Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T06:34:12.817Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 16 - Pythagoreans in Rome and Asia Minor around the turn of the common era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2014

Jaap-Jan Flinterman
Affiliation:
Vrije Universiteit
Carl A. Huffman
Affiliation:
DePauw University, Indiana
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Given the state of the evidence, studying the history of Pythagoreanism is often harsh training in recognizing our ignorance. The situation may look less bleak for the Roman world during the centuries around the turn of the era, but this impression is deceptive. Admittedly, we do have a considerable body of evidence for people credited with Pythagorean beliefs and a Pythagorean lifestyle. On closer inspection, however, much of this information turns out to be dubious. To mention just one example, most information about the first-century-AD Pythagorean philosopher Apollonius of Tyana comes from a heavily fictionalized biography written in the third century by the Athenian sophist Philostratus. Most scholars doubt whether Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius can be used with any confidence as evidence for the historical Apollonius. Moreover, the non-Philostratean evidence probably gives us access to second-century traditions about the Cappadocian sage rather than to the first-century historical figure. This complicated evidential situation is not unrepresentative: there is evidence for the posthumous reputations rather than for the views and practices of the historical figures concerned, and although one can argue that their life and work offered a starting-point for the development of such reputations, it is not a foregone conclusion that this was provided by conscious Pythagoreanism.

In addition, during the centuries around the turn of the era “Pythagorean” was a label with diverging connotations, not all of them positive. Its denotation was, of course, “an adherent of a set of doctrines going back to the sixth-century BC philosopher Pythagoras.” Quite often, however, this denotation was combined with or even superseded by the connotation “meddler in the supernatural.” One of the recurring questions in this chapter will be what earned someone the label of “Pythagorean”; in answering that question, doctrine will turn out to be of secondary importance. Nor was Pythagoreanism predicated on membership of an organization. The claim that Pythagoreanism was an organized movement in Rome around the turn of the common era cannot be easily substantiated; the available evidence can be better reconciled with Pythagoreanism being a matter of individual choice and individual practice – which, of course, does not exclude contacts between kindred souls and the passing on of ideas through successive generations. Such individual choices should be understood against the background of the availability among the educated of knowledge of Pythagorean views in general and of (pseudo-)Pythagorean literature in particular.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

The best translation of the title, Τὰ ἐς τὸν Τυανέα Ἀπολλώνιον, is On Apollonius of Tyana. I see no harm in sticking to the traditional designation. My references are to the books, chapters, and sections of the edition by C.P. Jones in the Loeb Classical Library (2005)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×