It would be a mistake to look upon the conquest of the south as a direct consequence of conditions in Greece. It was but an extension of the Hellenic westward movement from Asia Minor, which had settled Greece itself, and which filled all the eastern Mediterranean and ultimately spread into Spain. The whole race, continually fed by emigration from its place of origin in Asia, was moving towards the setting sun, as the Semite Phoenicians had moved before it, and it was with the latter people that it engaged in its first great struggle for existence in the west, at the very time when the mother country was fighting for life against the invasion of the Persian host. For the westward migration was itself caused by the awakening the Asian races, that culminated in the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar, Cambyses, Cyrus, and Darius, which was checked at Salamis, and was ultimately thrown back upon itself and annihilated by the Greek Alexander the Great.
We are too apt to think of those early times as barbarous and uncultivated compared with those of Pericles. We forget the vast civilization of Egypt, whose empire, in the seventh century before our era, was hastening to its decline, but whose culture was the model of all cultures then existing, and was looked up to by the Phoenician and the Babylonian alike, as well as by the Greeks themselves, who slavishly imitated Egyptian art for centuries, and surrounded with profoundest mystery the few poor secrets of nature they succeeded in stealing from the rich treasures of Egyptian learning. Many do not remember that Babylon was at that time the greatest city in the world, and was enclosed within walls that measured •thirty-six miles in circuit, the chief stronghold of a power that overshadowed all central and western Asia. One should recall the existence of enormous libraries of learning, of hundreds of thousands of books, written in Egypt on papyrus, in Assyria on clay tiles, which were afterwards hardened by baking and coloured with many tints, each of which was distinctive of some branch of learning and thus contributed to the easy classification of the whole. Nor should it be forgotten that in those days the magnificent monuments of the Egyptians were still in the glory of perfect preservation, in Memphis, Heliopolis, and in Thebes, or that in Babylon the legendary gardens of Semiramis still hung between earth and heaven, supported on a thousand arches, high above the city, but themselves overshadowed by the vast temple of Bel. The Greeks were familiar with Egypt through their trade, and many of them had wandered beyond Palestine to the banks of the Euphrates, and had written down careful accounts of their journeys. The men who settled Sicily and the south of Italy were adventurers, wanderers, and fighting men, but they were very far from uncivilized; more than half of their religion was the worship of beauty, and if the science they had obtained from Egypt was scanty, their own brilliant intelligence enlightened them in applying it. It is no wonder that within a few years of their settling in the south they became a new nation of artists, poets, and thinkers, actively creative in their own right, as it were, and immeasurably superior in cultivation to all the races with which they came into contact; it is not surprising that Sybaris should have outdone the East in refinement of luxury, nor that strong Crotona should have bred more winners of the Olympic Games than all Greece and all the Greek islands together. The Greek athlete was not the gladiator of later days, the mere ‘swordsman,’ as the word signifies; he was the result of the thoughtful worship of human beauty, brought to its final expression by natural selection and artificial training; and the winner of the Games was not merely a runner, a wrestler, or a boxer, he was the best man of his day at all bodily exercises whatsoever, and in the eyes of the people that brought him home in triumph he was a visible god, the living incarnation of the Greek spirit. Every race that has beaten the world has at the outset shown a physical as well as a characteristic superiority over its opponents, but in almost every case that superiority has been unconscious, or has asserted itself with loud boasting and overwhelming brutality. The Greek alone knew how to cultivate and perfect the gifts that placed him above other men, reverencing his own endowments as something divine within him, and analyzing the secret sources of his own strength, until he had almost found a formula for the production of great men.
At this time appeared one of the most romantic figures in ancient history, the first that deserves especial mention in the story of the south, a man of almost superhuman genius, who, had he lived in more ordinary conditions than those which accompanied the first marvellous development of the Greek people, would have become in the west what his contemporaries, Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius, became in Persia, in India, and in China. This extraordinary person was Pythagoras, the Samian philosopher, the son of Mnesarchus, who was a very rich merchant and shipowner, and strange to say, in his moments of leisure, a sculptor of considerable talent.
