His youth was spent at the court of Polycrates, under whose rule Samos was brought, not only to wealth, but also to the possession of culture and art. In this prosperous period, according to Herodotus (III., 39), it possessed a fleet of a hundred ships. His father was an artist or engraver, but reports vary as to this, as also as to his country, some saying that his family was of Tyrrhenian origin and did not go to Samos till after Pythagoras’ birth. That may be as it will, for his youth was spent in Samos and he must hence have been naturalized there, and to it he belongs. He soon journeyed to the main land of Asia Minor and is said there to have become acquainted with Thales. From thence he travelled to Phœnicia and Egypt, as Iamblichus (III., 13, 14) says in his biography of Pythagoras. With both countries Asia Minor had many links, commercial and political, and it is related that he was recommended by Polycrates to King Amasis, who, according to Herodotus (II. 154), attracted many Greeks to the country, and had Greek troops and colonies. The narratives of further journeys into the interior of Asia, to the Persian magicians and Indians, seem to be altogether fabulous, although travelling, then as now, was considered to be a means of culture. As Pythagoras travelled with a scientific purpose, it is said that he had himself initiated into nearly all the mysteries of Greeks and of Barbarians, and thus he obtained admission into the order or caste of the Egyptian priesthood.
These mysteries that we meet with amongst the Greeks, and which are held to be the sources of much wisdom, appear in their religion to have stood in the relationship of doctrine to worship. This last existed in offerings and solemn festivals only, but to ordinary conceptions, to a consciousness of these conceptions, there is no transition visible unless they were preserved in poems as traditions. The doctrines themselves, or the act of bringing the actual home to the conception, seems to have been confined to the mysteries; we find it to be the case, however, that it is not only the ideas as in our teaching, but also the body that is laid claim to—that there was brought home to man by sending him to wander amongst his fellow-men, both the abandonment of his sensuous consciousness and the purification and sanctification of the body. Of philosophic matter, however, there is as little openly declared as possible, and just as we know the system of freemasonry, there is no secret in those mysteries.
His alliance with the Egyptian priesthood had a most important influence upon Pythagoras, not through the derivation of profound speculative wisdom therefrom, but by the idea obtained through it of the realization of the moral consciousness of man; the individual, he learned, must attend to himself, if inwardly and to the outer world he is to be meritorious and to bring himself, morally formed and fashioned, into actuality. This is a conception which he subsequently carried out, and it is as interesting a matter as his speculative philosophy. Just as the priests constituted a particular rank and were educated for it, they also had a special rule, which was binding throughout the whole moral life. From Egypt Pythagoras thus without doubt brought the idea of his Order, which was a regular community brought together for purposes of scientific and moral culture, which endured during the whole of life. Egypt at that time was regarded as a highly cultured country, and it was so when compared with Greece; this is shown even in the differences of caste which assumes a division amongst the great branches of life and work, such as the industrial, scientific and religious. But beyond this, we need not seek great scientific knowledge amongst the Egyptians, nor think that Pythagoras got his science there. Aristotle (Metaph. I.) only says that “in Egypt mathematical sciences first commenced, for there the nation of priests had leisure.”[32]
Pythagoras stayed a long time in Egypt, and returned from thence to Samos; but he found the internal affairs of his own country in confusion, and left it soon after. According to Herodotus’ account (III. 45-47), Polycrates had—not as tyrant—banished many citizens from Samos, who sought and found support amongst the Lacedæmonians, and a civil war had broken out. The Spartans had, at an earlier period, given assistance to the others, for, as Thucydides says (I. 18), to them thanks were generally ascribed for having abolished the rule of the few, and caused a reversion to the system of giving public power to the people; later on they did the opposite, abolishing democracy and introducing aristocracy. Pythagoras’ family was necessarily involved in these unpleasant relations, and a condition of internal strife was not congenial to Pythagoras, seeing that he no longer took an interest in political life, and that he saw in it an unsuitable soil for carrying out his plans. He traversed Greece, and betook himself from thence to Italy, in the lower parts of which Greek colonies from various states and for various motives had settled, and there flourished as important trading towns, rich in people and possessions.
