Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

9717

Porphyry, Life Of Pythagoras, 25

nan While at the Olympic games, he was discoursing with his friends about auguries, omens, and divine signs, and how men of true piety do receive messages from the Gods. Flying over his head was an eagle, who stopped, and came down to Pythagoras. After stroking her awhile, he released her. Meeting with some fishermen who were drawing in their nets heavily laden with fishes from the deep, he predicted the exact number of fish they had caught. The fishermen said that if his estimate was accurate they would do whatever he commanded. They counted them accurately, and found the number correct. He then bade them return the fish alive into the sea; and, what is more wonderful, not one of them died, although they had been out of the water a considerable time. He paid them and left.

Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

11 results
1. Xenophanes, Fragments, None (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
2. Xenophanes, Fragments, None (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
3. Xenophanes, Fragments, None (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
4. Herodotus, Histories, 2.123.2, 4.95-4.96, 7.26-7.29 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) 2.123.2. The Egyptians were the first who maintained the following doctrine, too, that the human soul is immortal, and at the death of the body enters into some other living thing then coming to birth; and after passing through all creatures of land, sea, and air, it enters once more into a human body at birth, a cycle which it completes in three thousand years. 4.95. I understand from the Greeks who live beside the Hellespont and Pontus, that this Salmoxis was a man who was once a slave in Samos, his master being Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus; ,then, after being freed and gaining great wealth, he returned to his own country. Now the Thracians were a poor and backward people, but this Salmoxis knew Ionian ways and a more advanced way of life than the Thracian; for he had consorted with Greeks, and moreover with one of the greatest Greek teachers, Pythagoras; ,therefore he made a hall, where he entertained and fed the leaders among his countrymen, and taught them that neither he nor his guests nor any of their descendants would ever die, but that they would go to a place where they would live forever and have all good things. ,While he was doing as I have said and teaching this doctrine, he was meanwhile making an underground chamber. When this was finished, he vanished from the sight of the Thracians, and went down into the underground chamber, where he lived for three years, ,while the Thracians wished him back and mourned him for dead; then in the fourth year he appeared to the Thracians, and thus they came to believe what Salmoxis had told them. Such is the Greek story about him. 4.96. Now I neither disbelieve nor entirely believe the tale about Salmoxis and his underground chamber; but I think that he lived many years before Pythagoras; ,and as to whether there was a man called Salmoxis or this is some deity native to the Getae, let the question be dismissed. 7.26. While these worked at their appointed task, all the land force had been mustered and was marching with Xerxes to Sardis, setting forth from Critalla in Cappadocia, which was the place appointed for gathering all the army that was to march with Xerxes himself by land. ,Now which of his governors received the promised gifts from the king for bringing the best-equipped army, I cannot say; I do not even know if the matter was ever determined. ,When they had crossed the river Halys and entered Phrygia, they marched through that country to Celaenae, where rises the source of the river Maeander and of another river no smaller, which is called Cataractes; it rises right in the market-place of Celaenae and issues into the Maeander. The skin of Marsyas the Silenus also hangs there; the Phrygian story tells that it was flayed off him and hung up by Apollo. 7.27. In this city Pythius son of Atys, a Lydian, sat awaiting them; he entertained Xerxes himself and all the king's army with the greatest hospitality, and declared himself willing to provide money for the war. ,When Pythius offered the money, Xerxes asked the Persians present who this Pythius was and how much wealth he possessed in making the offer. They said, “O king, this is the one who gave your father Darius the gift of a golden plane-tree and vine; he is now the richest man we know of after you.” 7.28. Xerxes marvelled at this last saying and next himself asked Pythius how much wealth he had. “O king,” said Pythius, “I will not conceal the quantity of my property from you, nor pretend that I do not know; I know and will tell you the exact truth. ,As soon as I learned that you were coming down to the Greek sea, I wanted to give you money for the war, so I inquired into the matter, and my reckoning showed me that I had two thousand talents of silver, and four million Daric staters of gold, lacking seven thousand. ,All this I freely give to you; for myself, I have a sufficient livelihood from my slaves and my farms.” 7.29. Thus he spoke. Xerxes was pleased with what he said and replied: “My Lydian friend, since I came out of Persia I have so far met with no man who was willing to give hospitality to my army, nor who came into my presence unsummoned and offered to furnish money for the war, besides you. ,But you have entertained my army nobly and offer me great sums. In return for this I give you these privileges: I make you my friend, and out of my own wealth I give you the seven thousand staters which will complete your total of four million, so that your four million not lack the seven thousand and the even number be reached by my completing it. ,Remain in possession of what you now possess, and be mindful to be always such as you are; neither for the present nor in time will you regret what you now do.”
5. Plato, Republic, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) 617c. who sat round about at equal intervals, each one on her throne, the Fates, daughters of Necessity, clad in white vestments with filleted heads, Lachesis, and Clotho, and Atropos, who sang in unison with the music of the Sirens, Lachesis singing the things that were, Clotho the things that are, and Atropos the things that are to be. And Clotho with the touch of her right hand helped to turn the outer circumference of the spindle, pausing from time to time. Atropos with her left hand in like manner helped to turn the inner circles, and Lachesi
6. Plato, Symposium, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) 221d. Nestor, Antenor, or others I might mention, with Pericles; and in the same order you may liken most great men; but with the odd qualities of this person, both in himself and in his conversation, you would not come anywhere near finding a comparison if you searched either among men of our day or among those of the past, unless perhaps you borrowed my words and matched him, not with any human being, but with the Silenuses and satyrs, in his person and his speech.
7. Xenophon, The Persian Expedition, 1.2.7, 1.2.13 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
8. Aelian, Varia Historia, 4.17 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
9. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.4.5 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) 1.4.5. The greater number of the Gauls crossed over to Asia by ship and plundered its coasts. Some time after, the inhabitants of Pergamus, that was called of old Teuthrania, drove the Gauls into it from the sea. Now this people occupied the country on the farther side of the river Sangarius capturing Ancyra, a city of the Phrygians, which Midas son of Gordius had founded in former time. And the anchor, which Midas found, A legend invented to explain the name “ Ancyra,” which means anchor. was even as late as my time in the sanctuary of Zeus, as well as a spring called the Spring of Midas, water from which they say Midas mixed with wine to capture Silenus. Well then, the Pergameni took Ancyra and Pessinus which lies under Mount Agdistis, where they say that Attis lies buried.
10. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 8.4-8.5, 8.36 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) 8.4. This is what Heraclides of Pontus tells us he used to say about himself: that he had once been Aethalides and was accounted to be Hermes' son, and Hermes told him he might choose any gift he liked except immortality; so he asked to retain through life and through death a memory of his experiences. Hence in life he could recall everything, and when he died he still kept the same memories. Afterwards in course of time his soul entered into Euphorbus and he was wounded by Menelaus. Now Euphorbus used to say that he had once been Aethalides and obtained this gift from Hermes, and then he told of the wanderings of his soul, how it migrated hither and thither, into how many plants and animals it had come, and all that it underwent in Hades, and all that the other souls there have to endure. 8.5. When Euphorbus died, his soul passed into Hermotimus, and he also, wishing to authenticate the story, went up to the temple of Apollo at Branchidae, where he identified the shield which Menelaus, on his voyage home from Troy, had dedicated to Apollo, so he said: the shield being now so rotten through and through that the ivory facing only was left. When Hermotimus died, he became Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos, and again he remembered everything, how he was first Aethalides, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, and then Pyrrhus. But when Pyrrhus died, he became Pythagoras, and still remembered all the facts mentioned. 8.36. This is what Alexander says that he found in the Pythagorean memoirs. What follows is Aristotle's.But Pythagoras's great dignity not even Timon overlooked, who, although he digs at him in his Silli, speaks ofPythagoras, inclined to witching works and ways,Man-snarer, fond of noble periphrase.Xenophanes confirms the statement about his having been different people at different times in the elegiacs beginning:Now other thoughts, another path, I show.What he says of him is as follows:They say that, passing a belaboured whelp,He, full of pity, spake these words of dole:Stay, smite not ! 'Tis a friend, a human soul;I knew him straight whenas I heard him yelp !
11. Heraclitus Lesbius, Fragments, None

