It remains therefore after this, that we should relate how he travelled,
what places he first visited, what discourses he made, on what subjects,
and to whom they were addressed; for thus we shall easily apprehend the
nature of his association with the men of that time. It is said then,
that as soon as he came to Italy and Sicily, which cities he understood
had oppressed each other with slavery, partly at some distant period of
past time, and partly at a recent period, he inspired the inhabitants
with a love of liberty, and through the means of his auditors, restored
to independence and liberated Crotona, Sybaris, Catanes, Rhegium,
Himæra, Agrigentum, Tauromenas, and some other cities, for whom also he
established laws, through Charondas the Catanæan, and Zaleucus the
Locrian, by whom they became florishing cities, and afforded an example
worthy of imitation, for a long time, to the neighbouring kingdoms. He
also entirely subverted sedition, discord, and party zeal, not only from
his familiars, and their posterity, for many generations, as we are
informed by history, but, in short, from all the cities in Italy and
Sicily, which were at that time disturbed with intestine and external
contentions. For the following apothegm was always employed by him in
every place, whether in the company of a multitude or a few, which was
similar to the persuasive oracle of a God, and was an epitome and
summary as it were of his own opinions; that we should avoid and
amputate by every possible artifice, by fire and sword, and all-various
contrivances, from the body, disease; from the soul, ignorance; from the
belly, luxury; from a city, sedition; from a house, discord; and at the
same time, from all things, immoderation: through which, with a most
fatherly affection, he reminded each of his disciples of the most
excellent dogmas. Such therefore was the common form of his life at that
time, both in words and actions. If, however, it be requisite to make a
more particular relation of what he did and said, it must be observed,
that he came to Italy in the sixty-second Olympiad, at which time
Eryxidas of Chalcis conquered in the stadium. But immediately on his
arrival he became conspicuous and illustrious, in the same manner as
before, when he sailed to Delos. For there, when he performed his
adorations at the bloodless altar of the father Apollo, he was admired
by the inhabitants of the island.