Did Pythagoras Study Philosophy in Egypt?

Pythagoras of Samos (lived c. 570 – 495 BCE) is undoubtedly among the most famous of all ancient Greek philosophers. Unfortunately, extremely little can be said about him historically with any degree of certainty. As far as we know, Pythagoras never wrote anything himself and the only contemporary references to him come from the meagre fragments that have survived from the originally much more voluminous writings of his contemporaries. These sources are enough to establish that he was almost certainly a real person, but his life is almost completely obscure.

The later sources about Pythagoras that provide most of our information about him are filled with all kinds of unreliable legends. As I discuss in this article from March 2018, although most people today believe that Pythagoras was a mathematician, the earliest sources about his life actually portray him as more of a mystic sage. It’s only in later sources that he starts to be portrayed as having done anything involving math. The theorem that now bears his name isn’t even attributed to him in any written source until many centuries after his death.

In this article, I want to talk about one of the most famous stories about Pythagoras’s life: the story that he travelled to Egypt, learned about religion and philosophy from the Egyptian priests, and then introduced Egyptian religious ideas to the Greeks. This is a story that is attested in some ancient sources and that has become very prominent in popular discourse about Pythagoras—but is it historically correct?

The earliest attestation of the story

The earliest known securely datable reference to the story of Pythagoras studying philosophy in Egypt comes from the ancient Athenian orator Isokrates (lived 436 – 338 BCE). At some point between c. 390 and c. 385 BCE (i.e., a little over a hundred years after Pythagoras’s death), Isokrates wrote an oration titled Bousiris, in which he praises the Egyptians and their customs at great length, attributing the greatness of Egyptian civilization to the supposed reforms of a mythical Egyptian king named Bousiris.

In order to illustrate the greatness of Egyptian piety, Isokrates tells a story (which was evidently already well known by the time he was writing) that none other than Pythagoras himself studied among the Egyptians. He writes, in Bousiris, sections 28–29, as translated by George Norlin:

“If one were not determined to make haste, one might cite many admirable instances of the piety of the Egyptians, that piety which I am neither the first nor the only one to have observed; on the contrary, many contemporaries and predecessors have remarked it, of whom Pythagoras of Samos is one. On a visit to Egypt, he became a student of the religion of the people, and was first to bring to the Greeks all philosophy, and more conspicuously than others he seriously interested himself in sacrifices and in ceremonial purity, since he believed that even if he should gain thereby no greater reward from the gods, among men, at any rate, his reputation would be greatly enhanced.”

“And this indeed happened to him. For so greatly did he surpass all others in reputation that all the younger men desired to be his pupils, and their elders were more pleased to see their sons staying in his company than attending to their private affairs. And these reports we cannot disbelieve; for even now persons who profess to be followers of his teaching are more admired when silent than are those who have the greatest renown for eloquence.”

This is the earliest securely datable surviving reference to the idea of Pythagoras having studied philosophy anywhere outside the Greek-speaking world. It is, however, far from the last such reference.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a bust of the famous Athenian orator Isokrates

Klemes of Alexandria and the growth of a legend

Legends about Pythagoras’s supposed international travels proliferated over the course of many centuries. Around seven hundred years or so after Pythagoras’s death, the early Christian writer Klemes of Alexandria (lived c. 150 – c. 215 CE) wrote a miscellaneous philosophical work titled Stromata.

Klemes’s background is rather complicated; he was probably of Greek heritage and he may have even been born in Athens, but he lived for most of his adult life in the city of Alexandria in Egypt. He wrote exclusively in the Greek language, he was highly educated about Greek philosophy and literature, and he had a quite enthusiastic admiration for a lot of Greek philosophical ideas, but he was also a very devout Christian, meaning he saw the traditional Greek deities as false idols at best and Greek religion as irredeemably heathen. As a result of this complex background, Klemes’s attitudes towards Greek philosophy are fairly complex.

