Note 51 — Chapter XI · THE PHILOSOPHERS

Pythagoras is called the pupil of Pherekydes as early as Andron of Ephesos (before Theopompos): D.L. i, 119; Vors. ii, 199, 18. Pherekydes was regarded as “the first” who taught the immortality of the soul (Cic., TD. i, 38) or more correctly metempsychosis (Suid. Φερεκ.); cf. Preller, Rh. Mus. (N.F.), iv, 388 f. A hint of such teaching must have been found in his mystical treatise (cf. Porph., Antr. 31; Vors. ii, 204, 12—Gomperz is rather too sceptical, Gk. Thinkers, i, 542). This teaching seems to have been the chief reason which tempted later writers to make the old theologos into the teacher of Pythagoras, the chief spokesman of the doctrine of the soul’s transmigrations.—It is, however, an untenable theory that Pherek. illustrated his doctrine of transmigration by the example of Aithalides. What the Sch. on A.R. i, 645 [Vors. ii, 204, 24], quotes from “Pherekydes” about the alternate sojourn of the ψυχή of Aithalides in Hades and on earth, does not come from Pherekydes the theologos (as Göttling, Opusc. 210, and Kern, de Orph. Epim. Pherec., pp. 89, 106, think) but without the slightest doubt from the genealogist and historian; this is the only Pherekydes who is used by the Sch. of Ap. Rh., and he is used frequently. Besides this, the way in which the different statements of the various authorities used in this Scholion are distinguished, shows quite clearly that Pherekydes had only spoken of Aithalides’ alternate dwelling above and below the earth, but as still being Aithalides, and not as metamorphosed by the series of births into other personalities living upon earth. Pherekydes was obviously reproducing a Phthiotic local-legend in which Aithalides as the son of (the chthonic?) Hermes alternately lived on and below the earth, as an ἑτερήμερος—like the Dioscuri in Lacedaimonian legend (λ 301 ff.: in that passage and generally in the older view—as held by Alkman, Pindar, etc.—both the Dioscuri change their place of abode together: it is not till later that the variant arose acc. to which they alternate with each other: see Hemst. Luc. ii, p. 344 Bip.). It was Herakleides Pont. who first turned the alternate sojourning of Aithalides into death and resurrection (he also made Aithalides one of the previous incarnations of Pythagoras; see Appendix x); but as a different person, so that A. thus became an example of metempsychosis. It is not hard to see why Aithalides was chosen as one of the previous incarnations of P., nor how the old miracle-story, preserved to literature by Pherekydes, was thus transformed to suit its new purpose. Plainly Pherekydes did not say that Hermes also gave Aithalides the power of memory after his death (otherwise the statement to this effect in Sch. A.R. would have stood under the name of Pherek.); and the privilege was rather meaningless until after Herakleides’ narrative. Perhaps it was Her. who first added this touch to the story. Ap. Rh. follows him in this point (i, 643 ff.), but not—or not plainly, at least: 646 ff.—in what Herakleides had invented about the metempsychosis of Aithalides.