Kingsley - From Pythagoras to the Turba Philosophorum- Egypt and Pythagorean Tradition

From Pythagoras to the Turba philosophorum: Egypt and Pythagorean Tradition Author(s): Peter Kingsley Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 57 (1994), pp. 1-13 Published by: The Warburg Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/751460 . Accessed: 18/07/2013 08:21 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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FROM PYTHAGORAS TO THE TURBA PHILOSOPHORUM: EGYPT AND PYTHAGOREAN TRADITION Peter Kingsley here was a time earlier this century when it was common to dismiss the reports about Pythagoras's travels to Egypt as just one more sign of the predilection for romantic fantasy among writers in late antiquity-even though the earliest references to Pythagoras's connections with Egypt date back to the fifth and fourth centuries BC.' Some recent scholars, while duly acknowledging the 'inventiveness' of Greek biographical tradition, have adopted a more open-minded attitude to the possibility that Pythagoras did actually travel to Egypt.2 And yet, even so, the surviving evidence has hardly been given the close attention it deserves. For example, it has been more or less ignored that the theme of Pythagoras travelling far and wide is already implicit in a statement by Heraclitus of Ephesus-who was certainly no romantic, who lived not long after Pythagoras himself, and who was ideally situated to hear local traditions about him considering that Ephesus was on the Asiatic coast opposite Pythagoras's home island of Samos. For Heraclitus, Pythagoras was someone who 'practised inquiry (historia) to a greater extent than any other men'. When we look at the meaning of this term historia, in Ionic Greek but also very often in later literature, we see that its chief and unmistakable implication is of investigations carried out through visiting distant places and people.3 It is also worth noting that because historia as disinterested travel was naturally conducted to a large extent along the normal trade routes, juxtaposition of the terms emporia a commonplace in Greek literature.4 As for and historia-'trade' and 'inquiry'-was Heraclitus's purpose in dwelling on Pythagoras's passion for historia, it was savagely polemical. He made fun of Pythagoras for looking for wisdom everywhere else except in the one place where according to Heraclitus it was to be found-inside for failing to realise the truth, so elegantly formulated by Lao Tzu, oneself-and 1 Cf. e.g. T. Hopfner, Orient und griechische Philosophie, La rvilation d'Hermes Leipzig 1925; A.-J. Festugiere, 7Trismegiste,i, 2nd edn, Paris 1950, pp. 19-44 ('le mirage oriental'). For the 5th- and 4th-century references (Herodotus, Histories ii.81; Isocrates, Busiris 28) see P. Kingsley, 'The Greek Origin of the Sixth-Century Dating of Zoroaster', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, liii, 1990, p. 247 n. 11; idem, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic, Oxford 1995, ch. 17. 2 So e.g.W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of GreekPhilosophy, Cambridge 1962-81, i, pp. 173, 217f. 3 Heraclitus B129, ed. H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th edn, Berlin 1951-2, i, p pp. 180f (iotopiqv vOepirwv dtora cdtvtwv). TicVvrEv The fragment is undoubtedly genuine: M. Marcovich, Heraclitus, Merida 1967, p. 68; W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, Cambridge, Mass. 1972,

p. 131. For historia cf. Herodotus, Histories i.1, ii.19, 99; Plutarch, Theseus xxx.3, etc; Marcovich, op. cit., pp. 69f ('implies here "travelling and inquiry..."'); A.-J. Festugiere, Hippocrate, L'Ancienne midecine, Paris 1948, p. 62 ('inquiry conducted by means of interrogation of the inhabitants of the countries visited'); J. Kerschensteiner, Platon und der Orient, Stuttgart 1945, p. 29. On the importance of viewing Heraclitus's use of language against the background of Ionic Greek see C. H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus, Cambridge 1979, p. 92. 4 Cf. e.g. Plutarch, Solon ii.1 (compare Plutarch's language with Heraclitus B35, B40, B129, ed. Diels and Kranz, op. cit., i, pp. 159, 160, 180f); idem, De defectu oraculorum 419e; Aristides, ed. W. Dindorf, Leipzig Historia 1829, i, pp. 156.13-14, 508.21-3; Theodoretus, ecclesiastica i.23.2.

