CHAPTER II

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

[Sidenote: Migrations to the West.]

32. So far we have not met with any trace of direct antagonism between

science and popular beliefs, though the views of the Milesian

cosmologists were really as inconsistent with the religions of the

people as with the mythology of the anthropomorphic poets.[169] Two

things hastened the conflict—the shifting of the scene to the West, and

the religious revival which swept over Hellas in the sixth century B.C.

Footnote 169:

For the theological views of Anaximander and Anaximenes, see § 22 and

30.

The chief figures in the philosophical history of the period were

Pythagoras of Samos and Xenophanes of Kolophon. Both were Ionians by

birth, and yet both spent the greater part of their lives in the West.

We see from Herodotos how the Persian advance in Asia Minor occasioned a

series of migrations to Sicily and Southern Italy;[170] and this, of

course, made a great difference to philosophy as well as to religion.

The new views had probably grown up so naturally and gradually in Ionia

that the shock of conflict and reaction was avoided; but that could no

longer be so, when they were transplanted to a region where men were

wholly unprepared to receive them.

Footnote 170:

Cf. Herod. i. 170 (advice of Bias); vi. 22 sqq. (Kale Akte).

Another, though a somewhat later, effect of these migrations was to

bring Science into contact with Rhetoric, one of the most characteristic

products of Western Hellas. Already in Parmenides we may note the

presence of that dialectical and controversial spirit which was destined

to have so great an influence on Greek thought, and it was just this

fusion of the art of arguing for victory with the search for truth that

before long gave birth to Logic.

[Sidenote: The religious revival.]

33. Most important of all in its influence on philosophy was the

religious revival which culminated about this time. The religion of

continental Hellas had developed in a very different way from that of

Ionia. In particular, the worship of Dionysos, which came from Thrace,

and is barely mentioned in Homer, contained in germ a wholly new way of

looking at man’s relation to the world. It would certainly be wrong to

credit the Thracians themselves with any very exalted views; but there

can be no doubt that, to the Greeks, the phenomenon of ecstasy suggested

that the soul was something more than a feeble double of the self, and

that it was only when “out of the body” it could show its true

nature.[171] To a less extent, such ideas were also suggested by the

worship of Demeter, whose mysteries were celebrated at Eleusis; though,

in later days, these came to take the leading place in men’s minds. That

was because they were incorporated in the public religion of Athens.

Footnote 171:

On all this, see Rohde, _Psyche_, pp. 327 sqq. It is probable that he

exaggerated the degree to which these ideas were already developed

among the Thracians, but the essential connexion of the new view of

the soul with Northern worships is confirmed by the tradition over and

over again.

Before the time with which we are dealing, tradition shows us dimly an

age of inspired prophets—Bakides and Sibyls—followed by one of strange

medicine-men like Abaris and Aristeas of Prokonnesos. With Epimenides of

Crete, we touch the fringe of history, while Pherekydes of Syros is the

contemporary of the early cosmologists, and we still have some fragments

of his discourse. It looked as if Greek religion were about to enter

upon the same stage as that already reached by the religions of the

East; and, but for the rise of science, it is hard to see what could

have checked this tendency. It is usual to say that the Greeks were

saved from a religion of the Oriental type by their having no

priesthood; but this is to mistake the effect for the cause. Priesthoods

do not make dogmas, though they preserve them once they are made; and in

the earlier stages of their development, the Oriental peoples had no

priesthoods either in the sense intended.[172] It was not so much the

absence of a priesthood as the existence of the scientific schools that

saved Greece.

Footnote 172:

See Meyer, _Gesch. des Alterth._ ii. § 461. The exaggerated rôle often

attributed to priesthoods is a survival of French eighteenth century

thinking.

[Sidenote: The Orphic religion.]

34. The new religion—for in one sense it was new, though in another as

old as mankind—reached its highest point of development with the

foundation of the Orphic communities. So far as we can see, the original

home of these was Attika; but they spread with extraordinary rapidity,

especially in Southern Italy and Sicily.[173] They were first of all

associations for the worship of Dionysos; but they were distinguished by

two features which were new among the Hellenes. They looked to a

revelation as the source of religious authority, and they were organised

as artificial communities. The poems which contained their theology were

ascribed to the Thracian Orpheus, who had himself descended into Hades,

and was therefore a safe guide through the perils which beset the

disembodied soul in the next world. We have considerable remains of this

literature, but they are mostly of late date, and cannot safely be used

as evidence for the beliefs of the sixth century. We do know, however,

that the leading ideas of Orphicism were quite early. A number of thin

gold plates with Orphic verses inscribed on them have been discovered in

Southern Italy;[174] and though these are somewhat later in date than

the period with which we are dealing, they belong to the time when

Orphicism was a living creed and not a fantastic revival. What can be

made out from them as to the doctrine has a startling resemblance to the

beliefs which were prevalent in India about the same time, though it

seems impossible that there should have been any actual contact between

India and Greece at this date. The main purpose of the _Orgia_[175] was

to “purify” the believer’s soul, and so enable it to escape from the

“wheel of birth,” and it was for the better attainment of this end that

the Orphics were organised in communities. Religious associations must

have been known to the Greeks from a fairly early date;[176] but the

oldest of these were based, at least in theory, on the tie of kindred

blood. What was new was the institution of communities to which any one

might be admitted by initiation.[177] This was, in fact, the

establishment of churches, though there is no evidence that these were

connected with each other in such a way that we could rightly speak of

them as a single church. The Pythagoreans came nearer to realising that.

Footnote 173:

See E. Meyer, _Gesch. des Alterth._ ii. §§ 453-460, who rightly

emphasises the fact that the Orphic theogony is the continuation of

Hesiod’s work. As we have seen, some of it is even older than Hesiod.

Footnote 174:

For the gold plates of Thourioi and Petelia, see the Appendix to Miss

Harrison’s _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, where the

text of them is discussed and a translation given by Professor Gilbert

Murray.

Footnote 175:

This was the oldest name for these “mysteries,” and it simply means

“sacraments” (cf. ἔοργα). _Orgia_ are not necessarily “orgiastic.”

That association of ideas merely comes from the fact that they

belonged to the worship of Dionysos.

Footnote 176:

Herodotos mentions that Isagoras and those of his γένος worshipped the

Karian Zeus (v. 66), and it is probable that the _Orgeones_ attached

by Kleisthenes to the Attic _phratriai_ were associations of this

kind. See Foucart, _Les associations religieuses chez les Grecs_.

Footnote 177:

A striking parallel is afforded to all this by what we are told in

Robertson Smith’s _Religion of the Semites_, p. 339. “The leading

feature that distinguished them” (the Semitic mysteries of the seventh

century B.C.) “from the old public cults with which they came into

competition, is that they were not based on the principle of

nationality, but sought recruits from men of every race who were

willing to accept initiation through the mystic sacraments.”

[Sidenote: Philosophy as a Way of Life.]

35. We have to take account of the religious revival here, chiefly

because it suggested the view that philosophy was above all a “way of

life.” Science too was a “purification,” a means of escape from the

“wheel.” This is the view expressed so strongly in Plato’s _Phaedo_,

which was written under the influence of Pythagorean ideas.[178]

Sokrates became to his followers the ideal “wise man,” and it was to

this side of his personality the Cynics mainly attached themselves. From

them proceeded the Stoic sage and the Christian saint, and also the

whole brood of impostors whom Lucian has pilloried for our

edification.[179] Saints and sages are apt to appear in questionable

shapes, and Apollonios of Tyana showed in the end where this view may

lead. It was not wholly absent from any Greek philosophy after the days

of Pythagoras. Aristotle is as much possessed by it as any one, as we

may see from the Tenth Book of the _Ethics_, and as we should see still

more distinctly if we possessed such works as the _Protreptikos_ in

their entirety.[180] Plato, indeed, tried to make the ideal wise man of

service to the state and mankind by his doctrine of the philosopher

king. It was he alone, so far as we know, that insisted on philosophers

descending by turns into the cave from which they had been released and

coming to the help of their former fellow-prisoners.[181] That was not,

however, the view that prevailed, and the “wise man” became more and

more detached from the world. Apollonios of Tyana was quite entitled to

regard himself as the spiritual heir of Pythagoras; for the theurgy and

thaumaturgy of the late Greek schools was but the fruit of the seed sown

in the generation before the Persian Wars.

Footnote 178:

The _Phaedo_ is dedicated, as it were, to Echekrates and the

Pythagorean society at Phleious, and it is evident that Plato in his

youth was impressed by the religious side of Pythagoreanism, though

the influence of Pythagorean science is not clearly marked till a

later period. Note specially the ἄτραπος of _Phd._ 66 b 4. In _Rep._

x. 600 b 1, Plato speaks of Pythagoras as the originator of a private

ὁδός τις βίου.

Footnote 179:

Cf. especially the point of view of the _Auction of Lives_ (Βίων

πρᾶσις).

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

[Sidenote: No doctrine in the “Mysteries.”]

36. On the other hand, it would be wrong to suppose that Orphicism or

the Mysteries suggested any definite doctrines to philosophers, at least

during the period which we are about to consider. We have admitted that

they really implied a new view of the soul, and we might therefore have

expected to find that they profoundly modified men’s theory of the world

and their relation to it. The striking thing is that this did not

happen. Even those philosophers who were most closely in touch with the

religious movement, like Empedokles and the Pythagoreans, held views

about the soul which really contradicted the theory implied by their

religious practices.[182] There is no room for an immortal soul in any

philosophy of this period. Up to Plato’s time immortality was never

treated in a scientific way, but merely assumed in the Orphic rites, to

which Plato half seriously turns for confirmation of his own

teaching.[183]

Footnote 182:

For Empedokles, see § 119; for the Pythagoreans, see § 149.

Footnote 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.

All this is easily accounted for. With us a religious revival generally

means the vivid realisation of a new or forgotten doctrine, while

ancient religion has properly no doctrine at all. “The initiated,”

Aristotle said, “were not expected to learn anything, but merely to be

affected in a certain way and put into a certain frame of mind.”[184]

Nothing was required but that the ritual should be correctly performed,

and the worshipper was free to give any explanation of it he pleased. It

might be as exalted as that of Pindar and Sophokles, or as material as

that of the itinerant mystery-mongers described by Plato in the

_Republic_. The essential thing was that he should duly sacrifice his

pig.

Footnote 184:

Arist. fr. 45, 1483 a 19, τοὺς τελουμένους οὐ μαθεῖν τι δεῖν, ἀλλὰ

παθεῖν καὶ διατεθῆναι.

I. PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOS

[Sidenote: Character of the tradition.]

37. It is no easy task to give an account of Pythagoras that can claim

to be regarded as history. Our principal sources of information[185] are

the Lives composed by Iamblichos, Porphyry, and Laertios Diogenes. That

of Iamblichos is a wretched compilation, based chiefly on the work of

the arithmetician Nikomachos of Gerasa in Judaea, and the romance of

Apollonios of Tyana, who regarded himself as a second Pythagoras, and

accordingly took great liberties with his materials.[186] Porphyry

stands, as a writer, on a far higher level than Iamblichos; but his

authorities do not inspire us with more confidence. He, too, made use of

Nikomachos, and of a certain novelist called Antonius Diogenes, author

of a work entitled _Marvels from beyond Thule_.[187] Diogenes quotes, as

usual, a considerable number of authorities, and the statements he makes

must be estimated according to the nature of the sources from which they

were drawn.[188] So far, it must be confessed, our material does not

seem promising. Further examination shows, however, that a good many

fragments of two much older authorities, Aristoxenos and Dikaiarchos,

are embedded in the mass. These writers were both disciples of

Aristotle; they were natives of Southern Italy, and contemporary with

the last generation of the Pythagorean school. Both wrote accounts of

Pythagoras; and Aristoxenos, who was personally intimate with the last

representatives of scientific Pythagoreanism, also made a collection of

the sayings of his friends. Now the Neopythagorean story, as we have it

in Iamblichos, is a tissue of incredible and fantastic myths; but, if we

sift out the statements which go back to Aristoxenos and Dikaiarchos, we

can easily construct a rational narrative, in which Pythagoras appears

not as a miracle-monger and religious innovator, but simply as a

moralist and statesman. We might then be tempted to suppose that this is

the genuine tradition; but that would be altogether a mistake. There is,

in fact, a third and still earlier stratum in the Lives, and this agrees

with the latest accounts in representing Pythagoras as a wonder-worker

and a religious reformer.

Footnote 185:

See E. Rohde’s admirable papers, “Die Quellen des Iamblichus in seiner

Biographie des Pythagoras” (_Rh. Mus._ xxvi., xxvii.).

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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_.

Footnote 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.

Some of the most striking miracles of Pythagoras are related on the

authority of Andron’s _Tripod_, and of Aristotle’s work on the

Pythagoreans.[189] Both these treatises belong to the fourth century

B.C., and are therefore untouched by Neopythagorean fancies. Further, it

is only by assuming the still earlier existence of this view that we can

explain the allusions of Herodotos. The Hellespontine Greeks told him

that Salmoxis or Zamolxis had been a slave of Pythagoras,[190] and

Salmoxis is a figure of the same class as Abaris and Aristeas.

Footnote 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).

Footnote 190:

Herod. iv. 95.

It seems, then, that both the oldest and the latest accounts agree in

representing Pythagoras as a man of the class to which Epimenides and

Onomakritos belonged—in fact, as a sort of “medicine-man”; but, for some

reason, there was an attempt to save his memory from this imputation,

and that attempt belonged to the fourth century B.C. The significance of

this will appear in the sequel.

