Pythagorus (5 page)

Pythagoras would have arrived in Babylon either by caravan across the plain or by boat on the Euphrates.
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Either way, the towering seven-level ziggurat was visible long before the city came into view. Though young in comparison with the Giza pyramid (and no match for it in height – the ziggurat was about 300 feet high, the pyramid 481 feet), the ziggurat nevertheless was an exceedingly ancient monument, a relic of Babylon's earlier golden age. Nebuchadnezzar had made sure that it was splendidly restored to connect his own reign with that former glory. The principal approach to the city from the north was an avenue sixty-six feet wide, built of giant limestone paving slabs covering a foundation of brick and asphalt. On either hand, sixty lions – fashioned of red, white, and yellow tile on the high walls – stalked the men and women on the road. At the city's Ishtar Gate, bulls and dragons took over from the lions. This entrance was one of eight massive, bronze-armoured portals in a double-walled, moated fortification system that surrounded the city. Inside, the avenue continued and crossed the Euphrates on a bridge with supports high enough and far enough apart to allow the largest ships to pass. A temple complex housed the jewel-studded shrine of Marduk, god of the city, in a chamber lined with gold. Pythagoras and others who were not royalty or among the most elite of the priests would not have entered this chamber, but they would have known about it.

Beyond the temple precincts, the city spread on both sides of the Euphrates and included a royal palace with state rooms, private quarters, courtyards, and a harem for the queen and concubines brought from all parts of the empire. If they are not only legendary (the archaeological evidence is ambiguous but not entirely absent), the Hanging Gardens were part of this complex, and they, like the ziggurat, were a prominent landmark visible from a distance above the surrounding buildings – a terraced hill of earth, supported by massive vaults built so that their floors were waterproof and could support enough soil to plant large trees, watered from the nearby Euphrates by complicated irrigation machinery. Similar irrigation wizardry and a series of canals watered gardens and orchards in the newer part of the city and carried water to distant suburbs. The practical knowledge of mathematics and geometry that made possible these buildings and the surveying for the irrigation was evidence of how well the scribes of Babylon understood these subjects – or, at least, had understood them many centuries before, when the building techniques were developed. It is likely that the theory and deeper mathematical understanding underlying the techniques had been forgotten by the time of Pythagoras, though the techniques themselves had become routine and were still in use.

Because people who came to Babylon for whatever reason often chose to stay, her streets and passages were a cacophony of languages. There were Hurrians, Cassites, Hittites, Elamites, Jews, Egyptians, Aramaeans, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and all mixes thereof. Centuries of captives (including the Jews brought from Judea and Israel, who were there during Nebuchadnezzar's reign), conquerors, and visitors had lived in the city long enough and mixed sufficiently well to interbreed, until Babylon had become, in the words of the twentieth-century scholar H. W. F. Saggs, ‘a thoroughly mongrel city'. Ancient tablets give evidence of an astounding variety of jobs, careers, and crafts, and a rich array of goods that arrived, some by caravan but mainly by way of the river. Women had authority over slaves or servants in their households, but probably wore veils in public.

Pythagoras, exploring these streets and passageways and listening to all the languages, would have seen house walls that glowed in bands of light and shade, an effect ingeniously produced by a ‘saw-toothed' treatment that made the surface reflect the brilliant desert sunlight in this variegated manner. He would have stayed in private houses oriented almost entirely towards interior courtyards, their entrances guarded by a porter and a confusing, indirect entryway to discourage unwanted visitors and peeping toms. Whether he lived in a house like that or in the temple precincts – for his success among the priests and scribes should not have been any less here than in Egypt – his diet was probably mostly vegetarian, not by choice but because, in a city fed from irrigated fields surrounded by desert wastelands, meat was a luxury item.

What could Pythagoras have learned in Babylon? He was familiar with her art and design, for Hera's temple on Samos included many examples. He would have sought out the scribes. Writing and calculating were their primary activities. Some were part of governmental and temple communities, some worked for the military, others served private citizens or taught. Many freelanced, offering their services in the marketplace for people needing letters written, legal documents drawn up, calculations made. Besides the scribes, only the rare Babylonian could read, write, or calculate. At the top of the profession were the highest-ranking priests at the temple of Marduk, who had to be able to read the texts for the rituals they used. These texts were often written in ideograms, making them inaccessible to those not trained in this particular type of text, and they often included a warning that only the initiated should even see them. Such secretiveness might have seemed prudent to Pythagoras, who instituted it later in Croton.