1 Journal of the Wairburigand Courtauld Institutes, Volume 57, 1994

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PETER KINGSLEY

that 'the further one goes the less one knows: the sages acquire their knowledge without travel'." And yet Heraclitus would only have been able to make fun of Pythagoras in this way if traditions about him as a traveller, explorer and collector of wisdom from distant parts were already in existence, among people who will have known him best, by the late sixth century BC. The Samians were phenomenal traders; they appear, for instance, to have been the first Greeks to exploit commercial possibilities in Andalusian Spain.6 But where Pythagoras himself is concerned we can be more specific, thanks to one significant but neglected piece of evidence. We are told that his father, Mnesarchus, was a gemcutter by trade; the information is highly credible.' What is interesting about this detail is the fact that, at precisely the period when Pythagoras's father is likely to have been living, the island of Samos played a major role in the birth of the Greek art of gem-engraving. In the 570s and 560s BC Greeks seem to have started learning the techniques of working hard stones from easterners, notably Phoenicians. For at least the first generation or two of workers-and it is important to bear in mind that Pythagoras would as a matter of course have been trained to inherit his father's craft-this will inevitably have involved travel in the eastern Mediterranean for the purpose of learning, not to mention a very close relationship with foreign traders and trading as far as obtaining materials was concerned.8 Once again we are brought back to the theme of trade, travel and learning from foreigners-which in connection with sixth-century Samos is hardly surprising. Speaking in general, of all the options for travel available to anyone from Samos in the sixth century BC-and there were manyg-there was one which was by far the most obvious and the likeliest: Egypt. The remarkably close trade links between Egypt and Samos seem to have begun around the start of the seventh century. As a result, Samians found themselves on the receiving end in technology and artistic skills, not to mention artefacts; this continued into the sixth century, with a perpetual incoming stream of curiosities and crafts. By the reign of Amasis (570-526 BC), which probably coincided with Pythagoras's youth and coming of age, the links between Egypt and Samos were closer than ever-with Egypt the island's single most important exchange partner. And it was not just a matter of receiving useful objects or specialised skills from the Egyptians: by at least 570 the Samians already had settlements, and permanent temples, on the Nile delta itself.'0 Needless to say, 5 Tao Te Ching, ch. 47. Cf. Heraclitus B40, B45, B101 (ed. Diels and Kranz, as in n. 3, i, pp. 160, 161, 173). For B35 (ibid., p. 159) see Guthrie (as in n. 2), i, p. 417. 6 R. Carpenter, Beyond the Pillars of Hercules, London 1973, pp. 52-8. It will be noted that Pythagoras is credited in later tradition with visiting 'Iberia' (Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Life 151). see Heraclitus B129 7 For the name Mnesarchus cf. above, n. (HuOcy6prlg MvrlodpXou iotopirlv Guthrie •iocl•ev...: in n.

3); Herodotus, Historiesiv.95;

(as

2), i,

p. 173 with n. 3. Mnesarchus as gem-cutter: Diogenes Laertius, Lives viii.1 = Hermippus, ed. F. Wehrli, Basle 1974, fr. 19; Apuleius, Florida 15; Suda, s.v. Schol. Plato, Republic 600b; Guthrie, op. cit., hu0ay6pa•; i, pp. 173, 176f. Details of this kind from the pen of Hermippus are not to be laughed at (cf. Burkert, as in n. 3, pp. 102f with n. 31; also H. Jacobson, 'Hermippus, Pythagoras

and the Jews', Revue des etudes juives, cxxxv, 1976, pp. 145-9), and in this particular case the independent evidence for gem-engraving and related skills on Samos during the mid-6th century BC offers important corroboration: see J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings, London 1970, pp. 157f, 404. 8 See Boardman, op. cit., pp. 139-41; idem, The Greeks Overseas, 3rd edn, London 1980, p. 71. For the dating of Pythagoras (and, consequently, of his father), see G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd edn, Cambridge 1983, pp. 164, 224. For his father's craft cf. Guthrie's Pythagoras inheriting comments (as in n. 2), i, pp. 173, 176f. 9 Cf. e.g. P. Kingsley, 'Greeks, Shamans and Magi', Studia Iranica, xxiii, 1994, pp. 187-98. 10 G. Shipley, A History of Samos, Oxford 1987, pp. 43, 45, 55-61, 73, 86-8.