[Sidenote: Life of Pythagoras.]

38. We may be said to know for certain that Pythagoras passed his early

manhood at Samos, and was the son of Mnesarchos;[191] and he

“flourished,” we are told, in the reign of Polykrates.[192] This date

cannot be far wrong; for Herakleitos already speaks of him in the past

tense.[193]

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 193:

Herakl. fr. 16, 17 (R. P. 31, 31 a).

The extensive travels attributed to Pythagoras by late writers are, of

course, apocryphal. Even the statement that he visited Egypt, though far

from improbable if we consider the close relations between Polykrates of

Samos and Amasis, rests on no sufficient authority.[194] Herodotos, it

is true, observes that the Egyptians agreed in certain practices with

the rules called Orphic and Bacchic, which are really Egyptian, and with

the Pythagoreans;[195] but this does not imply that the Pythagoreans

derived these directly from Egypt. He says also in another place that

the belief in transmigration came from Egypt, though certain Greeks,

both at an earlier and a later date, had passed it off as their own. He

refuses, however, to give their names, so he can hardly be referring to

Pythagoras.[196] Nor does it matter; for the Egyptians did not believe

in transmigration at all, and Herodotos was simply deceived by the

priests or the symbolism of the monuments.

Footnote 194:

It occurs first in the _Bousiris_ of Isokrates, § 28 (R. P. 52).

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Aristoxenos said that Pythagoras left Samos in order to escape from the

tyranny of Polykrates.[197] It was at Kroton, a city already famous for

its medical school,[198] that he founded his society. How long he

remained there we do not know; he died at Metapontion, whither he had

retired on the first signal of revolt against his influence.[199]

Footnote 197:

Porph. _V. Pyth._ 9 (R. P. 53 a).

Footnote 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.

Footnote 199:

It may be taken as certain that Pythagoras spent his last days at

Metapontion; Aristoxenos said so (_ap._ Iambl. _V. Pyth._ 249), and

Cicero (_De Fin._ v. 4) speaks of the honours which continued to be

paid to his memory in that city (R. P. 57 c). Cf. also Andron, fr. 6

(_F.H.G._ ii. 347).

[Sidenote: The Order.]

39. There is no reason to believe that the detailed statements which

have been handed down with regard to the organisation of the Pythagorean

Order rest upon any historical basis, and in the case of many of them we

can still see how they came to be made. The distinction of grades within

the Order, variously called _Mathematicians_ and _Akousmatics_,

_Esoterics_ and _Exoterics_, _Pythagoreans_ and _Pythagorists_,[200] is

an invention designed to explain how there came to be two widely

different sets of people, each calling themselves disciples of

Pythagoras, in the fourth century B.C. So, too, the statement that the

Pythagoreans were bound to inviolable secrecy, which goes back to

Aristoxenos,[201] is intended to explain why there is no trace of the

Pythagorean philosophy proper before Philolaos.

Footnote 200:

For these distinctions, see Porphyry (_V. Pyth._ 37) and Iamblichos

(_V. Pyth._ 80), quoted R. P. 56 and 56 b. The name ἀκουσματικοί is

clearly related to the ἀκούσματα, with which we shall have to deal

shortly (§ 44).

Footnote 201:

For the “mystic silence,” see Aristoxenos, _ap._ Diog. viii. 15 (R. P.

55 a). Tannery, “Sur le secret dans l’école de Pythagore” (_Arch._ i.

pp. 28 sqq.), thinks that the mathematical doctrines were the secrets

of the school, and that these were divulged by Hippasos; but the most

reasonable view is that there were no secrets at all except of a

ritual kind.

The Pythagorean Order was simply, in its origin, a religious fraternity

of the type described above, and not, as has sometimes been maintained,

a political league.[202] Nor had it anything to do with the “Dorian

aristocratic ideal.” Pythagoras was an Ionian, and the Order was

originally confined to Achaian states.[203] Nor is there the slightest

evidence that the Pythagoreans favoured the aristocratic rather than the

democratic party.[204] The main purpose of the Order was to secure for

its own members a more adequate satisfaction of the religious instinct

than that supplied by the State religion. It was, in fact, an

institution for the cultivation of holiness. In this respect it

resembled an Orphic society, though it seems that Apollo, rather than

Dionysos, was the chief Pythagorean god. That is doubtless why the

Krotoniates identified Pythagoras with Apollo Hyperboreios.[205] From

the nature of the case, however, an independent society within a Greek

state was apt to be brought into conflict with the larger body. The only

way in which it could then assert its right to exist was by identifying

the State with itself, that is, by securing the control of the sovereign

power. The history of the Pythagorean Order, so far as it can be traced,

is, accordingly, the history of an attempt to supersede the State; and

its political action is to be explained as a mere incident of that

attempt.

Footnote 202:

Plato, _Rep._ x. 600 a, implies that Pythagoras held no public office.

The view that the Pythagorean sect was a political league, maintained

in modern times by Krische (_De societatis a Pythagora conditae scopo

politico_, 1830), goes back, as Rohde has shown (_loc. cit._), to

Dikaiarchos, the champion of the “Practical Life,” just as the view

that it was primarily a scientific society goes back to the

mathematician and musician Aristoxenos. The former antedated Archytas,

just as the latter antedated Philolaos (see Chap. VII. § 138). Grote’s

good sense enabled him to see this quite clearly (vol. iv. pp. 329

sqq.).

Footnote 203:

Meyer, _Gesch. des Alterth._ ii. § 502, Anm. It is still necessary to

insist upon this, as the idea that the Pythagoreans represented the

“Dorian ideal” dies very hard. In his _Kulturhistorische Beiträge_

(Heft i. p. 59), Max C. P. Schmidt imagines that later writers call

the founder of the sect Pythagoras instead of Pythagores, as he is

called by Herakleitos and Demokritos, because he had become “a Dorian

of the Dorians.” The fact is simply that Πυθαγόρας is the Attic form

of Πυθαγόρης, and that the writers in question wrote Attic. Similarly,

Plato calls Archytas, who did belong to a Dorian state, Archytes,

though Aristoxenos and others retained the Dorian form of his name.

Footnote 204:

Kylon, the chief opponent of the Pythagoreans, is described by

Aristoxenos (Iambl. _V. Pyth._ 248) as γένει καὶ δόξῃ καὶ πλούτῳ

πρωτεύων τῶν πολιτῶν. Taras, later the chief seat of the Pythagoreans,

was a democracy. The truth is that, at this time, the new religion

appealed to the people rather than the aristocracies, which were apt

to be “free-thinking” (Meyer, _Gesch. des Alt._ iii. § 252).

Xenophanes, not Pythagoras, is their man.

Footnote 205:

We have the authority of Aristotle, fr. 186, 1510 b 20, for the

identification of Pythagoras with Apollo Hyperboreios. The names of

Abaris and Aristeas stand for a mystical movement parallel to the

Orphic, but based on the worship of Apollo. The later tradition makes

them predecessors of Pythagoras; and that this has some historical

basis, appears from Herod. iv. 13 sqq., and above all from the

statement that Aristeas had a statue at Metapontion, where Pythagoras

died. The connexion of Pythagoras with Zamolxis belongs to the same

order of ideas. As the legend of the Hyperboreans is Delian, we see

that the religion taught by Pythagoras was genuinely Ionian in its

origin.

[Sidenote: Downfall of the Order.]

40. For a time the new Order seems actually to have succeeded in

securing the supreme power, but reaction came at last. Under the

leadership of Kylon, a wealthy noble, Kroton was able to assert itself

victoriously against the Pythagorean domination. This, we may well

believe, had been galling enough. The “rule of the saints” would be

nothing to it; and we can still imagine and sympathise with the

irritation felt by the plain man of those days at having his legislation

done for him by a set of incomprehensible pedants, who made a point of

abstaining from beans, and would not let him beat his own dog because

they recognised in its howls the voice of a departed friend (Xenophanes,

fr. 7). This feeling would be aggravated by the private religious

worship of the Society. Greek states could never pardon the introduction

of new gods. Their objection to this was not, however, that the gods in

question were false gods. If they had been, it would not have mattered

so much. What they could not tolerate was that any one should establish

a private means of communication between himself and the unseen powers.

That introduced an unknown and incalculable element into the

arrangements of the State, which might very likely be hostile to those

citizens who had no means of propitiating the intruding divinity.

Aristoxenos’s version of the events which led to the downfall of the

Pythagorean Order is given at length by Iamblichos. According to this,

Pythagoras had refused to receive Kylon into his Society, and he

therefore became a bitter foe of the Order. From this cause Pythagoras

removed from Kroton to Metapontion, where he died. The Pythagoreans,

however, still retained possession of the government of Kroton, till at

last the partisans of Kylon set fire to Milo’s house, where they were

assembled. Of those in the house only two, Archippos and Lysis, escaped.

Archippos retired to Taras; Lysis, first to Achaia and then to Thebes,

where he became later on the teacher of Epameinondas. The Pythagoreans

who remained concentrated themselves at Rhegion; but, as things went

from bad to worse, they all left Italy except Archippos.[206]

Footnote 206:

See Rohde, _Rh. Mus._ xxvi. p. 565, n. 1. The narrative in the text

(Iambl. _V. Pyth._ 250; R. P. 59 b) goes back to Aristoxenos and

Dikaiarchos (R. P. 59 a). There is no reason to suppose that their

view of Pythagoras has vitiated their account of what must have been a

perfectly well-known piece of history. According to the later story,

Pythagoras himself was burned to death in the house of Milo, along

with his disciples. This is merely a dramatic compression of the whole

series of events into a single scene; we have seen that Pythagoras

died at Metapontion before the final catastrophe. The valuable

reference in Polybios ii. 39 (R. P. 59) to the burning of Pythagorean

συνέδρια certainly implies that the disturbances went on for a very

considerable time.

This account has all the air of being historical. The mention of Lysis

proves, however, that those events were spread over more than one

generation. The _coup d’état_ of Kroton can hardly have occurred before

450 B.C., if the teacher of Epameinondas escaped from it, and it may

well have been even later. But it must have been before 410 B.C. that

the Pythagoreans left Rhegion for Hellas; Philolaos was certainly at

Thebes about that time.[207]

Footnote 207:

Plato, _Phd._ 61 d 7, e 7.

The political power of the Pythagoreans as an Order was now gone for

ever, though we shall see that some of them returned to Italy at a later

date. In exile they seem to have dropped the merely magical and

superstitious parts of their system, and this enabled them to take their

place as one of the scientific schools of Hellas.

[Sidenote: Want of evidence as to the teaching of Pythagoras.]

41. Of the opinions of Pythagoras we know even less than of his life.

Aristotle clearly knew nothing for certain of ethical or physical

doctrines going back to the founder of the Society himself.[208]

Aristoxenos only gave a string of moral precepts.[209] Dikaiarchos is

quoted by Porphyry as asserting that hardly anything of what Pythagoras

taught his disciples was known except the doctrine of transmigration,

the periodic cycle, and the kinship of all living creatures.[210] The

fact is, that, like all teachers who introduce a new way of living

rather than a new view of the world, Pythagoras preferred oral

instruction to the dissemination of his opinions by writing, and it was

not till Alexandrian times that any one ventured to forge books in his

name. The writings ascribed to the earliest Pythagoreans were also

forgeries of the same period.[211] The early history of Pythagoreanism

is, therefore, wholly conjectural; but we may still make an attempt to

understand, in a very general way, what the position of Pythagoras in

the history of Greek thought must have been.

Footnote 208:

When discussing the Pythagorean system, Aristotle always refers it to

“the Pythagoreans,” not to Pythagoras himself. That this was

intentional seems to be proved by the phrase οἱ καλούμενοι

Πυθαγόρειοι, which occurs more than once (_e.g._ _Met._ Α, 5. 985 b

23; _de Caelo_, Β, 13. 293 a 20). Pythagoras himself is only thrice

mentioned in the whole Aristotelian corpus, and in only one of these

places (_M. Mor._ 1182 a 11) is any philosophical doctrine ascribed to

him. We are told there that he was the first to discuss the subject of

goodness, and that he made the mistake of identifying its various

forms with numbers. But this is just one of the things which prove the

late date of the _Magna Moralia_. Aristotle himself is quite clear

that what he knew as the Pythagorean system belonged in the main to

the days of Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Leukippos; for, after

mentioning these, he goes on to describe the Pythagoreans as

“contemporary with and earlier than them” (ἐν δὲ τούτοις καὶ πρὸ

τούτων, _Met._ Α, 5. 985 b 23).

Footnote 209:

The fragments of the Πυθαγορικαὶ ἀποφάσεις of Aristoxenos are given by

Diels, _Vors._ pp. 282 sqq.

Footnote 210:

_V. Pyth._ 19 (R. P. 55).

Footnote 211:

See Diels, _Dox._ p. 150; and “Ein gefälschtes Pythagorasbuch”

(_Arch._ iii. pp. 451 sqq.). Cf. also Bernays, _Die Heraklitischen

Briefe_, n. 1.

[Sidenote: Transmigration.]

