408 – 409,
Ovid 132 417, 419, 425 – 427, 433, 436 nn4, 7
Philoponus, J. 313 n10, 365 n70, 405,
Panthoüs 132, 166 407 n9, 409 – 410, 412 n35, 414, 419,
Pappus of Alexandria 209 – 210, 473 455 n74
Parain, B. 482 Photius 237
Paravić, J. 479 Pichot, A. 47 n1, 53 n29, 59, 446
Pareschi, P. 474 n159 Pindar 97, 130, 251
Parker, R. 94 n84, 100 Pinnoy, M. 120 n17, 151
Pistelli, H. 418
528 Index nominum
Pittacus 68, 81 nn24 – 25 442 n21, 449 n52, 452 nn62 – 63, 455 n75,
Pitts, W. 27 n66, 44 459
Places, E. des 82 n29, 100, 135 n100, Prontera, F. 22, 43
327 n14, 459 – 460 Protagoras 255, 263
Plato 4, 12 n27, 17, 25 – 27, 29, 31, 36, Protarchus 281
37 n92, 39 – 44, 47, 51, 54, 56, 58 – 60, Proverbio, E. 438 n12
90 n69, 99, 104 – 106, 120, 127, 130 – Pseudo-Elias 419
131, 134, 137, 140, 143, 145, 147 – 150, Pseudo-Galen 395
156, 159, 168 – 173, 175 – 176, 203 – 206, Pseudo-Justin Martyr 140
208 – 213, 215 – 222, 224, 226 – 232, Pseudo-Metopus 389, 402
237 – 292, 294 – 297, 299 – 305, 307, Pseudo-Theages 402
309 – 310, 312 – 321, 322 – 339, 341 – Pseudo-Timaeus 386 – 388, 390 – 392, 394,
344, 346 n5, 352 n25, 353 n26, 355 – 358, 396, 399, 401
366 – 367, 371, 376, 380, 382 – 383, 387, Ptolemy 215 – 216, 224 – 225, 417
389, 391 – 403, 406 – 412, 414 – 420, Pugliese Carratelli, G. 131 n78, 151, 368
424 – 432, 436 n7, 445, 454 n71, 457 n84, Pullman, B. 446, 481
458, 460 n100, 461, 469, 476, 478, 482 Purrinton, R. 442
Pliny 21 Pyrrhus 165, 166 n53, 167
Plotinus 208 n28, 343, 414, 416 n56, 419, Pythagoras 6 – 16, 17 n34, 18 – 21, 28 n67,
429 – 430, 432, 459 – 460, 476, 481 29 – 30, 31 n76, 32, 35 n88, 39 – 40, 90,
Plutarch 21, 79, 120, 122, 125, 137, 139, 36, 37 n91, 38 n96, 39, 41 – 45, 47 – 59,
149 – 151, 208, 212, 216, 218, 220 – 222, 63 – 77, 81 n24, 82 – 83, 86 – 94, 97 –
227 – 229, 300, 338, 341 n63, 343, 101, 103 – 106, 108 – 115, 118 – 119, 121 –
356 n40, 388 – 389, 394, 395 n34, 402 – 129, 130 n74, 131 – 132, 135 – 137, 139 –
403, 408 n15, 451 n60 147, 149 – 151, 153 – 154, 156 – 169,
Poccetti, P. 44 170 n67, 173, 174 n80, 175 – 176, 179,
Polycrates 52 200, 203 nn3 – 4, 205 – 207, 210, 216,
Polygnotus 253 219, 237 – 239, 243 – 247, 254, 259 –
Pompeius Trogus 10 260, 265, 269, 274, 276 n18, 278 n24,
Porphyry 9 – 10, 12 n26, 20, 31 n76, 66 n4, 279, 294 – 295, 305 – 307, 309 – 310,
79, 82 n29, 97, 100, 122, 127 n61, 323 – 324, 326 – 332, 334 n37, 342 – 344,
129 n70, 132, 145, 154, 163 – 164, 166, 345 n1, 346 – 349, 353 n26, 358 n47,
168, 208 n28, 214, 245 – 246, 341 n64, 365 n70, 367, 371 – 372, 375 n18, 379 –
347, 349 n18, 403, 411, 418 – 419, 423 – 382, 383, 392, 401, 403 – 408, 411 – 415,
424, 432 416 n56, 417 – 420, 423 – 425, 427 – 428,
Pozaić, V. 473 n155 432 – 433, 436, 437 n10, 440, 443 – 446,
Pórtulas-Grau, J. 73 n11, 76 447 n45, 452, 460 n100, 463 – 466,
