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
Eurymenes therefore, and his soldiers, were beyond measure disturbed on
finding that they should not be able to bring one of the Pythagoreans
alive to Dionysius, though they were sent by him for this purpose alone.
Hence, having piled earth on the slain, and buried them in that place in
a common sepulchre, they turned their steps homeward. As they were
returning, however, they happened to meet with Myllias the Crotonian,
and his wife Timycha the Lacedæmonian, whom the other Pythagoreans had
left behind, because Timycha being pregnant, was now in her sixth[41]
month, and on this account walked leisurely. These therefore, the
soldiers gladly made captive, and led them to the tyrant, paying every
attention to them, in order that they might be brought to him safe. But
the tyrant having learnt what had happened, was greatly dejected, and
said to the two Pythagoreans, You shall obtain from me honors
transcending all others in dignity, if you will consent to reign in
conjunction with me. All his offers however being rejected by Myllias
and Timycha; If then, said he, you will only teach me one thing, I will
dismiss you with a sufficiently safe guard. Myllias therefore asking him
what it was he wished to learn; Dionysius replied, It is this, why your
companions chose rather to die, than to tread on beans? But Myllias
immediately answered, My companions indeed submitted to death, in order
that they might not tread upon beans, but I would rather tread on them,
than tell you the cause of this. Dionysius therefore, being astonished
at this answer, ordered him to be forcibly taken away, but commanded
Timycha to be tortured: for he thought, that as she was a woman,
pregnant, and deprived of her husband, she would easily tell him what he
wanted to know, through fear of the torments. The heroic woman, however,
grinding her tongue with her teeth, bit it off, and spit it at the
tyrant; evincing by this, that though her sex being vanquished by the
torments might be compelled to disclose something which ought to be
concealed in silence, yet the member subservient to the developement of
it, should be entirely cut off. So much difficulty did they make in
admitting foreign friendships, even though they should happen to be
royal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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