42. In the first place, then, there can be no doubt that he really

taught the doctrine of transmigration.[212] The story told by the Greeks

of the Hellespont and Pontos as to his relations with Salmoxis could

never have gained currency by the time of Herodotos if he had not been

known as a man who taught strange views of the life after death.[213]

Now the doctrine of transmigration is most easily to be explained as a

development of the savage belief in the kinship of men and beasts, as

all alike children of the Earth,[214] a view which Dikaiarchos said

Pythagoras certainly held. Further, among savages, this belief is

commonly associated with a system of taboos on certain kinds of food,

and the Pythagorean rule is best known for its prescription of similar

forms of abstinence. This in itself goes far to show that it originated

in the same ideas, and we have seen that the revival of these would be

quite natural in connexion with the foundation of a new religious

society. There is a further consideration which tells strongly in the

same direction. In India we have a precisely similar doctrine, and yet

it is not possible to assume any actual borrowing of Indian ideas at

this date. The only explanation which will account for the facts is that

the two systems were independently evolved from the same primitive

ideas. These are found in many parts of the world; but it seems to have

been only in India and in Greece that they were developed into an

elaborate doctrine.

Footnote 212:

The proper Greek term for this is παλιγγενεσία, and the inaccurate

μετεμψύχωσις only occurs in late writers. Hippolytos and Clement of

Alexandria say μετενσωμάτωσις, which is accurate but cumbrous. See

Rohde, _Psyche_, p. 428, n. 2.

Footnote 213:

On the significance of this, see above, p. 93.

Footnote 214:

Dieterich, “Mutter Erde” (_Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, viii.

pp. 29 and 47).

[Sidenote: Abstinence.]

43. It has indeed been doubted whether we have a right to accept what

we are told by such late writers as Porphyry on the subject of

Pythagorean abstinence. Aristoxenos, whom we have admitted to be one

of our earliest witnesses, may be cited to prove that the original

Pythagoreans knew nothing of these restrictions on the use of animal

flesh and beans. He undoubtedly said that Pythagoras did not abstain

from animal flesh in general, but only from that of the ploughing ox

and the ram.[215] He also said that Pythagoras preferred beans to

every other vegetable, as being the most laxative, and that he was

partial to sucking-pigs and tender kids.[216] Aristoxenos, however, is

a witness who very often breaks down under cross-examination, and the

palpable exaggeration of these statements shows that he is

endeavouring to combat a belief which existed in his own day. We are

therefore able to show, out of his own mouth, that the tradition which

made the Pythagoreans abstain from animal flesh and beans goes back to

a time long before there were any Neopythagoreans interested in

upholding it. Still, it may be asked what motive Aristoxenos could

have had for denying the common belief? The answer is simple and

instructive. He had been the friend of the last of the Pythagoreans;

and, in their time, the merely superstitious part of Pythagoreanism

had been dropped, except by some zealots whom the heads of the Society

refused to acknowledge. That is why he represents Pythagoras himself

in so different a light from both the older and the later traditions;

it is because he gives us the view of the more enlightened sect of the

Order. Those who clung faithfully to the old practices were now

regarded as heretics, and all manner of theories were set on foot to

account for their existence. It was related, for instance, that they

descended from one of the “Akousmatics,” who had never been initiated

into the deeper mysteries of the “Mathematicians.”[217] All this,

however, is pure invention. The satire of the poets of the Middle

Comedy proves clearly enough that, even though the friends of

Aristoxenos did not practise abstinence, there were plenty of people

in the fourth century, calling themselves followers of Pythagoras, who

did.[218] History has not been kind to the Akousmatics, but they never

wholly died out. The names of Diodoros of Aspendos and Nigidius

Figulus help to bridge the gulf between them and Apollonios of Tyana.

Footnote 215:

Aristoxenos _ap._ Diog. viii. 20, πάντα μὲν τὰ ἄλλα συγχωρεῖν αὐτὸν

ἐσθίειν ἔμψυχα, μόνον δ’ ἀπέχεσθαι βοὸς ἀροτῆρος καὶ κριοῦ.

Footnote 216:

Aristoxenos _ap._ Gell. iv. 11, 5, Πυθαγόρας δὲ τῶν ὀσπρίων μάλιστα

τὸν κύαμον ἐδοκίμασεν· λειαντικόν τε γὰρ εἶναι καὶ διαχωρητικόν· διὸ

καὶ μάλιστα κέχρηται αὐτῷ; _ib._ 6, “porculis quoque minusculis et

haedis tenerioribus victitasse, idem Aristoxenus refert.” It is, of

course, possible that Aristoxenos may be right about the taboo on

beans. We know that it was Orphic, and it may have been transferred to

the Pythagoreans by mistake. That, however, would not affect the

general conclusion that at least some Pythagoreans practised

abstinence from various kinds of food, which is all that is required.

Footnote 217:

The sect of the “Akousmatics” was said to descend from Hippasos

(Iambl. _V. Pyth._ 81; R. P. 56). Now Hippasos was the author of a

μυστικὸς λόγος (Diog. viii. 7; R. P. 56 c), that is to say, of a

superstitious ceremonial or ritual handbook, probably containing

Akousmata like those we are about to consider; for we are told that it

was written ἐπὶ διαβολῇ Πυθαγόρου.

Footnote 218:

Diels has collected these fragments in a convenient form (_Vors._ pp.

291 sqq.). For our purpose the most important passages are Antiphanes,

fr. 135, Kock, ὥσπερ Πυθαγορίζων ἐσθίει | ἔμψυχον οὐδέν; Alexis, fr.

220, οἱ Πυθαγορίζοντες γάρ, ὡς ἀκούομεν, | οὔτ’ ὄψον ἐσθίουσιν οὔτ’

ἄλλ’ οὐδὲ ἓν | ἔμψυχον; fr. 196 (from the Πυθαγορίζουσα), ἡ δ’

ἑστίασις ἰσχάδες καὶ στέμφυλα | καὶ τυρὸς ἔσται· ταῦτα γὰρ θύειν νόμος

| τοῖς Πυθαγορείοις; Aristophon, fr. 9 (from the Πυθαγοριστής), πρὸς

τῶν θεῶν οἰόμεθα τοὺς πάλαι ποτέ, | τοὺς Πυθαγοριστὰς γενομένους ὄντως

ῥυπᾶν | ἑκόντας ἢ φορεῖν τριβῶνας ἡδέως; Mnesimachos, fr. 1, ὡς

Πυθαγοριστὶ θύομεν τῷ Λοξίᾳ | ἔμψυχον οὐδὲν ἐσθίοντες παντελῶς. See

also Theokritos, xiv. 5, τοιοῦτος καὶ πρᾶν τις ἀφίκετο Πυθαγορικτάς, |

ὠχρὸς κἀνυποδητός· Ἀθηναῖος δ’ ἔφατ’ ἦμεν.

We know, then, that Pythagoras taught the kinship of beasts and men, and

we infer that his rule of abstinence from flesh was based, not upon

humanitarian or ascetic grounds, but on taboo. This is strikingly

confirmed by a fact which we are told in Porphyry’s _Defence of

Abstinence_. The statement in question does not indeed go back to

Theophrastos, as so much of Porphyry’s tract certainly does;[219] but it

is, in all probability, due to Herakleides of Pontos, and is to the

effect that, though the Pythagoreans did as a rule abstain from flesh,

they nevertheless ate it when they sacrificed to the gods.[220] Now,

among savage peoples, we often find that the sacred animal is slain and

eaten sacramentally by its kinsmen on certain solemn occasions, though

in ordinary circumstances this would be the greatest of all impieties.

Here, again, we have to do with a very primitive belief; and we need not

therefore attach any weight to the denials of Aristoxenos.[221]

Footnote 219:

See Bernays, _Theophrastos’ Schrift über Frömmigkeit_. Porphyry’s

tract, Περὶ ἀποχῆς ἐμψύχων, was doubtless saved from the general

destruction of his writings by its conformity to the ascetic

tendencies of the age. Even St. Jerome made constant use of it in his

polemic against Iovianus, though he is careful not to mention

Porphyry’s name (_Theophr. Schr._ n. 2). The tract is addressed to

Castricius Firmus, the disciple and friend of Plotinos, who had fallen

away from the strict vegetarianism of the Pythagoreans.

Footnote 220:

The passage occurs _De Abst._ p. 58, 25 Nauck: ἱστοροῦσι δέ τινες καὶ

αὐτοὺς ἅπτεσθαι τῶν ἐμψύχων τοὺς Πυθαγορείους, ὅτε θύοιεν θεοῖς. The

part of the work from which this is taken comes from one Clodius, on

whom see Bernay, _Theophr. Schr._ p. 11. He was probably the

rhetorician Sextus Clodius, and a contemporary of Cicero. Bernays has

shown that he made use of the work of Herakleides of Pontos (_ib._ n.

19). On “mystic sacrifice” generally, see Robertson Smith, _Rel. Sem._

i. p. 276.

Footnote 221:

Porphyry (_V. Pyth._ c 15) has preserved a tradition to the effect

that Pythagoras recommended a flesh diet for athletes (Milo?). This

story must have originated at the same time as those related by

Aristoxenos, and in a similar way. In fact, Bernays has shown that it

comes from Herakleides of Pontos (_Theophr. Schr._ n. 8). Iamblichos

(_V. Pyth._ 5. 25) and others (Diog. viii. 13, 47) got out of this by

supposing it referred to a gymnast of the same name. We see here very

distinctly how the Neoplatonists for their own ends endeavoured to go

back to the original form of the Pythagorean legend, and to explain

away the fourth century reconstruction.

[Sidenote: _Akousmata._]

44. We shall now know what to think of the various Pythagorean rules and

precepts which have come down to us. These are of two kinds, and have

very different sources. Some of them, derived from the collection of

Aristoxenos, and for the most part preserved by Iamblichos, are mere

precepts of morality. They do not pretend to go back to Pythagoras

himself; they are only the sayings which the last generation of

“Mathematicians” heard from their predecessors.[222] The second class is

of a very different nature, and the sayings which belong to it are

called _Akousmata_,[223] which points to their being the property of

that sect of Pythagoreans which had faithfully preserved the old

customs. Later writers interpret them as “symbols” of moral truth; but

their interpretations are extremely far-fetched, and it does not require

a very practised eye to see that they are genuine taboos of a thoroughly

primitive type. I give a few examples in order that the reader may judge

what the famous Pythagorean rule of life was really like.

1. To abstain from beans.

2. Not to pick up what has fallen.

3. Not to touch a white cock.

4. Not to break bread.

5. Not to step over a crossbar.

6. Not to stir the fire with iron.

7. Not to eat from a whole loaf.

8. Not to pluck a garland.

9. Not to sit on a quart measure.

10. Not to eat the heart.

11. Not to walk on highways.

12. Not to let swallows share one’s roof.

13. When the pot is taken off the fire, not to leave the mark of it in

the ashes, but to stir them together.

14. Do not look in a mirror beside a light.

15. When you rise from the bedclothes, roll them together and smooth

out the impress of the body.

Footnote 222:

For these see Diels, _Vors._ pp. 282 sqq.

Footnote 223:

There is an excellent collection of Ἀκούσματα καὶ σύμβολα in Diels,

_Vors._ pp. 279 sqq., where the authorities will be found. It is

impossible to discuss these in detail here, but students of folklore

will see at once to what order of ideas they belong.

It would be easy to multiply proofs of the close connexion between

Pythagoreanism and primitive modes of thought, but what has been said is

really sufficient for our purpose. The kinship of men and beasts, the

abstinence from flesh, and the doctrine of transmigration all hang

together and form a perfectly intelligible whole from the point of view

which has been indicated.

[Sidenote: Pythagoras as a man of science.]

45. Were this all, we should be tempted to delete the name of Pythagoras

from the history of philosophy altogether, and relegate him to the class

of “medicine-men” (γόητες) along with Epimenides and Onomakritos. This,

however, would be quite wrong. As we shall see, the Pythagorean Society

became one of the chief scientific schools of Hellas, and it is certain

that Pythagorean science as well as Pythagorean religion originated with

the master himself. Herakleitos, who is not partial to him, says that

Pythagoras had pursued scientific investigation further than other men,

though he also says that he turned his much learning into an art of

mischief.[224] Herodotos called Pythagoras “by no means the weakest

sophist of the Hellenes,” a title which at this date does not imply the

slightest disparagement.[225] Aristotle even said that Pythagoras first

busied himself with mathematics and numbers, and that it was later on he

attached himself to the miracle-mongering of Pherekydes.[226] Is it

possible for us to trace any connexion between these two sides of his

activity?

Footnote 224:

Herakl. fr. 17 (R. P. 31 a). The word ἱστορίη is in itself quite

general. What it chiefly means here we see from a valuable notice

preserved by Iamblichos, _V. Pyth._ 89, ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ ἡ γεωμετρία πρὸς

Πυθαγόρου ἱστορία. Tannery’s interpretation of this statement is based

on a misunderstanding, and need not be discussed here.

Footnote 225:

Herod. iv. 95.

Footnote 226:

Arist. Περὶ τῶν Πυθαγορείων, fr. 186, 1510 a 39, Πυθαγόρας Μνησάρχου

υἱὸς τὸ μὲν πρῶτον διεπονεῖτο περὶ τὰ μαθήματα καὶ τοὺς ἀριθμούς,

ὕστερον δέ ποτε καὶ τῆς Φερεκύδου τερατοποιΐας οὐκ ἀπέστη.