Much of the information that modern scholars have about knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia comes not from this neo-Babylonian period but from the first great era of Babylon a millennium earlier (1894–1595 B.C.). Tablets that were school texts then show that teachers and scholars knew the value of pi, could calculate square and cube roots, and understood what is now known as the ‘Pythagorean' theorem. The system of mathematics they used was already fully developed and being taught routinely to scribal students. But was the ‘Pythagorean theorem', which had made it into the textbooks in the second millennium B.C., still known in Babylon at the time of Pythagoras? Experts on ancient Mesopotamia think not; but, if it was, Pythagoras of course might have learned it from the scribes. If he carried away with him knowledge of their sexagesimal number system – based on sixes rather than on tens – nothing of that showed up in later stories about him or his followers.

Pythagoras would have encountered a sophisticated astronomy if he sought out Babylonians who studied the stars. ‘Early Greek science and natural philosophy' may have begun with Thales' observation of the eclipse on 28 May 585 B.C. but Mesopotamian scholars had long known how to predict eclipses. Again, evidence is lacking whether the learning that had been so impressive, and that is so well documented on tablets originating a thousand years earlier, was still in the grasp of Mesopotamian scribes and astronomers at the time of Nebuchadnezzar. The fact that Babylonians set up a sacred kettledrum during an eclipse and beat on it to drive off the demons that were obscuring the moon is no indication that the earlier sophistication had been lost. It is difficult to imagine even a modern society giving up such spectacle and fun just because of a scientific explanation! Later, in the Persian and Hellenistic eras, a highly mathematical Mesopotamian astronomy used observational data that had been collected for centuries in the temples.

Pythagoras did not learn the doctrine of reincarnation in Babylon. A Babylonian – barring unusual circumstances that left him flitting around as a baleful ghost – died, went to a dismal netherworld, and stayed there.

Though Iamblichus cannot
have been correct that Pythagoras spent about thirty-four years in Egypt and Babylon (no acceptable chronology allows that much time), he was probably right that when Pythagoras returned to Samos only a few inhabitants of his home island remembered him. Nevertheless, wrote Iamblichus, he made an excellent impression with the learning he had accumulated and the tales he could tell, and was publicly requested to share this knowledge with his countrymen. That seemed an excellent idea to many Samians, until they realised what mental effort it required. Pythagoras' audiences dwindled, those who stayed were lazy, and soon no one was listening to him. Iamblichus believed that he did not take umbrage. He was still determined to give his fellow citizens a ‘taste of the sweetness of the mathematical disciplines' and concerned that his skills and learning would desert him as he aged. He adopted a fresh strategy: Rather than teach a multitude, he chose one promising disciple.

Iamblichus described Pythagoras' choice as a poverty-stricken but talented young athlete, whom Pythagoras discovered playing ball in the gymnasium ‘with great aptness and facility'. They struck an agreement. Pythagoras would provide him with the necessities of life and the opportunity to continue his athletics, on condition that the young man would, in easy doses (at least by Pythagoras' standards) allow Pythagoras to educate him. At first the youth seemed motivated mostly by rewards of three eboli for learning figures on the abacus. As time passed, Pythagoras observed that his interest became keener, so much so that Pythagoras suspected it would continue even without the eboli – even if he had to ‘suffer the extremity of want'. As a test, Pythagoras pretended to have had a catastrophic change of fortune, requiring the association to end. As Pythagoras had hoped, the youth declared that he could learn without rewards and would find a way to provide for both himself and Pythagoras. Iamblichus wrote that this young man, to honour his mentor, took the name ‘Pythagoras, son of Eratocles' and, alone among Pythagoras' acquaintances on Samos, eventually moved with him to southern Italy. Iamblichus did not indicate where he got this information except to mention that ‘there are said to be' three books by Pythagoras, son of Eratocles, titled
On Athletics,
in which he recommended eating meat instead of dry figs. If he took this recommendation from his teacher, then the advice ran counter to information from other sources that Pythagoras was a vegetarian and required the same of his students and followers.

