Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/428

 410 HISTORY OF GREECE. in other cities of Magna Grzecia, Tarentum, Metapontum, Kaulonia. And we are told that these cities remained for some time in a state of great disquietude and commotion from which they were only rescued by the friendly mediation of the Pelo ponnesian Achaeans, the original founders of Sybaris and Kro- fon, assisted, indeed, by mediators from other parts of Greece The cities were at length pacified, and induced to adopt an amica- ble congress, with common religious festivals at a temple founded expressly for the purpose, and dedicated to Zeus Homarius. 1 Thus perished the original Pythagorean order. Respecting Pythagoras himself, there, were conflicting accounts; some rep- resenting that he was burnt in the temple with his disciples ; 9 others, that he had died a short time previously ; others again affirmed that he was alive at the time, but absent, and that he died not long afterwards in exile, after forty days of voluntary abstinence from food. His tomb was still shown at Metapontum in the days of Cicero. 3 As an active brotherhood, the Pythago- 1 Polyb. ii, 39; Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, c. 13, p. 583; Aristoxenus, ap. Jamblich. c. 250. That the enemies of the order attacked it by set- ting fire to the house in which the members were assembled, is the cir- cumstance in which all accounts agree. On all other points there is great discrepancy, especially respecting the names and dates of tbe Pythago- reans who escaped: Boeckh (Philolaus, p. 9, seq.) and Brandis (Hand- buch der Gesch. Philos. ch. Ixxiii, p. 432) try to reconcile these discrep- ncies. Aristophanes introduces Strepsiades, at the close of the Nubes, as set- r'ng fire to the meeting-house (QpovnaTripiov) of Sokrates and his disciples possibly the Pythagorean conflagration may have suggested this. 1 " Pythagoras Samius suspicione dominatus injusta vivus in fano con- r,-rematus est." (Arnobius adv. Gentes, lib. i, p. 23, cd. Elmenhorst.) 3 Cicero, De Finib. v, 2 (who seems to have copied from Dikoearchas : see Fuhr. ad Dikrcarchi Fragment, p. 55) ; Justin, xx, 4 ; Diogen. LaOrt. viii, 40 ; Jamblichus, V. P. c. 249. O. Muller says (Dorians, iii, 9, 16). that " the influence of the Pythago- rean league upon the administration of the Italian states was of the most leneficial kind, which continued for many generations after the dissolution of the league itself." The first of these two assertions cannot be made out, and depends only on the statements of later encomiasts, who even supply materials to contradict their own general view. The judgment of Welcker respecting the influence of the Pythagoreans, much less favorable, is at the. same tme more probable. (Prafat ad Theognid. p. xlv.)