Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/279

257 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT OREECE. 257 finement*." But since this Ionic philosopher found himself, on his arrival at Croton, among a mixed population of Dorians and Achaeans; and since his adherents in the neighbouring Doric states were con- stantly increasing' ; it is difficult to say whether the opinions and dispo- sitions which he had brought with him from Samos, or the opinions and dispositions of the citizens of Croton and the neighbouring cities, who received his doctrines, exercised the greater influence upon him. Thus much, however, is evident, that speculations upon nature, prompted by the mere love of truth, could not be in question ; so that the prin- cipal efforts of Pythagoras and his adherents were directed to practical life, especially to the regulation of political institutions according to ge- neral views of the order of human society. There is no doubt that Croton, Caulonia, Metapontum, and other cities in Lower Italy, were long governed, under the superintendence of Pythagorean societies, upon aristocratic principles ; and that they enjoyed prosperity at home, and were formidable, from their strength, to foreign states. And even when, after the destruction of Sybaris by the Crotoniats (Olymp. 67. 3. B.C. 510.), dissensions between the nobles and the people concerning the division of the territory had led to a furious persecution of the Py- thagoreans ; yet the times returned when Pythagoreans were again at the head of Italian cities ; for instance, Archytas, the contemporary of Socrates and Plato, administered the affairs of Tarentum with great renown -J-. It appears that the individual influence of Pythagoras was exercised by means of lectures, or of sayings uttered in a compressed and sym- bolical form, which he communicated only to his friends, or by means of the establishment and direction of the Pythagorean associations and their peculiar mode of life. For there is no authentic account of a single writing of Pythagoras, and no fragment which appears to be genuine. The works which have been attributed to Pythagoras, such as " the Sacred Discourse " (ttpoe oyoc), are chiefly forgeries of those Orphic theologers who imitated the Pythagorean manner, and whose relation to the genuine Pythagoreans has been explained in a former chapter. The fundamental doctrines of the Pythagorean philosophy ; viz. that the essence of all things rests upon a numerical relation ; that the world subsists by the harmony, or conformity, of its different ele- ments ; that numbers are the principle of all that exists; — all these iavToZ o-oQ mv, ■ffoXvp.afmv, KUKortxrinv. Diog. Laert. VIII. 6. lirro^in, according to the Ionic meaning of the word, is an inquiry founded upon interrogation. f It appears that there was a second expulsion of the Pythagoreans from Italy after the time of Archytas. Lysis, the Pythagorean, seems to have gone, in conse- quence of it, to Thebes, where he became the teacher of Epamioondas. The jukes about the Pythagoreans and the Uumyo^i^ovr-s. with their strange and .singular mode of life, are not earlier than the middle and new comedy, that is, than the lOOlh Olympiad ; this sort of philosophers did not previously exist in Greece. Meineke Qiiaest. Seen. I. p. 24. See Theociit. Id. XIV. i. I Ch. 16. s > :'». S
 * Wviay'op-Ai Mvritra.e%ou larogiri'* j«Wii avfyuwuv jAitXiaru. frcaruv ntomca-To