Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/423

 TYTHAGOREANS AS POLITICIANS. 404 Nor are we to believe that Pythagoras came originally to Kro- ton with the express design of creating for himself an ascendent political position, still less that he came for the purpose of realizing a great preconceived political idea, and transforming Kroton into a model-city of pure Dorism, as has been supposed by some eminent modern authors. Such schemes might indeed be ascribed to him by Pythagoreans of the Platonic age, when large ideas of political amelioration were rife in the minds of speculative men, by men disposed to forego the authorship of their own opinions, and preferring to accredit them as traditions handed down from a founder who had left no memorials ; but it requires better evidence than theirs to make us believe that any real Greek born in 580 B.C. actually conceived such plans. We cannot construe the scheme of Pythagoras as going further than the formation of a private, select order of brethren, embracing his religious fancies, ethical ton, and germs of scientific idea, and manifesting adhesion by those observances which Herodotus and Plato call the Pythagorean orgies and mode of life. And his private order became politically powerful, because he was skilful or fortunate enough to enlist a sufficient number of wealthy Krotoniates, possessing individual influence which they strength- ened immensely by thus regimenting themselves in intimate union. The Pythagorean orgies or religious ceremonies were not inconsistent with public activity, bodily as well as mental : probably the rich men of the order may have been rendered even more active, by being fortified against the temptations of a life of indulgence. The character of the order as it first stood, different from that to which it was afterwards reduced, was indeed reli- gious and exclusive, but also active and domineering ; not despis- ing any of those bodily accomplishments which increased the efficiency of the Grecian citizen, and which so particularly har- monized with the preexisting tendencies of Kroton. 1 Niebuhr not irpaKTiKov Ka&uijjijrai (6 0tA6<rodoc) /ca? royrov uvcnrhfjay <ca- ruv 1 I transcribe here the summary given by Krische, at the close of his Dis- sertation on the Pythagorean order, p. 101 : " Societatis scopiw fuit mero politicns, ut lapsam optimatium potestatcm non modo in pristinum restitu- eret sed firmaret amplificarct'ine : cum summo hoc scopo duo conjuncli