In the first place, we must ask a question which has not yet been faced. Is it likely that Philolaos should have written in Doric? Ionic was the dialect of all science and philosophy till the time of the Peloponnesian War, and there is no reason to suppose that the early Pythagoreans used any other.[759] Pythagoras was himself an Ionian, and it is by no means clear that in his time the Achaian states in which he founded his Order had already adopted the Dorian dialect.[760] Alkmaion of Kroton seems to have written in Ionic.[761] Diels says, it is true, that Philolaos and then Archytas were the first Pythagoreans to use the dialect of their homes;[762] but Philolaos can hardly be said to have had a home,[763] and the fragments of Archytas are not written in the dialect of Taras, but in what may be called “common Doric.” Archytas may have found it convenient to use that dialect; but he is at least a generation later than Philolaos, which makes a great difference. There is evidence that, in the time of Philolaos and later, Ionic was still used even by the citizens of Dorian states for scientific purposes. Diogenes of Apollonia in Crete and the Syracusan historian Antiochos wrote in Ionic, while the medical writers of Dorian, Kos and Knidos, continue to use the same dialect. The forged work of Pythagoras referred to above, which some ascribed to Lysis, was in Ionic; and so was the work on the _Akousmata_ attributed to Androkydes,[764] which shows that, even down to Alexandrian times, it was still believed that Ionic was the proper dialect for Pythagorean writings. Footnote 759: See Diels in _Arch._ iii. pp. 460 sqq. Footnote 760: On the Achaian dialect, see O. Hoffmann in Collitz and Bechtel, _Dialekt-Inschriften_, vol. ii. p. 151. How slowly Doric penetrated into the Chalkidian states may be seen from the mixed dialect of the inscription of Mikythos of Rhegion (_Dial.-Inschr._ iii. 2, p. 498), which is later than 468-67 B.C. There is no reason to suppose that the Achaian dialect of Kroton was less tenacious of life. Footnote 761: The scanty fragments contain one Doric form, ἔχοντι (fr. 1), but Alkmaion calls himself Κροτωνιήτης, which is very significant; for Κροτωνιάτας is the Achaian as well as the Doric form. He did not, therefore, write a mixed dialect like that referred to in the last note. It seems safest to assume with Wachtler, _De Alcmaeone Crotoniata_, pp. 21 sqq., that he used Ionic. Footnote 762: _Arch._ iii. p. 460. Footnote 763: