CHAPTER 9

HOW HE LIVED AT SAMOS

Having been a diligent auditor and disciple of all these, he returned home and earnestly addicted himself to enquiry after such things as he had omitted.112 First, as soon as he returned to Ionia (says Antiphon, cited by Porphyry, repeated and enlarged by Iamblicus), he built in his country within the city a school which even yet is called the Semicircle of Pythagoras.¹¹³ Here the Samians, when they would consult about public affairs, would assemble, choosing to enquire after things honest, just, and advantageous in that place which he, who took care of them all, had erected. Without the city he made a cave proper for his study of philosophy, in which he lived for the most part day and night, and discoursed with his friends, and made enquiry into the most useful part of Mathematics, taking the same course as Minos son of Jupiter. And so far did he surpass all whom he taught, that they, for the smallest theorem, were reputed great persons.

Pythagoras now perfected the science of the celestial bodies and covered it with all demonstrations Arithmetical and Geometrical. Nor this only, but he became much more admired for the things he performed afterwards. For philosophy had now received a great increase, and all Greece began to admire him; and the best and most studious persons, for his sake, reported to Samos desiring to participate of his institutions.