Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/425

 CAUSES OF PYTHAGOREAN SUBVERSION. 407 city, 1 an hypothesis no vay probable ; we may rather conceive them as a powerful private club, exercising ascendency in the interior of the senate, and governing through the medium of the constituted authorities. Nor can we receive without great allow- ance the assertion of Varro, 2 who, assimilating Pythagoras to Plato, tells us that he confined his instructions on matters of government to chosen disciples, who had gone through a com- plete training, and had reached the perfection of wisdom and virtue. It seems more probable that the political Pythagoreans were those who were most qualified for action, and least for spec- ulation. And we may reasonably suppose in the general of the order that skill in turning to account the aptitudes of individuals, which two centuries ago was so conspicuous in the Jesuits ; to whom, in various ways, the Pythagoreans bear considerable re- semblance. All that we can be said to know about their political principles is, that they were exclusive and aristocratical, adverse to the control and interference of the people ; a circumstance no way disadvantageous to them, since they coincided in this respect with the existing government of the city, had not their own conduct brought additional odium on the old aristocracy, and raised up an aggravated democratical opposition, carried to the most deplorable lengths of violence. All the information which we possess, apocryphal as it is, re- specting this memorable club, is derived from its warm admirers ; yet even their statements are enough to explain how it came to provoke deadly and extensive enmity. A stranger coming to teach new religious dogmas and observances, with a tincture of science and some new ethical ideas and phrases, though he would obtain some zealous votaries, would also bring upon him- self a certain measure of antipathy. Extreme strictness of ob- servances, combined with the art of touching skilfully the springs of religious terror in others, would indeed do much both to for- tify and to exalt him. But when it was discovered that science, philosophy, and even the mystic revelations of religion, whatever they were, remained confined to the private talk and practice of 1 Niebuhr, Romisch. Gesch. i, p. 165, 2d edit. ; O. Miiller, Hist of Dori iii, 9, 16 : Krische is opposed to this idea, sect, v, p. 84.
 * Varro ap, Augustin. dc Ordiue, ii, 30 ; Kriscbe, p. 77.