Note 291 — Chapter III · PLATO

For a refutation of the common error, cf. Zeller, op. cit., I, 1, 317, n. 1, and 318, n. 2; Guiraud, op. cit., pp. 574 f. and 7-11; Souchon, op. cit., pp. 136-39 and notes. The earliest witnesses for Pythagorean communism, Epicurus, in Diog. L. x. 2, and Timaeus of Tauromenium, ibid., viii. 10 are remote from his time and untrustworthy. The later writers (Diog. L. viii. 10; Aul. Gell. i. 9. 12; Hippolytus Refut. i. 2. 12; Porphyry Vit. Pyth. 20; Jamblichus De Pyth. vit. 30, 72, 168, 257, etc.; Photius, under κοινά) quoted, and made the tradition general. The older writers know nothing of the tradition. Moreover, some passages give evidence of private property among the Pythagoreans (Diog. L. viii. 1. 15, 39). The origin of the tradition has been plausibly assigned to a misunderstanding of the proverb κοινὰ τὰ τῶν φίλων and to the doctrine of moral helpfulness among the Pythagoreans. S. Cognetti de Martiis (op. cit., pp. 459ff.) calls it socialismo cenobito.