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PYTHAGOREAN TRADITION

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the early reports of close affinities between Egyptian and Pythagorean cult or, more specifically, of Pythagorean indebtedness to Egypt which we find already in Herodotus and Isocrates" must in the first instance be assessed against this background of relations between Egypt and Pythagoras's native island. As for the modern idea of dismissing accounts of Pythagoras's links with Egypt as mere fantasies about the Festugiere defined as 'le mirage oriental' -2 superiority of oriental wisdom-what it requires some very radical rethinking. However, there is yet another point which in this connection has apparently been overlooked. Paradoxically, it must also be borne in mind that Pythagoras is likely to have come into contact with traditions of ultimately Egyptian origin not in he had migrated to his new home in southern Egypt itself but elsewhere-after the famous can with We 'Orphic' gold plates, or more accurately pieces Italy. begin of gold foil which were inscribed with directions for finding one's way in the other world and with promises for attaining immortality. Intended to accompany the dead person into the underworld, they have been discovered in graves across much of the above all in southern Italy. The ideas they contain repGreek-speaking world-but resent a vital aspect of the religious landscape in the Greek West which Pythagoras himself will have encountered after he migrated, and which early Pythagorean tradition rapidly assimilated and made its own.1" These gold plates bear remarkable similarities to ancient Egyptian ideas concerning the afterlife, and as a result have often been assumed to have an Egyptian background.14 Giinther Zuntz, it is true, made a brave attempt in his work on Persephone to deny any connection between the Italian and Egyptian phenomena; '5 but the attempt was in vain. He was anxious in particular to claim a 'difference of attitude and purpose' between the Italian and Egyptian texts, on the grounds that the gold plates were strictly religious as opposed to magical; and yet this wish to free the Italian gold plates from any associations with the 'base' world of magic is plainly contradicted by the evidence.16 As far as the textual content of the gold plates is concerned, Zuntz felt bound to acknowledge the 'striking' similarities with spells in the Egyptian so-called Book of the Dead. But at the same time he drew attention to certain supposed differences7 which are in fact unreal: in spite of his remarks to the contrary, we are presented in both cases with the same fundamental themes of guardians in the underworld blocking and challenging the soul that demands refreshment, and of the soul stating its identity by claiming it is one of the gods or is a star in heaven.'8 Differences in points of detail there certainly are; but far from being proof that the Italian and Egyptian texts are 11 See above, n. 1; also Burkert (as in n. 3), pp. 127f. 12 See above, n. 1. 13 Regarding the nature of the gold plates, their links and the significance with Pythagoreanism, of the corrupt state of their texts for dating the tradition they belonged to, see Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy (as in n. 1), chs 17, 19; also Burkert's comments (as in n. 3), pp. 112f. 14 Cf. e.g. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Der Glaube der Hellenen, ii, Berlin 1932, pp. 202f; M. L. West, Early GreekPhilosophy and the Orient, Oxford 1971, pp. 65f with his further comments, 'Zum neuen Goldblittchen aus Zeitschrift fiir Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Hipponion', xviii, 1975, p. 229 n. 2; W. Burkert, 'Le laminette auree:

da Orfeo a Lampone', Orfismo in Magna Grecia (Atti del 140 Convegno di studi sulla Magna Grecia), Naples 1975, pp. 86f; idem, Greek Religion, Oxford 1985, p. 294. 15 G. Zuntz, Persephone, Oxford 1971, pp. 370-6, 385-93. 16 Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy (as in n. 1), ch. 19. Zuntz (as in n. 15), pp. 374f. s18With Zuntz's B1-2 (as in n. 15, pp. 358-61,

17

367), cf. e.g. Book of the Dead, chs 58f, 122 (P. Barguet, Le livre des morts des anciens Egyptiens, Paris 1967, pp. 93, 155f); and see also Papyri Graecae magicae, 2nd edn, ed. K. Preisendanz and A. Henrichs, Stuttgart 1973-4, IV.574-5, with R. Merkelbach's note, Abrasax, iii, Opladen 1992, p. 239.

