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PYTHAGORAS (6th century B.C.)
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See also:PYTHAGORAS (6th See also:century B.C.) , See also:Greek philosopher, was, in all See also:probability, a native of See also:Samos or one of the neighbouring islands (others say a Tyrrhenian, a Syrian or a Tyrian), and the first See also:part of his See also:life may therefore be said to belong to that Ionian seaboard which had already witnessed the first development of philosophic thought in See also:Greece (see IONIAN SCHOOL). The exact See also:year of his See also:birth has been variously placed between 586 and 569 B.C., but 582 may be taken as the most probable date. He was a See also:pupil of Pherecydes (q.v.), and later of Hermodamas (Diog. Laert. viii. 2). He See also:left in See also:Ionia the reputation of a learned and universally informed See also:man. " Of all men Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, was the most assiduous inquirer," says Heracleitus, and then proceeds in his contemptuous See also:fashion to See also:brand his predecessor's See also:wisdom as only eclectically compiled See also:information or polymathy (wroXvµaOloi). This accumulated wisdom, as well as most of the tenets of the See also:Pythagorean school, was attributed in antiquity to the extensive travels of Pythagoras, which brought him in contact (so it was said) not only with the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Chaldaeans, the See also:Jews and the Arabians, but also with the See also:Druids of See also:Gaul, the See also:Persian Magi and the Brahmans. But these tales represent only the tendency of a later See also:age to connect the beginnings of Greek See also:speculation with the hoary religions and priesthoods of the See also:East. There is no See also:intrinsic improbability, however, in the statement of Isocrates (See also:Laud. Busir. 28, p. 227 Steph.) that Pythagoras visited See also:Egypt and other countries of the Mediterranean, for travel was one of the few ways of gathering knowledge. Some of the accounts (e.g. See also:Callimachus) represent Pythagoras as deriving much of his mathematical knowledge from See also:Egyptian See also:sources, but, however it may have been with the See also:practical beginnings of geometrical knowledge, the scientific development of mathematical principles can be shown to be an See also:independent product of Greek See also:genius. Some of the rules of the Pythagorean See also:ritual have their Egyptian See also:parallels, as See also:Herodotus points out, but it does not necessarily follow that they were borrowed from that See also:quarter, and he is certainly wrong in tracing the See also:doctrine of See also:metempsychosis (q.v.) to Egypt. The historically important part of his career begins with his See also:migration to See also:Crotona, one of the Dorian colonies in the See also:south of See also:Italy, about the year 529. According to tradition, he was driven from Samos by the tyranny of See also:Polycrates. At Crotona Pythagoras speedily became the centre of a widespread and influential organization, which seems to have resembled a religious brotherhood or an association for the moral See also:reformation of society much more than a philosophic school. Pythagoras appears, indeed, in all the accounts more as a moral reformer than as a speculative thinker or scientific teacher; and the doctrine of the school which is most clearly traceable to Pythagoras himself in the ethico-mystical doctrine of transmigration. The Pythagorean brotherhood had its rise in the See also:wave of religious revival which swept over Hellas in the 6th century B.C., and it had much in See also:common with the Orphic communities which sought by See also:rites and abstinences to purify the believer's soul and enable it to See also:escape from " the See also:wheel of birth." Its aims were undoubtedly those of a religious See also:order rather than a See also:political See also:league. But a private religious organization of this description had no See also:place in the traditions of Greek life, and could only maintain itself by establishing " the See also:rule of the See also:saints " on a political basis. The Pythagoreans appear to have established their supremacy for a See also:time over a considerable part of Magna Graecia, CH,.CO•CH•CO2R C(See also:CH3):C•CO,R NH2R+ CH3•CO•CH•CO2R--s RN\C(CH3):C•CO2R By using compounds of the type NH2R and See also:acetophenone acetoacetic ester C6H5CO•See also:CH2•CH (COCH3)•CO2R,C. Paal obtained similar results. For the benzo-pyrrols see See also:INDOLE. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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