We have seen that the aim of the Orphic and other _Orgia_ was to obtain

release from the “wheel of birth” by means of “purifications,” which

were generally of a very primitive type. The new thing in the Society

founded by Pythagoras seems to have been that, while it admitted all

these half-savage customs, it at the same time suggested a more exalted

idea of what “purification” really was. Aristoxenos tells us that the

Pythagoreans employed music to purge the soul as they used medicine to

purge the body, and it is abundantly clear that Aristotle’s famous

theory of κάθαρσις is derived from Pythagorean sources.[227] Such

methods of purifying the soul were familiar in the _Orgia_ of the

Korybantes, and will serve to explain the Pythagorean interest in

Harmonics. But there is more than this. If we can trust Herakleides so

far, it was Pythagoras who first distinguished the “three lives,” the

Theoretic, the Practical, and the Apolaustic, which Aristotle made use

of in the _Ethics_. The general theory of these lives is clear, and it

is impossible to doubt that in substance it belongs to the very

beginning of the school. It is to this effect. We are strangers in this

world, and the body is the tomb of the soul, and yet we must not seek to

escape by self-murder; for we are the chattels of God who is our

herdsman, and without his command we have no right to make our

escape.[228] In this life, there are three kinds of men, just as there

are three sorts of people who come to the Olympic Games. The lowest

class is made up of those who come to buy and sell, and next above them

are those who come to compete. Best of all, however, are those who come

simply to look on (θεωρεῖν). The greatest purification of all is,

therefore, disinterested science, and it is the man who devotes himself

to that, the true philosopher, who has most effectually released himself

from the “wheel of birth.” It would be rash to say that Pythagoras

expressed himself exactly in this manner; but all these ideas are

genuinely Pythagorean, and it is only in some such way that we can

bridge the gulf which separates Pythagoras the man of science from

Pythagoras the religious teacher.[229] We must now endeavour to discover

how much of the later Pythagorean science may reasonably be ascribed to

Pythagoras himself.

Footnote 227:

Its immediate source is to be found in Plato, _Laws_, 790 d 2 sqq.,

where the Korybantic rites are adduced as an instance. For a full

account see Rohde, _Psyche_, p. 336, n. 2.

Footnote 228:

Plato gives this as the Pythagorean view in _Phd._ 62 b, for the

interpretation of which cf. Espinas in _Arch._ viii. pp. 449 sqq.

Plato distinctly implies that it was not merely the theory of

Philolaos, but something older.

Footnote 229:

See Döring in _Arch._ v. pp. 505 sqq. There seems to be a reference to

the theory of the “three lives” in Herakleitos, fr. 111. It was

apparently taught in the Pythagorean Society of Phleious; for

Herakleides made Pythagoras expound it in a conversation with the

tyrant of Phleious (Cic. _Tusc._ v. 3; Diog. pr. 12, viii. 8), and it

is developed by Plato in a dialogue which is, as it were, dedicated to

Echekrates. If it should be thought that this is interpreting

Pythagoras too much in the light of Schopenhauer, it may be answered

that even the Orphics came very near such a theory. The soul must not

drink of Lethe, but go past it and drink of the water of Memory,

before it can claim to become one of the heroes. This has obvious

points of contact with Plato’s ἀνάμνησις, and the only question is how

much of the _Phaedo_ we are to ascribe to Pythagorean sources. A great

deal, I suspect. See Prof. Stewart’s _Myths of Plato_, pp. 152 sqq.

[Sidenote: Arithmetic.]

46. In his treatise on Arithmetic, Aristoxenos said that Pythagoras was

the first to carry that study beyond the needs of commerce,[230] and his

statement is confirmed by everything we otherwise know. By the end of

the fifth century B.C., we find that there is a widespread interest in

such subjects and that these are studied for their own sake. Now this

new interest cannot have been wholly the work of a school; it must have

originated with some great man, and there is no one but Pythagoras to

whom we can refer it. As, however, he wrote nothing, we have no sure

means of distinguishing his own teaching from that of his followers in

the next generation or two. All we can safely say is that, the more

primitive any Pythagorean doctrine appears, the more likely it is to be

that of Pythagoras himself, and all the more so if it can be shown to

have points of contact with views which we know to have been held in his

own time or shortly before it. In particular, when we find the later

Pythagoreans teaching things that were already something of an

anachronism in their own day, we may be reasonably sure that we are

dealing with survivals which only the authority of the master’s name

could have preserved. Some of these must be mentioned at once, though

the developed system belongs to a later part of our story. It is only by

separating its earliest form from its later that the true place of

Pythagoreanism in Greek thought can be made clear, though we must always

remember that no one can now pretend to draw the line between its

successive stages with any certainty.

Footnote 230:

Stob. i. p. 20, 1, ἐκ τῶν Ἀριστοξένου περὶ ἀριθμητικῆς, Τὴν δὲ περὶ

τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς πραγματείαν μάλιστα πάντων τιμῆσαι δοκεῖ Πυθαγόρας καὶ

προαγαγεῖν ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσθεν ἀπαγαγὼν ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν ἐμπόρων χρείας.

[Sidenote: The figures.]

47. Now one of the most remarkable statements that we have about

Pythagoreanism is what we are told of Eurytos on the unimpeachable

authority of Archytas. Eurytos was the disciple of Philolaos, and

Aristoxenos expressly mentioned him along with Philolaos as having

taught the last of the Pythagoreans, the men with whom he himself was

personally acquainted. He therefore belongs to the beginning of the

fourth century B.C., by which time the Pythagorean system was fully

developed, and he was no eccentric enthusiast, but one of the foremost

men in the school.[231] We are told of him, then, that he used to give

the number of all sorts of things, such as horses and men, and that he

demonstrated these by arranging pebbles in a certain way. It is to be

noted further that Aristotle compares his procedure to that of those who

bring numbers into figures like the triangle and the square.[232]

Footnote 231:

Apart from the story in Iamblichos (_V. Pyth._ 148) that Eurytos heard

the voice of Philolaos from the grave after he had been many years

dead, it is to be noticed that he is mentioned after him in the

statement of Aristoxenos referred to (Diog. viii. 46; R. P. 62).

Footnote 232:

Arist. _Met._ Ν, 5. 1092 b 8 (R. P. 76 a). Aristotle does not quote

the authority of Archytas here, but the source of his statement is

made quite clear by Theophr. _Met._ p. vi. a 19 (Usener), τοῦτο γὰρ

(sc. τὸ μὴ μέχρι του προελθόντα παύεσθαι) τελέου καὶ φρονοῦντος, ὅπερ

Ἀρχύτας ποτ’ ἔφη ποιεῖν Εὔρυτον διατιθέντα τινὰς ψήφους· λέγειν γὰρ ὡς

ὅδε μὲν ἀνθρώπου ὁ ἀριθμός, ὅδε δὲ ἵππου, ὅδε δ’ ἄλλου τινὸς τυγχάνει.

Now these statements, and especially the remark of Aristotle last

quoted, seem to imply the existence at this date, and earlier, of a

numerical symbolism quite distinct from the alphabetical notation on the

one hand and from the Euclidean representation of numbers by lines on

the other. The former was inconvenient for arithmetical purposes, just

because the zero was one of the few things the Greeks did not invent,

and they were therefore unable to develop a really serviceable numerical

symbolism based on position. The latter, as will appear shortly, is

intimately bound up with that absorption of arithmetic by geometry,

which is at least as old as Plato, but cannot be primitive.[233] It

seems rather that numbers were represented by dots arranged in

symmetrical and easily recognised patterns, of which the marking of dice

or dominoes gives us the best idea. And these markings are, in fact, the

best proof that this is a genuinely primitive method of indicating

numbers; for they are of unknown antiquity, and go back to the time when

men could only count by arranging numbers in such patterns, each of

which became, as it were, a fresh unit. This way of counting may well be

as old as reckoning with the fingers, or even older.

Footnote 233:

Arithmetic is older than geometry, and was much more advanced in

Egypt, though still in the form which the Greeks called λογιστική

rather than as ἀριθμητική proper. Even Plato puts Arithmetic before

Geometry in the _Republic_ in deference to the tradition. His own

theory of number, however, suggested the inversion of this order which

we find carried out in Euclid.

It is, therefore, very significant that we do not find any adequate

account of what Aristotle can have meant by “those who bring numbers

into figures like the triangle and the square” till we come to certain

late writers who called themselves Pythagoreans, and revived the study

of arithmetic as a science independent of geometry. These men not only

abandoned the linear symbolism of Euclid, but also regarded the

alphabetical notation, which they did use, as something conventional,

and inadequate to represent the true nature of number. Nikomachos of

Gerasa says expressly that the letters used to represent numbers are

only significant by human usage and convention. The most natural way

would be to represent linear or prime numbers by a row of units,

polygonal numbers by units arranged so as to mark out the various plane

figures, and solid numbers by units disposed in pyramids and so

forth.[234] He therefore gives us figures like this:—

α α α α

α α α ααα

α α α α α α α α

α α α α ααα

α α α α α

Now it ought to be obvious that this is no innovation, but, like so many

things in Neopythagoreanism, a reversion to primitive usage. Of course

the employment of the letter _alpha_ to represent the units is derived

from the conventional notation; but otherwise we are clearly in presence

of something which belongs to the very earliest stage of the

science—something, in fact, which gives the only possible clue to the

meaning of Aristotle’s remark, and to what we are told of the method of

Eurytos.

Footnote 234:

Nikomachos of Gerasa, _Introd. Arithm._ p. 83, 12, Hoche, Πρότερον δὲ

ἐπιγνωστέον ὅτι ἕκαστον γράμμα ᾧ σημειούμεθα ἀριθμόν, οἷον τὸ ι, ᾧ τὸ

δέκα, τὸ κ, ᾧ τὰ εἴκοσι, τὸ ω, ᾧ τὰ ὀκτακόσια, νόμῳ καὶ συνθήματι

ἀνθρωπίνῳ, ἀλλ’ οὐ φύσει σημαντικόν, ἐστι τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ, κ.τ.λ. The same

symbolism is used by Theo, _Expositio_, pp. 31 sqq. Cf. also Iambl.

_Introd._ p. 56, 27, Pistelli, ἰστέον γὰρ ὡς τὸ παλαιὸν φυσικώτερον οἱ

πρόσθεν ἐσημαίνοντο τὰς τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ ποσότητας, ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὥσπερ οἱ νῦν

συμβολικῶς.

[Sidenote: Triangular, square, and oblong numbers.]

48. This is still further confirmed by the tradition which represents

the great revelation made by Pythagoras to mankind as having been

precisely a figure of this kind, namely the _tetraktys_, by which the

Pythagoreans used to swear,[235] and we have no less an authority than

Speusippos for holding that the whole theory which it implies was

genuinely Pythagorean.[236] In later days there were many kinds of

_tetraktys_,[237] but the original one, that by which the Pythagoreans

swore, was the “tetraktys of the dekad.” It was a figure like this—

•

•   •

•   •   •

•   •   •   •

and represented the number ten as the triangle of four. In other words,

it showed at a glance that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10. Speusippos tells us of

several properties which the Pythagoreans discovered in the dekad. It

is, for instance, the first number that has in it an equal number of

prime and composite numbers. How much of this goes back to Pythagoras

himself, we cannot tell; but we are probably justified in referring to

him the conclusion that it is “according to nature” that all Hellenes

and barbarians count up to ten and then begin over again.

Footnote 235:

Cf. the formula Οὐ μὰ τὸν ἁμετέρᾳ γενεᾷ παραδόντα τετρακτύν, which is

all the more likely to be old that it is put into the mouth of

Pythagoras by the forger of the Χρυσᾶ ἔπη, thus making him swear by

himself! See Diels, _Arch._ iii. p. 457. The Doric dialect shows,

however, that it belongs to the later generations of the school.

Footnote 236:

Speusippos wrote a work on the Pythagorean numbers, based chiefly on

Philolaos, and a considerable fragment of it is preserved in the

_Theologumena Arithmetica_. It will be found in Diels,

_Vorsokratiker_, p. 235, 15, and is discussed by Tannery, _Science

hellène_, pp. 374 sqq.

Footnote 237:

For these see Theon, _Expositio_, pp. 93 sqq. Hiller. The τετρακτύς

used by Plato in the _Timaeus_ is the second described by Theon

(_Exp._ p. 94, 10 sqq.). It is no doubt Pythagorean, but hardly as old

as Pythagoras.

It is obvious that the _tetraktys_ may be indefinitely extended so as to

exhibit the sums of the series of successive numbers in a graphic form,

and these sums are accordingly called “triangular numbers.”

For similar reasons, the sums of the series of successive odd numbers

are called “square numbers,” and those of successive even numbers

“oblong.” If odd numbers are added to the unit in the form of _gnomons_,

the result is always a similar figure, namely a square, while, if even

numbers are added, we get a series of rectangles,[238] as shown by the

figure:—

Square Numbers. Oblong Numbers.

─────────────┐ ───────────────┐

• • •  │ • • • • │

───────┐ │ ───────────┐ │

• • │ • │ • • • │ • │

──┐ │ │ ──────┐ │ │

• │ • │ • │ • • │ • │ • │

It is clear, then, that we are entitled to refer the study of sums of

series to Pythagoras himself; but whether he went beyond the oblong, and

studied pyramidal or cubic numbers, we cannot say.[239]

Footnote 238:

Cf. Milhaud, _Philosophes géomètres_, pp. 115 sqq. Aristotle puts the

matter thus (_Phys._ Γ, 4. 203 a 13): περιτιθεμένων γὰρ τῶν γνωμόνων

περὶ τὸ ἓν καὶ χωρὶς ὁτὲ μὲν ἄλλο ἀεὶ γίγνεσθαι τὸ εἶδος, ὁτὲ δὲ ἕν.

