The proper Greek term for this is παλιγγενεσία, and the inaccurate μετεμψύχωσις only occurs in late writers. Hippolytos and Clement of Alexandria say μετενσωμάτωσις, which is accurate but cumbrous. See Rohde, _Psyche_, p. 428, n. 2. Footnote 213: On the significance of this, see above, p. 93. Footnote 214: Dieterich, “Mutter Erde” (_Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, viii. pp. 29 and 47). [Sidenote: Abstinence.] 43. It has indeed been doubted whether we have a right to accept what we are told by such late writers as Porphyry on the subject of Pythagorean abstinence. Aristoxenos, whom we have admitted to be one of our earliest witnesses, may be cited to prove that the original Pythagoreans knew nothing of these restrictions on the use of animal flesh and beans. He undoubtedly said that Pythagoras did not abstain from animal flesh in general, but only from that of the ploughing ox and the ram.[215] He also said that Pythagoras preferred beans to every other vegetable, as being the most laxative, and that he was partial to sucking-pigs and tender kids.[216] Aristoxenos, however, is a witness who very often breaks down under cross-examination, and the palpable exaggeration of these statements shows that he is endeavouring to combat a belief which existed in his own day. We are therefore able to show, out of his own mouth, that the tradition which made the Pythagoreans abstain from animal flesh and beans goes back to a time long before there were any Neopythagoreans interested in upholding it. Still, it may be asked what motive Aristoxenos could have had for denying the common belief? The answer is simple and instructive. He had been the friend of the last of the Pythagoreans; and, in their time, the merely superstitious part of Pythagoreanism had been dropped, except by some zealots whom the heads of the Society refused to acknowledge. That is why he represents Pythagoras himself in so different a light from both the older and the later traditions; it is because he gives us the view of the more enlightened sect of the Order. Those who clung faithfully to the old practices were now regarded as heretics, and all manner of theories were set on foot to account for their existence. It was related, for instance, that they descended from one of the “Akousmatics,” who had never been initiated into the deeper mysteries of the “Mathematicians.”[217] All this, however, is pure invention. The satire of the poets of the Middle Comedy proves clearly enough that, even though the friends of Aristoxenos did not practise abstinence, there were plenty of people in the fourth century, calling themselves followers of Pythagoras, who did.[218] History has not been kind to the Akousmatics, but they never wholly died out. The names of Diodoros of Aspendos and Nigidius Figulus help to bridge the gulf between them and Apollonios of Tyana. Footnote 215: