121

Logic 121

(Foot-Note)

ancient history by balancing likelihoods altogether wrong.
The biography of Pythagoras rests on very poor evidence at best; but the only logical way is to follow the best authorities we have so far as it is possible to do so and to account by some theory for the falsity of their testimony when we are obliged to consider if false.
This method no doubt leaves us liable to err; but it cannot be improved upon.

The least uncertain date in the life of Pythagoras is that he went to Italy in the year 532 B.C. So say Cicero and less precisely Auleas Gellius and Tambliclius; and various other authors support the date by vaguer assertions.
The most serious objection is that Livy seems to say that Pythagoras immigrated during the reign of Servius Tullius.
But Livy;s purpose in saying that is to show that Pythagoras was too late (as well as too remote) to have aided Nama Ponpilius in his religious reforms.
For that purpose he perhaps grants these who say he did the earliest possible date for the coming of Pythagoras.
I was a small point at best; and