Note 718 — Chapter XXXVII · IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. — PYTHAGORAS. — KROTON AND SYBARIS.

Plato’s conception of Pythagoras (Republ. x, p. 600) depicts him as something not unlike St. Benedict, or St. Francis, (or St. Elias, as some Carmelites have tried to make out: see Kuster ad Jamblich. c. 3)—Ἀλλὰ δὴ, εἰ μὴ δημοσίᾳ, ἰδίᾳ τισὶν ἡγεμὼν παιδείας αὐτὸς ζῶν λέγεται Ὅμηρος γενέσθαι, οἱ ἐκεῖνον ἠγάπων ἐπὶ συνουσίᾳ καὶ τοῖς ὑστέροις ὁδόν τινα βίου παρέδοσαν Ὁμηρικήν· ὥσπερ Πυθαγόρας αὐτός τε διαφερόντως ἐπὶ τούτῳ ἠγαπήθη, καὶ οἱ ὕστερον ἔτι καὶ νῦν Πυθαγορεῖον τροπὸν ἐπονομάζοντες τοῦ βίου διαφανεῖς πῃ δοκοῦσιν εἶναι ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις.

The description of Melampus, given in Herodot. ii, 49, very much fills up the idea of Pythagoras, as derived from ii, 81-123, and iv, 95. Pythagoras, as well as Melampus, was said to have pretended to divination and prophecy (Cicero, Divinat. i, 3, 46; Porphyr. Vit. Pyth. c. 29: compare Krische, De Societate a Pythagorâ in urbe Crotoniatarum conditâ Commentatio, ch. v, p. 72, Göttingen, 1831).