Pythagoras was a charismatic figure, who wore his hair and fingernails long, as did his followers. Wearing a beard was another distinguishing characteristic of the Pythagoreans. Though there are no sculptures of Pythagoras, proverbs remain about the “long-haired Samian” (Gorman: 1979: 1 07&40). Pythagoras was believed to have divine powers and was able to communicate with animals and change their behavior. Porphyry gives these accounts:

“For catching the Daunian bear, that is said to have wounded many of those who lived in its country, he stroked it for a long time and fed it with barley cake and acorns and having sworn it never again to touch living creatures, let it go. Thereupon it went off into the mountains and thickets and was never again seen attacking any animal at all (ibid: 114-115).

Once he came upon fishermen drawing in their nets from the deep with a great catch, and he foretold to them how many fish they were pulling, specifying the number. When the men undertook to do whatever he might order, should this number turn out to be correct, he commanded them to let the fish go again, alive, after they had counted them accurately. What was yet more marvelous, although the fish stayed out of water for all the long time it took to count them, none of them died while he was present” (ibid: 115).

Pythagoras apparently had strong animal rights instincts as part of his aversion to eating animals. He was said to dislike hunting and distained butchers and cooks. Pythagoras’ ban of eating beans applied to oxen as well:

“Again, when he saw an ox in Tarentum eating green beans in a pasture that contained many sorts of food, he went up to the oxherd and advised him to tell the ox to abstain from beans. The oxherd answered him with ridicule and said that, he didn’t speak ox language. So, Pythagoras went near and whispered in the ear of the ox. It not only left the beanfield at that moment but never again touched beans. It lived to an extreme old age in Tarentum, staying near the temple of Hera, and was called the sacred ox’ and ate such food as the passers-by offered it” (ibid: 115).

Porphyry relates numerous stories about Pythagoras’ miraculous powers:

“To put it bluntly, about no one else have greater and more extraordinary things been believed. For he is reported to have uttered proclamations which earthquakes would not transgress, spells which rapidly drove off plagues and checked violent winds and hailstorms and calmed the waters of rivers and seas, so that his companions could easily cross them. It is said, moreover, that these were handed down to Empedocles and Epimenides and Abaris, who thus in many places performed similar miracles, as their poems clearly evidence” {ibid:116}.

Diogenes relates an account of where Pythagoras received his divine training:

“… Pythagoras took his doctrines from the Delphic priestess Themistoclea. Hieronymus, however, says that, when he had descended into Hades, he saw the soul of Hesoid bound fast to a brazen pillar and gibbering, and the soul of Homer hung on a tree with serpents writhing about it, this being their punishment for what they had said about the gods; he also saw under torture those who would not remain faithful to their wives. This, says our authority, is why he was honoured by the people of Croton. Aristippus of Cyrene affirms in his work On the Physicists that he was named Pythagoras because he uttered the truth as infallibly as did the Pythian oracle” (Diogenes: Hicks: 339).

The wrath and revenge of the gods has produced fear in humans to obey divine edicts in many religions. The image of Homer hanging from a tree harassed by serpents is enough to put the fear of god’s punishment in anybody. Since Pythagoras was believed to be in close touch with the gods and speak the truth, it is not surprising that he became a religious leader with a large following. Disciples were to constantly question and evaluate their behavior. Before entering their dwelling, they were to first ask themselves: “Where did I trespass? What did I achieve? And unfulfilled what duties did leave?” (ibid: 339).

There were ways to please the gods other than by not insulting them. In direct opposition to his era, where the only meat eaten was sacrificed meat, Pythagoras bid his followers: “Not to let victims be brought for sacrifice to the gods, and to worship only at the altar unstained with blood” (ibid: 339).

Diogenes give this rendition as told by Aristotle in his Constitution of Delos:

“Of course, the only altar at which he worshipped was that of Apollo the Giver of Life, behind the Altar of Horns at Delos, for thereon were placed flour and meal and cakes, without the use of fire, and there was no animal victim” (ibid: 333).

Porphyry relates this account of what Pythagoras did sacrifice to the gods:

“In sacrificing to the gods, he practiced simplicity, propitiating them with barley groats and a cake and frankincense and myrtles, and least of all with animal offerings, except occasionally with cocks and with the tenderest pigs. He once sacrificed an ox, however (but according to the more accurate authorities, it was an ox made of dough), when he found the square of the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle equal to the sum of the squares of the other sides” (Porphyry: Hadas: 119).

It is interesting to note that whether Pythagoras actually sacrificed an ox or a dough ox to celebrate his mathematical discovery, meat at least symbolically, according to this story, was
seen as a higher status food.