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PETER KINGSLEY

unrelated, they can just as easily be explained as a result of transformation of of cultural contacts and themes or motifs due to the natural-and normal-process adaptation. '19 There is one other point, however, which Zuntz failed to take into account: the most decisive factor of all. This is the discoveries made in tombs of the seventh to fifth centuries BC, in both Sardinia and Carthage, of strips of gold foil. The strips themselves are Phoenician and Punic in origin, but are engraved with Egyptian figures and rolled up inside amulet tubes usually sculpted at the top with representations of Egyptian gods. These amulets and pieces of gold foil provide the missing the Egyptian and the link-formally, geographically and chronologically-between south-Italian material, and clearly testify to a curve of influence from Egypt up to southern Italy via the Phoenicians and Carthage.20 Yet they are by no means the only links between Egypt and the Greek West. Evidence of heavy Egyptian influence in Italy itself, from the eighth and seventh centuries BC onwards, is now well And there are also, for example, the Egyptian magiknown and well documented.21 have been one representing Isis suckling Horus-which cal objects-including found in the famous Sicilian sanctuary of the Gaggera at Selinus. Dating back to the seventh century BC, these too are a result of Phoenician and Carthaginian intermediaries.22 The religious links between Selinus and southern Italy were very close.23 As for the representation of Isis suckling Horus, it offers a striking parallel to the imagery of the reborn initiate suckling at the breasts of Persephone in imitation of her son Dionysus: imagery which made Zuntz 'shudder', and which he endeavoured to ignore, but which takes us to the heart of the message engraved on the Orphic gold plates.24 On a more general level, these various links between Egypt and both Sicily and southern Italy are obviously relevant to the occurrence of Egyptian ideas in Orphic mythology.25 It was in Sicily and southern Italy that Orphic mythology had its literary roots, often in recognisably Pythagorean circles; and the practice of referring to Orphic traditions as 'really Egyptian and Pythagorean' goes back to Herodotus in the fifth century (~oiot Aiyoucziotol Icai HOuayopiootyt) BC.26 Neither Pythagoras nor the early Pythagoreans grew up in a self-enclosed world of purely Greek culture. To assume that they did is to contribute to creating the real 19 See on this point Burkert's remarks, 'Itinerant Diviners and Magicians: A Neglected Element in Cultural Contacts', The GreekRenaissance of the Eighth Century BC: Tradition and Innovation, ed. R. Hfigg, Stockholm 1983, p. 119; idem, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, Cambridge, Mass. 1992, p. 7 with n. 31; and D. Pingree, 'MUL.APIN and Vedic Astronomy', DUMU-E2-DUBBA-A, Studies in Honor of Ake W Sjiiberg, Philadelphia 1989, pp. 439-45. 20 A. A. Barb, 'Mystery, Myth, and Magic', The Legacy of Egypt, 2nd edn, ed. J. R. Harris, Oxford 1971, pp. 14851 with fig. 2; R. Kotansky, 'Incantations and Prayers on Inscribed Greek Amulets', Magika Hiera, ed. C. A. Faraone and D. Obbink, New York 1991, pp. 114f with nn. 49, 54f. 21 See G. H6lbl, Beziehungen der dgyptischen Kultur zu Altitalien, Leiden 1979.

22 G. Sfameni Gasparro, I culti orientali in Sicilia, Leiden 1973, pp. 50-2, 198f. Cf. also ibid, pp. 1-12; B. Pace, Arte e civilta della Sicilia antica, i, Milan 1935, p.

416. 23 Zuntz (as in n. 15), pp. 173-7. 24 Kingsley,

Ancient Philosophy (as in n. 1), ch.

17;

Zuntz, op. cit., p. 324. 25 S. Morenz, 'Agypten und die altorphische Kosmogonie',

Aus Antike und Orient: Festschrift Wilhelm Schubart,

Leipzig 1950, pp. 64-111; J. Bergman, Ich bin Isis, Uppsala 1968, pp. 33-5; and cf. also L. Motte, 'Orphica Aegyptiaca

I', Langues orientales anciennes, philologie et

linguistique,ii, 1989, pp. 253-72. 26 Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy (as in n. 1), chs 10-12, 17; Herodotus, Histories ii.81 with n. 1 above.

