Note 747 — Chapter XXXVII · IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. — PYTHAGORAS. — KROTON AND SYBARIS.
Reading edition
Cicero, De Finib. v, 2 (who seems to have copied from Dikæarchus: see Fuhr. ad Dikæarchi Fragment. p. 55); Justin, xx, 4; Diogen. Laërt. viii, 40; Jamblichus, V. P. c. 249.
O. Müller says (Dorians, iii, 9, 16), that “the influence of the Pythagorean league upon the administration of the Italian states was of the most beneficial kind, which continued for many generations after the dissolution of the league itself.”
The first of these two assertions cannot be made out, and depends only on the statements of later encomiasts, who even supply materials to contradict their own general view. The judgment of Welcker respecting the influence of the Pythagoreans, much less favorable, is at the same time more probable. (Præfat. ad Theognid. p. xlv.)
The second of the two assertions appears to me quite incorrect; the influence of the Pythagorean order on the government of Magna Græcia ceased altogether, as far as we are able to judge. An individual Pythagorean like Archytas might obtain influence, but this is not the influence of the order. Nor ought O. Müller to talk about the Italian Greeks giving up the Doric customs and adopting an Achæan government. There is nothing to prove that Kroton ever had Doric customs.