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Page 2
One of the misconceptions he had to contend with, was that he learned geometry from the Egyptians. That wasn't true, he thought. He had been well-acquainted with geometry from Thales and Anaximander (who introduced the sundial and invented the making of maps, which is called cartography).
When Polycrates was killed, and King Cambyses died in 522 B.C., Pythagoras returned to the island of Samos. He had obtained his freedom from King Darius of Persia who controlled Samos on his return. He would take the manner in which he obtained his freedom to the grave with him. No one needed to know how he had bought his way back to freedom. A few months after his return to the island of Samos, Pythagoras once again left, but this time for Crete where he studied the system of laws. When he returned to Samos, he formed a school, called the 'semicircle' of Pythagoras to discuss questions about righteousness. What made for justice and goodness? After establishing the 'semicircle', he found a cave and spent many days and nights thinking about mathematical questions. Those had been the best days of his life, the formative years and beyond. Now he was an old man on the verge of death. Pythagoras bent his head and fixed his gaze on his cane. How would the world remember him with so many rumors and falsehoods circulating now? Would future historians know the reformer, the statesman, the philosopher, the religious teacher or the mathematician? Would they remember anything all of Pythagoras, the true man? Would they remember him only for his mathematical theorems or for the fact that he played the lyre (a harp) for those who were ill? Would they remember him at all? So much of history was nothing more than inaccurate testimonies of men who wanted to idolize those men who they thought made important contributions to society. Pythagoras hoped he wouldn't be one of those men but who knew what history had in mind for him? How would he be remembered in a hundred years? In five hundred? In two thousand? Time had a way of obscuring the details of a person's life . . .
The copyright of the article A Discussion With Pythagoras - Part 1 - Page 2 in Ancient Greece is owned by Suzi Goode. Permission to republish A Discussion With Pythagoras - Part 1 - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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