It is said that in the great battle on the river Traeis in 511 the cavalry of Sybaris were so much better accustomed to musical drill than to fighting that at the sound of the enemy’s fifes the Sybarite horses began to dance! The asceticism which led to Croton’s efficiency was a result of the teaching of Pythagoras of Samos, the great philosopher. A strange person was Pythagoras; his philosophy largely consisted of sound mathematics run mad on metaphysics. He attached mystical meanings to odd and even numbers; harmony was the principle of the universe. The abiding doctrine of his philosophy was that of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls: “CLOWN. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl? “MALVOLIO. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.” These doctrines of the immortality of the soul came, no doubt, from the East, for Pythagoras is reported to have sojourned in Egypt and visited Babylon. He founded a great secret society, which lived on monastic (and of course vegetarian) principles. He had considerable influence on the mind of Plato. His followers, banded together by mystical rites of initiation, took to playing an important part in the politics of their country, and fell into disrepute in consequence. When Sybaris was destroyed some of the survivors took refuge at Posidonium, her colony. Here, at the modern Pæsto, is one of the most splendid relics of Doric architecture.[41] Xenophanes of Colophon was another Ionian philosopher of the sixth century who came to instruct the West. He was the founder of the important Eleatic school of philosophy, teaching that God was one, and was one with Nature. Like others of his kind, he devoted a great deal of attention to Nature-study, especially geology. These regions also boasted two of the most celebrated law-givers of antiquity, Zaleucus of Western Locri, said to have been the first to put laws into writing, and Charondas of Catane. We have seen reason to believe that the Law-givers of Greece represent rather a conception of Greek history than a fact. Doubtless these two sages are as historical as Solon, but there is even less doubt that they have both been made the peg for elaborate forgeries of some late Pythagorean philosopher, who succeeded in foisting off a whole series of excellent moral doctrines upon their shoulders, to the great confusion of later writers, such as Cicero and Diodorus, who believed them to be genuine. [Illustration: PLATE XXXIII. THE TEMPLE OF POSEIDON AT PAESTO] Their spuriousness was conclusively demonstrated by the great Richard Bentley. Lyric poets too arose in Sicily and Asia Minor. Stesichorus of Himera, who was stricken blind because he spoke ill of beautiful Helen of Troy, and Ibycus of Rhegium, who sings with almost Sapphic fire of roses and nightingales and Eros “Who shooteth his melting glance from under his shadowy eyelids.”