What did Pythagoras eat if he didn’t eat meat? Pythagoras had views about what foods were good for humans to eat as well as what to avoid. According to Porphyry, Pythagoras’ diet was as follows:

“Of his diet, the breakfast was honeycomb or honey, the dinner bread of millet or barley and vegetables, whether boiled or raw. He would eat only rarely of the flesh of sacrificial victims, and this not from every part of the body. Generally, when he was about to descend into adyta of the gods and remain there for some time, he used foods that would keep away hunger and thirst. That which would keep away hunger he composed of poppy seed and sesame and the skin of a squill washed carefully until cleansed of the juice around it, and flower stalks of asphodel, and leaves of mallow and barley groats and barley corns and chickpeas, of all which he chopped up equal quantities and soaked the chopping’s with honey from Hymettus. That which would keep away thirst he made of cucumber seeds and juicy raisins, from which he took out the seeds, and coriander flowers and seed of mallow (again) and purslane and cheese gratings and the finest wheat meal and cream, all of which he mixed with honey from the islands. He said Hercules had learned these recipes from Demeter when he was sent into waterless Libya. As a result of this diet Pythagoras kept his body always in the same condition, as if in a scale. He was not sometimes healthy and sometimes sick, nor again sometimes getting fatter and increasing in girth, sometimes losing weight, and thinning down. His soul, too, always revealed through his appearance the same disposition, for he was neither much relaxed by pleasure nor withdrawn because of pain, nor did he ever seem to be in the grip of joy or grief; indeed, no one ever saw him laughing or weeping” (ibid: 118-119).

What an elaborate recipe! I can’t image removing the seeds from raisins for a potion to stave off thirst. One wonders if the poppy seeds, having hallucinogenic properties, helped to bring him closer to the gods or inspired thoughts. Diogenes describes Pythagoras’ diet further:

“Above all, he forbade as food red mullet and blacktail, and he enjoined abstinence from the hearts of animals and from beans, and sometimes, according to Aristotle, even from paunch and gurnard. Some say that he contented himself with just some honey or a honeycomb or bread, never touching wine in the daytime, and with greens boiled or raw for dainties, and fish but rarely. His robe was white and spotless, his quilts of white wool, for linen had not yet reached those parts. He was never known to over-eat, to behave loosely, or to be drunk” (Diogenes: Hicks: 337).

Pythagoras along with many of the ancient Greeks, stressed moderation in diet, drink, and sex. Diogenes gives this account:

“Drinking he calls, in a word, a snare, and he discountenances all excess, saying that no one should go beyond due proportion either in drinking or in eating. Of sexual indulgence, too, he says, ‘Keep to the winter for sexual pleasures, in summer abstain; they are less harmful in autumn and spring, but they are always harmful and not conductive to health.’ Asked once when a man should consort with a woman, he replied, “When you want to lose what strength you have” (ibid: 329).

As far as where babies come from:

“Living creatures are reproduced from one another by germination; there is no such thing as spontaneous generation from earth. The germ is a clot of brain containing hot vapour within it; and this, when brought to the womb, throws out, from the brain, ichor, fluid and blood, whence are formed flesh, sinews, bones, hairs, and the whole of the body, while soul and sense come from the vapour within. First congealing in about forty days, it receives form and, according to the ratios of “harmony,” in seven, nine, or at the most ten, months, the mature child is brought forth” (ibid: 345).

What are people made up of and how are we different from the animals?

“The soul of man, he says, is divided into three parts, intelligence, reason, and passion. Intelligence and passion are possessed by other animals as well, but reason by man alone. The seat of the soul extends from the heart to the brain; the part of it which is in the heart is passion, while the parts located in the brain are reason and intelligence. The senses are distillations from these. Reason is immortal, all else mortal. The soul draws nourishment from the blood; the faculties of the soul are winds, for they as well as the soul are invisible, just as the aether is invisible. The veins, arteries, and sinews are the bonds of the soul. But when it is strong and settled down into itself, reasonings and deeds become its bonds. When cast out upon the earth, it wanders in the air like the body” (ibid: 347).

Pythagoras was famous for the axiom that “everything resembles number.” According to an account given by Gersh:

“lamblichus’ De Vita Pythagorica attributes the use of numerical methods of divination to the Sage himself, and according to the author one of Pythagoras’ greatest achievements was that he was able to foretell events not by means of blood-sacrifice but using numbers, for this method was ‘purer, more divine, and closer to the heavenly numbers of the gods'” (Gersh:1978:301).

Porphyry gives this explanation of how Pythagoras came up with his unique view of numbers as they relate to the world:

“According to several authorities, and especially Moderatus of Gades, who had made a very intelligent collection in ten books of the doctrines of the Pythagorean school, the study of numbers was pursued for the following reason. Since the Pythagoreans were unable to express clearly in speech the first forms and first principles, because these are difficult to comprehend and explain, they turned to numbers for the sake of clear teaching, imitating the geometers and the grammarians. For example, the latter, wishing to express the elements of speech and their power, turned to the written letters, saying — as far as primary teaching was concerned — that these were the elements, although later they teach that the letters are not elements but that through them an idea is given of the true elements. Similarly, the geometers, since they are not able to present by speech the bodiless forms, turn to the drawings of the shapes, saying, “This is the triangle,” although they mean that the triangle is not the visible thing but what is similar to that, and thus, through the visible drawing, they present the concept of the triangle. Accordingly, in the case of the first reasons and forms the Pythagoreans did the same thing: since they were not able to express in words the bodiless forms and the first principles, they turned to the explanation by means of numbers” (Porphyry: Hadas: 123).