This is more clearly stated by Ps.-Plut. (Stob. i. p. 22, 16), Ἔτι δὲ

τῇ μονάδι τῶν ἐφεξῆς περισσῶν περιτιθεμένων ὁ γινόμενος ἀεὶ τετράγωνός

ἐστι· τῶν δὲ ἀρτίων ὁμοίως περιτιθεμένων ἑτερομήκεις καὶ ἄνισοι πάντες

ἀποβαίνουσιν, ἴσως δὲ ἰσάκις οὐδείς. I cannot feel satisfied with any

of the explanations which have been given of the words καὶ χωρίς in

the Aristotelian passage (see Zeller, p. 351, n. 2), and I would

therefore suggest ταῖς χώραις comparing Boutheros (Stob. i. p. 19, 9),

who says, according to the MS. reading, Καὶ ὁ μὲν (ὁ περισσός), ὁπόταν

γεννῶνται ἀνὰ λόγον καὶ πρὸς μονάδας, ταῖς αὑτοῦ χώραις καταλαμβάνει

τοὺς ταῖς γραμμαῖς περιεχομένους (sc. ἀριθμούς).

Footnote 239:

In the fragment referred to above (p. 113, _n._ 236), Speusippos

speaks of four as the first pyramidal number; but this is taken from

Philolaos, so we cannot safely ascribe it to Pythagoras.

[Sidenote: Geometry and harmonics.]

49. It is easy to see how this way of representing numbers would suggest

problems of a geometrical nature. The dots which stand for the pebbles

are regularly called “boundary-stones” (ὅροι, _termini_, “terms”), and

the area which they occupy, or rather mark out, is the “field”

(χώρα).[240] This is evidently a very early way of speaking, and may

therefore be referred to Pythagoras himself. Now it must have struck him

that “fields” could be compared as well as numbers,[241] and it is even

likely that he knew the rough methods of doing this which were

traditional in Egypt, though certainly these would fail to satisfy him.

Once more the tradition is singularly helpful in suggesting the

direction that his thoughts must have taken. He knew, of course, the use

of the triangle 3, 4, 5 in constructing right angles. We have seen (p.

24) that it was familiar in the East from a very early date, and that

Thales introduced it to the Hellenes, if they did not know it already.

In later writers it is actually called the “Pythagorean triangle.” Now

the Pythagorean proposition _par excellence_ is just that, in a

right-angled triangle, the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the

squares on the other two sides, and the so-called Pythagorean triangle

is the application of its converse to a particular case. The very name

“hypotenuse” affords strong confirmation of the intimate connexion

between the two things. It means literally “the cord stretching over

against,” and this is surely just the rope of the “harpedonapt.”[242] An

early tradition says that Pythagoras sacrificed an ox when he discovered

the proof of this proposition, and indeed it was the real foundation of

scientific mathematics.[243]

Footnote 240:

We have ὅροι of a series (ἔκθεσις), then of a proportion, and in later

times of a syllogism. The signs :, ::, and ∴ are a survival of the

original use. The term χώρα is often used by the later Pythagoreans,

though Attic usage required χωρίον for a rectangle. The spaces between

the γραμμαί of the _abacus_ and the chess-board were also called

χῶραι.

Footnote 241:

In his commentary on Euclid i. 44, Proclus tells us on the authority

of Eudemos that the παραβολή, ἔλλειψις, and ὑπερβολή of χωρία were

Pythagorean inventions. For an account of these and the subsequent

application of the terms in Conic Sections, see Milhaud, _Philosophes

géomètres_, pp. 81 sqq.

Footnote 242:

The verb ὑποτείνειν is, of course, used intransitively. The

explanation suggested in the text seems to me much simpler than that

of Max C. P. Schmidt (_Kulturhistorische Beiträge_, Heft i. pp. 64

sqq.). He explains the hypotenuse as the longest string in a

triangular harp; but my view seems more in accordance with analogy. So

ἡ κάθετος is, literally, a plumb-line.

Footnote 243:

The statement comes from Eudemos; for it is found in Proclus’s

commentary on Euclid i. 47. Whether historical or not, it is no

Neopythagorean fancy.

[Sidenote: Incommensurability.]

50. One great disappointment, however, awaited Pythagoras. It follows at

once from the Pythagorean proposition that the square on the diagonal of

a square is double the square on its side, and this ought surely to be

capable of numerical expression. As a matter of fact, however, there is

no square number which can be divided into two equal square numbers, and

so the problem cannot be solved. In this sense, it is doubtless true

that Pythagoras discovered the incommensurability of the diagonal and

the side of a square, and the proof mentioned by Aristotle, namely,

that, if they were commensurable, we should have to say that an even

number was equal to an odd number, is distinctly Pythagorean in

character.[244] However that may be, it is certain that Pythagoras did

not care to pursue the subject any further. He had, as it were, stumbled

on the fact that the square root of two is a surd, but we know that it

was left for Plato’s friends, Theodoros of Kyrene and Theaitetos, to

give a complete theory of the matter.[245] The fact is that the

discovery of the Pythagorean proposition, by giving birth to geometry,

had really superseded the old view of quantity as a sum of units; but it

was not till Plato’s time that the full consequences of this were

seen.[246] For the present, the incommensurability of the diagonal and

the square remained, as has been said, a “scandalous exception.” Our

tradition says that Hippasos of Metapontion was drowned at sea for

revealing this skeleton in the cupboard.[247]

Footnote 244:

Arist. _An. Pr._ Α, 23. 41 a 26, ὅτι ἀσύμμετρος ἡ διάμετρος διὰ τὸ

γίγνεσθαι τὰ περιττὰ ἴσα τοῖς ἀρτίοις συμμέτρου τεθείσης. The proofs

given at the end of Euclid’s Tenth Book (vol. iii. pp. 408 sqq.,

Heiberg) turn on this very point. They are not Euclidean, and may be

substantially Pythagorean. Cf. Milhaud, _Philosophes géomètres_, p.

94.

Footnote 245:

Plato, _Theaet._ 147 d 3 sqq.

Footnote 246:

How novel these consequences were, is shown by the fact that in

_Laws_, 819 d 5, the Athenian Stranger says that he had only realised

them late in life.

Footnote 247:

This version of the tradition is mentioned in Iamblichos, _V. Pyth._

247, and looks older than the other, which we shall come to later (§

148). Hippasos is the _enfant terrible_ of Pythagoreanism, and the

traditions about him are full of instruction.

[Sidenote: Proportion and harmony.]

51. These last considerations show that, while it is quite safe to

attribute the substance of the First Book of Euclid to Pythagoras, the

arithmetic of Books VII.-IX., and the “geometrical algebra” of Book II.

are certainly not his. They operate with lines or with areas instead of

with units, and the relations which they establish therefore hold good

whether they are capable of numerical expression or not. That is

doubtless why arithmetic is not treated in Euclid till after plane

geometry, a complete inversion of the original order. For the same

reason, the doctrine of proportion which we find in Euclid cannot be

Pythagorean, and is indeed the work of Eudoxos. Yet it is clear that the

early Pythagoreans, and probably Pythagoras himself, studied proportion

in their own way, and that the three “medieties” in particular go back

to the founder, especially as the most complicated of them, the

“harmonic,” stands in close relation to his discovery of the octave. If

we take the harmonic proportion 12 : 8 : 6,[248] we find that 12 : 6 is

the octave, 12 : 8 the fifth, and 8 : 6 the fourth, and it can hardly be

doubted that it was Pythagoras himself who discovered these intervals.

The stories which have come down to us about his observing the harmonic

intervals in a smithy, and then weighing the hammers that produced them,

or of his suspending weights corresponding to those of the hammers to

equal strings, are, indeed, impossible and absurd; but it is sheer waste

of time to rationalise them.[249] For our purpose their absurdity is

their chief merit. They are not stories which any Greek mathematician or

musician could possibly have invented, but genuine popular tales bearing

witness to the existence of a real tradition that Pythagoras was the

author of this momentous discovery.

Footnote 248:

Plato (_Tim._ 36 a 3) defines the harmonic mean as τὴν ... ταὐτῷ μέρει

τῶν ἄκρων αὐτῶν ὑπερέχουσαν καὶ ὑπερεχομένην. The harmonic mean of 12

and 6 is therefore 8; for 8 = 12 - 12/3 = 6 + 6/3.

Footnote 249:

For these stories and a criticism of them, see Max C. P. Schmidt,

_Kulturhistorische Beiträge_, i. pp. 78 sqq. The smith’s hammers

belong to the region of _Märchen_, and it is not true either that the

notes would be determined by the weight of the hammers, or that, if

they were, the weights hung to equal strings would produce the notes.

These inaccuracies were pointed out by Montucla (Martin, _Études sur

le Timée_, i. p. 391).

[Sidenote: Things are numbers.]

52. It was this too, no doubt, that led Pythagoras to say all things

were numbers. We shall see that, at a later date, the Pythagoreans

identified these numbers with geometrical figures; but the mere fact

that they called them “numbers,” when taken in connexion with what we

are told about the method of Eurytos, is sufficient to show this was not

the original sense of the doctrine. It is enough to suppose that

Pythagoras reasoned somewhat as follows. If musical sounds can be

reduced to numbers, why should not everything else? There are many

likenesses to number in things, and it may well be that a lucky

experiment, like that by which the octave was discovered, will reveal

their true numerical nature. The Neopythagorean writers, going back in

this as in other matters to the earliest tradition of the school,

indulge their fancy in tracing out analogies between things and numbers

in endless variety; but we are fortunately dispensed from following them

in these vagaries. Aristotle tells us distinctly that the Pythagoreans

explained only a few things by means of numbers,[250] which means that

Pythagoras himself left no developed doctrine on the subject, while the

Pythagoreans of the fifth century did not care to add anything of the

sort to the school tradition. Aristotle does imply, however, that,

according to them the “right time” (καιρός) was seven, justice was four,

and marriage three. These identifications, with a few others like them,

we may safely refer to Pythagoras or his immediate successors; but we

must not attach much importance to them. They are mere sports of the

analogical fancy. If we wish to understand the cosmology of Pythagoras,

we must start, not from them, but from any statements we can find that

present points of contact with the teaching of the Milesian school.

These, we may fairly infer, belong to the system in its most primitive

form.

Footnote 250:

Arist. _Met._ Μ, 4. 1078 b 21 (R. P. 78); Zeller, p. 390, n. 2. The

_Theologumena Arithmetica_, wrongly attributed to Nikomachos of

Gerasa, is full of fanciful doctrine on this subject (R. P. 78 a).

Alexander _in Met._ p. 38, 8, gives a few definitions which may be old

(R. P. 78 c).

[Sidenote: Cosmology.]

53. Now the most striking statement of this kind is one of Aristotle’s.

The Pythagoreans held, he tells us, that there was “boundless breath”

outside the heavens, and that it was inhaled by the world.[251] In

substance, this is the doctrine of Anaximenes, and it becomes

practically certain that it was that of Pythagoras, when we find that

Xenophanes denied it.[252] We may infer, then, that the further

development of the idea is also due to Pythagoras himself. We are told

that, after the first unit had been formed—however that may have taken

place—the nearest part of the Boundless was first drawn in and

limited;[253] and further, that it is just the Boundless thus inhaled

that keeps the units separate from each other.[254] It represents the

interval between them. This is a very primitive way of describing the

nature of discrete quantity.

Footnote 251:

Arist. _Phys._ Δ, 6. 213 b 22 (R. P. 75).

Footnote 252:

Diog. ix. 19 (R. P. 103 c). It is true that Diogenes is here drawing

from a biographical rather than a doxographical source (_Dox._ p.

168), but this touch can hardly be an invention.

Footnote 253:

Arist. _Met._ Μ, 3. 1091 a 13 (R. P. 74).

Footnote 254:

Arist. _Phys._ Δ, 6. 213 b 23 (R. P. 75 a). The words διορίζει τὰς

φύσεις have caused unnecessary difficulty, because they have been

supposed to attribute the function of limiting to the ἄπειρον.

Aristotle makes it quite clear that his meaning is that stated in the

text. Cf. especially the words χωρισμοῦ τινος τῶν ἐφεξῆς καὶ

διορίσεως. The term διωρισμένον is the proper antithesis to συνεχές.

In his work on the Pythagorean philosophy, Aristotle used instead the

phrase διορίζει τὰς χώρας (Stob. i. p. 156, 8; R. P. 75), which is

also quite intelligible if we remember what the Pythagoreans meant by

χώρα (cf. p. 115, _n._ 240).

In the passages of Aristotle just referred to, the Boundless is also

spoken of as the void or empty. This identification of air and the void

is a confusion which we have already met with in Anaximenes, and it need

not surprise us to find it here too.[255] We find also, as we might

expect, distinct traces of the other confusion, that of air and vapour.

It seems certain, in fact, that Pythagoras identified the Limit with

fire, and the Boundless with darkness. We are told by Aristotle that

Hippasos made Fire the first principle,[256] and we shall see that

Parmenides, in discussing the opinions of his contemporaries, attributes

to them the view that there were two primary “forms,” Fire and

Night.[257] We also find that Light and Darkness appear in the

Pythagorean table of opposites under the heads of the Limit and the

Unlimited respectively.[258] The identification of breath with darkness

here implied is a strong proof of the primitive character of the

doctrine; for in the sixth century darkness was supposed to be a sort of

vapour, while in the fifth, its true nature was well known. Plato, with

his usual historical tact, makes the Pythagorean Timaios describe mist

and darkness as condensed air.[259] We must think, then, of a “field” of

darkness or breath marked out by luminous units, an imagination which

the starry heavens would naturally suggest. It is even probable that we

should ascribe to Pythagoras the Milesian view of a plurality of worlds,

though it would not have been natural for him to speak of an infinite

number. We know, at least, that Petron, one of the early Pythagoreans,

said there were just a hundred and eighty-three worlds arranged in a

triangle;[260] and Plato makes Timaios admit, when laying down that

there is only one world, that something might be urged in favour of the

view that there are five, as there are five regular solids.[261]

Footnote 255:

Cf. Arist. _Phys._ Δ, 6. 213 a 27, οἱ δ’ ἄνθρωποι ... φασὶν ἐν ᾦ ὅλως

μηδέν ἐστι, τοῦτ’ εἶναι κενόν, διὸ τὸ πλῆρες ἀέρος κενὸν εἶναι; _de

Part. An._ Β, 10. 656 b 15, τὸ γὰρ κενὸν καλούμενον ἀέρος πλῆρές ἐστι;

_de An._ Β, 10 419 b 34, δοκεῖ γὰρ εἶναι κενὸν ὁ ἀήρ.

