The Complete Pythagoras: A Compilation of Pythagorean Texts

CHAPTER VII

ITALIAN POLITICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Now we must relate how he traveled, what places he first visited, and what discourses he gave, on what subjects, and to whom they were addressed; for this would illustrate his contemporary relations. His first task, on arriving in Italy and Sicily, was to inspire a love of liberty in those cities that he understood had, more or less recently, oppressed each other with slavery. Then, by means of his students, he liberated and restored to independence Crotona, Sybaris, Catanes, Rhegium, Himaera, Agrigentum, Tauromenas, and some other cities. Through Charondas the Catanaean and Zaleucus the Locrian, he established laws that caused the cities to flourish and become models for others in their proximity. As history testifies, he entirely rooted out partisanship, discord, and sedition—and that for several generations—from all the Italian and Sicilian lands, which at that time were disturbed by internal and external contentions. Everywhere, in private and in public, he would repeat, as an epitome (summary) of his own opinions, and as a persuasive oracle of divinity, that by any means whatsoever—stratagem, fire, or sword—we should amputate disease from the body, ignorance from the soul, luxury from the belly, sedition from a city, discord from a household, and from all things whatsoever, a lack of moderation. Through this, he brought home to his disciples the quintessence of all teachings, and that with a most paternal affection. For the sake of accuracy, we may state that the year of his arrival in Italy was that of the Olympic victory in the stadium of Eryxidas of Chalcis, in the sixty-second Olympiad. He became conspicuous and celebrated as soon as he arrived, just as formerly he achieved instant recognition at Delos, when he performed his adorations at the bloodless altar of Father Apollo.