Ovid, the Roman poet born in 43 A.D., also reputed to be a vegetarian, wrote about Pythagoras in his Metamorphoses, Bk XV:

“There was a man here [Croton], a Samian by birth, but he had fled forth from Samos and its rulers, and through hatred of tyranny was living in voluntary exile. He, though the gods were far away in the heavenly regions, still approached them with his thought, and what Nature denied to his mortal vision he feasted on with his mind’s eye. And when he had surveyed all things by reason and wakeful diligence, he would give out to the public ear the things worthy of their learning and would teach the crowds, which listened in wondering silence to his words, the beginnings of the great universe, the causes of things and what their ‘nature is: what God is, whence come the snows, what is the origin of lightening, whether it is Jupiter or the winds that thunder from the riven clouds, what causes the earth to quake, by what law the stars perform their courses, and whatever else is hidden from men’s knowledge.

He was the first to decry the placing of animal food upon our tables. His lips learned indeed but not believed in this, he was the first to open in such words as these: “0 mortals, do not pollute your bodies with a food so impious. You have the fruits of the earth, you have apples, bending down the branches with their weight, and grapes swelling to ripeness on the vines; you have also delicious herbs and vegetables which can be mellowed and softened by the help of fire. Nor are you without milk or honey, fragrant with the bloom of thyme. The earth, prodigal of her wealth, supplies you her kindly sustenance and offers you food without bloodshed and slaughter. With flesh the wild beasts appease their hunger, and yet not all, since the horse, the sheep and cattle live on grass; but those whose nature is savage and untamed, Armenian tigers, raging lions, bears and wolves, all these delights in bloody food. Oh, how criminal it is for flesh to be stored away in flesh, for one greedy body to grow fat with food gained from another, for one live creature to go on living through the destruction of another living thing! And so in the midst of the wealth of food which Earth, the best of mothers, has produced, it is your pleasure to chew the piteous flesh of slaughtered animals with your savage teeth, and thus to repeat the Cyclops’ horrid manners! And you cannot, without destroying other life, appease the cravings of your greedy and insatiable mawl” (Ovid: Loeb: Bk XV:369-370).

No writings from Pythagoras remain so we are forced to rely upon the oral tradition recorded in antiquity to try to make sense of his influence. Since Pythagoras was such an important ancient historical figure there were many prominent ancient scholars who wrote about him. What is fact, and what is fiction, no one will ever know for sure. It is still useful to study the ancient record and try to attempt to gain insight about the past.

Marcel Detienne, in his book The Cuisine of Sacrifice Among the Greeks, says of the Pythagoreans, “To refuse to eat meat is not only to behave in a manner different from ones’ fellows, but also to decide not to carry out the most important act in civil religion. This so-called vegetarianism is a singularly efficacious way of renouncing the world” (Detienne:1989:6).

Vegetarian movements throughout the course of history have run into similar criticisms. Meat has always been associated with status because it is generally expensive to raise and buy. To
deliberately renounce a high-status food when one has the means to consume it is viewed as bizarre, aberrant, and political behavior. Most traditional cultures have not consumed great quantities of meat because it is an inefficient source of protein to raise. Meat has been used more as an infrequent, though sought after, flavoring agent to a meal, instead of the main course.

Pythagoras and his followers challenged the common beliefs of the people in more ways than by refusing to eat meat. Their philosophy was steeped in thoughts and actions about life after death, moderation in eating and drinking, and making sense of the universe. Ironically, the Pythagorean school of thought was mystical, yet it relied upon the concrete structure of mathematics to understand the world. His mathematical innovations are relevant today and have changed the way we see the world. It is believed that Pythagoras was the first to apply math to nature and provide the natural world with a rational foundation based on math concepts. He made contributions to mathematics, music, the planets and trying to figure out the universe and how it works. He also met with his contemporaries in Italy, Egypt, and Persia to discuss and compare their views on math and spirituality. Pythagoras’ innovations in math have had a profound effect on geometry, algebra, and other theories that still prove true today.

Everything resembles numbers

Pythagorean theorem

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss said that “food is good to think.” It is interesting to note that vegetarians in history often came from thinking professions — philosophy and the arts. The vegetarianism of Pythagoras developed from intense thought about the implications concerning what we eat.

Part 3 will be published on the Food is Good to Think Blog November 1, 2023. It will include the philosophers Empedocles, Theophrastus, Apollonius, Porphyry, and the Conclusion.