INTRODUCTION.

The collection of Pythagoric Fragments contained in this volume must be considered by everyone as highly valuable if only their antiquity is regarded; but by the lover of genuine wisdom, they will be deemed inestimable, as proceeding from the school of the father of philosophy.

Of the greater part of the authors of these fragments, little more than the country in which they lived is known. But of Charondas and Zaleucus, those celebrated legislators, Seneca in his 90th Epistle informs us that they learned their laws in the silent and sacred retreat of Pythagoras. Though