CHAPTER XIV

PYTHAGORAS'S PREEXISTENCE

Pythagoras used to make the very best possible approach to men by teaching them what would prepare them to learn the truth in other matters. For by the clearest and surest indications he would remind many of his intimates of the former life lived by their soul before it was bound to their body. He would demonstrate by indubitable arguments that he had once been Eiuphorbus, son of Panthus, conqueror of Patroclus. He would especially praise the following funeral Homeric verses pertaining to himself, which he would sing to the lyre most elegantly, frequently repeating them.

"The shining circlets of his golden hair,
Which even the Graces might be proud to wear,
Instarred with gems and gold, bestrew the shore
With dust dishonored, and deformed with gore.
As the young olive, in some sylvan scene,
Crowned by fresh fountains with eternal green,
Lifts the gay head, in snowy flowerets fair,
And plays and dances to the gentle air;
When lo, a whirlwind from high heaven invades
The tender plant and withers all its shades;
It lies uprooted from its genial bed,
A lovely ruin now defaced and dead; Thus young, thus beautiful Euphorbus lay,
While the fierce Spartan tore his arms away."
Homer Iliad, 17, Pope.

We shall however omit the reports about the shield of this Phrygian Euphorbus, which, among other Trojan spoils, was dedicated to the Argive Juno, as being too popular in nature. What Pythagoras, however, wished to indicate by all those particulars was that he knew the former lives he had lived which enabled him to begin providential attention to others, in which he reminded them of their former existences.