His education had not been neglected despite the fact he wasn't home much. He had been taught to play the lyre, he could recite Homer and he could his own during a discussion which his friends liked to participate in.
When Pythagoras had been twenty years old, he met a fragile and old philosopher, one of the Seven Wise Men of Hellas (Ancient Greece) after predicting the eclipse of the sun almost a hundred years earlier. Thales had discovered the concept of geometry, the study of the measurement and relationship of angles, lines, surfaces and solids. Thales hadn't lived long enough to teach young Pythagoras much but had passed on his love for astronomy and mathematics.
Pythagoras had met Polycrates after the tyrant seized Samos in 535 B.C. Many people thought, even to this day, that he and Polycrates had had an argument and Polycrates had banished him to Egypt but the truth was much simpler than that. Samos and Egypt had an alliance and the chance to learn in Egypt proved too tempting for Pythagoras to resist. He spent twenty-two years there, studying the Egyptian mysteries. He visited many temples and discussed the mysteries with the priests. When he applied for admission to the priesthood at a temple, he was refused. However, the one at Diospolis accepted him. Many of the beliefs he learned in Egypt, followed him through life. Among those beliefs were: to wear clothing made of any material except animals skin, not to eat beans, secrecy in the priesthood, and a striving for purity.
