Herodotus, Isocrates and Egypt

Herodotus’ references to the Pythagorean theory of metempsýchōsis are inde- pendently valuable testimonies because they originate an intellectual scope dif- ferent from ancient philosophy. We will begin with a noted passage from the His- tories which refers to Egyptian beliefs on immortality:

The Egyptians were also the first to report that the soul of man is immortal, and that when the body dies, the soul enters into another creature coming to birth, and when it has trans- migrated the round of all the creatures of land and sea and of the air, it enters again into a human body as it comes to birth: and this round– they say – (the soul) makes in a period of three thousand years. This doctrine certain Hellenes adopted, some earlier and some later, as if it were of their own invention. And of these men I know the names but I abstain from writing them down (Herodt. II. 123).

Several hypotheses have been raised to explain Herodotus’ reticence. The most common explains Herodotus’s silence as a fear that Orphic circles in Magna Graecia would turn against him if he attributed to the Egyptians a doctrine which they– as told by Herodotus – “regarded as their own” (Timpanaro Cardini 1962: III, 21–22).

However, the hypothesis is not very convincing, for at least three reasons. First, Herodotus explicitly mentions connections between the Orphics, Pythagor- eans, and Egyptians in another passage about sepulchral rituals: the Egyptians buried the dead in linen robes, not woolen ones, as in Greece. He states that “such [costume] corresponds to the so-called orphiká and bakchiká, which, ac-

328 Surprisingly, Burkert 1972: 214 regards as a mistake the relationship between Plato and the Pythagoreans with regard to anámnēsis: “A closer look reveals that the connection of Pythagoras with Plato, in relation to anámnēsis, is scarcely more than an equivocation”. The reasons for such skepticism are connected to doubts that metempsýchōsis has anything to do with the mathematical proofs that the Meno passage in question (80d) emphasizes. While this doubt is reasonable, the practice of anámnēsis as a memory exercise concerning one’s former lives, in Plato, is still hardly separable from the practices and theories of the immortality of an Orphic- Pythagorean matrix.

tually, are Egyptian and Pythagorean” (Herodt. II. 81). Here, an earlier Egyptian practice linked to immortality is affirmed as Pythagorean without hesitation.³²⁹ Second, knowing Herodotus’s irony and his taste for “play”, it is not hard to think that not writing the authors’ names may be a playful reference to the ini- tiatory silence demanded by Orphic-Pythagorean practices and, especially, to their commandment to not write them down.³³⁰ Herodotus makes no attempt to hide this same irony in another part of the Histories (IV. 95) in his amusing narrative about the exploits of Zalmoxis, who, he says, was a servant of Pytha- goras, and its relation to the Orphic-Pythagorean theories of immortality. We will discuss this last passage in the following pages in relation to the traditions about the legends that refer to metempsýchōsis.

Third, if it is true that Herodotus and his countrymen colonized the city of Thurii (previously called Sybaris) in southern Italy in the mid-fifth century BC, which was home to a long Pythagorean tradition, this same colonization should not be understood as a philo-Pythagorean movement. Instead, the intervention of Athens came to solve the successive stáseis that the Pythagorean domination of the city had created, making Sybaris politically autonomous from this domi- nation and thenceforth anti-Pythagorean.³³¹ Therefore, it would not be reasona- ble to assume that Herodotus was afraid of creating enemies by showing an anti- Pythagorean stance, as the very irony with which he deals with the movement in his testimonies seems to indicate.

