Pythagoras, known as "the father of numbers", made influential contributions to Greek philosophy and religious teaching in the
late 6th century BC. Because legend and obfuscation cloud his work even more than with the other pre-Socratics, one can say little with confidence about his life and teachings.
Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos, off the coast of Asia Minor. As a young man he left his native city for Croton in Southern Italy to escape the tyrannical government of Polycrates. Many writers credit him with visits to the sages of Egypt and of Babylon before going west; but such visits feature stereotypically in the biographies of Greek wise men, and may express legend rather than fact.
In any case, Pythagoras undertook a reform of the cultural life of Croton, urging the citizens to follow virtue and forming an elite circle of followers around himself. Very strict rules of conduct governed this cultural center. He opened his school to men and women students alike.
According to Iamblichus (philosopher), the Pythagoreans followed a structured life of common meals, exercise, reading and philosophical study. We may infer from this that participants required some degree of wealth and leisure to join the inner circle. Music featured as an essential organizing factor of this life: the disciples would sing hymns to Apollo together regularly; they used the lyre to cure illness of the soul or body; poetry recitations occurred before and after sleep to aid the memory.
''Pythagoras as portrayed on Roman
coins from Samos''
Pythagoras has the reputation of having taught a doctrine of reincarnation. His other teachings appear framed in pithy sayings, or sumbola, often in question-and-answer format. Some of these teachings took a simple form: "What is wisest?" "Number"; "What is truest?" "Most men are bad." Others were more cryptic: "What is the Delphic oracle?" "The tetraktys, in which the Sirens sing." Other sumbola related to sexual, dietary and other taboos, including the proper way to stir a fire or place one's shoes before going to sleep.
Later Pythagoreans divided into two camps. The akousmatikoi held to these sumbola as the whole of their master's teaching. The mathematikoi added research into geometry, musical theory, astronomy, mechanics and other sciences. The mathematikoi held that the akousmatikoi knew only the outer form of the doctrine, but they themselves claimed to know the inner as well. The akousmatikoi accused the mathematikoi of adding extraneous material to the original teaching. Even today, scholars cannot definitively identify the "real" Pythagoreans.
The subsequent biographical traditions of Pythagoras reflect this split: they
portray him alternately as a down-to-earth political reformer, a
pioneering scientist, or a wild shaman-figure. The truth no doubt lay somewhere in between, but one cannot always say precisely where.
Some consider Pythagoras the pupil of Anaximander and some ancient sources tell of his visiting, in his twenties, the philosopher Thales, just before the death of the latter. No account exists of the specifics of the meeting, other than the report that Thales recommended that Pythagoras travel to Egypt in order to further his philosophical and mathematical training.
Evidence certainly suggests that the Egyptians had advanced further than the
Greeks of their time in mathematics and astronomy, and many scholars now
believe that the Egyptians used the Pythagorean Theorem in some of their
architectural projects before the 6th century BC.
It is sometimes difficult to determine which ideas Pythagoras taught originally, as opposed to the ideas his followers later added. While he clearly attached great importance to geometry, classical Greek writers tended to cite Thales as the great pioneer of this science rather than Pythagoras. The later tradition of Pythagoras as the inventor of mathematics stems largely from the Roman period.
Whether or not we attribute the Pythagorean theorem to Pythagoras, it seems fairly certain that he had the pioneering insight into the numerical ratios which determine the musical scale, since this plays a key role in many other areas of the Pythagorean tradition and since no evidence remains of earlier Greek or Egyptian musical theories.
The influence of Pythagoras has transcended the field of mathematics, and the Hippocratic Oath — with its central commitment to First do no harm — has its roots in the oath of the Pythagorean Brotherhood [1].
