riedweg 3rd correx.qxp 1/21/2005 12:21 PM Page i Pythagoras riedweg 3rd correx.qxp 1/21/2005 12:21 PM Page ii riedweg 3rd correx.qxp 1/21/2005 12:21 PM Page iii Pythagoras His Life, Teaching, and Influence Christoph Riedweg Translated by Steven Rendall in collaboration with Christoph Riedweg and Andreas Schatzmann Cornell University Press Ithaca and London riedweg 3rd correx.qxp 1/21/2005 12:21 PM Page iv This is a licensed English translation of Christoph Riedweg, Pythagoras: Leben, Lehre, Nachwirkung. Eine Einführung, published by C. H. Beck in 2002. © Verlag C. H. Beck oHG, München 2002 Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges receipt of a subven- tion from the Zürcher Universitätsverein, which aided in the publi- cation of this book. English translation copyright © 2005 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without per- mission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2005 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Riedweg, Christoph. Pythagoras : his life, teaching, and influence / Christoph Riedweg ; translated by Steven Rendall in collaboration with Christoph Riedweg and Andreas Schatzmann. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8014-4240-0 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Pythagoras. I. Title. B243.R54 2005 182′.2--dc22 2004023906 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publish- ing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing 10 987654321 riedweg 3rd correx.qxp 1/21/2005 12:21 PM Page v For Walter Burkert riedweg 3rd correx.qxp 1/21/2005 12:21 PM Page vi How well I would write if I were not here! Silas Flannery riedweg 3rd correx.qxp 1/21/2005 12:21 PM Page vii Contents Preface ix 1. Fiction and Truth: Ancient Stories about Pythagoras 1 Pythagoras’ Appearance 2 Biographical Information 5 Pythagoras as a Teacher 20 2. In Search of the Historical Pythagoras 42 The Cultural-Historical and Intellectual Environment 44 The Oldest Testimonies 48 Guru and Scholar 60 Did Pythagoras Invent the Word Philosophy? 90 3. The Pythagorean Secret Society 98 Were the Pythagoreans an Ancient “Sect”? 98 The Pythagoreans in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries b.c.e. 104 4. Thinkers Influenced by Pythagoras and His Pupils 114 Pre-Platonic Thinkers 114 Plato and the Old Academy 116 Hellenistic “Forgeries” and Neo-Pythagoreanism 119 Pythagoras as an Idea in the Middle Ages and Modernity—A Prospect 128 Chronology 135 Abbreviations 141 Notes 145 Bibliography 163 Index 177 riedweg 3rd correx.qxp 1/21/2005 12:21 PM Page viii riedweg 3rd correx.qxp 1/21/2005 12:21 PM Page ix Preface The importance of an individual thinker owes something to chance. For it depends upon the fate of his ideas in the minds of his successors. In this respect Pythagoras was fortunate. His philosophical speculations reach us through the mind of Plato. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World A peculiar kind of splendor surrounds the name of Pythagoras of Samos— a splendor probably due in no small measure to the fact that in his person enlightened modern science seems happily fused with ancient wisdom teachings and insights into the mysterious interconnections of the world. The first is represented by the Pythagorean Theorem that we all learn in school, a2 + b2 = c2, as well as by Pythagoras’s recognition of the mathe- matical character of the basic musical concords. The transfer of these mu- sical proportions to the cosmos (the “harmony of the spheres”) and the use of music for therapeutic ends, the doctrine of the unity of all animate beings, vegetarianism, and the transmigration of souls are key terms for the second aspect. Pythagoras has a guaranteed place not only in musicology, mathematics, and the history of science but also in the history of philoso- phy and religion; in addition, he has proved attractive to esoteric move- ments down to the present day. Who was this wise man from Samos? This question is not easy to answer because of the problematic state of transmission of the relevant docu- ments. Very little of our information about him dates from his own life- time—roughly, from 570 to 480 b.c.e. The farther on in time we move, the richer the documentation becomes for us (in antiquity, the situation was still somewhat different). The only coherent descriptions of Pythagoras’ life and teaching that have come down to us from antiquity we owe to authors of the third and fourth centuries b.c.e.: the biographer of philoso- riedweg 3rd correx.qxp 1/21/2005 12:21 PM Page x x Preface phers Diogenes Laertius and the Neoplatonists Porphyry of Tyre and Iamblichus of Chalcis. Their information is very uneven in quality. Among the most valuable clues are those they derived from sources (now lost) dat- ing from the fourth and third centuries b.c.e.