In Crotona he settled down, and lived in independence, neither as a statesman, warrior, nor political law-giver to the people, so far as external life was concerned, but as a public teacher, with the provision that his teaching should not be taken up with mere conviction, but should also regulate the whole moral life of the individual. Diogenes Laertius says that he first gave himself the name φιλόσοφος, instead of σοφός; and men called this modesty, as if he thereby expressed, not the possession of wisdom, but only the struggle towards it, as towards an end which cannot be attained.[33] But σοφός at the same time means a wise man, who is also practical, and that not in his own interest only, for that requires no wisdom, seeing that every sincere and moral man does what is best from his own point of view. Thus φιλόσοφος signifies more particularly the opposite to participation in practical matters, that is in public affairs. Philosophy is thus not the love of wisdom, as of something which one sets oneself to acquire; it is no unfulfilled desire. Φιλόσοφος means a man whose relation to wisdom is that of making it his object; this relationship is contemplation, and not mere Being; but it must be consciously that men apply themselves to this. The man who likes wine (φίλοινος) is certainly to be distinguished from the man who is full of wine, or a drunkard. Then does φίλοινος signify only a futile aspiration for wine?
What Pythagoras contrived and effected in Italy is told us by later eulogists, rather than by historians. In the history of Pythagoras by Malchus (this was the Syrian name of Porphyry) many strange things are related, and with the Neo-Platonists the contrast between their deep insight and their belief in the miraculous is surprising. For instance, seeing that the later biographers of Pythagoras had already related a quantity of marvels, they now proceeded to add yet more to these with reference to his appearance in Italy. It appears that they were exerting themselves to place him, as they afterwards did with Apollonius of Tyana, in opposition to Christ. For the wonders which they tell of him seem partly to be an amplification of those in the New Testament, and in part they are altogether absurd. For instance, they make Pythagoras begin his career in Italy with a miracle. When he landed in the Bay of Tarentum, at Crotona, he encountered fishermen on the way to the town who had caught nothing. He called upon them to draw their nets once more, and foretold the number of fishes that would be found in them. The fishermen, marvelling at this prophecy, promised him that if it came true they would do whatever he desired. It came to pass as he said, and Pythagoras then desired them to throw the fishes alive back into the sea, for the Pythagoreans ate no flesh. And it is further related as a miracle which then took place, that none of the fishes whilst they were out of the water died during the counting. This is the kind of miracle that is recorded, and the stories with which his biographers fill his life are of the same silly nature. They then make him effect such a general impression upon the mind of Italy, that all the towns reformed upon their luxurious and depraved customs, and the tyrants partly gave up their powers voluntarily, and partly they were driven out. They thereby, however, commit such historical errors as to make Charondas and Zaleucus, who lived long before Pythagoras, his disciples; and similarly to ascribe the expulsion and death of the tyrant Phalaris to him, and to his action.[34]
Apart from these fables, there remains as an historic fact, the great work which he accomplished, and this he did chiefly by establishing a school, and by the great influence of his order upon the principal part of the Greco-Italian states, or rather by means of the rule which was exercised in these states through this order, which lasted for a very long period of time. It is related of him that he was a very handsome man, and of a majestic appearance, which captivated as much as it commanded respect. With this natural dignity, nobility of manners, and the calm propriety of his demeanour, he united external peculiarities, through which he seemed a remarkable and mysterious being. He wore a white linen garment, and refrained from partaking of certain foods.[35] Particular personality, as also the externalities of dress and the like, are no longer of importance; men let themselves be guided by general custom and fashion, since it is a matter outside of and indifferent to them not to have their own will here; for we hand over the contingent to the contingent, and only follow the external rationality that consists in identity and universality. To this outward personality there was added great eloquence and profound perception; not only did he undertake to impart this to his individual friends, but he proceeded to bring a general influence to bear on public culture, both in regard to understanding and to the whole manner of life and morals. He not merely instructed his friends, but associated them in a particular life in order to constitute them into persons and make them skilful in business and eminent in morals. The Institute of Pythagoras grew into a league, which included all men and all life in its embrace; for it was an elaborately fashioned piece of work, and excellently plastic in design.
