Of the Isle of Samos and Pythagoras
15. Samos is an island of no great size in the Icarian sea, and lies over against Miletus to the west, with but a small space of sea between them. In whichever direction you sail from this island, though you make no great haste, the next day will see you safe in harbour. The land does not respond readily to the cultivation of corn, and it is waste of time to plough it. But the olive grows better in it, and those who grow vines or vegetables have no fault to find with it. Its farmers are entirely taken up with hoeing the ground and the cultivation of trees, for it is from these rather than from cereals that Samos derives its wealth. The native population is numerous, and the island is visited by many strangers. The capital town is unworthy of its reputation, but the abundant ruins of its walls testify to its former size.
It possesses, however, a temple of Juno famous from remote antiquity: to reach it, if I remember aright, one must follow the shore for not more than twenty furlongs from the city. The treasury of the goddess is extraordinarily rich, containing great quantities of gold and silver plate, in the form of platters, mirrors, cups, and all manner of utensils. There is also a great quantity of brazen images of different kinds. These are of great antiquity, and remarkable for their workmanship; I may mention one of them in particular, a statue of Bathyllus standing in front of the altar; it was the gift of the tyrant Polycrates, and I think I have never seen anything more perfect. Some hold that it represents Pythagoras, but this opinion is incorrect. The statue represents a youth of remarkable beauty; his hair is parted evenly in the midst of his forehead and streams over either cheek. Behind his hair is longer and reaches down to his shoulders, covering the neck whose sheen one may detect between the tresses. The neck is plump, the jaws full, the cheeks fine, and there is a dimple in the middle of his chin. His pose is that of a player on the lyre. He is looking at the goddess, and has the appearance of one that sings, while his embroidered tunic streams to his very feet. He is girt in the Greek style, and a cloak covers either arm down to the wrists. The rest of the cloak hangs down in graceful folds. His lyre is fastened by an engraven baldric, which holds it close to the body. His hands are delicate and taper. The left touches the strings with parted fingers, the right is in the attitude of one that plays and is approaching the lyre with the plectrum, as though ready to strike as soon as the voice ceases for a moment to sing. Meanwhile the song seems to well forth from the delicate mouth, whose lips are half open for the effort. This statue may represent one of the youthful favourites of the tyrant Polycrates43 hymning his master’s love in Anacreontic44 strain. But it is far from45 likely that it is a statue of the philosopher Pythagoras. It is true he was a native of Samos, remarkable for his unusual beauty, and skilled beyond all men in harping and all manner of music, and living at the period when Polycrates was lord of Samos. But the philosopher was far from being a favourite of this tyrant. Indeed Pythagoras fled secretly from the island at the very beginning of the tyrant’s reign. He had recently lost his father Mnesarchus, who was, I read, a skilful jeweller excelling in the carving of gems, though it was fame rather than wealth that he sought in the exercise of his art. There are some who assert that Pythagoras was about this time carried to Egypt among the captives of King Cambyses, and studied under the magi of Persia, more especially under Zoroaster the priest of all holy mysteries; later they assert he was ransomed by a certain Gillus, King of Croton. However, the more generally accepted tradition asserts that it was of his own choice he went to study the wisdom of the Egyptians. There he was initiated by their priests into the mighty secrets of their ceremonies, passing all belief; there he learned numbers in all their marvellous combinations, and the ingenious laws of geometry. Not content with these sciences, he next approached the Chaldaeans and the Brahmins, a race of wise men who live in India.46 Among these Brahmins he sought out the gymnosophists. The Chaldaeans taught him the lore of the stars, the fixed orbits47 of the wandering lords of heaven, and the influence of each on the births of men. Also they instructed him in the art of healing, and revealed to him remedies in the search for which men have lavished their wealth and wandered far by land and sea.48 But it was from the Brahmins that he derived the greater part of his philosophy, the arts of teaching the mind and exercising the body, the doctrines as to the parts of the soul and its various transmigrations, the knowledge of the torments and rewards ordained for each man, according to his deserts, in the world of the gods below. Further he had for his master Pherecydes, a native of the island of Syros and the first who dared throw off the shackles of verse and write in the free style of unfettered prose. Pherecydes died of a horrible disease, for his flesh rotted and was devoured of lice; Pythagoras buried him with reverent care. He is said also to have studied the laws of nature under Anaximander of Miletus, to have followed the Cretan Epimenides, a famous prophet skilled also in rites of expiation, that he might learn from him and also Leodamas, the pupil of Creophylus, the reputed guest and rival of the poet Homer. Taught by so many sages, and having drained such deep and varied draughts of learning through all the world, and being moreover dowered with a vast intellect whose grandeur almost passes man’s understanding, he was the founder of the science and the inventor of the name of philosophy. The first of all his lessons to his disciples was the lesson of silence. With him meditation was a necessary preliminary to wisdom, meditation set a bridle on all speech, robbed words, which poets style winged, of their pinions and restrained them within the white barrier of the teeth. This, I tell you, was for him the first axiom of wisdom, ‘Meditation is learning, speech is unlearning.’ His disciples, however, did not refrain from speech all their lives, nor did their master impose dumbness on all for a like space of time. For those of more solid character a brief term of silence was considered sufficient discipline; the more talkative were punished by exile from speech for as much as five years. I may add that my master Plato deviates little or not at all from the principles of this school, and in most of his utterances is a follower of Pythagoras. And that I too might win from my instructors the right to be called one of his followers, I have learned this double lesson in the course of my philosophical studies—to speak boldly when there is need of speech and gladly to be mute when there is need of silence. As a result of this self-command, I think I may say that I have won from your predecessors no less praise for my seasonable silence than approval for the timeliness of my speech.