INTRODUCTION TO PYTHAGORAS.
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from the rest of the citizens of Crotona, in the pursuit of knowledge, and the exercise of virtue; but, that the Government, suspecting them of improper designs on the State, resolved to destroy them; and accordingly had fire set to the house in which they were assembled. Sixty of them perished in the flames, while the remainder, with their leader, fled into exile. So that Pythagoras, after having spent twenty years in Crotona, instructing the people in the ways of morality and justice, and disseminating philosophy and science among the youth of Italy, died in exile, for the want of the common necessaries of life. His age, when he died, was about seventy years.
