Pythagoras

(circa 582-500 or 569-475 BCE) The famous Greek philosopher, mathematician and religious reformer.

Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos and revered to this day with the principal city on the island named after him, Pythagoreon (originally the city was called Samos).

The son of Mnesarkhus (Mnesarchus), Pythagoras migrated to Croton, Italy circa 530 BCE and began teaching religion and science but probably the two disciplines were not separated or distinguishable from one another.

It must be emphasized that what we know of Pythagoras is mostly conjecture and inference; although Plato (circa 427-347 BCE) and Aristotle (circa 384-322 BCE) gave heed to Pythagoras’ religious and mathematical teachings you must remember that Pythagoras had been dead for at least 50 years before Plato was born; all religious and scientific teachings that we ascribe to Pythagoras are all derived from sources removed from Pythagoras by several generations; in some cases, the structure and details of Pythagorean doctrine was not finalized until 500 years after his death.

His religious teachings made him a celebrity in his own time but his scientific insights have endured through the ages; to most modern students, he is perhaps most noted for the formulation of the Pythagorean Theorem which states: in a “right triangle” (a triangle with one angle equal to ninety degrees, i.e. the “right angle”), the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, i.e. A squared + B squared = C squared (with C being the hypotenuse).

• Histories, book 4, chapter 95