Pythagoras PDF

## Chapter 2 - Pythagoras As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love. **(Pythagoras, as...

## Chapter 2 - Pythagoras As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love. **(Pythagoras, as quoted by Ovid in the *Metamorphoses*)** Like Homer, the ancient Ionian Pythagoras did not set out to live his life as common men did. He, too, was fortunate enough to find himself part of a culture in which it was not necessary for him to spend his life farming or herding sheep. Instead, Pythagoras wanted to spend his time understanding the mysteries of the universe. The man in question was born on Samos, a Mediterranean island that was part of the Ionian League. The son of a jeweler, young Pythagoras was evidently a popular boy who was eager to learn everything he could about mathematics and religion. Thanks to his aristocratic family, he was able to study at the feet of some of Samos' most respected tutors. Since education had yet to become formalized in 5th-century Greece, students' curriculums could be quite diverse. Generally speaking, male children from reasonably wealthy families would learn the alphabet, numbers, and some basic mathematics. Poorer boys did not receive any such teachings, as they were only able to focus on pertinent tasks related to farming, pastoralism, and home maintenance. Girls were mostly left out of tutoring altogether. For Pythagoras, learning was everything. He loved mathematics and philosophy, believing that at some ultimate level the two were one and the same. The universe, to him, was made of numbers and equations, and he was compelled to try to combine pieces of each of his subjects into one, all-encompassing philosophy to explain life and the physical world. He believed that if he could extract the most solid theories of philosophy and religion and somehow relate them to the fundamental principles of mathematics, he could achieve this lofty goal. Pythagoras was inspired by the old Orphic religion which had already fallen out of fashion with the Greeks. Orphics believed that a person had an immortal soul that had been imprisoned in a physical body as punishment for some past sin. The cult of Orpheus was based on the poetry ascribed to the mythical man of the same name who was said to have gone into the depths of the underworld and then returned safely to the surface. Followers believed that if they spent their lives avoiding wrongdoing, their souls would ultimately be released from the prison of the body. To traditional Orphics, any act from which a person could derive pleasure was sinful and therefore inappropriate. To gain the freedom of one's soul, that person had to subscribe wholeheartedly to asceticism and therefore reject material gains, overindulgence, alcohol, and many activities that the average citizen takes for granted-including sex. As a devoted member of the faith he hoped to reestablish, Pythagoras adopted a meatless diet. In searching for a unifying theory between his subjects of study, Pythagoras focused his energies away from temptation and-he hoped-entreated the powers that be to look upon him favorably. In his ruminations, he concluded that the divine soul of a person did not perish after death but was usually passed into a new baby. His ideas were ridiculed by most of his peers who offered him little in the way of stimulating conversation since the educational system of his day was rather limited. In search of more knowledge, Pythagoras left his homeland and traveled throughout Greece and the Near East, finally crossing the sea to Egypt. The Egyptian Kingdom had already reached its impressive zenith and was shrinking in influence and prosperity by Pythagoras' lifetime, but the cities of the still impressive kingdom held a great deal of mystery for the Greek traveler. He went to the great city of Memphis to study with the learned priests and sages there. They taught him new methods in mathematics, as well as imparting their spiritual beliefs onto him as a willing student. The priests revered secrecy in their practice and forbade wearing animal skins while inside the temples. They also forbade eating broad beans, which were not usually grown in any part of Egypt, although they were used as offerings to the gods. The deep sense of commitment and truth that Pythagoras felt in Egypt affected him for the rest of his life, although he did not agree with every rule the priests taught him. However, the hierarchical system in which Egypt's wise men were revered irritated Pythagoras, whose ascetic mindset moved him to view himself more as a seeker of truth than a holy man. The word he invented to describe himself came from two Greek words: philos and sophia. These meant "lover" and "truth," which made a man like Pythagoras a "philos-sophia," or philosopher. As such, he sought to bring balance to the distribution of education, thereby changing the elitist system in place. To this end, he began to take on students and teach them what he'd learned. The inspired teacher found very eager students within the kingdom of the pharaohs, but the happiness he'd discovered there did not last forever. In 525 BCE, the Persian army came to Egypt and forced its way into the heart of the kingdom, ending the nearly 2600-year rule of the renowned Kings of Egypt. More kings were allowed to use that title, but the true power behind the crown was henceforth wielded by King Cambyses II of Persia and his successors. The conquerors took Pythagoras as their prisoner. He found himself jailed in Babylon, the center of the Middle Eastern civilization of Mesopotamia, for several years. During this time, he dreamed of returning home to Samos and building a new community of teachers, students, and philosophers. When he finally got the chance to do so, however, he found that the island of his birth had changed terribly. Due to political corruption and the tyrannical rule of Polycrates, the roads and buildings had degraded, and the people had grown coarser. Pythagoras founded his school despite these changes and became a national icon. His academy, named the Semicircle, closely followed the curricula of Egyptian schools he'd frequented during his time abroad. He worked hard to cultivate the community of intellects he had hoped to bring together, but ultimately, his efforts were in vain. This was not the right place in which to recruit intelligent, enthusiastic people for his new community. So, Pythagoras left Greece once more and took to the sea, this time to the west. He landed at the Greek colony of Croton, on the modern Italian mainland, and established a new community. It was here, in the wandering philosopher's final home, that he brought together the keen seekers of knowledge whose company he had craved all his life. Males and females both came to Pythagoras for lessons, and he taught them indiscriminately, instructing them in his ways of unified sciences and Orphic beliefs. Most of the students probably followed in their teacher's footsteps, rejecting meat and dedicating their actions to the betterment of their divine souls. Pythagoras' name has become synonymous with the development of the self-named Pythagorean theorem, which is a cornerstone of advanced geometry. In mathematics, a theorem is equal to a law, except that it has been proven on the basis of several other laws. Pythagoras' theorem relates to right triangles, stating that the square of the hypotenuse (the side of the triangle opposite from the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. It is written as $a^2 + b^2 = c^2$. This equation allows anyone to determine the length of any side of a right triangle as long as the other two lengths are already known. Ironically, though Pythagoras is often credited with the discovery of this relationship between the sides of a right triangle, this particular geometric law was already known in Babylon and Egypt. Pythagoras could have learned it during his time with the monks in Babylon or with the priests of Memphis and simply introduced it to the Greeks for the first time upon his return. Right triangles were not his only mathematical pursuit. Pythagoras also challenged the idea that the Earth was flat, a concept that remained in fashion despite his astronomical research. His study of the shadows of the Earth falling across the moon during lunar eclipses helped him conclude that the Earth was indeed a sphere. Otherwise, he posited, how could the Earth consistently cast shadows with curved edges? A spiritual man dedicated to the pursuit and study of music, Pythagoras insisted that music was just as much a part of the universe as were the tides and the seasons. Naturally, he worked musical theory into his mathematical pursuits, believing that the relationship between notes and the length of the strings on a lyre could be represented by a mathematical ratio. He also believed that the planets of the solar system each produced a specific note. In his mind, the universe was made of music that he would never be able to hear. Pythagoras died in mysterious circumstances, and his school was burned to the ground by political enemies. Historians are unsure if he ever married or had children. Nevertheless, his teachings and way of life persisted in Greece and the Mediterranean for centuries after he passed away. His discoveries and lifestyle greatly influenced the philosophers that were yet to come and further shape our understanding of the world and humanity's place in it.