Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/411

MIXED CHARACTER OF PYTHAGORAS. 39J Pythagoras combines the character of a sophist (a man of large observation, and clever, ascendent, inventive mind, tht original sense of the word Sophipt, prior to the polemics of the Platonic school, and the only sense known to Herodotus') with that of an inspired teacher, prophet, d worker of miracles, approaching to and sometimes even confounded with the gods, and employing all these gifts to found a new special order of brethren, bound together by religious rites and observances pecu- liar to themselves. In his prominent vocation, analogous to that of Epimenides, Orpheus, or Melampus, he appears as the re- vealer of a mode of life calculated to raise his disciples above the level of mankind, and to recommend them to the favor of the gods ; the Pythagorean life, like the Orphic life, 2 being intended me^ and animals, believed both by Pythagoras and Empedokles. That Herodotus (ii, 123) alludes to Orpheus and Pythagoras, though refraining designedly from mentioning names, there can hardly be any doubt : com pare ii, 81 ; also Aristotle, De AnimS, i, 3, 23. The testimony of Herakleitus is contained in Diogenes Laertius, viii, 6 ; ix, 1. 'HpaK^etTOf yovv 6 QvaiKOf fiovovov^l KEKpaye Kai (prjai Mv7]aup%ov laTopirjv yaKrjaev avdpurruv fiu^iara TTUVTUV, nal vyypapuf, in-oif/earo iavrov aotyiqr, ?ro/lt> fj.a'&irjv, KO.KO- Again, Hohv/iadir) voov ov diduaitef 'Haiodov yap uv idida^s fal Hvftayoprjv, aii9if Je fZevotyuveu TE teal 'EKaralov. Dr. Thirlwall conceives Xenophanes as having intended in the passage above cited to treat the doctrine of the metempsychosis " with deserved ridicule." (Hist, of Greece, ch. xii, vol. ii, p. 162.) Religious opinions are so apt to apj ear ridiculous to those who do not believe them, that such a suspicion is not unnatural ; yet I think, if Xenophanes had been so dis- posed, he would have found more ridiculous examples among the many which this doctrine might suggest. Indeed, it seems hardly possible to present the metempsychosis in a more touching or respectable point of view than that which the lines of his poem set forth. The particular ani- mal selected is that one between whom and man the sympathy is most marked* and reciprocal, while the doctrine is made to enforce a practical lesson against cruelty. 1 Herodot. i, 29 ; ii, 49 ; iv, 95. 'E/l/b/vwv ov r<p ua^ereaTa-i,) ao<f>iari) Vlv&avitpri. Hippokrates distinguishes the aoQiarTjf from the Irirpof, Ihoug'a both of them had handled the subject of medicine, the general from the special habits of investigation. (Hippokrates, Tlspi upxatrjt IriTpLKfjr, c. 20, vol. i, p. 620, Littre.) s See Lobeck's learned and valuable treatise, Aglaophamus, Orphica, lib II, pp. 247, 698, 900; also Plato, Legg. vi, 782, and Euripid. Hippol. 946.