—including Aristotle and his pupils as well as the historian Timaeus of Tauromenium. However, since by the fourth century b.c.e. various groups were already claiming the ide- alized philosopher Pythagoras as one of their own, considerable caution is needed in dealing with these witnesses (who contradict one another on many points). Particularly momentous was the introduction of a strongly Platonic interpretation of Pythagoras in the Old Academy. Over time, this led to the ancient Pythagorean tradition being overwritten by Platonic doc- trine, to the point it became unrecognizable. This development turned out not to harm Pythagoras as a philosophical model; on the contrary, his as- tonishing influence down the centuries would hardly be conceivable with- out this overlay of Platonic philosophy, which has decisively shaped the image of Pythagoras. Part of the problem in what has come down to us relating to Pythagoras involves the sociology of the school itself. Pythagoras, who probably left his home island Samos for good around 530 b.c.e. and emigrated to Croton in southern Italy, seems to have considered a secret politico-religious com- munity as the appropriate organizational form for imparting his sophía (wisdom). In this respect, all the ancient sources for once agree in saying that, like the mystery cults, he did not immediately communicate his doc- trines to anyone interested in them, but required his adepts—including women (not a matter of course in the ancient world)—to undergo an ini- tiationlike preparation and adopt a way of life shaped by ritual regulations. This aristocratic society, which from a modern point of view had the char- acteristics of a sect, put particular emphasis on the duty to observe secrecy. Therefore it is likely that at least down to the anti-Pythagorean rebellions around the middle of the fifth century b.c.e. (or somewhat later), which led to the breakup of the Pythagorean communities and almost complete expulsion of their adherents from southern Italy, only a little information about the master’s teaching leaked out and became known to the outside world. This vacuum (which due to the rule of secrecy was only ever par- tially filled) led all the more easily to speculation and personal additions to the tradition in the form of pseudo-epigraphic writings. These were pro- duced with increasing frequency at least from the Hellenistic age onward and are interspersed, for the most part, with elements of Platonic and Aris- totelian philosophy. If we now wish to recover as far as possible the original “text” of this re- peatedly overwritten and retouched philosophical palimpsest, it is advis- able to begin with the traditional stories about Pythagoras, and first of all riedweg 3rd correx.qxp 1/21/2005 12:21 PM Page xi Preface xi to inventory the literary tradition, oscillating between fiction and truth in all its contradictory diversity (chapter 1). Next, we approach the historical Pythagoras from the outside, as it were, by briefly sketching the cultural and intellectual context in which he lived and worked. Then we must an- alyze with special care the oldest testimony, some of which goes back to Pythagoras’ own lifetime. It is in this way, if at all, that we are likely to ac- quire a reasonably authentic idea of this fascinating figure, who clearly combined the characteristics of a guru with those of a scholar, and whose charisma gained him considerable political influence in southern Italy. A separate section is reserved for the question whether the word philosophy, without which Western intellectual history is hard to imagine, may have been invented by Pythagoras (the foregoing questions are addressed in chapter 2). Other parts of this book are devoted to the nature and organ- ization of the community founded by Pythagoras and the history of his school, to which in the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e. belonged such sig- nificant thinkers as Philolaus of Croton and Plato’s friend Archytas of Tar- entum (see chapter 3). The final chapter pursues the marks left by the sage of Samos on European thought, beginning with the later pre-Socratics and passing through Plato and the Old Academy, the (highly Platonic) neo- Pythagorean school, and the Latin Middle Ages down to the early modern period (Copernicus and Kepler), and the so-called Harmonic Pythagore- anism of the twentieth century (chapter 4).