The Pythagorean Way
A similar and related approach to a new rational religion, that is, to the theologia
naturalis, was that of the Pythagorean thinkers. In the late republic many learned
men resorted to the Pythagorean tradition as a higher form of religion. They were
mostly members of the Roman upper class, often senators and members of the
opposition to popular leaders. As Ferrero (1955) maintained, after the Gracchan
period and because of the crisis of aristocracies, the work of many intellectuals had
to take up a position in the high towers of a secret and refined wisdom and leave
the field of free divulgation. After the rise of the principate the plebsgladly chose
the emperors’ rituals, whereas several aristocrats preferred forms of elite religions.
One of the main features of late republican Pythagoreanism in Rome was its close-
ness to the doctrines of the Chaldeans and Magi (see Humm 1996). It is also note-
worthy that contemporary Stoicism – above all that of Poseidonius – was deeply
interested in the same oriental doctrines, which were teaching how the stars moved,
how they influenced earthly life, how substances in the world were related to each
other and to the gods.
One eclectic scholar in Rome was Alexander Polyhistor, a Greek from Anatolia,
Sulla’s freedman, and Octavian’s teacher. He merged elements of Pythagoreanism,
Stoicism, Platonism, and Aristotelianism. He was one of the most ancient witnesses
of Pythagoras’ alleged apprenticeship at Zoroaster’s school. He accepted the Stoic
theory of a world’s intelligence, and also Pythagorean numerology, but preferred
the traditional conception of an afterlife in the kingdom of Hades to Pythagorean
metempsychosis or immortality in the sky for perfect men.
The Pythagorean science of numbers and geometry was a theological means to
know the secret laws of both cosmos and gods. “The number is the creator’s means
of judgment and the paradigm of creation” (Syrianus, in Aristotelem, Metaphysics
1080b 16 =Hippasus, frag. 11 Timpanaro Cardini). “The Pythagoreans were study-
ing numbers and lines, and gave them to the gods as presents. They called one
number Athena, another one Artemis, and likewise another Apollo; in a similar way
another one was called Justice, and another Temperance. They are dealing likewise
with geometric figures” (Porphyry, De abstinentia 2.6.1).
The geometrical figures were the rules that gave forms to everything and also were
the means which the gods used to create anything, for they were the forms of the
gods themselves. The Chaldeans, too, knew the numerical value of each god and
were famous for their mathematical and geometrical skill, and in that respect also
their doctrine could be conflated with Pythagoreanism. Another major feature of both
Pythagorean and Chaldean doctrines was the theological dimension attributed to the
sky, and by this means too they were fatally attracted by each other. Astrological
mysticism was said to have been conceived by Pythagoras himself (Diogenes Laertius
8.27) or by Alcmaeon the Pythagorean (Cic. Nat.1.27) and was transmitted to
late republican Neo-Pythagoreanism also through the Pseudo-Platonic Epinomis.
The Pythagoreans believed in the salvation of the perfect soul and in its return
to heaven, that is, to the gods; their highest form of knowledge was that of the
Creating One’s Own Religion 381