A story about another pupil also conflicts with Pythagoras' reputation as a strict vegetarian. Eurymenes was also an athlete, but he was small. It was the custom to eat only moist cheese, dry figs, and wheat bread while in training for the Olympic games. Pythagoras instead advised Eurymenes to eat meat. He also taught him not to go into the games for the sake of victory but for the exercise of training and the benefit to his body. Diet and Pythagorean sports psychology worked wonders. Eurymenes, in Porphyry's words, ‘conquered at Olympia through his surpassing knowledge of Pythagoras' wisdom.'
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According to Porphyry, these two athletes were not Pythagoras' only pupils during this period. Porphyry had read of another in
On the Incredible Things Beyond Thule
, the book he used for information about Pythagoras' father, insisting that its author had ‘treated Pythagoras' affairs so carefully that I think his account should not be omitted.' Porphyry did not say it should necessarily be believed. On a trading journey, Pythagoras' father, Mnesarchus, discovered an infant under a poplar tree, lying on its back, looking unblinkingly at the sun and sipping dew falling from the tree through a reed pipe in its mouth. This struck Mnesarchus as divine activity, and he arranged for the child to be fostered by a friend and native of that country, later paid for his education, named him Astraeus, and reared him with his own sons. Pythagoras took this younger adopted brother as his pupil. Porphyry also mentioned a fourth pupil, Zalmoxis of Thrace, who ‘some said' also took the name Thales. Though not an Olympian, he must have had an impressive build, for barbarians mistook him for Hercules and worshipped him.

On the Incredible Things Beyond Thule
listed the qualities Pythagoras looked for in those who came to study with him. Its author had learned (his source is not known) that Pythagoras did not agree to teach everyone who came, nor were his choices based only on intelligence or kinship. He observed a candidate's facial expressions, body language, and disposition. He looked for modesty, ability to keep silent being more important than readiness to speak. He observed whether the prospective pupil was moved by any immoderate desire or passion, how anger affected him, whether he was contentious or ambitious, inclined more to friendship or to discord. After a candidate passed those tests, Pythagoras took note of his ability to learn, memorise, and follow rapidly what was said. Of primary importance was how strongly a youth was motivated by temperance and love. Natural gentleness and ‘culture' were essential; ferocity, impudence, shamelessness, sloth, and licentiousness were distinct negatives. Pythagoras expelled pupils ‘as strangers and barbarians' if they failed to live up to his expectations.

In 535 B.C.,
when
the tyranny that had wrenched control from the Geomoroi had ruled for several decades, the most infamous of the tyrants, Polykrates, came to power in Samos. At first he ruled with two brothers, but he soon disposed of them. Samos continued to grow in power and wealth, but not in popularity among her neighbours, for Polykrates became a much hated and feared player in the politics of the eastern Mediterranean. Depending on who described it, his fleet was either one of the most superb navies of the ancient world or a supremely successful band of pirates. Polykrates travelled in person to other countries to seal new agreements and forge connections with rulers like the pharaoh Amasis, but such agreements had little meaning, for he made and shattered alliances with ruthless abandon.

Under Polykrates, Samos reached the pinnacle of her fortunes, not only in terms of economic and rather ugly political prominence, but also in art, literature, and engineering feats. For a time it was the most powerful of all the Greek city-states. Pythagoras lived on Samos for only part of this period, but long enough to experience the excitement and intellectual stimulation that characterised Polykrates' otherwise deplorable reign. Polykrates was the patron of the poet Anacreon and engaged the engineer Eupalinos to construct a new harbour and a water tunnel that was one of the most astounding engineering achievements of the ancient world. It brought water from alpine springs through the mountain above the city of Samos, ending any shortage of water there no matter how dry the summer.
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The fleet grew to a hundred ships, each manned by a thousand archers. In spite of Polykrates' widespread unpopularity and long absences, no one unseated him until finally, in 522 – after Pythagoras had left Samos – a Persian governor of Sardis trumped Polykrates' treachery. He invited him for a state visit and, when he arrived, had him crucified.