Footnote 256:

Arist. _Met._ Α, 3. 984 a 7 (R. P. 56 c).

Footnote 257:

See Chap. IV. § 91.

Footnote 258:

Arist. _Met._ Α, 5. 986 a 25 (R. P. 66).

Footnote 259:

Plato, _Tim._ 58 d 2.

Footnote 260:

This is quoted by Plutarch, _de def. orac._ 422 b, d, from Phanias of

Eresos, who gave it on the authority of Hippys of Rhegion. If we may

follow Wilamowitz (_Hermes_, xix. p. 444) in supposing that this

really means Hippasos of Metapontion (and it was in Rhegion that the

Pythagoreans took refuge), this is a very valuable piece of evidence.

Footnote 261:

Plato, _Tim._ 55 c 7 sqq.

[Sidenote: The heavenly bodies.]

54. Anaximander had regarded the heavenly bodies as wheels of “air”

filled with fire which escapes through certain openings (§ 19), and

there is evidence that Pythagoras adopted the same view.[262] We have

seen that Anaximander only assumed the existence of three such wheels,

and held that the wheel of the sun was the lowest. It is extremely

probable that Pythagoras identified the intervals between these rings

with the three musical intervals which he had discovered, the fourth,

the fifth, and the octave. That would be the most natural beginning for

the later doctrine of the “harmony of the spheres,” though that

expression would be doubly misleading if applied to any theory we can

properly ascribe to Pythagoras himself. The word ἁρμονία does not mean

harmony, and the “spheres” are an anachronism. We are still at the stage

when wheels or rings were considered sufficient to account for the

motions of the heavenly bodies. It is also to be observed that sun,

moon, planets, and fixed stars must all be regarded as moving in the

same direction from east to west. Pythagoras certainly did not ascribe

to the planets an orbital motion of their own from west to east. The old

idea was rather that they were left behind more or less every day. As

compared with the fixed stars, Saturn is left behind least of all, and

the Moon most; so, instead of saying that the Moon took a shorter time

than Saturn to complete its path through the signs of the Zodiac, men

said Saturn travelled quicker than the Moon, because it more nearly

succeeds in keeping up with the signs. Instead of holding that Saturn

takes thirty years to complete its revolution, they said it took the

fixed stars thirty years to pass Saturn, and only twenty-nine days and a

half to pass the Moon. This is one of the most important points to bear

in mind regarding the planetary systems of the Greeks, and we shall

return to it again.[263]

Footnote 262:

This will be found in Chap. IV. § 93.

Footnote 263:

For a clear statement of this view (which was still that of

Demokritos), see Lucretius, v. 621 sqq. The view that the planets had

an orbital motion from west to east is attributed by Aetios, ii. 16,

3, to Alkmaion (§ 96), which certainly implies that Pythagoras did not

hold it. As we shall see (§ 152), it is far from clear that any of the

Pythagoreans did. It seems rather to be Plato’s discovery.

The account just given of the views of Pythagoras is, no doubt,

conjectural and incomplete. We have simply assigned to him those

portions of the Pythagorean system which appear to be the oldest, and it

has not even been possible at this stage to cite fully the evidence on

which our discussion is based. It will only appear in its true light

when we have examined the second part of the poem of Parmenides and the

system of the later Pythagoreans.[264] For reasons which will then be

apparent, I do not venture to ascribe to Pythagoras himself the theory

of the earth’s revolution round the central fire. It seems safest to

suppose that he still adhered to the geocentric hypothesis of

Anaximander. In spite of this, however, it will be clear that he opened

a new period in the development of Greek science, and it was certainly

to his school that its greatest discoveries were directly or indirectly

due. When Plato deliberately attributes some of his own most important

discoveries to the Pythagoreans, he was acknowledging in a

characteristic way the debt he owed them.

Footnote 264:

See Chap. IV. §§ 92-93, and Chap. VII. §§ 150-152.

II. XENOPHANES OF KOLOPHON

[Sidenote: Life.]

55. We have seen how Pythagoras identified himself with the religious

movement of his time; we have now to consider a very different

manifestation of the reaction against that view of the gods which the

poets had made familiar to every one. Xenophanes denied the

anthropomorphic gods altogether, but was quite unaffected by the revival

of more primitive ideas that was going on all round him. We still have a

fragment of an elegy in which he ridiculed Pythagoras and the doctrine

of transmigration. “Once, they say, he was passing by when a dog was

being ill-treated. ‘Stop!’ he said, ‘don’t hit it! It is the soul of a

friend! I knew it when I heard its voice.’”[265] We are also told that

he opposed the views of Thales and Pythagoras, and attacked Epimenides,

which is likely enough, though no fragments of the kind have come down

to us.[266] His chief importance lies in the fact that he was the author

of the quarrel between philosophy and poetry which culminated in Plato’s

_Republic_.

Footnote 265:

See fr. 7 (= 18 Karst.), _ap._ Diog. viii. 36 (R. P. 88).

Footnote 266:

Diog. ix. 18 (R. P. 97). We know that Xenophanes referred to the

prediction of an eclipse by Thales (Chap. I. p. 41, _n._ 62). We shall

see that his own view of the sun was hardly consistent with the

possibility of such a prediction, so it may have been in connexion

with this that he opposed him.

It is not easy to determine the date of Xenophanes. Timaios said he was

a contemporary of Hieron and Epicharmos, and he certainly seems to have

played a part in the anecdotical romance of Hieron’s court which amused

the Greeks of the fourth century much as that of Croesus and the Seven

Wise Men amused those of the fifth.[267] As Hieron reigned from 478 to

467 B.C., that would make it impossible to date the birth of Xenophanes

much earlier than 570 B.C., even if we suppose him to have lived till

the age of a hundred. On the other hand, both Sextus and Clement say

that Apollodoros gave Ol. XL. (620-616 B.C.) as the date of his birth,

and the former adds that his days were prolonged till the time of

Dareios and Cyrus.[268] Again, Diogenes, whose information on such

matters mostly comes from Apollodoros, says that he flourished in Ol.

LX. (540-537 B.C.), and Diels holds that Apollodoros really said

so.[269] However that may be, it is evident that the date 540 B.C. is

based on the assumption that he went to Elea in the year of its

foundation, and is, therefore, a mere combination.[270]

Footnote 267:

Timaios _ap._ Clem. _Strom._ i. p. 533 (R. P. 95). There is only one

anecdote which actually represents Xenophanes in conversation with

Hieron (Plut. _Reg. apophth._ 175 e), but it is natural to understand

Arist. _Met._ Γ, 5. 1010 a 4 as an allusion to a remark made by

Epicharmos to him. Aristotle has more than one anecdote about

Xenophanes, and it seems most likely that he derived them from the

romance of which Xenophon’s _Strom._ is an echo.

Footnote 268:

Clem., _loc. cit._; Sext. _Strom._ i. 257. The mention of Cyrus is

confirmed by Hipp. _Strom._ i. 94. Diels thinks that Dareios was

mentioned first for metrical reasons; but no one has satisfactorily

explained why Cyrus should be mentioned at all, unless the early date

was intended. On the whole subject, see Jacoby, pp. 204 sqq., who is

certainly wrong in supposing that ἄχρι τῶν Δαρείου καὶ Κύρου χρόνων

can mean “during the times of Dareios and Cyrus.”

Footnote 269:

_Strom._ xxxi. p. 22. He assumes an early corruption of N into M. As

Apollodoros gave the Athenian archon, and not the Olympiad, we might

with more probability suppose a confusion due to two archons having

the same name.

Footnote 270:

As Elea was founded by the Phokaians six years after they left Phokaia

(Herod. i. 164 sqq.) its date is just 540-39 B.C. Cf. the way in which

Apollodoros dated Empedokles by the era of Thourioi (§ 98).

What we do know for certain is that Xenophanes had led a wandering life

from the age of twenty-five, and that he was still alive and making

poetry at the age of ninety-two. He says himself (fr. 8 = 24 Karst.; R.

P. 97):—

There are by this time threescore years and seven that have tossed my

careworn soul[271] up and down the land of Hellas; and there were then

five-and-twenty years from my birth, if I can say aught truly about

these matters.

Footnote 271:

Bergk (_Litteraturgesch._ ii. p. 418, n. 23) took φροντίς here to mean

the literary work of Xenophanes, but it is surely an anachronism to

suppose that at this date it could be used like the Latin _cura_.

It is tempting to suppose that in this passage Xenophanes was referring

to the conquest of Ionia by Harpagos, and that he is, in fact, answering

the question asked in another poem[272] (fr. 22 = 17 Karst.; R. P. 95

a):—

This is the sort of thing we should say by the fireside in the

winter-time, as we lie on soft couches after a good meal, drinking

sweet wine and crunching chickpeas: “Of what country are you, and how

old are you, good sir? And how old were you when the Mede appeared?”

Footnote 272:

It was certainly another poem; for it is in hexameters while the

preceding fragment is in elegiacs.

We cannot, however, be sure of this, and we must be content with what

is, after all, for our purpose the main fact, namely, that he refers to

Pythagoras in the past tense, and is in turn so referred to by

Herakleitos.[273]

Footnote 273:

Xenophanes, fr. 7 (above, p. 124, _n._ 265); Herakleitos, frs. 16, 17

(below, p. 147).

Theophrastos said that Xenophanes had “heard” Anaximander,[274] and we

shall see that he was certainly acquainted with the Ionian cosmology.

When driven from his native city, he lived in Sicily, chiefly, we are

told, at Zankle and Katana.[275] Like Archilochos before him, he

unburdened his soul in elegies and satires, which he recited at the

banquets where, we may suppose, the refugees tried to keep up the usages

of good Ionian society. The statement that he was a rhapsode has no

foundation at all.[276] The singer of elegies was no professional like

the rhapsode, but the social equal of his listeners. In his

ninety-second year he was still, we have seen, leading a wandering life,

which is hardly consistent with the statement that he settled at Elea

and founded a school there, especially if we are to think of him as

spending his last days at Hieron’s court. It is quite probable that he

visited Elea, and it is just possible that he wrote a poem of two

thousand hexameters on the foundation of that city, which was naturally

a subject of interest to all the Ionic _émigrés_.[277] But it is very

remarkable that no ancient writer expressly says that he ever was at

Elea, and the only thing besides the doubtful poem referred to which

connects him with it is a single anecdote of Aristotle’s as to the

answer he gave the Eleates when they asked whether they should sacrifice

to Leukothea and lament her or not. “If you think her a goddess,” he

said, “do not lament her; if not, do not sacrifice to her.” That is

absolutely all, and it is only an apophthegm.[278] It is strange there

should be no more if Xenophanes had really found a home at last in the

Phokaian colony.

Footnote 274:

Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. 96 a).

Footnote 275:

Diog. ix. 18 (R. P. 96). The use of the old name Zankle, instead of

the later Messene, points to an early source for this

statement—probably the elegies of Xenophanes himself.

Footnote 276:

Diog. ix. 18 (R. P. 97) says αὐτὸς ἐρραψῴδει τὰ ἑαυτοῦ, which is a

very different thing. Nothing is said anywhere of his reciting Homer,

and the word ῥαψῳδεῖν is used quite loosely for “to recite.” Gomperz’s

imaginative picture (_Greek Thinkers_, vol. i. p. 155) has no further

support than this single word. Nor is there any trace of Homeric

influence in the fragments. They are in the usual elegiac style.

Footnote 277:

The statement is justly suspected by Hiller (_Rh. Mus._ xxxiii. p.

529) to come from Lobon of Argos, who provided the Seven Wise Men,

Epimenides, etc., with stichometric notices, all duly recorded in

Diogenes. Even if true, however, it proves nothing.

Footnote 278:

Arist. _Rhet._ Β, 26. 1400 b 5 (R. P. 98 a). Anecdotes like this are

really anonymous. Plutarch transfers the story to Egypt (_P. Ph. Fr._

p. 22, § 13), and others tell it of Herakleitos. It is hardly safe to

build on such a foundation.

[Sidenote: Poems.]

56. According to a notice preserved in Diogenes, Xenophanes wrote in

hexameters and also composed elegies and iambics against Homer and

Hesiod.[279] No good authority says anything about his having written a

philosophical poem.[280] Simplicius tells us he had never met with the

verses about the earth stretching infinitely downwards (fr. 28),[281]

and this means that the Academy possessed no copy of such a poem, which

would be very strange if it had ever existed. Simplicius was able to

find the complete works of much smaller men. Nor does internal evidence

lend any support to the view that he wrote a philosophical poem. Diels

refers about twenty-eight lines to it, but they would all come in quite

as naturally in his attacks on Homer and Hesiod, as I have endeavoured

to show. It is also significant that a considerable number of them are

derived from commentators on Homer.[282] It seems probable, then, that

Xenophanes expressed his theological and philosophical views

incidentally in his satires. That would be quite in the manner of the

time, as we can see from the remains of Epicharmos.

