Greek Philosophers: The Brotherhood Of Pythagoras

Pythagoras is one of the most known ancient Greek philosophers. He spent his early years on the island of Samos, where he was born. At the age of forty, he moved to the city of Croton, Italy. Most of his philosophical activity occurred there. Pythagoras gained his famous status by founding a group called the Brotherhood of Pythagoreans. The Brotherhood of Pythagoreans devoted themselves to the study of mathematics. Pythagoras believed that "Number rules the universe,”. Pythagoreans gave numerical values to many objects and ideas. Pythagoras is best known for proving that the Pythagorean Theorem was true. Pythagoreans were interested in philosophy, especially in music and mathematics. Pythagoras and his follower, Pythagoreans, had two ways of making order out of chaos. Music is noise that

makes sense, and mathematics is rules for how the world works.
Pythagoras was born in the island of Samos around 569 BC. His father, Mnesarchus, was a merchant and his mother Pythais, was a native of Samos. As a child, Pythagoras was intelligent and well-educated.
At the age 18, he visited Miletus; where he met Thales. By that time, Thales was very old and is not believed to have taught Pythagoras much. However, it was this meeting that triggered his interest in the science of mathematics. Philosophers like Thales, Pherekydes, and Anaximander all influenced Pythagoras at a young age. Thales created a strong impression on him. He contributed to Pythagoras’s interest in astronomy and mathematics. On Thales’s advice, Pythagoras travelled to Egypt and learned a great deal about astronomy and mathematics there. He spent many years in Egypt in search of all available knowledge.Pythagoras is believed to have had strong desire to learn. He was taught by wide range of teachers and philosophers. He attended many lectures given by Anaximander. Anaximander’s interest in cosmology and geometry influenced Pythagoras to a large extent.
Pythagoras was famous for his religious teachings and made several contributions to science and religion.

He believed that a person’s soul does not die and is destined to a cycle of rebirths. His doctrine later came to be known as ‘Pythagoreanism’,.

Around 530 BC, Pythagoras migrated to Croton, Italy. There, he founded a philosophical and religious school that attracted many followers. He established society called Mathematikoi. The members of his society lived together and followed strict rules. Pythagoras taught all the members of the society individually and personally. Due to the strict rules, there is not much known of Pythagoras’s school.

Pythagoras has commonly been credited for discovering the Pythagorean Theorem of geometry. Though this theorem was previously utilized by Babylonians and Indians; it is widely believed that Pythagoras was first to prove it. He also studied properties of numbers which would be familiar to us today, like even and odd numbers.

There are very few records of Pythagoras’s personal life. According to some historical accounts, Pythagoras married Theano, a native of Croton. He had one son named Telauges and three daughters Myia, Damo and

Arignote.
Most of his works were lost throughout the history and very few survived. Pythagorean brotherhood couldn’t survive for long. According to certain historical accounts Pythagoras died along with his disciples in the temple, while some other evidences suggest that he fled to Tarentum and then to Metapontum, where he starved himself to death.
Primarily, however, Pythagoras was a philosopher. Pythagoreans held the following philosophical and ethical teachings: the dependence of the dynamics of world structure on pairs of opposites, successive reincarnation in different species until its eventual purification, and the understanding that all existing objects were fundamentally composed of form and not of material substance. In their ethical practices, the Pythagorean were famous for their mutual friendship, unselfishness, and honesty.