write in Doric.[1] Nor did Archytas write in the Laconian dialect of Taras, but in what may be called "common Doric," and he is a generation later than Philolaos, which makes a great difference. In the time of Philolaos and later, Ionic was still used even by the citizens of Dorian states for scientific purposes. The Syracusan historian Antiochos wrote in Ionic, and so did the medical writers of Dorian Kos and Knidos. The forged work of Pythagoras, which some ascribed to Lysis, was in Ionic; and so was the book on the Akousmata attributed to Androkydes,[2] which shows that, even in Alexandrian times, it was believed that Ionic was the proper dialect for Pythagorean writings.
In the second place, there can be no doubt that one of the fragments refers to the five regular solids, four of which are identified with the elements of Empedokles.[3] Now Plato tells us in the Republic that stereometry had not been adequately investigated at the time that dialogue is supposed to take place,[4] and we have express testimony that the five "Platonic figures," as they were called, were discovered in the Academy. In the Scholia to Euclid we read that the Pythagoreans only knew the cube, the pyramid (tetrahedron), and the dodecahedron, while the octahedron and
- ↑ He is distinctly called a Krotoniate in the extracts from Menon's Ἰατρικά (cf. Diog. viii. 84). It is true that Aristoxenos called him and Eurytos Tarentines (Diog. viii. 46), but this only means that he settled at Taras after leaving Thebes. These variations are common in the case of migratory philosophers. Eurytos is also called a Krotoniate and a Metapontine (Iamb. V. Pyth. 148, 266). Cf. also p. 330, n. 1 on Leukippos, and p. 351, n. 1 on Hippon.
- ↑ For Androkydes, see Diels, Vors. p. 281. As Diels points out (Arch. iii. p. 461), even Lucian has sufficient sense of style to make Pythagoras speak Ionic.
- ↑ Cf. fr. 12=20 M. (R. P. 79), which I read as it stands in the MS. of Stobaios, but bracketing an obvious adscript or dittography, καὶ τὰ ἐν τᾷ σφαίρᾳ σώματα πέντε ἐντί [τὰ ἐν τᾷ σφαίρᾳ], πῦρ, ὕδωρ καὶ γᾶ καὶ ἀήρ, καὶ ὁ τᾶς σφαίρας ὁλκὰς πεμπτόν. In any case, we are not justified in reading τὰ μὲν τᾶς σφαίρας σώματα with Diels. For the identification of the four elements with four of the regular solids, cf. § 147, and for the description of the fifth, the dodecahedron, cf. § 148.
- ↑ Plato, Rep. 528 b.
