his own day, so we can show, out of his own mouth, that the tradition which made the Pythagoreans abstain from animal flesh and beans goes back to a time long before the Neopythagoreans. The explanation is that Aristoxenos had been the friend of the last of the Pythagoreans; and, in their time, the strict observance had been relaxed, except by some zealots whom the heads of the Society refused to acknowledge.[1] The "Pythagorists" who clung to the old practices were now regarded as heretics, and it was said that the Akousmatics, as they were called, were really followers of Hippasos, who had been excommunicated for revealing secret doctrines. The genuine followers of Pythagoras were the Mathematicians.[2] The satire of the poets of the Middle Comedy proves, however, that, even though the friends of Aristoxenos did not practise abstinence, there were plenty of people in the fourth century, calling themselves followers of Pythagoras, who did.[3] We know also from Isokrates that they still observed the rule of
- ↑ Yet even Aristoxenos recorded that, when Pherekydes died, he was buried by Pythagoras at Delos (Diog. i. 118). It was, perhaps, too notorious to be denied.
- ↑ Hippasos of Kroton or Metapontion (in the catalogue of Iamblichos he is a Sybarite) is, we shall see, the regular scapegoat of the Pythagoreans. Iamblichos, who here follows Nikomachos, says (V. Pyth. 81; R. P. 56) that the μαθηματικοί were admitted to be Pythagoreans by the ἀκουσματικοί but did not recognise them in return. We are told (Diog. viii. 7) that the μυστικὸς λόγος ascribed to Pythagoras was really by Hippasos, who wrote it ἐπὶ διαβολῇ Πυθαγόρου, i.e. to throw discredit on him by representing him as a purely religious teacher. The term Πυθαγοριστής seems to have been used specially of the Akousmatics, while the scientific Pythagoreans were called Πυθαγόρειοι in the same way as the followers of other schools were called Ἀναξαγόρειοι, Ἡρακλείτειοι, and the like.
- ↑ For the fragments, see Diels, Vors. 45 E. The most striking are Antiphanes, fr. 135, Kock, ὥσπερ Πυθαγορίζων ἐσθίει | ἔμψυχον οὐδέν; Alexis, fr. 220, οἱ Πυθαγορίζοντες γάρ, ὡς ἀκούομεν, | οὔτ' ὄψον ἐσθίουσιν οὔτ' ἄλλ' οὐδὲ ἓν | ἔμψυχον; fr. 196 (from the Πυθαγορίζουσα), ἡ δ' ἑστίασις ἰσχάδες καὶ στέμφυλα | καὶ τυρὸς ἔσται· ταῦτα γὰρ θύειν νόμος | τοῖς Πυθαγορείοις; Aristophon, fr. 9 (from the Πυθαγοριστής, πρὸς τῶν θεῶν οἰόμεθα τοὺς πάλαι ποτέ, | τοὺς Πυθαγοριστὰς γενομένους ὄντως ῥυπᾶν | ἑκόντας ἢ φορεῖν τριβῶνας ἡδέως; Mnesimachos, fr. 1, ὡς Πυθαγοριστὶ θύομεν τῷ Λοχίᾳ | ἔμψυχον οὐδὲν ἐσθίοντες παντελῶς. See also Theokritos xiv. 5, τοιοῦτος καὶ πρᾶν τις ἀφίκετο Πυθαγορικτάς, | ὠχρὸς κἀνυποδητός· Ἀθηναῖος δ' ἔφατ' ἦμεν.
