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Pythagoras
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=== In Croton === {{ Location map+|Italy|width=250|float|caption=Map of Italy showing locations associated with Pythagoras|places= {{Location map~|Italy|lat=39.0808|N|long=17.1271|E|region:IT_type:city(60157)|position=right|label_size=75 |label=[[Crotone|Croton]]}} {{Location map~|Italy|lat=40.3706|N|long=16.8137|E|region:IT_type:city(60157)|position=below|label_size=75 |label=[[Metapontum]]}} {{Location map~|Italy|lat=39.7500|N|long=16.4667|E|region:IT_type:city(60157)|position=below|label_size=75 |label=[[Sybaris]]}} {{Location map~|Italy|lat=40.4644|N|long=17.2470|E|region:IT_type:city(60157)|position=right|label_size=75 |label=[[Taranto|Tarentum]]}} {{Location map~|Italy|lat=37.3094|N|long=13.5860|E|region:IT_type:city(60157)|position=right|label_size=75 |label=[[Agrigento|Acragas]]}} }} Porphyry repeats an account from [[Antiphon (writer)|Antiphon]], who reported that, while he was still on Samos, Pythagoras founded a school known as the "semicircle".{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|page=10}}{{sfnp|Cornelli|McKirahan|2013|page=64}} Here, Samians debated matters of public concern.{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|page=10}}{{sfnp|Cornelli|McKirahan|2013|page=64}} Supposedly, the school became so renowned that the brightest minds in all of Greece came to Samos to hear Pythagoras teach.{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|page=10}} Pythagoras himself dwelled in a secret cave, where he studied in private and occasionally held discourses with a few of his close friends.{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|page=10}}{{sfnp|Cornelli|McKirahan|2013|page=64}} Christoph Riedweg, a German scholar of early Pythagoreanism, states that it is entirely possible Pythagoras may have taught on Samos,{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|page=10}} but cautions that Antiphon's account, which makes reference to a specific building that was still in use during his own time, appears to be motivated by Samian patriotic interest.{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|page=10}} Around 530 BC, when Pythagoras was about forty years old, he left Samos.{{sfnp|Joost-Gaugier|2006|page=11}}{{sfnp|Kahn|2001|page=6}}{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|page=11}}{{sfnp|Gregory|2015|page=22}} His later admirers claimed that he left because he disagreed with the [[tyrant|tyranny]] of [[Polycrates]] in Samos;{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|page=11}} Riedweg notes that this explanation closely aligns with Nicomachus's emphasis on Pythagoras's purported love of freedom, but that Pythagoras's enemies portrayed him as having a proclivity towards tyranny.{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|page=11}} Other accounts claim that Pythagoras left Samos because he was so overburdened with public duties in Samos, because of the high estimation in which he was held by his fellow-citizens.<ref>{{harvp|Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth|loc=Β§28}}; {{harvp|Porphyry, Vit. Pyth|loc=Β§9}}</ref> He arrived in the Greek colony of Croton (today's [[Crotone]], in [[Calabria]]) in what was then [[Magna Graecia]].{{sfnp|Kahn|2001|page=6}}{{sfnp|Gregory|2015|page=22}}{{sfnp|De Vogel|1966|pp=21ff}}<ref>Cfr. {{harvnb|Cicero, De Re Publica|loc=Β§2.15.28βΒ§2.15.30|pp=137β139}}</ref>{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|pages=11β12}} All sources agree that Pythagoras was charismatic and quickly acquired great political influence in his new environment.{{sfnp|Kahn|2001|page=6}}{{sfnp|De Vogel|1966|pp=148β150}}{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|pages=12β13}} He served as an advisor to the elites in Croton and gave them frequent advice.{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|pages=12β18}} Later biographers tell fantastical stories of the effects of his eloquent speeches in leading the people of Croton to abandon their luxurious and corrupt way of life and devote themselves to the purer system which he came to introduce.<ref>{{harvp|Porphyry, Vit. Pyth|loc=Β§18}}; {{harvp|Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth|loc=Β§37}}</ref>{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|pages=13β18}}
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