Chapter 14 - Pythagoras in the historical tradition: from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus

Summary

Introduction

Taking a look at the preserved works of classical historiography, which for the most part focus on political and military history, we get the impression that Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism were of rather marginal interest to historians. The picture changes considerably when we take into account works that are preserved in fragments and, at the same time, apply a broader concept of historiography by including, among others, biography, universal history, local history and doxography (i.e. history of philosophy). Then the following picture emerges: Pythagoras, the Pythagorean way of life and the history of the Pythagorean communities played a prominent role in biographies from the fourth century BC onwards, when the first work titled Life was written by Aristoxenus. Furthermore, Pythagorean politics in southern Italy and even the life of Pythagoras seem to have been a regular topic of universal history. The earliest examples of this genre from which fragments of this sort have been preserved are excerpts from Book 10 of Diodorus’ Library and Justin's epitome of Pompeius Trogus’ Philippic History (20.4), which both contain important chapters on Pythagoras’ life and work in Magna Graecia. We may suppose the existence of such chapters in many other works of this type, for example in Ephorus’ Histories, although no such fragments have been preserved. Even more information must have been contained in local histories and histories of the Greek west, all preserved in only fragmentary state or completely lost. We can conclude this on the basis of the fragments of Timaeus’ Histories that deal with Pythagoras and his students. It is likely that in the works of Antiochus and Philistus of Syracuse among others this topic was treated as well, although we do not have a single fragment. Even in mythography Pythagoras was mentioned as is shown by Neanthes’ Collection of Myths and maybe also in cultural history, if Dicaearchus’ fragments on Pythagoras stem from his Life of Greece.