Customer Reviews

Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism

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The literature on Pythagoreanism is vast and often touched with madness. This book - to quote Jonathan Barnes (in THE PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS) 'advanced [the study of Pythagoreanism] to a new level of sanity and scholarship'.

It is definitely a book for scholars. One rather unfortunate result is the absence of translations for most of the Greek passages (with a few confusing exceptions when we are given only the translation). I have not seen the original German edition, so I do not know if the same is true there. Of course we need the Greek; but although most serious readers of a book like this will be able to cope, the absence rather lessens its (great) potential value for occasional reference, as well as slowing down students, perhaps, and many others whose Greek is a bit rusty and who do not want to be forced to keep a dictionary always on hand.

Nevertheless, although there have been and will continue to be further studies of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism since the date of this English edition (1970), it remains essential reading: as the author says he hopes to do, it 'gives a full and perspicuous presentation of the evidence and thus will be useful even to those who are not inclined to draw the same conclusions'.