[38] οἱ ἐν τῷ ταρτάρῷ terrified by thunder acc. to Pythag. belief: Arist., An. Po. 94b, 32 ff.; σύνοδοι τῶν τεθνεώτων in the depths of the earth, Ael., VH. iv, 17 (perhaps from Arist. π. τῶν Πυθαγορείων). Description of the condition of things in Hades given in the Pythagorean Κατάβασις εἰς ᾅδου. As in the case of the Orphics this purgation and punishment in the spirit-world must have belonged to the parts of the Πυθαγόρειοι μῦθοι that were quite seriously believed.
[39] ἐκριφθεῖσαν (out of the body) αὐτὴν (τὴν ψυχὴν) ἐπὶ γῆς πλάζεσθαι ἐν τῷ ἀέρι ὁμοίαν τῷ σώματι (being a complete εἴδωλον of the living): Alex. Polyh. ap. D.L. viii, 31.
[40] Arist., An. 1, 2, 4, p. 404a, 16 ff.; Vors. 357, 1; many called the ἐν τῷ ἀέρι ξύσματα themselves “souls”, others τὸ ταῦτα κινοῦν. This may rest on a real popular belief which, however, has already been partially elevated to a philosophical standing: the souls are compared to what is evidently itself in perpetual agitation (Arist., l. 19 f.). This was undoubtedly Pythagorean (and old Ionic) teaching: see Alkmaion ap. Arist., An. 405a, 29 ff.; Vors. 133, 40. (Statement of Dox. 386a, 13 ff., b, 8 ff., is more doubtful.)
[41] D.L. viii, 32; Vors4. i, p. xliv.
[42] That the Pythagoreans believed in the entry of the soul into the bodies of animals also is implied in the satirical verses of Xenophanes [397] (fr. 6) ap. D.L. viii, 36. All probability suggests that this was the reason for the injunction to abstain from flesh food among the older Pythagoreans themselves (and with Empedokles). (S.E., M. ix, 127 ff., however, drags in the “World-Soul” in a moment of untimely Stoicism. S.E.’s own quotation from Empedokles shows that the latter at any rate derived the ἀποχὴ ἐμψύχων simply from the fact of Metamorphosis, and not at all from the ψυχῆς πνεῦμα which rules in all life; though this last is attributed to him by S.E.)
[43] See [Appendix x].
[44] According to the Pythagoreans τὸ δίκαιον is nothing else than τὸ ἀντιπεπονθός, i.e. ἃ τις ἐποίησε ταῦτ’ ἀντιπαθεῖν: Arist., EN. 5, 5, p. 1132b, 21 ff.; MM. 1194a, 29 ff. (also given with fanciful numerical expression, MM. 1182a, 14; Sch. Arist. 540a, 19 ff.; 541b, 6 Br.; [Iamb.] Theol. Arith., p. 28 f. Ast). This definition of justice was simply taken over by the Pythagoreans from popular sayings such as the verse of Rhadamanthys ap. Arist., EN. about the δράσαντι παθεῖν and similar formulae: see collection in Blomfield’s Gloss. in A., Cho. 307; Soph. fr. 229 P. Compensatory justice of this kind we may suppose was manifested in the rebirths of men (in this respect the P. went beyond the commonplace sense of that τριγέρων μῦθος): we may assume this without further hesitation if we remember the completely analogous application of this conception by the Orphics (above, chap. x, [n. 71]).
[45] Πυθαγόρειος τρόπος τοῦ βίου, Pl., Rp. 600 B.
[46] ἀκολουθεῖν τῷ θεῷ, Iamb., VP. 137 (following Aristoxenos); Vors. 362, 32; ἕπου θεῷ Pythagoras ap. Stob., Ecl. ii, p. 49, 16 W. See Wyttenb. on Plu., Ser. Num. Vind. 550 D.
[47] Ancient testimony ascribes to the Pythagoreans: abstinence from flesh-food or at least from the flesh of such animals as are not sacrificed to the Olympians (the ἀνθρώπου ψυχή does not enter into the θύσιμα ζῷα in transmigration: Iamb., VP. 85; Vors. 359, 13); from eating fish, particularly τρίγλαι and μελάνουροι, and beans; from using linen clothing (or being buried in it: Hdt. ii, 81); and a few other forms of abstinence and measures assuring ritual purity. The whole apparatus of ritual ἁγνεία is ascribed to the older Pythagoreans by Alex. Polyh. ap. D.L. viii, 33. This, as a general statement is certainly correct. It is customary to say that it began among the degenerate Pythagoreans after the break up of the Italian society (so esp. Krische, De Soc. a Pythag. cond. scopo politico, Gött., 1831). But when Aristoxenos, the contemporary of the later, scientifically-minded Pythagoreans, denies all such superstitious ideas and regulations to the original Pythagoreans, his evidence really applies only to those Pythagorean scholars with whom he was acquainted and who seemed to him to have preserved the real spirit of the older Pythagoreanism much more truly than the ascetic (and in any case degenerate) Pythagoreans of the same period. Everything, however, goes to show that the strength of the surviving community as it had been founded by Pythagoras lay in the religious and mystical elements of its doctrine; and that what was oldest in Pythagoreanism was what it had in common with the faith and religious discipline of the Orphics. To this side belongs what we learn from tradition of the older Pythagorean asceticism. Much, then, that is of early Pythagorean origin (though certainly combined with other and later elements) is to be found in many of the ἀκούσματα or σύμβολα of the Pythagoreans, esp. in those of them (and they are numerous) that give directions of a ritual or merely superstitious kind. A fresh collection, arrangement and [398] explanation of these remarkable fragments would be very useful: Göttling’s purely rationalist treatment of them does them less than justice. (Corn. Hölk, De acusmatis s. symbolis Pythag., Diss. Kiel. 1894.)