Pythagoras

Master of the Seers

Pythagoras is the father of mathematics and philosophy whose exalted name has passed down into history as a legendary figure. He established titanic institutions of major importance in Antiquity that were major centers of learning, religious instruction and advancement. It was in major part due to Pythagoras that the Greek colony cities in Southern Italy briefly became the most powerful, wealthy and cultured parts of the Hellenic world, but the persecution of his followers soon ended this.

Becoming legendary centuries later, he was so esteemed ultimately by Antiquity that philosophers simply would refer to Pythagoras as ‘he’ or ‘him.’

LONG HAIRED SAMIAN

He was born in Samos, a Greek island of the Aegean. It is known Pythagoras associated during his youth with the philosophers Thales of Miletus and Bias of Priene. Pherecydes the Syrian was his tutor in boyhood, whom Pythagoras is known to have taken care of in his senior years. From these wise men, he learned the finer details of the sciences and the laws. The miraculous levels of knowledge he exhibited far surpassed known extents to the point the phrase “long-haired Samian” remained a descriptor of any wise individual for millennia.

Further travels ensued in the rest of Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Due to the beloved nature of Pythagoras, he was quickly recognized as a Demon and disciple of Azazel even during his early lifetime. Pilgrimages were done to Samos to simply be in his presence, though he was known to be taciturn.

THE CROTON EXPERIMENT

Chafing under the tyrannical government of Samos, Pythagoras departed to go to Croton (modern Crotone), a city of Greek colonists in the modern province of Calabria in Italy. This was becoming one of the biggest cities of the Greek world and was known for its prowess in athletics, learning and medicine. However, it was full of civic problems and struggled with wars against its aggressive neighbors, such as the city of Sybaris.

He soon set out to build a great school and institution in the city. To join the school, however, was no easy feat. Prospective followers would have to wait years for an audience with him and would have to understand the virtues of silence in between. It was a selective and rigorous process, underlined by the ambition of Pythagoras to prove any group could be turned over to the Gods if subjected to a careful process.

Once admitted, he taught his followers to practice oversight and to understand their own motivations, using certain techniques that led them to perceiving the ‘divine eye’, as Iamblichus states. Intelligence and soul were shared by all animals, but mindfulness was something uniquely human. The great teacher thus instructed people to go inwards to know themselves via meditative practices and to curb extreme behaviors, remaking them as beings. This was a necessity to curb many of the problems of Croton, which resulted from excess opposed to deficiency.

For the Pythagoreans, numbers were considered sacred and edifying principles of the cosmos which alluded to its many mysteries. Understanding the numbers also led to the Pythagorean theorem, complex properties of shape and other discoveries, but more broadly to the notion that everything in existence could be understood through numerical relationships. Pythagoras himself was credited with the ‘perfection’ of the study of geometry, a pathway to the occult.

They also made copious use of maxims and symbols. Certain precepts that sound strange to us were coded phrases that held extremely complex meanings within the organization, later leading to misunderstandings altogether even in Antiquity about the nature of what was taught:

Ἤθελε δ᾿ αὐτῷ τὸ μὲν πῦρ μαχαίρᾳ μὴ σκαλεύειν δυναστῶν ὀργὴν καὶ οἰδοῦντα θυμὸν μὴ κινεῖν. τὸ δὲ ζυγὸν μὴ ὑπερβαίνειν, τουτέστι τὸ ἴσον καὶ δίκαιον μὴ ὑπερβαίνειν. ἐπί τε χοίνικος μὴ καθίζειν ἐν ἴσῳ τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος φροντίδα ποιεῖσθαι καὶ τοῦ μέλλοντος· ἡ γὰρ χοῖνιξ ἡμερησία τροφή. διὰ δὲ τοῦ καρδίαν μὴ ἐσθίειν ἐδήλου μὴ τὴν ψυχὴν ἀνίαις καὶ λύπαις κατατήκειν. διὰ δὲ τοῦ εἰς ἀποδημίαν βαδίζοντα μὴ ἐπιστρέφεσθαι παρῄνει τοῖς ἀπαλλαττομένοις τοῦ βίου μὴ ἐπιθυμητικῶς ἔχειν τοῦ ζῆν μηδ᾿ ὑπὸ τῶν ἐνταῦθα ἡδονῶν ἐπάγεσθαι. καὶ τὰ ἄλλα πρὸς ταῦτα λοιπόν ἐστιν ἐκλαμβάνειν, ἵνα μὴ παρέλκωμεν.

This is what they meant: “not to stir the fire with a knife”, do not stir the passions or the swelling pride of the great. “Not to overstep the yoke”: do not overstep the bounds of equity and justice. “Not to sit on the choenix” (a measure of grain) is attending equally to both the present and the future—for the choenix represents one’s daily sustenance. “Not eating your heart” he meant not wasting your life in troubles and pains. By saying “do not turn round when you go abroad”, he meant to advise those who are departing this life not to set their hearts’ desire on living nor to be too much attracted by the desire-fixations of this life only. The explanations of the rest are similar and would take too long to set out.¹

The group was under pressure to reveal little.

DISMANTLER OF TYRANTS

Pythagoras also set out to dismantle tyrants. He defied the orders of Dion of Syracuse and Phalaris of Agrigentum who both put him in captivity for some time. The latter attempted to cast doubt on divination and other subjects, attempting to dismiss Pythagoras as a con artist. Abaris, a holy man from the north, assisted Pythagoras in the endeavour. The Pythagoreans pressed Phalaris with the transcendental nature of the Gods, dismissing the tyrant’s assertions that humans should behave identically to any animal.

Through Apollo’s oracle at Delphi, they were aware that the tyranny would only end when the inhabitants themselves would learn Pythagoras arguments and cease enabling the tyrant. It was this event that undid the tyranny of Phalaris altogether: he attempted to put Pythagoras and Abaris to death, dying himself the same day.

In time, Pythagoreans began to exert a strong influence on the government of Croton, which they used to promote a moderate form of aristocracy. Sybaris, a neighboring city, threatened their neighbour to return prominent individuals fleeing from a tyranny in that city. Under the guidance of the divine teacher’s learning and by the agitation of the followers of the holy man, Croton resisted and defeated the neighboring city of Sybaris, a victory framed as a triumph of disciplined civic virtues over Sybaritic decadence and cowardice.

Croton’s resistance to tyrannical external influences subquently increased. It quickly became the leader of a state comprising twenty-five cities in Italy, something not seen until the rise of Rome many years later.

With Pythagoras absent, however, his followers began to attract acrimonious attention from those unhappy with the newfound power of this rapidly expanding group, particularly those such as Cylon, a powerful man who was rejected for admission on account of his hubristic and arrogant nature. Others rankled at the transformation of their relatives when exposed to Pythagorean precepts, holding the order with a certain amount of envy. Some took exception that women could join and hold high positions. Others found the Pythagorean judgement of democracy to be dangerous.

RESENTMENT

Though adversaries of Pythagoras were aware he was divine and cautious to offend him, their hatred against his followers burst like an abscess.

Resentment led them to attempt large-scale massacres of the followers. The property of the Pythagoreans was redistributed among the democratic loyalists. Within a few decades, the city soon fell into disrepair and chaos, necessitating an intervention from the Greek mainland to keep stable, eventually being captured by the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse.

Croton soon fell into disrepair as a second-rate city and as a newly founded democracy continued to wage endless wars, never reaching its former glory again. The mysterious Pythagoras soon became a legend outlasting the city.