Footnote 279:

Diog. ix. 18 (R. P. 97). The word ἐπικόπτων is a reminiscence of

Timon, fr. 60; Diels, Ξεινοφάνης ὑπάτυφος Ὁμηραπάτης ἐπικόπτης.

Footnote 280:

The oldest reference to a poem Περὶ φύσεως is in the Geneva scholium

on _Il._ xxi. 196 (quoting fr. 30), and this goes back to Krates of

Mallos. We must remember, however, that such titles are of later date

than Xenophanes, and he had been given a place among philosophers long

before the time of Krates. All we can say, therefore, is that the

Pergamene librarians gave the title Περὶ φύσεως to some poem of

Xenophanes.

Footnote 281:

Simpl. _de Caelo_, p. 522, 7 (R. P. 97 b). It is true that two of our

fragments (25 and 26) are preserved by Simplicius, but he got them

from Alexander. Probably they were quoted by Theophrastos; for it is

plain that Alexander had no first-hand knowledge of Xenophanes either.

If he had, he would not have been taken in by _M.X.G._ (See p. 138,

_n._ 305.)

Footnote 282:

Three fragments (27, 31, 33) come from the _Homeric Allegories_, two

(30, 32) are from Homeric scholia.

The satires themselves are called _Silloi_ by late writers, and this

name may go back to Xenophanes himself. It is also possible, however,

that it originates in the fact that Timon of Phleious, the

“sillographer” (_c._ 259 B.C.), put much of his satire upon philosophers

into the mouth of Xenophanes. Only one iambic line has been preserved,

and that is immediately followed by a hexameter (fr. 14 = 5 Karst.).

This suggests that Xenophanes inserted iambic lines among his hexameters

in the manner of the _Margites_, which would be a very natural thing for

him to do.[283]

Footnote 283:

Cf. Wilamowitz, Progr. Gryphiswald. 1880.

[Sidenote: The fragments.]

57. I give all the fragments of any importance according to the text and

arrangement of Diels.

ELEGIES

(1)

Now is the floor clean, and the hands and cups of all; one sets

twisted garlands on our heads, another hands us fragrant ointment on a

salver. The mixing bowls stand ready, full of gladness, and there is

more wine at hand that promises never to leave us in the lurch, soft

and smelling of flowers in the jars. In the midst the frankincense

sends up its holy smoke, and there is cold water, sweet and clean.

Brown loaves are set before us and a lordly table laden with cheese

and rich honey. The altar in the midst is clustered round with

flowers; song and revel fill the halls.

But first it is meet that men should hymn the god with joyful song,

with holy tales and pure words; then after libation and prayer made

that we may have strength to do right—for that is in truth the better

way—no sin is it to drink as much as a man can take and get home

without an attendant, so he be not stricken in years. And above all

men is he to be praised who after drinking gives goodly proof of

himself in the trial of skill, as memory and voice will serve him. Let

him not sing of Titans and Giants—those fictions of the men of old—nor

of turbulent civil broils in which is no good thing at all; but ever

give heedful reverence to the gods.

(2)

What if a man win victory in swiftness of foot, or in the

_pentathlon_, at Olympia, where is the precinct of Zeus by Pisa’s

springs, or in wrestling,—what if by cruel boxing or that fearful

sport men call _pankration_ he become more glorious in the citizens’

eyes, and win a place of honour in the sight of all at the games, his

food at the public cost from the State, and a gift to be an heirloom

for him,—what if he conquer in the chariot-race,—he will not deserve

all this for his portion so much as I do. Far better is our art than

the strength of men and of horses! These are but thoughtless

judgments, nor is it fitting to set strength before our art. Even if

there arise a mighty boxer among a people, or one great in the

_pentathlon_ or at wrestling, or one excelling in swiftness of

foot—and that stands in honour before all tasks of men at the

games—the city would be none the better governed for that. It is but

little joy a city gets of it if a man conquer at the games by Pisa’s

banks; it is not this that makes fat the store-houses of a city.

(3)

They learnt dainty and unprofitable ways from the Lydians, so long as

they were free from hateful tyranny; they went to the market-place

with cloaks of purple dye, not less than a thousand of them all told,

vainglorious and proud of their comely tresses, reeking with fragrance

from cunning salves.

SATIRES

(10)

Since all at first have learnt according to Homer....

(11)

Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things that are a shame

and a disgrace among mortals, stealings and adulteries and deceivings

of one another. R. P. 99.

(12)

They have uttered many, many lawless deeds of the gods, stealings and

adulteries and deceivings of one another. R. P. _ib._

(14)

But mortals deem that the gods are begotten as they are, and have

clothes[284] like theirs, and voice and form. R. P. 100.

(15)

Yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with

their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint

the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their

bodies in the image of their several kinds. R. P. _ib._

(16)

The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians say

theirs have blue eyes and red hair. R. P. 100 b.

(18)

The gods have not revealed all things to men from the beginning, but

by seeking they find in time what is better. R. P. 104 b.

(23)

One god, the greatest among gods and men, neither in form like unto

mortals nor in thought.... R. P. 100.

(24)

He sees all over, thinks all over, and hears all over. R. P. 102.

(25)

But without toil he swayeth all things by the thought of his mind. R.

P. 108 b.

(26)

And he abideth ever in the selfsame place, moving not at all; nor doth

it befit him to go about now hither now thither. R. P. 110 a.

(27)

All things come from the earth, and in earth all things end. R. P. 103

a.

(28)

This limit of the earth above is seen at our feet in contact with the

air;[285] below it reaches down without a limit. R. P. 103.

(29)

All things are earth and water that come into being and grow. R. P.

103.

(30)

The sea is the source of water and the source of wind; for neither in

the clouds (would there be any blasts of wind blowing forth) from

within without the mighty sea, nor rivers’ streams nor rain-water from

the sky. The mighty sea is father of clouds and of winds and of

rivers.[286] R. P. 103.

(31)

The sun swinging over[287] the earth and warming it....

(32)

She that they call Iris is a cloud likewise, purple, scarlet and green

to behold. R. P. 103.

(33)

For we all are born of earth and water. R. P. _ib._

(34)

There never was nor will be a man who has certain knowledge about the

gods and about all the things I speak of. Even if he should chance to

say the complete truth, yet he himself knows not that it is so. But

all may have their fancy. R. P. 104.

(35)

Let these be taken as fancies[288] something like the truth. R. P. 104

a.

(36)

All of them[289] that are visible for mortals to behold.

(37)

And in some caves water drips....

(38)

If god had not made brown honey, men would think figs far sweeter than

they do.

Footnote 284:

I formerly, with Zeller, preferred Theodoret’s reading αἴσθησιν, but

both Clement and Eusebios have ἐσθῆτα, and Theodoret is entirely

dependent on them.

Footnote 285:

Reading ἠέρι for καὶ ῥεῖ with Diels.

Footnote 286:

This fragment has been recovered in its entirety from the Geneva

scholia on Homer (see _Arch._ iv. p. 652). The words in brackets are

added by Diels. See also Praechter, “Zu Xenophanes” (_Philol._ xviii.

p. 308).

Footnote 287:

The word is ὑπεριέμενος. This is quoted from the _Allegories_ as an

explanation of the name Hyperion, and doubtless Xenophanes so meant

it.

Footnote 288:

Reading δεδοξάσθω with Wilamowitz.

Footnote 289:

As Diels suggests, this probably refers to the stars, which Xenophanes

held to be clouds.

[Sidenote: The heavenly bodies.]

58. The intention of one of these fragments (fr. 32) is perfectly clear.

“Iris too” is a cloud, and we may infer that the same thing had just

been said of the sun, moon, and stars; for the doxographers tell us that

these were all explained as “clouds ignited by motion.”[290] To the same

context clearly belongs the explanation of the St. Elmo’s fire which

Aetios has preserved. “The things like stars which appear on ships,” we

are told, “which some call the Dioskouroi, are little clouds made

luminous by motion.”[291] In the doxographers this explanation is

repeated with trifling variations under the head of moon, stars, comets,

lightning, shooting stars, and so forth, which gives the appearance of a

systematic cosmology.[292] But the system is due to the arrangement of

the work of Theophrastos, and not to Xenophanes; for it is obvious that

a very few hexameters added to those we possess would amply account for

the whole doxography.

Footnote 290:

Cf. Diels _ad loc._ (_P. Ph. Fr._ p. 44), “ut Sol et cetera astra,

quae cum in nebulas evanescerent, deorum simul opinio casura erat.”

Cf. _Arch._ x. p. 533.

Footnote 291:

Aet. ii. 18, 1 (_Dox._ p. 347), Ξενοφάνης τοὺς ἐπὶ τῶν πλοίων

φαινομένους οἷον ἀστέρας, οὓς καὶ Διοσκούρους καλοῦσί τινες, νεφέλια

εἶναι κατὰ τὴν ποιὰν κίνησιν παραλάμποντα.

What we hear of the sun presents some difficulties. We are told, on the

one hand, that it too was an ignited cloud; but this can hardly be

right. The evaporation of the sea from which clouds arise is distinctly

said to be due to the sun’s heat. Theophrastos stated that the sun,

according to Xenophanes, was a collection of sparks from the moist

exhalation; but even this leaves the exhalation itself unexplained.[293]

That, however, matters little, if the chief aim of Xenophanes was to

discredit the anthropomorphic gods, rather than to give a scientific

theory of the heavenly bodies. The important thing is that Helios too is

a temporary phenomenon. The sun does not go round the earth, as

Anaximander taught, but straight on, and the appearance of a circular

path is solely due to its increasing distance. So it is not the same sun

that rises next morning, but a new one altogether; while the old one

“tumbles into a hole” when it comes to certain uninhabited regions of

the earth. Besides that, there are many suns and moons, one of each for

every region of the earth.[294] It is obvious that things of that kind

cannot be gods.

Footnote 292:

The passages from Aetios are collected in _P. Ph. Fr._ pp. 32 sqq.

(_Vors._ p. 42).

Footnote 293:

Aet. ii. 20, 3 (_Dox._ p. 348), Ξενοφάνης ἐκ νεφῶν πεπυρωμένων εἶναι

τὸν ἥλιον. Θεόφραστος ἐν τοῖς Φυσικοῖς γέγραφεν ἐκ πυριδίων μὲν τῶν

συναθροιζομένων ἐκ τῆς ὑγρᾶς ἀναθυμιάσεως, συναθροιζόντων δὲ τὸν

ἥλιον.

Footnote 294:

Aet. ii. 24, 9 (_Dox._ p. 355). πολλοὺς εἶναι ἡλίους καὶ σελήνας κατὰ

κλίματα τῆς γῆς καὶ ἀποτομὰς καὶ ζώνας, κατὰ δέ τινα καιρὸν ἐμπίπτειν

τὸν δίσκον εἴς τινα ἀποτομὴν τῆς γῆς οὐκ οἰκουμένην ὑφ’ ἡμῶν καὶ οὕτως

ὥσπερ κενεμβατοῦντα ἔκλειψιν ὑποφαίνειν· ὁ δ’ αὐτὸς τὸν ἥλιον εἰς

ἄπειρον μὲν προιέναι, δοκεῖν δὲ κυκλεῖσθαι διὰ τὴν ἀπόστασιν. It is

clear that in this notice ἔκλειψινἕκλειψιν has been erroneously

substituted for δύσιν, as it has also in Aet. ii. 24, 4 (_Dox._ p.

354).

The vigorous expression “tumbling into a hole”[295] seems clearly to

come from the verses of Xenophanes himself, and there are others of a

similar kind, which we must suppose were quoted by Theophrastos. The

stars go out in the daytime, but glow again at night “like charcoal

embers.”[296] The sun is of some use in producing the world and the

living creatures in it, but the moon “does no work in the boat.”[297]

Such expressions can only be meant to make the heavenly bodies appear

ridiculous, and it will therefore be well to ask whether the other

supposed cosmological fragments can be interpreted on the same

principle.

Footnote 295:

That this is the meaning of ὥσπερ κενεμβατοῦντα appears sufficiently

from the passages referred to in Liddell and Scott.

Footnote 296:

Aet. ii. 13, 14 (_Dox._ p. 343), ἀναζωπυρεῖν νύκτωρ καθάπερ τοὺς

ἄνθρακας.

Footnote 297:

Aet. ii. 30, 8 (_Dox._ p. 362), τὸν μὲν ἥλιον χρήσιμον εἶναι πρὸς τὴν

τοῦ κόσμου καὶ τὴν τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ ζῴων γένεσίν τε καὶ διοίκησιν, τὴν δὲ

σελήνην παρέλκειν, The verb παρέλκειν means “to cork.” Cf.

Aristophanes, _Pax_, 1306.

[Sidenote: Earth and water.]

59. In fr. 29 Xenophanes says that “all things are earth and water,” and

Hippolytos has preserved the account given by Theophrastos of the

context in which this occurred. It was as follows:—

Xenophanes said that a mixture of the earth with the sea is taking

place, and that it is being gradually dissolved by the moisture. He

says that he has the following proofs of this. Shells are found in

midland districts and on hills, and he says that in the quarries at

Syracuse has been found the imprint of a fish and of seaweed, at Paros

the form of an anchovy in the depth of the stone, and at Malta flat

impressions of all marine animals. These, he says, were produced when

all things were formerly mud, and the outlines were dried in the mud.