It is neither a misuse of the term nor an exaggeration of fact to call the great thinker’s career a romantic one; for in its original signification the romance was the tale of the ‘romare,’ of the pilgrim and wanderer; and from ‘romare,’ derived from, or very closely connected with Rome, as a chief place of pilgrimage, we have made our modern word ‘roamer.’ If ever a man earned that epithet it was the Samian seeker after knowledge, who, in a life that covered nearly a century, spent but the first eighteen years in his home, who lived twenty-two years in Egypt, twelve in Babylon, and thirty-nine in Italy, who was a pupil of Thales, the favoured guest of Pharaoh, the friend of Zoroaster, and the founder of the great Pythagorean brotherhoods that played so interesting a part in the political and civil history of Southern Italy.
The son of the rich man was taught by Hermodamas, and the tenderest affection grew up between the pupil and his master. The first instruction in those times consisted in the reading and recitation of poetry and in the art of music. Under the rule of Polycrates, Samos was the very centre of Greek art and thought. There lived Ibycus, the love poet born in Italian Rhegium, of whose works beautiful fragments have come down to us; there Anacreon spent his richest years, but of him little remains, for the Odes are not now believed to be all his work, though they have so long borne his name; there dwelt also Theodorus the younger, the Benvenuto Cellini of his day, famous for the statues he modelled and cast in bronze, and for his marvellous skill at engraving, who made the ring of Polycrates; and last, the great tyrant himself, cunning, cruel, fortunate, a lover of every beautiful art, the despot of the sea, the delight of poets, the friend of Pharaoh, fated to die on the cross at last, like a common malefactor. Such was the court in which the boy Pythagoras grew up to the age of eighteen years, beautiful beyond other youths and gifted of the gods above all his companions. It is a conspicuous fact and one that raises strange reflections concerning modern theories of education, that every supremely great man of antiquity, from myth to legend, from legend to fact, was first taught to recite poetry and make music, and was not instructed in mathematics till he had spent years in the study of both; for it was held that man who could not write in verse, could not write his own language at all, and that a being for whom musical sounds had no corresponding meaning was a barbarian unfit to associated with his fellows. So Pythagoras, whose famous proposition is the point of departure to which all trigonometry is referred, spent his first youth in playing on the seven-stringed lyre and in declaiming the Homeric poems, which Pisistratus, the wise ruler of Athens, had very lately collected and finally arranged. Without doubt he sat at the feet of Anacreon, and filled the poet’s drinking-cup, listening to the voice that matched the words and to the words no age has ever matched, and doubtless he was beloved by Ibycus and saw Theodorus model gods of clay that were to be cast in bronze and set up in temples to be worshipped by the people; whence he began to understand that there was a faith above belief in idols, and that far beyond the earthly scenery of myth and the play of the beautiful little god-figures there was the All-Being in which all is contained that lives and dies and lives again. So when he was about eighteen years of age his mind was opened, and he began to desire absolute knowledge and to seek after it.
Now at this time Polycrates had not yet attained to the hei
ght of his power, and he was enriching himself by extorting money from his wealthy subjects and even by confiscating their goods with slight excuse. Therefore many writers have asserted that Pythagoras fled from Samos to escape from the tyrant’s grasping hands, but this is a senseless story, since he was then but a boy and his father and mother remained in Samos and lived in riches for more than twenty years after his departure. It seems to me much more probable that Polycrates had made a law, as many modern despots have done, forbidding young men to leave their country until they had performed some stated service; and that Pythagoras was in such haste to increase his knowledge that he would not abide the ordained time. So he fled secretly by night with his teacher Hermodamas, who afterwards came back alone and appears to have suffered no penalty. It is very clear that Pythagoras feared pursuit and capture; for though Samos is close to the mainland, and not far from Miletus, where both Anaximander and Thales, or Theletas, as he is sometimes called, were famous philosophers, yet the young man preferred to sail all the way to Lesbos, far to northward, where at that time he was safe from the messengers of Polycrates. There he dwelt with an uncle, a brother of his father, and was taught by Pherecydes for some time; but when he had learned of him what he could, he journeyed southward by land to Miletus, and sat down beside the ancient Thales and began to be initiated into the secret wisdom of the priests.