Of the regulations of Pythagoras’ league, we have descriptions from his successors, more especially from the Neo-Platonists, who are particularly diffuse as regards its laws. The league had, on the whole, the character of a voluntary priesthood, or a monastic order of modern times. Whoever wished to be received was proved in respect of his education and obedience, and information was collected about his conduct, inclinations, and occupations. The members were subject to a special training, in which a difference was made amongst those received, in that some were exoteric and some esoteric. These last were initiated into the highest branches of science, and since political operations were not excluded from the order, they were also engaged in active politics; the former had to go through a novitiate of five years. Each member must have surrendered his means to the order, but he received them again on retiring, and in the probationary period silence was enjoined (ἐχεμυθία).[36]
This obligation to cease from idle talk may be called an essential condition for all culture and learning; with it men must begin if they wish to comprehend the thoughts of others and relinquish their own ideas. We are in the habit of saying that the understanding is cultivated through questioning, objecting and replying, &c., but, in fact, it is not thus formed, but made from without. What is inward in man is by culture got at and developed; hence though he remains silent, he is none the poorer in thought or denser of mind. He rather acquires thereby the power of apprehension, and comes to know that his ideas and objections are valueless; and as he learns that such ideas are valueless, he ceases to have them. Now the fact that in Pythagoras there is a separation between those in the course of preparation and those initiated, as also that silence is particularly enjoined, seems most certainly to indicate that in his brotherhood both were formal elements and not merely as present in the nature of things, as might occur spontaneously in the individual without any special law or the application of any particular consideration. But here it is important to remark that Pythagoras may be regarded as the first instructor in Greece who introduced the teachings of science; neither Thales, who was earlier than he, nor his contemporary Anaximander taught scientifically, but only imparted their ideas to their friends. There were, generally speaking, no sciences at that time; there was neither a science of philosophy, mathematics, jurisprudence or anything else, but merely isolated propositions and facts respecting these subjects. What was taught was the use of arms, theorems, music, the singing of Homer’s or Hesiod’s songs, tripod chants, &c., or other arts. This teaching is accomplished in quite another way. Now if we said that Pythagoras had introduced the teaching of science amongst a people who, though like the Greeks, untaught therein, were not stupid but most lively, cultured and loquacious, the external conditions of such teaching might in so far be given as follows:—(α) He would distinguish amongst those who as yet had no idea of the process of learning a science, so that those who first began should be excluded from that which was to be imparted to those further on; and (β) he would make them leave the unscientific mode of speaking of such matters, or their idle prattle, alone, and for the first time study science. But the fact that this action both appeared to be formal and likewise required to be made such, was, on account of its unwonted character, a necessary one, just because the followers of Pythagoras were not only numerous, necessitating a definite form and order, but also, generally speaking, they lived continually together. Thus a particular form was natural to Pythagoras, because it was the very first time that a teacher in Greece arrived at a totality, or a new principle, through the cultivation of the intelligence, mind and will. This common life had not only the educational side and that founded on the exercise of physical ingenuity or skill, but included also that of the moral culture of practical men. But even now everything relating to morality appears and is or becomes altogether formal, or rather this is so in as far as it is consciously thought of as in this relation, for to be formal is to be universal, that which is opposed to the individual. It appears so particularly to him who compares the universal and the individual and consciously reflects over both, but this difference disappears for those living therein, to whom it is ordinary habit.