Predari, F. 462 n103 469 – 470, 472 nn152 – 153, 475 – 476,
Preus, A. 269, 305, 457 n84 479, 480
Preus, A. 457 n84
Priestley, J. 467 n137, 474 n159 Rabouin, D. 220 n69
Primavesi, O. 34 n83, 43 Radice, L.L. 462 n106
Proclus 126, 142 – 143, 158, 183 nn11, 13, Radici Colace, P. 76
209, 214, 217 – 218, 220 – 221, 226, 265, Rak, M. 464 n116
270, 274 n10, 328, 343, 405 – 407, 409, Ramus, P. 451 n59
411 – 412, 415, 417 – 419, 436 n6, Rathmann, G. 128 nn63, 67, 130 n74,
131 n78, 151, 347
Index nominum 529
Raven, J.E. 16, 24 n57, 44, 78 n4, 85 n40, 341 – 343, 346 n7, 435 nn1, 2, 443 n27,
87 n52, 91 nn72, 76, 92 n78, 97 n99, 100, 447 n45, 448 n47
130 n74, 150, 179 n1, 200, 273 n6, 305, Rossetti, L. 63, 67 n5, 68 n6, 76, 307 n1,
345 n4, 346 n8, 352 n25, 355 nn38 – 39, 309, 316, 318, 322
365 n69, 368, 448 n47 Rossi, P. 443 n28, 461 n102, 463, 465 n127,
Rayner, A.D.M. 478, 481 470, 478, 481
Reale, G. 25, 37 n92, 44 Rostagni, A. 21, 44
Rechenauer, G. 101 Roux, S. 451 n59
Regnault, E. 437, 442 – 443, 481 Rösler, W. 81 n26, 101
Reinhardt, K. 24 n57, 44, 347 Rudolph, K. 52 n24, 59
Reis, B. 269
Reisinger, A.R. 481 Saffrey, H.D. 143 n131, 209 n33, 343,
Rendall, S. 447 n45 414 n42, 418 – 419, 447 n45
Rescher, N. 480 Sailor, D.B. 464 n119
Rey, A. 24 n57, 44 Sandbach, F.H. 91 n76, 101, 118 n1, 125 n48
Riedweg, C. 35 n90, 42, 44, 47, 49 n8, Sanders, E.P. 58, 149, 176
50 nn11 – 12, 14, 51 nn17 – 18, 52 nn25 – Sanders, J. 112 n18, 116
26, 53 nn28, 31, 54 nn34 – 36, 56 nn47 – Sanna, M. 465 n127
49, 59, 68, 76, 80, 85 n40, 87 n52, Santamaría, M.A. 305
88 n54, 89 n64, 90 n70, 91 n76, Santayana (Santillana), G. 27 n66, 44,
92 nn77 – 79, 93 n83, 94 n88, 100, 449 n52, 465 n124
103 n1, 115, 128 n67, 140, 143 n131, Santinello, G. 464 n116, 471 n147
144 n132, 151, 157 n9, 160 n28, 162 n39, Santoro, F. 307
176, 306, 330 n28, 343, 381 n42, 383, Sarian, H. 138 n111, 151
408 nn13, 15, 419, 447 n45 Sassi, M.M. 17 n34, 44, 56 n50, 60
Riel, G. van 418 Sattler, B. 264, 269
Rist, J.M. 327 n17, 343 Satyrus 310
Ritter, H. 449 n53 Savile, H. 451 n59
Robert, A. 445 n36, 451 n58, 457, 474 n160 Sayre, K.M. 242, 263, 269 – 270
Roberts, A. 472 n152 Schaffer, E. 48 n4, 60
Roberts, W.R. 319 n18, 322, Schäfers, B. 59
Robinson, R. 42, 474 n158 Scheffer, J. 471 n147
Robinson, T.M. 91 n75, 100, 306, 423 Schelling, F.W.J. von 443
Rocco, A. 462 n103 Schibli, H.S. 92 n77, 101, 127 n62, 151
Rodney, J.M. 464 n119 Schleiermacher, F. 8 n16, 44
Rohde, E. 10 – 11, 44, 80 n18, 82 n29, Schmitt, A. 59, 343
84 n39, 100, 143 n131, 151 Schofield, M. 78 n4, 85 n40, 87 nn51 – 52,
Romano, A. 461 n101 88 n59, 89 n64, 91 nn72, 74, 76,
Rosa, C.A. de 482 92 nn78 – 79, 97 n99, 100 – 101, 130 n74,
Rose, V. 78 n8, 80 nn18 – 19, 82, 94, 96, 150, 179 n1, 200, 273 n6, 305, 383, 402
101, 118 n4, 135 n100, 142 n124, 157 n11, Schorcht, C. 49 n10, 59
