Pythagoras' Prohibitions

¹⁷ His symbols were: “Do not stir the fire with a sword.”

“Do not sit down on a bushel.”

“Do not devour your heart.”

“Do not aid men in discarding a burden, but in increasing one.”

“Always have your bed packed up.”

“Do not bear the image of a God on a ring.”

“Efface the traces of a pot in the ashes.”

“Do not wipe a seat with a lamp.”

“Do not make water in the sunshine.”

“Do not walk in the main street.”

“Do not offer your right hand lightly.”

“Do not cherish swallows under your roof.”

“Do not cherish birds with crooked talons.”

“Do not defile; and do not stand upon the parings of your nails, or the cuttings of your hair.”

“Avoid a sharp sword.”

“When you are travelling abroad, look not back at your own borders.”

The precept not to stir fire with a sword meant, not to provoke the anger or swelling pride of powerful men; not to violate the beam of the balance meant, not to transgress fairness and justice; not to sit on a bushel is to have an equal care for the present and for the future, for by the bushel is meant one’s daily food. By not devouring one’s heart, he intended to show that we ought not to waste away our souls with grief and sorrow.

In the precept that a man when travelling abroad should not turn his eyes back, he recommended those who were departing from life not to be desirous to live, and not to be too much attracted by the pleasures here on earth. And the other symbols may be explained in a similar manner, that we may not be too prolix here.

¹⁸ Above all things, he prohibited the eating of:

• the erythinus
• the melanurus

He told his disciples to abstain from the hearts of animals and from beans.

Aristotle informs us, that he sometimes used also to add to these prohibitions paunches and mullet.

Some authors assert that he himself used to be contented with honey and honeycomb, and bread, and that he never drank wine in the day time. And his desert was usually vegetables, either boiled or raw; and he very rarely ate fish.

His dress was white, very clean, and his bed-clothes were also white, and woollen, for linen had not yet been introduced into that country. He was never known to have eaten too much, or to have drunk too much, or to indulge in the pleasures of love. He abstained wholly from laughter, and from all such indulgences as jests and idle stories.

When he was angry, he never chastised any one, whether slave or freeman. He used to call admonishing, feeding storks.

He used to practise divination, as far as auguries and auspices go, but not by means of burnt offerings, except only the burning of frankincense. And all the sacrifices which he offered consisted of inanimate things. But some, however, assert that he did sacrifice animals, limiting himself to cocks,[347] and sucking kids, which are called ἁπάλιοι, but that he very rarely offered lambs. Aristoxenus, however, affirms that he permitted the eating of all other animals, and only abstained from oxen used in agriculture, and from rams.

¹⁹ The same author tells us, as I have already mentioned, that he received his doctrines from Themistoclea, at Delphi.

Hieronymus says, that when he descended to the shades below, he saw the soul of :

• Hesiod bound to a brazen pillar, and gnashing its teeth
• Homer suspended from a tree, and snakes around it, as a punishment for the things that they had said of the Gods.

Those people also were punished who refrained from commerce with their wives. Because of this he was greatly honoured by the people of Crotona.

But Aristippus, of Cyrene, in his Account of Natural Philosophers, says that Pythagoras derived his name from the fact of his speaking (ἀγορεύειν) truth no less than the God at Delphi (τοῦ πυθίου).

It is said that he used to admonish his disciples to repeat these lines to themselves whenever they returned home to their houses:

In what have I transgress’d? What have I done? What that I should have done have I omitted?

And that he used to forbid them to offer victims to the Gods, ordering them to worship only at those altars which were unstained with blood. He forbade them also to swear by the Gods; saying, “That every man ought so to exercise himself, as to be worthy of belief without an oath.” He also taught men that it behoved them to honour their elders, thinking that which was precedent in point of time more honourable; just as in the world, the rising of the sun was more so than the setting; in life, the beginning more so than the end; and in animals, production more so than destruction.

Another of his rules was that men should honour the Gods above the dæmones, heroes above men; and of all men parents were entitled to the highest degree of reverence. Another, that people should associate with one another in such a way as not to make their friends enemies, but to render their enemies friends. Another was that they should think nothing exclusively their own. Another was to assist the law, and to make[348] war upon lawlessness.

Not to destroy or injure a cultivated tree, nor any animal either which does not injure men. That modesty and decorum consisted in never yielding to laughter, and yet not looking stern. He taught that men should avoid too much flesh, that they should in travelling let rest and exertion alternate; that they should exercise memory; that they should never say or do anything in anger; that they should not pay respect to every kind of divination; that they should use songs set to the lyre; and by hymns to the Gods and to eminent men, display a reasonable gratitude to them.

He also forbade his disciples to eat beans, because, as they were flatulent, they greatly partook of animal properties.

He said that:

• men kept their stomachs in better order by avoiding them.
• such abstinence made the visions in one’s sleep more gentle and free from agitation