In the Stromata 1.15, Klemes argues that Greeks are not inherently philosophically superior to other peoples and that the majority of Greek philosophers were either of non-Greek ancestry themselves, learned their philosophy from non-Greek peoples, or both. As part of this argument, Klemes makes several noteworthy statements about Pythagoras, which read as follows, as translated by William Wilson (with a few minor edits of my own):

• “Thales was a Phoinikian by birth, and was said to have consorted with the prophets of the Egyptians; as also Pythagoras did with the same persons, by whom he was circumcised, that he might enter the adytum [i.e., the inner sanctum of an Egyptian temple] and learn from the Egyptians the mystic philosophy. He held converse with the chief of the Chaldaians and the Magoi; and he gave a hint of the church, now so called, in the common hall which he maintained.”

• “And Pythagoras is reported to have been a disciple of Sonches the Egyptian arch-prophet; and Plato, of Sechnouphis of Heliopolis; and Eudoxos, of Knidios of Konouphis, who was also an Egyptian.”

• “Alexander, in his book On the Pythagorean Symbols, relates that Pythagoras was a pupil of Nazaratos the Assyrian (some think that he is Ezekiel; but he is not, as will afterwards be shown), and will have it that, in addition to these, Pythagoras was a hearer of the Galatians and the Brahmins.”

Thus, according to Klemes, Pythagoras not only studied with the Egyptians, but also with the Chaldaians of Mesopotamia, the Magoi of Iran, the Galatians of Asia Minor, the Brahmins of India, and an Assyrian teacher named Nazaratos.

Historically speaking, all of these stories are extremely dubious. The specific story of Pythagoras studying with the Galatians cannot possibly be true, since the Galatians did not settle in Asia Minor until the third century BCE, around two centuries after Pythagoras’s death. Nonetheless, what Klemes says certainly reflects the kinds of stories that many educated people of his time believed.

ABOVE: Imaginative portrayal of Klemes of Alexandria by the French engraver André Thévet in his work Les Vrais Portraits Et Vies Des Hommes Illustres. (No one knows what Klemes really looked like.)

Diogenes Laërtios’s The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

The oldest surviving detailed account of Pythagoras’s entire life was written by a Greek man named Diogenes Laërtios, who probably flourished at some point between the early and the middle parts of the third century CE (i.e., about a generation or two after Klemes). Diogenes Laërtios wrote a very long book titled The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, which includes short biographies of all the famous Greek philosophers, including Pythagoras of Samos.

Diogenes Laërtios was basically a philosophy fanboy, not a critical scholar, and his biographies are replete with unreliable anecdotes and implausible legends. Nonetheless, his work is tremendously valuable because he had access to many ancient sources that have since been irretrievably lost and, at least in some cases where he cites his sources, he provides information that we otherwise would not have.

In The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers 8.1.2-3, Diogenes Laërtios repeats the familiar stories about Pythagoras having studied philosophy with the Egyptians, the Chaldaians, and the Magoi, but he adds a few more details not found in earlier accounts—namely that Pythagoras also learned to speak the Egyptian language and that he also went into the cave of Zeus under Mount Ida on the island of Krete with Epimenides of Knossos. He writes, as translated by R. D. Hicks:

“Now he [i.e., Pythagoras] was in Egypt when Polykrates sent him a letter of introduction to Amasis; he learnt the Egyptian language, so we learn from Antiphon in his book On Men of Outstanding Merit, and he also journeyed among the Chaldaians and Magoi. Then while in Krete he went down into the cave of Ida with Epimenides; he also entered the Egyptian sanctuaries, and was told their secret lore concerning the gods.”

You may notice that Diogenes Laërtios cites a source for his statement that Pythagoras learned to speak the Egyptian language: a certain work titled On Men of Outstanding Merit, which he attributes to someone named “Antiphon.”

A famous Athenian orator of this name, Antiphon of Rhamnous (lived 480 – 411 BCE), lived about a generation earlier than Isokrates. If the Athenian orator Antiphon is the author of the work cited by Diogenes Laërtios, this would push back the earliest attestation of the story about Pythagoras studying in Egypt by about thirty years at least.

