the one must have been early taught in the city which the other ruled, or there would have been no connection between the two in the legend. So many points in the Pythagorean doctrine illustrate the Roman spirit, in its infancy, that the philosophy may be taken to illustrate the state, almost as confidently as if it had been formed under purely Roman inspiration.

Pythagoras left Samos, it was said,19 because his native island was governed by a tyrant, and came to Crotona, a Greek city in Italy, where he soon collected a large number of followers from the most distinguished families; 20 of whom he selected three hundred to receive his instructions more familiarly, and to obey them more consistently. His objects can only be imagined, so little remains of any trustworthiness concerning them; but it is sufficiently ascertained, that, whatever he may have made the subject of information or exhortation to his disciples, he was himself free from all political ambition. His authority, however, increased, as his influence extended over all the higher classes of Crotona; and it may then have entered into his schemes to make such a reform in the manners, and, as is barely possible, the laws, also, of the state, as should prove his desire and his ability to be useful amongst his adopted countrymen. So far as any vestiges exist of his achievements as a reformer," Pythagoras appears to have confirmed the

19 Diog. Laert., VIII. 3.

20 Τοῖς πρωτεύσιν Ἰταλιωτῶν. Plut., Phil. cum Princ., Tom. IX. p. 108, ed. Reisk.

21 Justin gives a glowing description of his authority and his works, XX. 4. Cf. Plato, Rep., Lib. X.; Val. Max., VIII. 15, sect. 1, Ext.

aristocracy which must have previously existed in Crotona, by forming its principal men into a society, the conditions of initiation to which were carefully designed in support of the discipline and the knowledge imparted to its members. It was especially enjoined upon them to exclude the uninitiated from their own privileges; and the story is still to be read of one who, at some time, was expelled, and to whom a column was then erected, as if he had been dead, because he explained to others the precepts he had received. The same spirit hardened the Patrician, at Rome, against the Plebeian. Nor was Crotona the only place where the policy of Pythagoras appears to have been established with his doctrines; it spread with them through various cities of Southern Italy, and advancing north,23 perhaps in his lifetime, arrived at Rome.

It would be easier to sketch the Pythagorean philosophy, though the means of doing so are not derived directly from its author, but from his successors; yet a few points will be sufficient to illustrate the higher aspirations of the Romans. Pythagoras was the first, or among the first, to make metaphysics the basis of his doctrines; and though it were insecure as the physical principles which had been the groundwork of other systems, it was able to bear some forms, at least, of higher wisdom. He spoke

* Αἴτιαν ἔχοντα γραψάσθαι τὰ τοῦ Пvdayópov σapws. Clem. Alex., Strom., V. 9. Cf. Diog. Laert.,

VIII. 15.

23 Jamblichus, who wrote a life

of Pythagoras in the beginning of . the fourth century, mentions iepòs Xóyos, "a sacred book," circulated amongst the Latins. Cap. XXVIII.