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BIOGRAPHY OF PYTHAGORAS

Biography of Pythagoras

Birth

  • Place: Samos

  • Time: 1st year of the 50th Olympiad (580 BC)

Parents

  • Father: Mnesarchus

  • Mother: Pythais

Siblings

  • Eunomus, Tyrrhenus (both older than Pythagoras)

Family Occupation

  • His father was an engraver (goldsmith).

Financial Status

  • Wealthy

Family Life

  • Wife: Theano (daughter of Brontinus of Croton)

  • Children: He had a daughter, Damo, and a son, Telauges.

Teachers

  • Pherecydes, Hermodamas

Travels

As a youth with a great thirst for knowledge, he traveled to all the major religious and scientific centers. Polycrates, the Tyrant of Samos, recommended Pythagoras to Pharaoh Amasis via letter. He also came into contact with Chaldean religious leaders in Babylon and the Magi (the Magi were individuals with scientific knowledge, as well as an understanding of mass psychology and propaganda).

Initiation

During his travels outside Greece, he was initiated into all the Mysteries and Rites, including those of Egypt. Upon returning to Greece, he was initiated into all the "Secret Discourses" (Greek Mysteries) and served as a Hierophant in all the sanctuaries. At the end of his initiatory cycle and before moving to the Greek colony of Croton in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy) to found his school, the "Homakoion," he traveled to Crete. There, along with the priest Epimenides, he underwent the Supreme Minoan Mysteries in the Idaean Cave.

Appearance

He possessed Apollonian features (blonde hair and blue eyes). He was exceptionally handsome, serious, and possessed great dignity.

Pythagorean Views

Reincarnation: Pythagoras claimed he had once lived as Aethalides, the son of Hermes. Hermes granted him any wish except immortality, so Aethalides (Pythagoras) asked to retain his memory whether he was in a living or non-living state. Later, during the Trojan War, he lived as Euphorbus, who was killed by Menelaus (Iliad 17.59). He was then born as Hermotimus; to prove his claims, Hermotimus went to the sanctuary of Apollo at Branchidae and identified a shield belonging to Menelaus that had been left there as a votive offering. Next, he was born as Pyrrhus, a fisherman from Delos, and finally as Pythagoras.

Metempsychosis: He also spoke of his soul’s wanderings through animals and plants, as well as the sufferings of his soul in Hades.

Diet: Most philosophers who wrote about Pythagoras maintain that he did not eat anything that possessed a soul (animals or fish).

Written Works

  • Paideutikon (On Education), Politikon (On Politics), Physikon (On Nature), and the Mystikos Logos (Mystic Discourse).

  • The Mystikos Logos contained his secret teachings, intended only for the inner circle of students within the Homakoion.

His Teachings

He focused on the arithmetic perspective of geometry and on medicine (stating that health is the preservation of being, while disease is its decay). He defined the musical intervals as they are known globally today. When he discovered that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, he celebrated with a hecatomb (the sacrifice of one hundred oxen).

He divided human life into four stages of twenty years each, corresponding to the four seasons, starting with spring.

Cosmology: The principle of all things is the Monad, from which proceeds the indefinite Dyad. From the Monad and Dyad come numbers; from numbers, points; from points, lines; from lines, plane figures; and from these, solids. From solids come the perceptible bodies, which consist of four elements:

  1. Fire (Tetrahedron)

  2. Earth (Hexahedron/Cube)

  3. Air (Octahedron)

  4. Water (Icosahedron)

The interaction of these elements creates the spherical universe, with the Earth—also spherical and inhabited—at its center. Balance in this world is maintained by light and darkness, heat and cold, dryness and moisture. Their shifts create the four seasons. When heat prevails, it is summer; when cold prevails, it is winter. Equilibrium results in spring and autumn. This also applies to the day (divided into 6-hour segments starting from dawn). He argued that the most beautiful shape among solids is the sphere, and among planes, the circle.

The Pythagorean Oath: "...Nay, by Him who gave to our soul the Tetraktys, the fountain of ever-flowing nature."