165 n48, 167 n54, 339 n56, 342 n70, Schöll, F. 44
357 n42, 375 Schönberg, A. 48
Rosenfeld, B.A. 445, 450 n54, 451 n58, 481 Schöpsdau, K. 341 n64, 343
Ross, W.D. 78 n8, 101, 199 n40, 201, 313, Schroeder, F.M. 459 n91
314 n12, 322, 325 n6, 329 n22, 332 – 339, Schrödinger, E. 446
Schubring, G. 461 n101
530 Index nominum
Schwartz, E. 78 n7, 101, 372 n7, 383 343, 367 n73, 371, 389, 391 – 392, 398,
Schwyzer, R. 414 n43, 419 447 n45, 475 n164
Sedley, D.N. 391 n20, 403 Sporus of Nicaea 209 – 210, 214
Segonds, A.P. 207 n23, 418 Staab, G. 415 n50, 419 – 420
Selin, H. 450 n54 Steel, C. 59, 328, 343, 419
Seltman, C. 18 n38, 44 Stephenson, B. 436 n5
Senechal, M. 458 n89, 473 n157, 474, 481 Stern-Gillet, S. 383
Serres, M. 457 n80 Stettner, W. 175 n81, 176
Settis, S. 60 Stiegler, K. 443, 481
Severus 397 Stiehl, R. 403
Sextus Empiricus 252, 327 n14, 355 n38, Stier, H.E. 403
377 n30, 469 Stile, A. 465 n127
Sfameni Gasparro, G. 148 Stobaeus, J. 125, 208 n29, 272 n4, 273 n6,
Shakespeare, W. 266 276 n18, 365 n70, 389, 408 – 409,
Shanker, S. 478 417 n59, 425, 427, 464 n117
Sharples, R.W. 383, 402, 404 Stone, H.S. 463 n109, 465 n125
Shaw, G. 473 n157 Stone, M.W.F. 403,
Shenitzer, A. 481 Strabo 168, 465
Shipley, G. 51 n19, 60 Stroumsa, G.G. 33 n82, 44
Sider, D. 383 Struck. P.T. 79 n11, 101
Simmias 172, 237, 248 – 249, 323, 340 Studer, A. 49, 60
Simplicius 41, 214, 313 n10, 327 n14, Suárez, F. 332, 443 n28, 461 n102
342 n70, 356 n40, 365 n70, 366 n71, Supek, I. 467 n138
387 – 388, 390 n17, 391 n20, 392, Svozil, K. 435
400 n46, 403, 405, 407, 409 – 411, Swedenborg, E. 467
414 n45, 415 – 416, 419, 449 n51 Sylla, E.D. 451, 481
Skemp, J.B. 261, 263, 270 Syrianus 143, 209, 274 n10, 363, 396 n36,
Skutsch, O. 168 n58, 176 412
Slaveva-Griffin, S. 460, 481 Szlezák, T.A. 37 n92, 44, 51 n17, 60, 386,
Smirnov, A.V. 450, 481 403
Smith, B. 477 n167
Socrates 17 n34, 25 n59, 26, 85, 99, 162, Tagliacozzo, G. 465 n127
171 – 172, 219, 229, 239, 241 – 242, 248 – Tannery, P. 22 – 24, 28 n68, 44, 128 n67,
249, 251, 253, 255, 259 – 262, 266, 276 – 137 n106, 151, 213 – 214, 215 n60, 444,
277, 280 n32, 281 – 288, 291, 295 – 303, 457 n84, 458 n87
309, 314, 316 – 319, 323 – 324, 376, Tarán, L. 40, 328, 335, 337 n50, 341 n65,
401 n49, 428, 431 342 – 343, 367 n73, 418, 447 n45, 448
Solère, J.-L. 461 n102, 469 n139 Tardieu, M. 403
Solmsen, F. 376 n26, 383 Tarrant, H. 265, 270, 388 n11, 401 n48, 403
Solon 81 n24, 239 Tate, J. 20, 44
Sophocles 68 Taylor, A.E. 26, 44, 252 n6, 263 – 264, 266,
Sorabji, R.R.K 383, 402, 404 268, 270
Sorel, R. 129 n73, 151 Teresi, D. 438, 480
Sosicrates 330 Thackray, A. 443 n25
Spawforth, A. 99 Thales 41, 44, 68, 73, 76, 81 nn24 – 25, 99,
Speusippus 26 – 27, 294 n56, 326 – 329, 181 n6, 182 – 183, 210, 239, 329 n26,
334 n37, 336, 337 nn48, 50, 340 – 341, 444, 479
Index nominum 531
Theaetetus 254 – 256 Tucci, P. 473 n155