The mysteries of the ancients were the truth, or the nearest approach to it then possible, as contrasted with the vast fictions of mythology in which the peoples believed. Without an exception, all the mysteries taught of a god who had died and had been buried on earth, and who had returned to life again in glory; most of them foretold a judgment of souls, and all looked forward to a future state, either as following directly upon death, or as the end of a series of migrations, in which the soul passed from one body to another, purifying itself by degrees, or sinking by steps of defilement to final perdition. All the mysteries were ultimately monotheistic in idea, though the one god of the secret faith was considered as containing two, three, or four principles in himself, according to the ethic and psychic schemes adopted by the initiated of different nations.
The early philosophers were all priests and mystics, most of them were poets, in the sense that they wrote down their thoughts in verse, and all were seekers after knowledge. The highest development, both of mysticism and of scientific inquiry, was considered to have been reached in Egypt, though it has been thought that the Magians of Assyria were better mathematicians than the Egyptian priests, and that the Chaldaeans were as good astronomers.
The true faith of those times was a profound secret in the hands of small communities of amazingly gifted men. It could never be popular, for the comprehension required to understand it was far beyond the gifts of the masses, and the consequence was that although initiation into the mysteries was not the exclusive privilege of the aristocratic class, it was nevertheless very closely associated with an aristocratic principle in the minds of the many, a fact which afterwards led directly to the violent destruction of the Pythagorean brotherhoods in Italy.
The intellectual grasp of the young Samian soon took possession of his master’s knowledge, and when he had been initiated into the mysteries of Zeus in the temple on Mount Ida, Thales declared that if his pupil would learn more he must find a way to be received among the priests of Egypt. No foreign student had ever accomplished such an apparently impossible thing; but Pythagoras, who admitted no impossibilities, forthwith determined to possess himself of all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and of all learning possessed by men.
That was a period of peace and prosperity in the world. Under Croesus, Lydia had developed immeasurable wealth, Phoenicia, now under the lordship of Babylon, was recovering from the ravages of Nebuchadnezzar, and Persia had not yet started upon her long career of conquest. Egypt, after a revolution which had placed a man of plebeian extraction upon the throne of the Pharaohs, was enjoying the last years of her splendour under the wise rule of Amasis. In the west the Greeks were spreading mightily, and were quickly developing the strength which first repelled the Carthaginians and soon afterwards proved an impassable barrier to the advance of Xerxes. The known world was rich and at peace, and in the shadow of a hundred ancient temples, from the islands of the Mediterranean to Mount Ida, from Assyrian Babylon and Phoenician Sidon to Egyptian Thebes, the chosen company of the wise cherished what was wisdom in those days, and followed those patient investigations in mathematics and astronomy to which modern science is so deeply indebted.
It was in Sidon that Pythagoras first became a true mystic, and it was there that he first conceived the idea of uniting and simplifying the many forms of mysticism into one religion which should satisfy at the same time the highest aspirations of the soul and the widest speculations of the intellect, and which should be at once a faultless rule of spiritual life and a perfect guide to man’s social existence. The thought was high and noble, for it was the thought which inspired Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius, and it foreran the teaching of Christ as the dawn the day.
In order to prepare himself for his mission, Pythagoras felt that he must withdraw himself from the world among the wisest men at that time living. After he had been initiated in Sidon, he wandered down through Phoenicia into Palestine; he gazed thoughtfully upon the ruins of Jerusalem that lay broken to pieces in the dust like a vessel of clay, and he came to Mount Carmel and looked towards Egypt, which was the goal of his desires. So he took ship for the Delta in a small Egyptian trading craft, and the merchant and the sailors saw that he was a Greek, well skilled in learning, and they agreed that they would sell him for a slave in Memphis, where he would fetch a good price. But he understood what was in their minds and showed no fear, and fixed his eyes upon them until they were afraid under the strength of his look, and gave over their evil designs; so he came safely to Memphis, where Pharaoh dwelt at that time, and where there were many wise priests. But these would have none of him, for he was a foreigner, and they thought that he wished to learn their secrets only to sell them for much wealth to the priests of Ida or of Delphi. So he abode among the Greeks, for there were many of these in Memphis, and he occupied himself in learning the Egyptian language.
