Pythagoras was married, and had a family consist- ing of two sons, Telauges and Mnesarchus, and three daughters or more, Damo, Muia, and Arignote, all of whom became his disciples. Telauges is said to have succeeded him in the conduct of the school. But the disciples appear to have been scattered, the school bro- ken up. and the sect utterly dissipated as a community, though its chiefs continued to be named, as late, at least, as Archytas of Tarentum. His wife, and the mother of Jiis children, is usually reported to have been Theano, the daughter of Brontinus of Crotona; but she is called a Cretan, and the daughter of Pythonax, by Suidas. Confusion and discord attend every step of the inquiry.
II. Writings and Doctrines. — All the works ascribed to Pythagoras are spurious beyond all doubt. The Golden Song is not excepted from this censure. Da- vid, the scholiast of Aristotle (p. 13, 1. 15-26, r. ed. Bran- dis), gives the reasons assigned by Pythagoras for his refusal to commit anything to writing, and explicitly assigns the Golden Song to a nameless Pythagorean. This shows how utterly destitute the ancients them- selves were of genuine Pythagorean texts, and how un- certain are all sources of information. The earliest documents are the Fragments of Philolaus, whose au- thenticity is still debated, and the Golden Song, often ascribed to Lysis, but. in all probability, the production of a later age. As Philolaus was the pupil of Archytas
and the instructor of Simmias and Cebes, he belonged to the Socratic asra ; and, as Lysis was the teacher of Epaminondas, he may be regarded as the contemporary of Plato. The interval must have been considerable between Pythagoras and Philolaus, as Archytas, the in- structor of the latter, was regarded as the eighth in the succession of the Pythagorean scholarchs. Yet the dis- tinctive doctrines of Pythagoras must have been bruit- ed abroad long before the publication of Philolaus ; for we find among the fragments of Xenophanes an epi- gram on the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis, and Xenophanes was born before the death of Pythag- oras. But the doctrines of Pythagoras, deducible from earlier and later writers, cannot be regarded as even a fragmentary exposition of a definite system construct- ed by him. The)' are only the mutilated expression of his leading principles, as interpreted and expanded by those who claimed to be representatives of his teachings. The remnants of the early Greek inquirers, whether di- dactic or speculative, exhibit their disposition to employ terse aphorisms for the utterance of their views. This is the tendency of all primitive speculation. While rec- ognising the unsystematic character of the exposition thence resulting, it is well also to remember the com- mendation and employment of the same mode of com- munication by Francis Bacon in a period of much am- pler knowledge and more diffused intelligence.
Gathering from the unsatisfactory materials that re- main the distinctive doctrines of Pythagoras, they ap- pear to be these : The soul is, in its nature, immortal, and akin to divinity. It consists of two parts : the ra- tional, which is alone immortal; and the sensuous, or irrational, which is ultimately mortal. Plants possess the latter. In this distinction may be found the germ of the Aristotelian dogma of three souls : the intelli- gent, the animal, and the vegetative. The rational soul is pure ; the irrational, impure, because immersed in matter: both are united in man. The former attests his divine nature and origin ; the latter guides and gov- erns his material frame, with which it is united in life, and through which it is diffused. Death is the with- drawal of this complex soul from the corporeal invo- lucre in which it has been enclosed, and which it has animated. The spirit, thus released, dwells in the cir- cumambient air, retaining, in shadowy guise, its former shape, visible as a ghost, or intervening in the affairs of men through dreams and other influences. Souls that have divested themselves in life of the taint of their ir- rational companion, and of their corporeal environment, enter into enduring bliss, and become wholly divine, ap- parently without loss of individual nature.
ill- <V u7roXci>(<ac awjxa ec u'&tp' e\euSrepov e\5r]?, (aatat uiiitaTof, ieoi u/i/JpoTof, ovk 'i-ri 3-hjto?
(Carm. A ur. 70, 71).
Souls not liberated from the vices and passions of the lower soul, or from the impurities and temptations of their material vesture, float for a time in the air, tor- mented by the Furies and the ministers of vengeance, till they are allowed a new trial, and are subjected to a new ordeal, by passing into new bodies, human or bestial.
"animam sic semper eandem Esse, sed in varias doceo mini-are rienras"
(Ovid, J/W. xv, 171, 172).
The air is always full of souls, undergoing the penal consequences of their sins, and awaiting their descent into new bodies.
" penitusque necesse est Multa diu concreta modis inolescere miris"
(Virgil, jEn. vi, 737, 73S).
This is the noted metempsychosis of Pythagoras, which is usually conceived to have been of Hindu origin, but is often referred to an Egyptian source, though having little correspondence with the metensomatosis or the anacatastasis of Egyptian mythology. It is much more reasonable to consider it a philosophical adaptation of the primitive beliefs in regard to spiritual existence af- I ter death (see Tylor, Primitive Culture).