Theiler, W. 132 n84, 374 n17, 388 n11, Turcan, R. 128 n67, 151
394 n29, 403 Typhon 140
Theodoret of Cyrrhus 459
Theodorus of Cyrene 28, 254 – 256, 323 – Ulloa, J. de 461
325 Unguru, S. 455 – 456, 481
Theognetus 125 Urbaneja, G. 452 n63
Theon of Smyrna 184 n15, 215 – 216, 218,
229, 231, 338 nn51, 53 Vaihinger, H. 477, 481
Theophrastus 12, 327, 328 n18, 348 n13, Valetta, F. 464 n116
353 n26, 447 n45, 455 n74 Valetta, G. 463 – 464
Thesleff, H. 4 n2, 10 n21, 27 n66, 44, 140, Varro Atacinus 106 n7, 124, 150
143 n131, 151, 221 n71, 265, 270, Velasco López, M.H. 137 n106, 151
327 nn14 – 15, 344, 371 n4, 372 n6, Velimirović, N. 443, 481
373 n11, 383, 386 nn3 – 4, 403 – 405, Vico, G. 461 n102, 463 n109, 465 – 467,
409 nn22 – 23, 417 n59, 420, 470, 481 470 – 471, 480, 482
Thevet, A. 451 Vidal-Naquet, P. 31 n77, 45
Thom, J.C. 52 n26, 57 nn52 – 53, 60, 77, Viechtbauer, H. 465 n123, 466 n130
93 n83, 101, 381 n41, 383 Villarosa, C.A. de R. di 482
Thompson, W. 439 n15 Visconti, A. 39, 43, 149, 151, 176, 345 n1
Thomson, R. 411 n32, 418 Vitrac, B. 218 n65
Thrasyllus 313 Vitruvius 217, 221, 230, 472
Thucydides 14 n31, 40, 43 Vítek, T. 78 n6, 86 n50, 101
Tigerstedt, E.N. 313 n10, 322 Vlastos, G. 324 n4, 344, 457 n86
Timaeus 11, 265 – 266, 268, 323, 408 – 409, Vogel, C.J. de 4 n2, 9, 13, 18, 21 n45, 41,
415 – 416, 419; see also Pseudo-Timaeus 56 n47, 58, 327 nn15 – 16, 330, 331 n30,
Timares of Locri 265 344
Timon of Phlious 118 Vogl, J. 55 n42, 60
Timpanaro Cardini, M. 10 n22, 44, 77 n1, Vonarburg, B. 48 n5, 60
101, 345 n2, 346 n9, 347 n10, 348 n15,
349 n19, 353 n26, 354 n30, 355 n39, Waerden, B.L. van der 28 n68, 45
358 n46, 360 n55, 362 nn57, 58, Wahl, J. 458, 482
364 nn63, 65, 365 n70, 366 n71, 368, Walker, D.P. 436n.5
448 n47 Ward, J. 443, 482
Tipler, F. 477, 481 Weber, M. 54 – 55, 60, 149
Toit, D. du 327 n16, 343, 372 n6, 382 Wehrli, F. 37 n92, 45, 56 n48, 81 n26, 101,
Toledo, S. 478 123 n34, 126 n55, 131 n82, 142 nn122,
Tommaseo, N. 437, 481 125, 166 n53, 207 n23, 330, 437 n10
Tortorelli Ghidini. M. 39, 43, 128 n64, 149, Weller, P. 471 n147
151, 345 n1 Wellmann, M. 372 n9, 373, 374 nn14 – 15,
Trapp, M. 371 n4, 383, 393 n25, 404 375 – 377, 378 n32, 383
Tredennick, H. 446 n39 Werner, E. 436 n5
Trépanier, S. 92 n78, 101 West, M.L. 33 n82, 124 nn40, 43, 125 nn46,
Trindade Santos, J. 149 50, 126 n56, 127, 128 n67, 131 n78,
Trouillard, J. 418 137 n106, 146, 151, 185 n18, 197 n33, 201
Tryphon 79 n12, 98 – 99 Westerink, L.G. 131 n80, 143 n131, 411 n31,
Tsantsanoglou, K. 138 n111, 151 418 – 420
532 Index nominum
Whitehead, A.N. 479 Zeller, E. 4 – 10, 12, 18 – 19, 21 – 22, 23 n53,

