Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras, or Pythagoric Life: Accompanied by Fragments of the Ethical Writings of certain Pythagoreans in the Doric dialect; and a collection of Pythagoric Sentences from Stobaeus and others, which are omitted by Gale in his Opuscula Mythologica, and have not been noticed by any editorIamblichus
Philosophy
Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras, or Pythagoric Life: Accompanied by Fragments of the Ethical Writings of certain Pythagoreans in the Doric dialect; and a collection of Pythagoric Sentences from Stobaeus and others, which are omitted by Gale in his Opuscula Mythologica, and have not been noticed by any editor
Iamblichus
Ethics, Ancient; Philosophers -- Greece -- Biography; Philosophy, Ancient; Pythagoras; Pythagoras and Pythagorean school
which he very frequently uttered to all his disciples. Or again,
_Friendship is equality; equality is friendship_. Or in the word
_cosmos_, i. e. _the world_; or by Jupiter, in the word _philosophy_, or
in the so much celebrated word _tetractys_. All these and many other
inventions of the like kind, were devised by Pythagoras for the benefit
and amendment of his associates; and they were considered by those that
understood them to be so venerable, and so much the progeny of divine
inspiration, that the following was adopted as an oath by those that
dwelt together in the common auditory:
I swear by him who the tetractys found,
And to our race reveal’d; the cause and root,
And fount of ever-flowing Nature.
This therefore was the form of his wisdom which is so admirable.
It is also said, that of the sciences which the Pythagoreans honored,
music, medicine and divination, were not among the least. But they were
habitually silent and prompt to hear, and he who was able to hear [in a
proper manner] was praised by them. Of medicine, however, they
especially embraced the diætetic species, and in the exercise of this
were most accurate. And in the first place, indeed, they endeavoured to
learn the indications of symmetry, of labor, food, and repose. In the
next place, with respect to the preparation of food, they were nearly
the first who attempted to employ themselves in it, and to define the
mode in which it should be performed. The Pythagoreans likewise employed
cataplasms more frequently than their predecessors; but they in a less
degree approved of medicated ointments. These however they principally
used in the cure of ulcerations. But incisions and burnings they
admitted the least of all things. Some diseases also they cured by
incantations. Pythagoras, however, thought that music greatly
contributed to health, if it was used in a proper manner. The
Pythagoreans likewise employed select sentences of Homer and Hesiod for
the amendment of souls. But they thought it was necessary to retain and
preserve in the memory things which they had learnt and heard; and that
it was requisite to be furnished with disciplines and auditions, to as
great an extent as there was an ability of learning and remembering; the
former of these being the power by which knowledge is obtained, but the
latter, the power by which it is preserved. Hence, they very much
honored the memory, abundantly exercised, and paid great attention to
it. In learning too, they did not dismiss what they were taught, till
they had firmly comprehended the first rudiments of it; and they
recalled to their memory what they had daily heard, after the following
manner: A Pythagorean never rose from his bed till he had first
recollected the transactions of the former day; and he accomplished this
by endeavouring to remember what he first said, or heard, or ordered his
domestics to do when he was rising, or what was the second and third
thing which he said, heard, or commanded to be done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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