person
Pythagoras of Samos
Pythagoras
Greek philosopher and mathematician (sixth century BC); founder of the Pythagorean school in Croton.
Reading notes
- Cato the Elder, On Old Age §73 Pythagoras forbids us to quit the guard-post and station of life without the order of our commander
The Pythagorean (and later Stoic) prohibition of suicide: life is a posting (statio, praesidium) assigned by the god, to be left only on his order. The image recurs in Plato's Phaedo and Cicero's Somnium Scipionis.
- On Duties §1.56 what Pythagoras wishes for in friendship is achieved: from many, one is made
A maxim ascribed to Pythagoras that true friends become a single self, unus fiat ex pluribus. Cicero uses it for the union of good men whose characters resemble one another.
- Against Vatinius §14 Pythagorean
Vatinius affected the name of a Pythagorean (a follower of the philosopher's sect); Cicero twists this into a charge of necromancy --- summoning the dead and sacrificing boys --- to brand his disregard for the auspices as impiety.
- Tusculan Disputations §1.38 His pupil Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos, who is said to have brought the doctrine of the soul's immortality and transmigration to Magna Graecia in southern Italy in the time of Tarquin the Proud, founding the influential Pythagorean school.
- Tusculan Disputations §5.8 Pythagoras replied that he knew no art at all, but was a philosopher
The reported origin of the word "philosopher" (philosophos, lover of wisdom): Pythagoras is said to have coined it to distinguish his pursuit of wisdom from the practitioners of particular arts. The story is preserved through Heraclides Ponticus.