Whyte, L.L. 437 – 438, 439 nn15 – 16, 440, 24 n57, 37, 45, 90 n70, 101, 128 n67,
442, 446, 467, 470 – 471 n146, 475, 477, 130 n74, 151, 327, 334 n38, 335, 338 n54,
479, 482 339 n58, 344, 372 – 373, 381 n42, 383,
Wiener, P.P. 470 n144 386, 404
Wiersma, W. 378, 383 Zeno of Citium 469
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von 128 nn64, Zeno of Elea 15 – 16, 17 n34, 23, 43, 319,
67, 135 n99, 151, 153, 171 n73, 176 354, 355 n38, 357 n42, 428, 431, 441,
Willi, A. 59, 343 443 – 444, 449 – 450, 457 – 458, 462,
William of Conches 457 465 – 466, 468 – 470, 477 n167, 479 –
William of Moerbeke 328 481
Wilson, B. 52 n24, 60, 79 n12, Zenocrates 465
Wilson, N.G. 99 Zeyl, D.J. 232
Wöhrle, G. 76 Zhmud, L. 28 n68, 45, 77 n2, 78 n7, 80 n18,
Wright, M.R. 92 n78, 101, 122 n27, 126 n52, 81 n22, 83 nn30 – 31, 85 – 87, 91 n74,
264, 270 92 nn78 – 79, 94, 95 n91, 96 n94, 97 – 98,
Wyclif, J. 451 101, 124 n40, 128 n64, 129 n68, 130 n74,
151, 214, 239 – 240, 255 – 256, 270,
Xavier, D.G. 39 271 n1, 273 n6, 290, 293 – 294, 295 n59,
Xenocrates 140, 326 – 327, 329, 336, 306, 323, 325 n7, 336 n45, 344, 347 n12,
337 n50, 341, 371, 388 – 389, 390 n17, 353 n27, 368, 371, 372 n7, 374 n17,
391 – 392, 398, 404, 447 n45, 459 n92, 375 n19, 376 n27, 381 n39, 383, 389 n14,
465, 475 n164 404
Xenophanes 9, 17 n34, 23, 54, 67 – 68, 70 – Ziegler, K. 124 n43, 150 – 151, 228
72, 99, 128, 150, 157, 163, 319, 322, 403, Zimmerman, D.W. 478, 482
414, 416, 430 – 431 Zographou, G. 129 n73, 151
Xenophilos 376 Zopyrus of Tarentum 124, 250
Xenophon 318 Zoroaster 139
Zosimus 45
Zalmoxis 160 – 161 Zucchi, M. 458 n89