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PYTHAGOREAN TRADITION

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mirage: not le mirage oriental but le mirage grec. If we wish to understand the historical background to Pythagoreanism, we need to assess all the available information with care; no detail is too small to be disregarded. For instance, in view of the place occupied by Phoenicia and Carthage in the pattern of evidence considered above, it is worth noting that Pythagoreans are more than once brought into contact with as including Carthaginians among their number or as being Carthage-either by taught Carthaginians.27 Particularly interesting in this regard is evidence suggestthat Archytas, Plato's Pythagorean friend and mentor, was taught mechanics by ing a Teucer from Carthage: one more detail not to be ignored.28 II

Some four hundred years after Pythagoras, probably in the late second century BC, we encounter the figure of Bolus of Mendes, from the Nile delta in Egypt.29 Very little is known about him, but that little is particularly significant. On the one hand the evidence suggests that he played an important role as a transmitter of Pythagorean traditions, and specifically of miracle stories about wonder-workers of antiquity -with Pythagoras himself taking centre-stage.30 What is more, Bolus also produced 27 Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Life 128 (Miltiades); Diogenes Laertius, Lives viii.79. In the Diogenes passage, Archytas the mechanic is to be identified with Archytas the Pythagorean: the doubling of people of the same name is plainly due to Diogenes using different sources which he failed to understand. See on this point A. Mieli, I presocratici, i, Florence 1916, pp. 341f n. 5; P. Wuilleumier, Tarente, Paris 1939, p. 576; for the identin the Suda, J. H. Waszink, art. ical phenomenon 'Bolos', Reallexikon fiir Antike und Christentum, ii, 1954, its recurrence elsewhere in Diogenes col. 502; and-for viii.46 with A. Delatte's comments, La Vie de -Lives Pythagore de Diogene Larce, Brussels 1922, pp. 251f, and Burkert (as in n. 3), pp. 118f, 181 n. 111. 28 Diogenes Laertius, Lives viii.79 with n. 27 above. The detail is certainly not to be sneezed at: cf. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca xiv.41.3, and H. Diels, Antike Technik, 2nd edn, Leipzig 1920, pp. 84f. For Archytas as mechanic, and for the influence of this aspect of Pythagoreanism on Plato, see Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy (as in n. 1), chs 1lf. The assertion that Phoenicians and Carthaginians had no original ideas 'because they were more adept at taking over than discovering things' (E. W. Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery, i, Oxford 1969, p. 54) is a graphic example of cultural prejudice writ large. Cf. M. Bernal's comments, Black Athena, i, London 1987, pp. 337-64, 374-99, esp. 345f. 29 On the dating of Bolus see P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, Oxford 1972, i, p. 440; J. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, v.4, Cambridge 1980, p. 325. 30 Cf. the Suda, s.v. B6Aog Hnepi MEv6i-og Ianu0y6petog. dK T1} OV tOv

UVvyvox&EOg

tOv

1oXoptv

gi

1tCioto-tv

I 1fq

dy6vtmv, H•pi OutiUmawv, plus Apollonius's Historiae mirabiles 1-6 together with the incipit to the work (BeXoi) and e.g. Burkert (as in n. 3), p. 141 nn. 115f; also H. Demoulin, lEpimenide de Crete, Brussels 1901, pp. 71f. Regarding the two titles mentioned in the Suda, there is no reason to follow those (e.g. A. Giannini, 'Studi sulla paradossografia greca', Acme, xvii, 1964, p. 109 and

n. 50) who assume they were alternative names for the same work. The first will have meant in origin something like 'Concerning Matters Demanding our Attention when Reading Stories', and the work was probably to the lepi written in the form of a commentary auw~aoiwv-in the same way that Bolus's Xetp6oq1tZeCis on his said to have been written as a commentary (Vitruvius, De architectura ix.1.14; R. Halleux, Les