Then he bethought himself of Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, who was yet in close friendship with Amasis, and with whom his father Mnesarchus had much interest. After that time Pharaoh, seeing the marvellous good fortune of Polycrates, advised him to cast away what was dearest to him, lest the gods should be angry; and then the tyrant threw into the sea the ring which Theodorus had made for him, and which he prized above all his possessions; but it was found again in the belly of a fish and was brought back to him by the fisherman. So Amasis broke friendship with him, seeing that he was so highly favoured of the gods, because it was not good, being powerful, to be too closely intimate with one who was devouring the wealth of others and who never failed in an undertaking. But these things had not then happened, and Pythagoras wrote a letter to the tyrant, setting forth his desires, and speaking of his long studies, and showing that the Greeks might profit by the wisdom of the Egyptians if only Polycrates would persuade Amasis to command the admission of Pythagoras to the school of the Egyptian priesthood. Polycrates therefore wrote a very urgent letter to Pharaoh, which he sent to Pythagoras himself; and Amasis received the young man graciously, and sent him to the priests at Heliopolis, the city of the Sun. But these sent him back to the priests at Memphis, and these latter, not knowing what to do, sent him at last to the great high priest at Thebes, with the royal command. The high priest made it hard for him, and required a long period of purification, and a painful rite and ordeal, hoping perhaps to terrify the scholar. But Pythagoras was of those who are born without fear, and he despised pain, and was initiated.
Two and twenty years he lived in the temple in Thebes, and he mastered by degrees all the sciences, and the writings, and the mystic teaching of the Egyptians, and the religion which was afterwards called his teaching was a c
omplete exposition of all that Egyptians both knew and believed, and had acquired laboriously in thousands of years. It was the wisdom of those to whom a hundred years were but a day, and to whom ten generations were but as the continuous life of one man, inasmuch as whatever was learned by each was wholly known to the next, without break nor interval of forgetfulness; and the whole was written down in a hard language that changed not in ten centuries, and was kept secret from the people. It is small wonder that Pythagoras should have spent a quarter of his life in acquiring what the wisest nation in the world had accumulated in more than a hundred generations. There, in the temple of Thebes, he dwelt and studied in peace, while the face of the earth was changed, while Cyrus grew greater and greater, till he seemed the greatest of men that had lived, and spread out the empire of Persia and gathered all into his hands, to the very borders of Egypt. Then he died, and Amasis died also, and Cambyses came victoriously to Egypt and dragged Pharaoh’s embalmed body from its tomb in Sais to insult it shamefully; and he carried many away captive to Babylon, and Pythagoras the Samian was among the prisoners. Then Cambyses died too, and the pseudo-Smerdis, the Magian, and Atossa, the sister of the first and the wife of both, married Darius, the friend of Zoroaster, and became the mother of Xerxes who invaded Greece.
At the time when Pythagoras was taken to Babylon, he was forty-four years of age, and since he afterward lived to be almost a hundred years old, he had not then reached the middle of life. When he found himself a prisoner, and probably in the social condition of a slave, within the four walls of the greatest capital in existence, in the heart of Assyria and at least five hundred miles east of the Mediterranean, he can have had little hope of ever returning to the west again. Yet to his philosophic genius such a captivity may not have seemed irksome, and he was not cut off from intercourse with his own people, for a great number of Greeks were employed about the court of the Persian king, and though news travelled slowly, it was brought with much detail, if also with much exaggeration. He resigned himself to his fate, and set to work to study the religious reforms of Zoroaster, whom he undoubtedly knew, and the mathematical methods of the Assyrian and Chaldaean astronomers — of some of those very men, perhaps, whom Belshazzar had called in to interpret the writing on the wall. So he lived and studied in peace, being one of the wise men attached to the court of Darius.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1406