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On Pythagoreanism

Herausgegeben von / Edited by

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek

© 2013 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

2 Pythagoras and Early Pythagorean traditions

Francesc Casadesús Bordoy

3 Fifth and Fourth Century Pythagoreanism

4 Reception by Plato, Aristotle and the Early Academy

5 Hellenistic and Late Antique traditions

6 Pythagorean heritage in Renaissance and modern times

Index of Topics 489

Index locorum 499

Index nominum 517

 http://www.archai.com.br/; cf. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/brasilia/about-this-office/

Our first section, “Historiography”, introduces the twofold background of the

tion of a historiographical category, from Antiquity until modern times³. To un-

aclitus’ fr. 129 DK as referring to the collecting of such material by Pythagoras

which attribute to Archytas a complex solution that presupposes knowledge of

A quite different, more oblique, way of approaching the problem of Plato’s

identified with a set of opposites or with ‘numbers’, materially conceived. Specif-

on Eudorus of Alexandria (and other Platonists of the early Roman Empire) on

Three centuries later, at the dawn of modernity, Pythagorean ideas of a quite

Brasília naked and lunar

In the end of the Candangos’⁴ path

And the skyscrapers have the delicate fineness of a coconut palm.

Brasilia, Pythagoras’ daughter, is, then, partly Greek.

Brasília, August 2013 Gabriele Cornelli

the large number of spurious and forged writings on Pythagorean philosophy

1 Zeller and Diels: the skepticism of the

remarkable influence, not on philosophy but on philosophers (Parmenides, Empedocles).

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

The influence of the Diels collection on all subsequent studies of Pythagorean-

2 Rohde: the reaction to skepticism

Demonstrating significant independence to such a shameful degree that he prepared a mul-

Despite repeated criticisms about its ruthless arbitrariness in treating of Iambli-

Therefore there began to appear as benchmarks, in modern scholarly litera-

3 Burnet: the double teaching of acousmatics and

So it is not possible to agree with the somewhat summary accusation of De

4 Cornford and Guthrie: in search of unity

proposed by Cornford is to distinguish, within Pythagoreanism, two different and

With an openly anti-evolutionist argument, Cornford argues, therefore, that un-

Thus, the figure of Pythagoras can be understood simultaneously as that of a

5 From Delatte to De Vogel: Pythagoreanism and

Graecia. Through an “austere investigation of the sources” (Tate, 1942: 74), he

intertwining of the two dimensions – Minar calls them respectively theoretical

6 Aristotle’s unique testimony and the uncertain

Cherniss, therefore, analyzes Aristotle’s historiographical procedures, in search

goreanism becomes another chance to attack Platonic arguments (Met 1083b

7 From Burkert to Kingsley: third way and

pre-rationalistic component: Pythagoras was a magician and shaman (though a

successive studies, dedicated to the dietary prescriptions of the Pythagoreans

A special chapter in the relationship of Pythagoreanism with the religious

In step with an understanding of ancient philosophy that basically seeks to ach-

nonexistent. Therefore, this will be a question of, in Burkert’s words, interpreting

The commentator is forced to make a methodological choice, that is, either

Laks, A. 2007. Histoire, doxographie, vérité: études sur Aristote, Théophraste et la

I Pythagoras in the Occidental Cultural Memory

II À la recherche du Pythagore perdu

his personality, which again renders it difficult to make a fair assessment of

To sum up, an attempt at a scholarly approach to Pythagoras encounters many

 Arist. Metaph. A6, 987b11 ff.

 Giangiulio 1989, p. 99 – 130; Mann 2001, p. 164– 191; Kahn 2001, p. 6 f.

in particular to discover the primordial beginnings, the principles (ἀρχαί, princi-