The history of criticism raises three hypotheses for the identity of these“cer- tain Greeks”, especially “those who soon adopted the doctrine”: a) Pythagoras and Empedocles, b) Orphics and Pythagoreans c) Orphics and Empedocles.³³²

329 The passage does not deserve further consideration, because the discrepancy between two families of manuscripts, the Roman (AB) and the Florentine (SVR)s has made virtually all scholars suspect that the information for which the sepulchral usesἐοῦσι δὲ αἰγυπτίοισι, καὶ <τοῖσι> Πυθαγορείοισι constitutes a late amendment. See Rohde 1898: 439f., Wilamowitz- Moellendorf 1932: 189, Rathmann 1933: 52 ff. and Timpanaro Cardini 1958–62: 22. Burkert 1972: 127 ff. argues– but is not totally convincing – in favor of the Florentine version and rightly concludes that the latter would suggest a ritual connection between Pythagoreanism and Or- phism. Although relevant, therefore, for the discussion of the relationship between Orphism and Pythagoreanism, the value of the Herodotus testimony of the passage is nullified by the possible amendment of the reference exactly to Pythagoreanism.

330 See for this discussion also Cornelli 2006.

331 For an extensive discussion of the history of Sybaris along with the Pythagorean domination on the cities of southern Italy, see Mele 2007: 240–247.

332 See for full bibliographic references Burkert 1972: 126 n38. In short: a) Long 1948: 22, Kirk- Raven-Schofield 1983: 210 ff.; b) Morrison 1956: 137, Casadio 1991: 128 f., Zhmud 1997: 118 ff.; c) Rathmann 1933: 48 ff.

However, certainly the most significant fact is that the Egyptians in fact did not have any theory of the immortality of the soul.³³³ This mistake is strange, as Her- odotus seems to to know well the non-existent practices of Egyptian immortality. Therefore, Burkert imagines that Herodotus’ history is a projection of Greek ideas onto the Egyptians.³³⁴

However, the connection of Pythagoreanism with Egypt is asserted in a frag- ment of the orator Isocrates, already quoted in chapter 1, in the context of the definition of the Pythagorean community through silence:“even now persons who profess to be followers [of Pythagoras] are more admired when silent than are those who have the greatest renown for eloquence” (Isocrates, Busiris 29 = 14 A 4 DK). The complete passage begins with a discussion of the journey that Pythagoras made to Egypt:

Pythagoras of Samos, after arriving in Egypt, became a disciple of the Egyptian people, and was the first to bring another philosophy to the Greeks, and more conspicuously than oth- ers he seriously interested himself in sacrifices and in ceremonial purity, since he believed that even if he should gain thereby no greater reward from the gods, among men, at any rate, his reputation would be greatly enhanced. As this indeed happened to him. For so greatly did he surpass all others in reputation that all the younger men desired to be his pupils, and their elders were more pleased to see their sons staying in his company than attending to their private affairs. And these reports we cannot disbelieve, for even now per- sons who profess to be followers [of Pythagoras] are more admired when silent than are those who have the greatest renown for eloquence.³³⁵

As a consequence of this journey to Egypt, Pythagoras brought another philos- ophy to the Greeks. The terminology and the ironic context echo Heraclitus’ sar- casm as much as Herodotus’ irony. Kahn notes justifiably that such a teacher of eloquence as Isocrates cannot“refrain from a dig” at the Pythagorean silence (Kahn 2001: 12). Similarly, the expression“And these reports we cannot disbe- lieve” would indicate the general attitude of distrust in those traditions.³³⁶

333 See for this, already Zeller and Mondolfo 1938: 133, Kees 1956: 6, Burkert 1972: 126 n36 and now Centrone 1996: 55.

334 Burkert 1972: 126 n37, albeit with some exaggeration in his paleo-psychological analysis, even suggests that the immediate context of the passage of the Histories II. 12, quoted above, could have led Herodotus to a kind of reminiscence of the theories of metempsýchōsis, origi- nating in the South of Italy. The passage in question is indeed preceded by information that Demeter and Dionysus were called by the Egyptians as owners of the hereafter. Both, in turn, would be revered in Southern Italy.

335 Isocrates, Busiris 28–29.

336 The value of Isocrates’ testimony, however, is doubted by Ries 1961, who detects a strong Academic influence on the tradition.