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In the first place, we should remember that, as applied to the ancient literature and religious ritual, allegory was at least a vera causa it was a phenomenon which actually existed. Heraclitus of Ephesus is an obvious instance. He deliberately expressed himself in language which should not be understood of the vulgar, and which bore a hidden meaning to his disciples. Pythagoras did the same.
He had fancied, knowing how obstinately the Egyptians clung to all they had received from tradition and education, that it would have been more difficult for Nitetis to give up the gods of her native land. He had forgotten that her mother was a Greek, and that the daughters of Amasis had studied the doctrines of Pythagoras.
If any man has a mind to enter on such a voluntary abstinence, it might not be improper to give him the caution of Pythagoras in particular, Abstine a fabis, "Abstain from beans," that is, say the interpreters, "Meddle not with elections," beans having been made use of by the voters among the Athenians in the choice of magistrates. From my own Apartment, October 23.
Air rarefied is fire, condensed is water. These philosophers, the followers of Thales, succeeding one another, made up that sect which takes to itself the denomination of the Ionic. Pythagoras the Samian, the son of Mnesarchus, from another origin deduces the principles of all things; it was he who first called philosophy by its name.
We saw, in dealing with Pythagoras, that we could not be sure as to precisely what he himself taught, but there is no question that the idea of the world's motion became from an early day a so-called Pythagorean doctrine.
Some day, I hope Sargent will paint a March of Sages, as gloriously as he has painted the panels of the Prophets. Then we shall gaze upon the train of heavy-browed, noble-eyed, wise, gentle-mannered men, who have been the enduring teachers of the race, thinkers, leaders, seers. Confucius, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, the mediaeval philosophers, the Egyptian, Persian, and Arabian thinkers, Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, Eckhart, William of Occam, Bede, Thomas
They might find, at last, that I had "the gold-strung harp of Apollo" and played a "most excellent diapason, celestial music of the spheres," hearing the harmony "As plainly as ever Pythagoras did," when "Venus the treble ran sweet division upon Saturn the bass." Write for posterity!
After this, being privately informed that Apollodorus, the governor of Babylon, had sacrificed, to know what would become of him, he sent for Pythagoras, the soothsayer, and on his admitting the thing, asked him, in what condition he found the victim; and when he told him the liver was defective in its lobe, "A great presage indeed!" said Alexander.
"Yes, sir," replied his follower, "he fought for the Greeks in the character of Euphorbus, in the Trojan war, was Hermatynus, and afterwards a fisherman; his next transformation having been into the body of Pythagoras." "What an extraordinary memory he must have had," said the friar.
He is said to have been the first sculptor to mark the veins and sinews on the body. In this vivid naturalness Pythagoras was himself far surpassed by Myron. Pythagoras had seen the importance of showing the effect of action in every portion of the body.
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