Unfortunately, Antiphon was an extremely common name among Greek men in antiquity and there seem to have been a large number of different writers by this name. Since Diogenes Laërtios does not specify Antiphon the fifth-century BCE Athenian orator as the author of the treatise he cites, we cannot be sure if he was the one who wrote it.

ABOVE: Engraving from 1688 showing what the artist imagined Diogenes Laërtios might have looked like. (No one knows what he really looked like.)

Porphyrios of Tyre’s The Life of Pythagoras

Around a generation or two after Diogenes Laërtios, the Phoinikian Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyrios of Tyre (lived c. 234 – c. 305 CE) wrote his own biography of Pythagoras titled The Life of Pythagoras. In this biography, he repeats the classic stories about Pythagoras studying philosophy with the Egyptians, Chaldaians, and Magoi, but adds the additional claim that Pythagoras also studied among the Phoinikians. He writes in his Life of Pythagoras 6–7, as translated by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie (once again, with a few of my own minor edits):

“As to his knowledge, it is said that he learned the mathematical sciences from the Egyptians, Chaldaians and Phoinikians; for of old the Egyptians excelled, in geometry, the Phoinikians in numbers and proportions, and the Chaldaians of astronomical theorems, divine rites, and worship of the gods; other secrets concerning the course of life he received and learned from the Magoi.”

“These accomplishments are the more generally known, but the rest are less celebrated. Moreover Eudoxos, in the second book of his Description of the Earth, writes that Pythagoras used the greatest purity, and was shocked at all bloodshed and killing; that he not only abstained from animal food, but never in any way approached butchers or hunters.”

“Antiphon, in his book On Men of Outstanding Merit praises his perseverance while he was in Egypt, saying, ‘Pythagoras, desiring to become acquainted with the institutions of Egyptian priests, and diligently endeavoring to participate therein, requested the Tyrant Polykrates to write to Amasis, the King of Egypt, his friend and former host, to procure him initiation. Coming to Amasis, he was given letters to the priests; of Heliopolis, who sent him on to those of Memphis, on the pretense that they were the more ancient. On the same pretense, he was sent on from Memphis to Diospolis.’”

Here you may notice that Porphyrios actually quotes the same lost work attributed to “Antiphon” that Diogenes Laërtios merely cited. Unfortunately, he does not give us any more information about the author other than that his name was Antiphon.

ABOVE: Illustration of an imaginary debate between Porphyrios of Tyre and the much later Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rušd from a fourteenth-century CE manuscript copy of Monfredo de Monte Imperiali’s Liber de Herbis

Conclusion

We can probably discount all the stories about Pythagoras supposedly studying philosophy with the Chaldaians, Magoi, Galatians, Brahmins, Phoinikians, and so forth as later additions to the mythos, since these are not attested in any of the earliest sources.

The story about Pythagoras studying philosophy in Egypt, however, is already attested in Isokrates’s Bousiris, which is securely dated to the very early fourth century BCE, and the treatise On Men of Outstanding Merit cited by Diogenes Laërtios and Porphyrios as a work of “Antiphon,” which is of uncertain date. This demonstrates that, by at least the late fifth century BCE, the story about Pythagoras studying in Egypt was already circulating, at least among Athenian orators. Because this story is attested reasonably early, it is probably worth taking seriously.

It is entirely plausible that Pythagoras could have studied philosophy in Egypt. We must, however, exercise caution and treat this story with some degree of skepticism, since people started making up fabulous stories about Pythagoras at a remarkably early date and there are legitimate reasons why a Greek person in antiquity might have decided to invent a story about Pythagoras studying in Egypt.

Notably, at least by the time Isokrates was writing, the Egyptians were already renowned throughout the Greek world for their supposedly highly advanced knowledge in matters of religion and mysticism. In other words, Egypt had prestige. Claiming that a famous philosopher had studied in Egypt was therefore potentially a way of boosting that philosopher’s reputation by associating them with a culture that was already so widely respected for its knowledge in this particular area.

The best position here in my opinion is one of agnosticism. The evidence can reasonably be interpreted either way.