40. For a time the new Order seems actually to have succeeded in securing the supreme power, but reaction came at last. Under the leadership of Kylon, a wealthy noble, Kroton was able to assert itself victoriously against the Pythagorean domination. This, we may well believe, had been galling enough. The “rule of the saints” would be nothing to it; and we can still imagine and sympathise with the irritation felt by the plain man of those days at having his legislation done for him by a set of incomprehensible pedants, who made a point of abstaining from beans, and would not let him beat his own dog because they recognised in its howls the voice of a departed friend (Xenophanes, fr. 7). This feeling would be aggravated by the private religious worship of the Society. Greek states could never pardon the introduction of new gods. Their objection to this was not, however, that the gods in question were false gods. If they had been, it would not have mattered so much. What they could not tolerate was that any one should establish a private means of communication between himself and the unseen powers. That introduced an unknown and incalculable element into the arrangements of the State, which might very likely be hostile to those citizens who had no means of propitiating the intruding divinity. Aristoxenos’s version of the events which led to the downfall of the Pythagorean Order is given at length by Iamblichos. According to this, Pythagoras had refused to receive Kylon into his Society, and he therefore became a bitter foe of the Order. From this cause Pythagoras removed from Kroton to Metapontion, where he died. The Pythagoreans, however, still retained possession of the government of Kroton, till at last the partisans of Kylon set fire to Milo’s house, where they were assembled. Of those in the house only two, Archippos and Lysis, escaped. Archippos retired to Taras; Lysis, first to Achaia and then to Thebes, where he became later on the teacher of Epameinondas. The Pythagoreans who remained concentrated themselves at Rhegion; but, as things went from bad to worse, they all left Italy except Archippos.[206] Footnote 206: See Rohde, _Rh. Mus._ xxvi. p. 565, n. 1. The narrative in the text (Iambl. _V. Pyth._ 250; R. P. 59 b) goes back to Aristoxenos and Dikaiarchos (R. P. 59 a). There is no reason to suppose that their view of Pythagoras has vitiated their account of what must have been a perfectly well-known piece of history. According to the later story, Pythagoras himself was burned to death in the house of Milo, along with his disciples. This is merely a dramatic compression of the whole series of events into a single scene; we have seen that Pythagoras died at Metapontion before the final catastrophe. The valuable reference in Polybios ii. 39 (R. P. 59) to the burning of Pythagorean συνέδρια certainly implies that the disturbances went on for a very considerable time.