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
altars. It is likewise said, that the Metapontines preserving the
remembrance of Pythagoras after his time, made his house a temple of
Ceres, but the street in which he lived a museum.
Because also insolence, luxury, and a contempt of the laws, frequently
impel men to injustice, on this account he daily exhorted his disciples
to give assistance to law, and to be hostile to illegality. Hence he
made such a division as the following: that what is called luxury, is
the first evil that usually glides into houses and cities; that the
second is insolence; and the third destruction. That hence luxury should
by all possible means be excluded and expelled [from every house and
city,] and that men should be accustomed from their birth to a temperate
and manly life. He farther added, that it is requisite to be purified
from all malediction, whether it be that which is lamentable, or that
which excites hostility, and whether it be of a reviling, or insolent,
or scurrilous nature.
Besides these, likewise, he established another most beautiful species
of justice, viz. the legislative; which orders indeed what ought to be
done; but forbids what ought not to be done. This species, however, is
more excellent than the judicial form of justice. For it resembles
medicine which heals those that are diseased. It differs from it however
in this, that it does not suffer disease to commence, but pays attention
from afar to the health of the soul. This therefore being the case, the
best of all legislators came from the school of Pythagoras: in the first
place, indeed, Charondas the Catanæan; and in the next place, Zaleucus
and Timaratus, who wrote laws for the Locrians. Besides these likewise
there were Theætetus and Helicaon, Aristocrates, and Phytius, who became
the legislators of the Rhegini. All these likewise obtained from their
citizens honors similar to those of the Gods. For Pythagoras did not act
like Heraclitus, who said that he would write laws for the Ephesians,
and also petulantly[39] said, that in those laws he would order the
citizens to hang themselves. But Pythagoras endeavoured to establish
laws, with great benevolence and political science. Why however is it
requisite to admire these men? For Zamolxis being a Thracian, and the
slave of Pythagoras, after he had heard the discourses of Pythagoras,
having obtained his liberty, and returned to Getæ, gave laws to them, as
we have before observed in the beginning of this work, and exhorted the
citizens to fortitude, _having persuaded them that the soul is immortal.
Hence even at present, all the Galatæ, and Trallians, and many others of
the Barbarians, persuade their children that the soul cannot be
destroyed; but that it remains after death, and that death is not to be
feared, but danger is to be encountered with a firm and manly mind._
Having therefore instructed the Getæ in these things, and written laws
for them, he was considered by them as the greatest of the Gods.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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