Greek Island Samos – Votsalakia

Who was Pythagoras of Samos?

Most of what is written about Pythagoras of Samos is hearsay. Wecan say little with confidence about his life and teachings. We do know that Pythagoras and his students believed that everything was related to mathematics and that numbers were the ultimate reality. We also know that he was not standing in much harmony with Polykrates the Tyran of Samos. As history tells he had to hide a great deal of his life in a cave at the foot of mount Kerkis, in the south, near today’s Votsalakia. You can still visit this cave today and get a strange feeling in the belly, thinking about all this old stories.

Pythagoras of Samos though is best known for for the Pythagorean theorem which bears his name. Most of us remember it barly from school or have forgotten it all along.

Let us go back in history a couple of years. Pythagoras was born on the Greek island of Samos. His mother was Pythais, a native woman of Samos. His father was Mnesarchus, a Phoenician merchant from Tyre (Today’s Lerbanon).

As a young man, he left his native city for Croton, Calabria, in Southern Italy, to escape the tyrannical government of Polycrates. According to Iamblichus, Thales, impressed with his abilities, advised Pythagoras to head to Memphis in southern Egypt and study with the priests there who were renowned for their wisdom. He also was discipled in the temples of Tyre and Byblos in Phoenicia . It may have been in Egypt where he learned some geometric principles which eventually inspired his formulation of the Pythagorean Theorem that is now called by his name.

The religious side of Pythagors of Samos

We get some insight into the lives of the Pythagoreans, the rleigion of the followers of Pythagoras, when we realize that they believed in the transmigration of souls (the belief that on death we return as another) and that they had many taboos.

Their rules where strict; amongst other practices they had:

1. To abstain from beans.
2. Not to break bread.
3. Not to stir the fire with iron.
4. Not to eat from a whole loaf.
5. Not to eat the heart.
6. Not to walk on highways.
7. Not not look in a mirror beside a light.
8. And when you rise from the bedclothes, roll them together and smooth out the impression of your body on the bed.

The Pythagoreans taught that the purpose of life was to purify the soul and body. They expanded on their Orphic beginnings to include “purification” through science and knowing. To reach purification they taught that one had to discover the “harmonies” of the cosmos – and scientific (mathematical) enquiry was the vehicle with which to find them.
Arguably the greatest scientific achievement of the Order was the discovery (attributed to “The Master” as Pythagoras was called) of the mathematical order in the musical scale and the harmonies so produced. It is not difficult to appreciate how the Pythagoreans would extrapolate from this success to the belief that, in the quest for the secrets of the cosmos all is numbers.

While you are here on samos you have to visit the Cave of Pythagoras in Votsalakia. Beneeth Mount Kerkis on the way to the Monastery Evangelistria is a pathway leading to the cave where Pythagoras is sayed to have lived during the times Polikrates was hard on his tail. I guess they didn’t agree on some numbers. See a Picture of the Pythagoras Monument in Pythagorion.