[189]. Andron of Ephesos wrote a work on the Seven Wise Men, called The Tripod, in allusion to the well-known story. The feats ascribed to Pythagoras in the Aristotelian treatise remind us of an ecclesiastical legend. For example, he kills a deadly snake by biting it; he was seen at Kroton and Metapontion at the same time; he exhibited his golden thigh at Olympia, and was addressed by a voice from heaven when crossing the river Kasas. The same authority stated that he was identified by the Krotoniates with Apollo Hyperboreios (Arist. fr. 186).
[190]. Herod. iv. 95.
[191]. Cf. Herod. iv. 95, and Herakleitos, fr. [17] (R. P. 31 a). Herodotos represents him as living at Samos. On the other hand, Aristoxenos said that he came from one of the islands which the Athenians occupied after expelling the Tyrrhenians (Diog. viii. 1). This suggests Lemnos, from which the Tyrrhenian “Pelasgians” were expelled by Miltiades (Herod. vi. 140), or possibly some other island which was occupied at the same time. There were also Tyrrhenians at Imbros. This explains the story that he was an Etrurian or a Tyrian. Other accounts bring him into connexion with Phleious, but that is perhaps a pious invention of the Pythagorean society which flourished there at the beginning of the fourth century B.C. Pausanias (ii. 13, 1) gives it as a Phleiasian tradition that Hippasos, the great-grandfather of Pythagoras, had emigrated from Phleious to Samos.
[192]. Eratosthenes identified Pythagoras with the Olympic victor of Ol. XLVIII. 1 (588/7 B.C.), but Apollodoros gave his floruit as 532/1, the era of Polykrates. He doubtless based this on the statement of Aristoxenos quoted by Porphyry (V. Pyth. 9), that Pythagoras left Samos from dislike to the tyranny of Polykrates (R. P. 53 a). For a full discussion, see Jacoby, pp. 215 sqq.
[193]. Herakl. fr. [16], [17] (R. P. 31, 31 a).
[194]. It occurs first in the Bousiris of Isokrates, § 28 (R. P. 52).
[195]. Herod. ii. 81 (R. P. 52 a). The comma at Αἰγυπτίοισι is clearly right. Herodotos believed that the worship of Dionysos was introduced from Egypt by Melampous (ii. 49), and he means to suggest that the Orphics got these practices from the worshippers of Bakchos, while the Pythagoreans got them from the Orphics.
[196]. Herod. ii. 123 (R. P. ib.). The words “whose names I know, but do not write” cannot refer to Pythagoras; for it is only of contemporaries that Herodotos speaks in this way (cf. i. 51; iv. 48). Stein’s suggestion that he meant Empedokles seems to me convincing. Herodotos may have met him at Thourioi. Nor is there any reason to suppose that οἱ μὲν πρότερον refers specially to the Pythagoreans. If Herodotos had ever heard of Pythagoras visiting Egypt, he would surely have said so in one or other of these passages. There was no occasion for reserve, as Pythagoras must have died before Herodotos was born.
[197]. Porph. V. Pyth. 9 (R. P. 53 a).
[198]. From what Herodotos tells us of Demokedes (iii. 131) we can see that the medical school of Kroton was founded before the time of Pythagoras. Cf. Wachtler, De Alcmaeone Crotoniata, p. 91.