The distinct philosophical movement of which Pyrrho was the author bore his name for five centuries after his death. It had an acknowledged existence as a philosophical tendency, if indeed not a sect, for a great part of that time. Yet, when we carefully analyse the relation of Pyrrhonism, as presented to us by Sextus, to the teachings of Pyrrho himself, in so far as they can be known, we find many things in Pyrrhonism for which Pyrrho was not responsible.
The foundation elements of the movement, the spirit of Empirical doubt that lay underneath and caused its development in certain directions rather than others, are due to Pyrrho. The methods of the school, however, were very foreign to anything found in the life or teachings of Pyrrho. Pyrrho was eminently a moralist. He was also to a great degree an ascetic, and he lived his philosophy, giving it thus a positive side wanting in the Pyrrhonism presented to us by Sextus. Timon represents him as desiring to escape from the tedious philosophical discussions of his time—
ὦ γέρον ὦ Πύρρων, πῶς ἤ πόθεν ἔκδυσιν εὗρες
λατρείης δοξῶν τε κενοφροσύνης τε σοφιστῶν;
and again he speaks of his modest and tranquil life—
τοῦτό μοι, ὦ Πύρρων, ἱμείρεται ἦτορ ἀκοῦσαι
πῶς πότ᾽ ἀνὴρ ἔτ᾽ ἄγεις πάντα μεθ᾽ ἡσυχίης
μοῦνος δ᾽ἀνθρώποισι θεοῦ τρόπον ἡγεμονεύεις
. . . . . . φῇστα μεθ᾽ ἡσυχίης
αἰεὶ ἀφροντίστως καὶ ἀκινήτος κατὰ ταῦτα