Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/416

 398 HISTORY OF GREECE. Apollonius of Tyana constituting himself a living copy ot Pythagoras. And thus, while the scientific elements developed by the disciples of Pythagoras had become disjoined from all pecu- liarity of sect, and passed into the general studious world, the original vein of mystic and ascetic fancy belonging to the master, without any of that practical efficiency of body and mind which had marked his first followers, was taken up anew into the pagan world, along with the disfigured doctrines of Plato. Neo- Pythagorism, passing gradually into Neo-Platonism, outlasted the other more positive and masculine systems of pagan philoso- phy, as the contemporary and rival of Christianity. A large proportion of the false statements concerning Pythagoras come from these Keo-Pythagorenns, who were not deterred by the want of memorials from illustrating, with ample latitude of fancy, the ideal character of the master. That an inquisitive man like Pythagoras, at a time when there were hardly any books to study, would visit foreign countries, and converse with all the Grecian philosophical inquirers within his reach, is a matter which we should presume, even if no one attested it ; and our witnesses carry us very little beyond this general presumption. What doctrines he borrowed, or from whom, we are unable to discover. But, in fact, his whole life and proceedings bear the stamp of an original mind, and not of a borrower, a mind impressed both with Hellenic and with non-Hellenic habits and religion, yet capable of combining the two in a manner peculiar to himself; and above all, endued with those talents for religion and personal ascendency over others, which told for much more than the intrinsic merit of his ideas. We are informed that after extensive travels and inquiries he returned to Samos, at the age of about forty: he then found his native island under the despotism of Polykrates, which rendered it an unsuitable place either for free sentiments or for marked individuals. Unable to attract hearers, or found any school or brotherhood, in his native island, he determined to expatriate. And we may presume that at this period (about 535-530 B.C.) (he recent subjugation of Ionia by the Persians was not without influence on his determination. The trade between the Asiatic and the Italian Greeks, and even the intimacy between Miletus and Knidus on the one side, and Svbaris and Tarcntum