[179]. Cf. especially the point of view of the Auction of Lives (Βίων πρᾶσις).
[180]. For the Προτρεπτικός of Aristotle, see Bywater in J. Phil. ii. p. 55; Diels in Arch. i. p. 477; and the notes on Ethics, i. 5, in my edition.
[181]. Plato, Rep. 520 c 1, καταβατέον οὖν ἐν μέρει. The allegory of the Cave seems to be Orphic, and I believe Professor Stewart’s suggestion (Myths of Plato, p. 252, n. 2), that Plato had the κατάβασις εἰς Ἅιδου in mind, to be quite justified. The idea of rescuing the “spirits in prison” is thoroughly Orphic.
[182]. For Empedokles, see [§ 119]; for the Pythagoreans, see [§ 149].
[183]. Cf. Phd. 69 c 2, καὶ κινδυνεύουσι καὶ οἱ τὰς τελετὰς ἡμῖν οὗτοι καταστήσαντες οὐ φαῦλοί τινες εἶναι, ἀλλὰ τῷ ὄντι πάλαι αἰνίττεσθαι κ.τ.λ. The gentle irony of this and similar passages ought to be unmistakable.
[184]. Arist. fr. 45, 1483 a 19, τοὺς τελουμένους οὐ μαθεῖν τι δεῖν, ἀλλὰ παθεῖν καὶ διατεθῆναι.
[185]. See E. Rohde’s admirable papers, “Die Quellen des Iamblichus in seiner Biographie des Pythagoras” (Rh. Mus. xxvi., xxvii.).
[186]. Iamblichos was a disciple of Porphyry, and contemporary with Constantine. The Life of Pythagoras has been edited by Nauck (1884). Nikomachos belongs to the beginning of the second century A.D. There is no evidence that he added anything to the authorities he followed, but these were already vitiated by Neopythagorean fables. Still, it is to him we chiefly owe the preservation of the valuable evidence of Aristoxenos.
[187]. Porphyry’s Life of Pythagoras is the only considerable extract from his History of Philosophy, in four books, that has survived. The romance of Antonius is the original parodied by Lucian in his Vera Historia.
[188]. The importance of the life in Laertios Diogenes lies in the fact that it gives us the story current at Alexandria before the rise of Neopythagoreanism and the promulgation of the gospel according to Apollonios of Tyana.