[731]. Met. Δ, 5. 1009 b 25 (R. P. 161 a).
CHAPTER VII
THE PYTHAGOREANS
The Pythagorean school.
138. We have seen ([§ 40]) how the Pythagoreans, after losing their supremacy at Kroton, concentrated themselves at Rhegion; but the school founded there was soon broken up. Archippos stayed behind in Italy; but Philolaos and Lysis, the latter of whom had escaped as a young man from the massacre of Kroton, betook themselves to continental Hellas, settling finally at Thebes. We know from Plato that Philolaos was there some time during the latter part of the fifth century, and Lysis was afterwards the teacher of Epameinondas.[[732]] Some of the Pythagoreans, however, were able to return to Italy later on. Philolaos certainly did so, and Plato implies that he had left Thebes some time before 399 B.C., the year in which Sokrates was put to death. In the fourth century, the chief seat of the school is at Taras, and we find the Pythagoreans heading the opposition to Dionysios of Syracuse. It is to this period that Archytas belongs. He was the friend of Plato, and almost realised, if he did not suggest, the ideal of the philosopher king. He ruled Taras for years, and Aristoxenos tells us that he was never defeated in the field of battle.[[733]] He was also the inventor of mathematical mechanics. At the same time, Pythagoreanism had taken root in Hellas. Lysis, we have seen, remained at Thebes, where Simmias and Kebes had heard Philolaos, and there was an important community of Pythagoreans at Phleious. Aristoxenos was personally acquainted with the last generation of the school, and mentioned by name Xenophilos the Chalkidian from Thrace, with Phanton, Echekrates, Diokles, and Polymnestos of Phleious. They were all, he said, disciples of Philolaos and Eurytos.[[734]] Plato was on friendly terms with these men, and dedicated the Phaedo to them.[[735]] Xenophilos was the teacher of Aristoxenos, and lived in perfect health at Athens till the age of a hundred and five.[[736]]
Philolaos.
139. This generation of the school really belongs, however, to a later period, and cannot be profitably studied apart from Plato; it is with their master Philolaos we have now to deal. The facts we know about his teaching from external sources are few in number. The doxographers, indeed, ascribe to him an elaborate theory of the planetary system, but Aristotle never mentions his name in connexion with this. He gives it as the theory of “the Pythagoreans” or of “some Pythagoreans.”[[737]] It seems natural to suppose, however, that the Pythagorean elements of Plato’s Phaedo and Gorgias come mainly from Philolaos. Plato makes Sokrates express surprise that Simmias and Kebes had not learnt from him why it is unlawful for a man to take his life,[[738]] and it seems to be implied that the Pythagoreans at Thebes used the word “philosopher” in the special sense of a man who is seeking to find a way of release from the burden of this life.[[739]] It is extremely probable that Philolaos spoke of the body (σῶμα) as the tomb (σῆμα) of the soul.[[740]] In any case, we seem to be justified in holding that he taught the old Pythagorean religious doctrine in some form, and it is likely that he laid special stress upon knowledge as a means of release. That is the impression we get from Plato, and he is by far the best authority we have on the subject.
We know further that Philolaos wrote on “numbers”; for Speusippos followed him in the account he gave of the Pythagorean theories on that subject.[[741]] It is probable that he busied himself mainly with arithmetic, and we can hardly doubt that his geometry was of the primitive type described in an earlier chapter. Eurytos was his disciple, and we have seen ([§ 47]) that his views were still very crude.
We also know now that Philolaos wrote on medicine,[[742]] and that, while apparently influenced by the theories of the Sicilian school, he opposed them from the Pythagorean standpoint. In particular, he said that our bodies were composed only of the warm, and did not participate in the cold. It was only after birth that the cold was introduced by respiration. The connexion of this with the old Pythagorean theory is obvious. Just as the Fire in the macrocosm draws in and limits the cold dark breath which surrounds the world ([§ 53]), so do our bodies inhale cold breath from outside. Philolaos made bile, blood, and phlegm the causes of disease; and, in accordance with the theory just mentioned, he had to deny that the phlegm was cold, as the Sicilian school held it was. Its etymology proved that it was warm. As Diels says, Philolaos strikes us as an “uninteresting eclectic” so far as his medical views are concerned.[[743]] We shall see, however, that it was just this preoccupation with the medicine of the Sicilian school that gave rise to some of the most striking developments of later Pythagoreanism.
Plato and the Pythagoreans.