The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius (best free ebook reader txt) 📕

And he was so greatly admired that they used to say that his friends looked on all his sayings as the oracles of God.109 And he himself says in his writings that he had come among men after having spent two hundred and seven years in the shades below. Therefore the Lucanians and the Peucetians, and the Messapians, and the Romans, flocked around him, coming with eagerness to hear his discourses; but until the time of Philolaus there were no doctrines of Pythagoras ever divulged; and he was the first person who published the three celebrated books which Plato wrote to have purchased for him for a hundred minae. Nor were the number of his scholars who used to come to him by night fewer than six hundred. And if any of them had ever been permitted to see him, they wrote of it to their friends, as if they had gained some great advantage.

The people of Metapontum used to call his house the temple of Ceres; and the street leading to it they called the street of the Muses, as we are told by Phavorinus in his Universal History.

And the rest of the Pythagoreans used to say, according to the account given by Aristoxenus in the tenth book of his Laws on Education, that his precepts ought not to be divulged to all the world; and Xenophilus, the Pythagorean, when he was asked what was the best way for a man to educate his son, said: “That he must first of all take care that he was born in a city which enjoyed good laws.”

Pythagoras, too, formed many excellent men in Italy by his precepts, and among them Zaleucus,110 and Charondas,111 the lawgivers.

For he was very eminent for his power of attracting friendships; and among other things, if ever he heard that anyone had any community of symbols with him, he at once made him a companion and a friend.

Now, what he called his symbols were such as these: “Do not stir the fire with a sword.” “Do not sit down on a bushel.” “Do not devour your heart.” “Do not aid men in discarding a burden, but in increasing one.” “Always have your bed packed up.” “Do not bear the image of a God on a ring.” “Efface the traces of a pot in the ashes.” “Do not wipe a seat with a lamp.” “Do not make water in the sunshine.” “Do not walk in the main street.” “Do not offer your right hand lightly.” “Do not cherish swallows under your roof.” “Do not cherish birds with crooked talons.” “Do not defile; and do not stand upon the parings of your nails, or the cuttings of your hair.” “Avoid a sharp sword.” “When you are travelling abroad, look not back at your own borders.” Now the precept not to stir fire with a sword meant, not to provoke the anger or swelling pride of powerful men; not to violate the beam of the balance meant, not to transgress fairness and justice; not to sit on a bushel is to have an equal care for the present and for the future, for by the bushel is meant one’s daily food. By not devouring one’s heart, he intended to show that we ought not to waste away our souls with grief and sorrow. In the precept that a man when travelling abroad should not turn his eyes back, he recommended those who were departing from life not to be desirous to live, and not to be too much attracted by the pleasures here on earth. And the other symbols may be explained in a similar manner, that we may not be too prolix here.

And above all things, he used to prohibit the eating of the erythinus, and the melanurus; and also, he enjoined his disciples to abstain from the hearts of animals, and from beans. And Aristotle informs us that he sometimes used also to add to these prohibitions paunches and mullet. And some authors assert that he himself used to be contented with honey and honeycomb, and bread, and that he never drank wine in the day time. And his dessert was usually vegetables, either boiled or raw; and he very rarely ate fish. His dress was white, very clean, and his bedclothes were also white, and woollen, for linen had not yet been introduced into that country. He was never known to have eaten too much, or to have drunk too much, or to indulge in the pleasures of love. He abstained wholly from laughter, and from all such indulgences as jests and idle stories. And when he was angry, he never chastised anyone, whether slave or freeman. He used to call admonishing, feeding storks.

He used to practice divination, as far as auguries and auspices go, but not by means of burnt offerings, except only the burning of frankincense. And all the sacrifices which he offered consisted of inanimate things. But some, however, assert that he did sacrifice animals, limiting himself to cocks, and sucking kids, which are called ἁπάλιοι, but that he very rarely offered lambs. Aristoxenus, however, affirms that he permitted the eating of all other animals, and only abstained from oxen used in agriculture, and from rams.

The same author tells us, as I have already mentioned, that he received his doctrines from Themistoclea at Delphi. And Hieronymus says that when he descended to the shades below, he saw the soul of Hesiod bound to a brazen pillar, and gnashing its teeth; and that of Homer suspended from a tree, and snakes around it, as a punishment for the things that they had said of the Gods. And that those people also were punished who refrained from commerce with their wives; and that on account of this he was greatly honored by the people of Crotona.

But Aristippus of Cyrene, in his Account of Natural Philosophers, says that Pythagoras derived his name from