Essay Archive - Pythagoras of Samos
Pythagoras of Samos
Born: about 580 BC in Samos, Ionia
Died: about 500 BC in Metapontum, Lucania
Pythagoras (fl. 530 BCE) must have been one of the world's greatest men, but he wrote nothing, and it is hard to say how much of the doctrine we know as Pythagorean is due to the founder of the society and how much is later development. It is also hard to say how much of what we are told about the life of Pythagoras is trustworthy; for a mass of legend gathered around his name at an early date. Sometimes he is represented as a man of science, and sometimes as a preacher of mystic doctrines, and we might be tempted to regard one ....
|