The Sacred Tetraktys: This was the sacred symbol of the Pythagoreans. It is the mathematical model used by the All-Generating Mind (Pan Gennitor Nous) to create everything.

Levels of the Sacred Tetraktys

Pythagoras applied the four levels of the Tetraktys to various concepts:

  • Numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4

  • Geometry: Point, Line, Surface, Solid

  • Physics: Number, Shape, Solid, Motion of Solids

  • Dimensions: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th dimensions

  • Elements: Fire, Earth, Air, Water

  • Solids: Tetrahedron, Hexahedron, Octahedron, Icosahedron

  • Astro-events: Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Autumn Equinox, Winter Solstice

  • Hierarchy: Man, Daemon, God, All-Generating Mind

  • Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter

  • Time of Day: Dawn, Noon, Evening, Midnight

  • The Soul: Body, Emotion (Thymos), Mind (Phrenes), Intellect (Nous)

  • Cognition: Sensation, Opinion, Science, Ideas

  • Life Stages: Child, Youth, Man, Elder

  • Society: Individual, Family, Village, City (State)

On Life and the Soul

The sun and stars are gods because they are dominated by heat, the source of life. The Moon reflects the light of the sun. There is a kinship between gods and humans because humans partake in heat. The sun's life-giving rays permeate everything through the ether; thus, life exists everywhere. Everything that partakes in heat is considered alive (including plants), though life differs from the soul. The soul is a part of the ether (both hot and cold) and is therefore immortal.

Biology: Living beings are generated through seed. Seed is a drop from the brain containing hot vapor. When it enters the womb, the serum, fluid, and blood (which form flesh, bone, and body) come from the brain matter, while the soul comes from the internal vapor. The embryo takes shape in forty days according to the proportions of harmony.

The Soul’s Divisions: He divided the soul into three parts: Nous (Intellect), Phrenes (Reason/Mind), and Thymos(Passion/Drive). All living beings have Nous and Thymos, but only humans have Phrenes. The soul’s seat extends from the heart to the brain. Thymos resides in the heart, while Phrenes and Nous reside in the brain. Phrenes are immortal; the other parts are mortal. Hermes is the guardian and guide of souls, leading pure souls to the highest realms and binding impure souls in unbreakable chains by the Furies.

Ethical Principles

The power of an oath involves justice (hence the title "Zeus of Oaths"). However, he urged his students to be so trustworthy that they never needed to swear an oath. He taught that parents should be honored above all. Dignity is found in avoiding excessive laughter or gloominess. He emphasized practicing memory and never acting or speaking in anger. The famous phrase "Moderation is best" (metron ariston) is attributed to him.

There was also the expression "Autos epha" (ipse dixit or "He himself said it"), meaning that if Pythagoras said it, it was undeniably true.

Definition of Number: According to Pythagoras, a "Number" is when its product with itself is greater than its sum with itself. Thus, Numbers start from 3.

  • 1 is not a Number but the "generator" of numbers: .

  • 2 is the midpoint between the "Full" and "Number": .

The School

The school was called the "Homakoion." Prospective students underwent examinations. Those who passed became students and contributed their property to a common fund. Apprenticeship lasted five years, during which students had no right to ask questions; they could only listen to Pythagoras’s voice (from behind a curtain). After five years, they took further exams to join the rank of the "Regulars" (Taktikoi), who were allowed to see Pythagoras face-to-face.

The etymology of "Homakoion" is twofold:

  1. For students: homou + akoe (listening together).

  2. For Regulars: omma + akoe (eye + listening; seeing and hearing the master).

He taught his students to perform a self-examination every night by asking three questions:

  1. Which (natural) law did I break?

  2. What good did I do?

  3. What did I fail to do that I should have done?

The End

There are various accounts of his death. Some say a rejected candidate set fire to the house where Pythagoras and the Regulars were gathered. Others say he died in Metapontum in the Temple of the Muses after fasting for forty days. Some claim he committed suicide by starvation after the Pythagorean order was attacked by Cylon. Regardless, his life ended in the 1st year of the 71st Olympiad (496 BC).

Nikolaos Ch. Koundourakis | IDAIΟN
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