Note 196 — Chapter II · SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Herod. ii. 123 (R. P. ib.). The words “whose names I know, but do not write” cannot refer to Pythagoras; for it is only of contemporaries that Herodotos speaks in this way (cf. i. 51; iv. 48). Stein’s suggestion that he meant Empedokles seems to me convincing. Herodotos may have met him at Thourioi. Nor is there any reason to suppose that οἱ μὲν πρότερον refers specially to the Pythagoreans. If Herodotos had ever heard of Pythagoras visiting Egypt, he would surely have said so in one or other of these passages. There was no occasion for reserve, as Pythagoras must have died before Herodotos was born.