All human beings are destroyed when the earth has been carried down

into the sea and turned to mud. This change takes place for all the

worlds.—Hipp. _Ref._ i. 14 (R. P. 103 a).

This is, of course, the theory of Anaximander, and we may perhaps credit

him rather than Xenophanes with the observations of fossils.[298] Most

remarkable of all, however, is the statement that this change applies to

“all the worlds.” It really seems impossible to doubt that Theophrastos

attributed a belief in “innumerable worlds” to Xenophanes. As we have

seen already, Aetios includes him in his list of those who held this

doctrine, and Diogenes ascribes it to him also.[299] In this place,

Hippolytos seems to take it for granted. We shall also find, however,

that in another connexion he said the World or God was one. If our

interpretation of him is correct, there is no difficulty here. The main

point is that, so far from being a primeval goddess, and “a sure seat

for all things ever,” Gaia too is a passing appearance. That belongs to

the attack upon Hesiod, and, if in this connexion Xenophanes spoke, with

Anaximander, of “innumerable worlds,” while elsewhere he said that God

or the World was one, that is probably connected with a still better

attested contradiction which we have now to examine.

Footnote 298:

There is an interesting note on these in Gomperz’s _Greek Thinkers_

(Eng. trans. i. p. 551). I have translated his conjecture φυκῶν

instead of the MS. φωκῶν, as this is said to involve a palæontological

impossibility, and impressions of fucoids are found, not indeed in the

quarries of Syracuse, but near them. It is said also that there are no

fossils in Paros, so the anchovy must have been an imaginary one.

Footnote 299:

Aet. ii. 1, 2 (_Dox._, p. 327); Diog. ix. 19 (R. P. 103 c). It is

true, of course, that this passage of Diogenes comes from the

biographical compendium (_Dox._ p. 168); but, for all that, it is a

serious matter to deny the Theophrastean origin of a statement found

in Aetios, Hippolytos, and Diogenes.

[Sidenote: Finite or infinite?]

60. Aristotle tried without success to discover from the poems of

Xenophanes whether he regarded the world as finite or infinite. “He made

no clear pronouncement on the subject,” he tells us.[300] Theophrastos,

on the other hand, decided that he regarded it as spherical and finite

because he said it was “equal every way.”[301] This, however, leads to

very serious difficulties. We have seen already that Xenophanes said the

sun went right on to infinity, and this agrees with his view of the

earth as an infinitely extended plain. Still more difficult to reconcile

with the idea of a spherical and finite world is the statement of fr. 28

that, while the earth has an upper limit which we see, it has no limit

below. This is attested by Aristotle, who speaks of the earth being

“infinitely rooted,” and adds that Empedokles criticised Xenophanes for

holding this view.[302] It further appears from the fragment of

Empedokles quoted by Aristotle that Xenophanes said the vast Air

extended infinitely upwards.[303] We are therefore bound to try to find

room for an infinite earth and an infinite air in a spherical and finite

world! That comes of trying to find science in satire. If, on the other

hand, we regard these statements from the same point of view as those

about the heavenly bodies, we shall at once see what they most probably

mean. The story of Ouranos and Gaia was always the chief scandal of the

_Theogony_, and the infinite air gets rid of Ouranos altogether. As to

the earth stretching infinitely downwards, that gets rid of Tartaros,

which Homer described as situated at the bottommost limit of earth and

sea, as far beneath Hades as heaven is above the earth.[304] This is

pure conjecture, of course; but, if it is even possible, we are entitled

to disbelieve that such startling contradictions occurred in a

cosmological poem.

Footnote 300:

Arist. _Met._ Α, 5. 986 b 23 (R. P. 101), οὐδὲν διεσαφήνισεν.

Footnote 301:

This is given as an inference by Simpl. _Phys._ p. 23, 18 (R. P. 108

b), διὰ τὸ πανταχόθεν ὅμοιον. It does not merely come from _M.X.G._

(R. P. 108), πάντῃ δ’ ὅμοιον ὄντα σφαιροειδῆ εἶναι. Hippolytos has it

too (_Ref._ i. 14; R. P. 102 a), so it goes back to Theophrastos.

Timon of Phleious understood Xenophanes in the same way; for he makes

him call the One ἴσον ἁπάντῃ (fr. 60, Diels = 40 Wachsm.; R. P. 102

a).

Footnote 302:

Arist. _de Caelo_, Β, 13. 294 a 21 (R. P. 103 b).

Footnote 303:

I take δαψιλός as an attribute and ἀπείρονα as predicate to both

subjects.

Footnote 304:

_Il._ viii. 13-16, 478-481, especially the words οὐδ’ εἴ κε τὰ νείατα

πείραθ’ ἵκηαι | γαίης καὶ πόντοιο κ.τ.λ. _Iliad_ viii. must have

seemed a particularly bad book to Xenophanes.

A more subtle explanation of the difficulty commended itself to the late

Peripatetic who wrote an account of the Eleatic school, part of which is

still extant in the Aristotelian corpus, and is generally known now as

the treatise on _Melissos, Xenophanes, and Gorgias_.[305] He said that

Xenophanes declared the world to be neither finite nor infinite, and he

composed a series of arguments in support of this thesis, to which he

added another like it, namely, that the world is neither in motion nor

at rest. This has introduced endless confusion into our sources.

Alexander used this treatise as well as the great work of Theophrastos,

and Simplicius supposed the quotations from it to be from Theophrastos

too. Having no copy of the poems he was completely baffled, and until

recently all accounts of Xenophanes were vitiated by the same confusion.

It may even be suggested that, but for this, we should have heard very

little of the “philosophy of Xenophanes,” a way of speaking which is in

the main a survival from the days before this scholastic exercise was

recognised as having no authority.

Footnote 305:

In Bekker’s edition this treatise bears the title Περὶ Ξενοφάνους,

περὶ Ζήνωνος, περὶ Γοργίου, but the best MS. gives as the titles of

its three sections: (1) Περὶ Ζήνωνος, (2) Περὶ Ξενοφάνους, (3) Περὶ

Γοργίου. The first section, however, plainly refers to Melissos, so

the whole treatise is now entitled _De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia_

(_M.X.G._). It has been edited by Apelt in the Teubner Series, and

more recently by Diels (_Abh. der k. Preuss. Akad._ 1900), who has

also given the section dealing with Xenophanes in _P. Ph. Fr._ pp.

24-29 (_Vors._ pp. 36 sqq.). He has now withdrawn the view maintained

in _Dox._ p. 108 that the work belongs to the third century B.C., and

holds that it was _a Peripatetico eclectico (i.e. sceptica, platonica,

stoica admiscente) circa Christi natalem conscriptum_. If that is so,

there is no reason to doubt, as I formerly did, that the second

section is really meant to deal with Xenophanes. The writer would have

no first-hand knowledge of his poems, and the order in which the

philosophers are discussed is that of the passage in the _Metaphysics_

which suggested the whole thing. It is possible that a section on

Parmenides preceded what we now have.

[Sidenote: God and the world.]

61. In the passage of the _Metaphysics_ just referred to, Aristotle

speaks of Xenophanes as “the first partisan of the One,”[306] and the

context shows that he means to suggest he was the first of the Eleatics.

We have seen already that the certain facts of his life make it very

unlikely that he settled at Elea and founded a school there, and it is

probable that, as usual in such cases, Aristotle is simply reproducing

certain statements of Plato. At any rate, Plato had spoken of the

Eleatics as the “partisans of the Whole,”[307] and he had also spoken of

the school as “starting with Xenophanes and even earlier.”[308] The last

words, however, show clearly enough what he meant. Just as he called the

Herakleiteans “followers of Homer and still more ancient teachers,”[309]

so he attached the Eleatic school to Xenophanes and still earlier

authorities. We have seen in other instances how these playful and

ironical remarks of Plato were taken seriously by his successors, and we

need not let this fresh instance of the same thing influence our general

view of Xenophanes unduly.

Footnote 306:

_Met._ Α, 5. 986 b 21 (R. P. 101), πρῶτος τούτων ἑνίσας. The verb

ἑνίζειν occurs nowhere else, but is plainly formed on the analogy of

μηδίζειν, φιλιππίζειν, and the like. It is not likely that it means

“to unify.” Aristotle could easily have said ἑνώσας if he had meant

that.

Footnote 307:

_Tht._ 181 a 6, τοῦ ὅλου στασιῶται. The noun στασιῶτης has no other

meaning than “partisan.” There is no verb στασιοῦν “to make

stationary,” and such a formation would be against all analogy. The

derivation στασιώτας ... ἀπὸ τῆς στάσεως appears first in Sext.

_Math._ x. 46, from which passage we may infer that Aristotle used the

word, not that he gave the derivation.

Footnote 308:

_Soph._ 242 d 5 (R. P. 101 b). If the passage implies that Xenophanes

settled at Elea, it equally implies this of his predecessors. But Elea

was not founded till Xenophanes was in the prime of life.

Footnote 309:

_Tht._ 179 e 3, τῶν Ἡρακλειτείων ἤ, ὥσπερ σὺ λέγεις Ὁμηρείων καὶ ἔτι

παλαιοτέρων. In this passage, Homer stands to the Herakleiteans in

exactly the same relation as Xenophanes does to the Eleatics in the

_Sophist._

Aristotle goes on to tell us that Xenophanes, “referring to the whole

world,[310] said the One was god.” This clearly alludes to frs. 23-26,

where all human attributes are denied of a god who is said to be one and

“the greatest among gods and men.” It may be added that these verses

gain very much in point if we may think of them as closely connected

with frs. 11-16, instead of referring the one set of verses to the

Satires and the other to a cosmological poem. It was probably in the

same context that Xenophanes called the world or god “equal every

way”[311] and denied that it breathed.[312] The statement that, there is

no mastership among the gods[313] also goes very well with fr. 26. A god

has no wants, nor is it fitting for one god to be the servant of others,

like Iris and Hermes in Homer.

Footnote 310:

_Met._ 981 b 24. The words cannot mean “gazing up at the whole

heavens,” or anything of that sort. They are taken as I take them by

Bonitz (_im Hinblicke auf den ganzen Himmel_) and Zeller (_im Hinblick

auf das Weltganze_). The word ἀποβλέπειν had become much too

colourless to bear the other meaning, and οὐρανός, as we know, means

what was later called κόσμος.

Footnote 311:

See above, p. 137, _n._ 301.

Footnote 312:

Diog. ix. 19 (R. P. 103 c), ὅλον δ’ ὁρᾶν καὶ ὅλον ἀκούειν, μὴ μέντοι

ἀναπνεῖν. See above, p. 120, _n._ 252.

Footnote 313:

[Plut.] _Strom._ fr. 4, ἀποφαίνεται δὲ καὶ περὶ θεῶν ὡς οὐδεμιᾶς

ἡγεμονίας ἐν αὐτοῖς οὔσης· οὐ γὰρ ὅσιον δεσπόζεσθαί τινα τῶν θεῶν,

ἐπιδεῖσθαί τε μηδενὸς αὐτῶν μηδένα μηδ’ ὅλως, ἀκούειν δὲ καὶ ὁρᾶν

καθόλου καὶ μὴ κατὰ μέρος.

[Sidenote: Monotheism or polytheism.]

62. That this “god” is just the world, Aristotle tells us, and the use

of the word θεός is quite in accordance with Anaximander’s. Xenophanes

regarded it as sentient, though without any special organs of sense, and

it sways all things by the thought of its mind. He also calls it “one

god,” and, if that is monotheism, then Xenophanes was a monotheist,

though this is surely not how the word is generally understood. The fact

is that the expression “one god” wakens all sorts of associations in our

mind which did not exist at all for the Greeks of this time. His

contemporaries would have been more likely to call Xenophanes an atheist

than anything else. As Eduard Meyer excellently says: “In Greece the

question of one god or gods many hardly plays any part. Whether the

divine power is thought of as a unity or a plurality, is irrelevant in

comparison with the question whether it exists at all, and how its

nature and its relation to the world is to be understood.”[314]

Footnote 314:

_Gesch. des Alterth._ ii. § 466.

On the other hand, it is wrong to say with Freudenthal that Xenophanes

was in any sense a polytheist.[315] That he should use the language of

polytheism in his elegies is only what we should expect, and the other

references to “gods” can be best explained as incidental to his attack

on the anthropomorphic gods of Homer and Hesiod. In one case,

Freudenthal has pressed a proverbial way of speaking too hard.[316]

Least of all can we admit that Xenophanes allowed the existence of

subordinate or departmental gods; for it was just the existence of such

that he was chiefly concerned to deny. At the same time, I cannot help

thinking that Freudenthal was more nearly right than Wilamowitz, who

says that Xenophanes “upheld the only real monotheism that has ever

existed upon earth.”[317] Diels, I fancy, comes nearer the mark, when he

calls it a “somewhat narrow pantheism.”[318] But all these views would

have surprised Xenophanes himself about equally. He was really Goethe’s

_Weltkind_, with prophets to right and left of him, and he would have

smiled if he had known that one day he was to be regarded as a

theologian.

Footnote 315:

Freudenthal, _Die Theologie des Xenophanes_.

Footnote 316:

Xenophanes calls his god “greatest among gods and men,” but this is

simply a case of “polar expression,” to which parallels will be found

in Wilamowitz’s note to the _Herakles_, v. 1106. Cf. especially the

statement of Herakleitos (fr. 20) that “no one of gods or men” made

the world.

Footnote 317:

_Griechische Literatur_, p. 38.

Footnote 318:

_Parmenides Lehrgedicht_, p. 9.