Subjects of this text:

subject	book bibliographic info
alexander iii (the great) of macedon	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
anchyrus	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
ancyra	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
apollo, in myth	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
aristotle	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
asia, greeks (ionians) of	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
asia, name of continent	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
ates/atys	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
bermium, mount	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
boudon, r.	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
bourricaud, f.	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
burkert, w.	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
burnet, j.	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
callisthenes of olynthus	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
celaenae	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
cilicia and cilicians	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
croton	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
cyrus the younger	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
frank, e.	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
gordius	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
heraclitus	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
lityerses	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
macedon and macedonians	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
maeander river	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
marsyas	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
midas, and marsyas	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
midas, and seilenus	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
midas, garden of	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
midas, tomb and epigram of	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
midas	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
pan	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
parmenides	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
phrygia and phrygians, as home of kingship	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
phrygia and phrygians, dominion of	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
plato	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
porphyry	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
pythagoras	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
pythagoras and pythagoreans	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
satyr	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
seilenus, midas and	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
sositheus tragicus	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
tumulus, of midas	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
weber, m.	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
xenophanes'	Cornelli, In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category (2013) 54
xenophanes of colophon	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
xenophon of athens, on persians	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
xenophon of athens, on religious customs and institutions	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
xerxes	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
zeus, cults and shrines of	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71
zeus	Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (2006) 71