122

Logic 122
Foot Note

as Livy only wanted to make out that Pythagoras had no connection whatever with the history of Rome he could not have cared to be very accurate.
He may have looked for in some book and found that Pythagoras was born near the beginning of the long reign of Servius Tullius.
Or relying on his memory that Pythagoras was a pupil of Pherecydes who lived in the reign of Servius Tullius he may have been guided by that.
It being admitted then that Pythagoras went to Italy 532 B.C and there lived the rest of his life we cannot admit the statement of his biographer Iamblachus that he was taken prisoner in Egypt by Cambyses in 537 B.C and was carried to Babylin and remained 12 years.
Iamblachus is not the kind of writer from whom one expects exactitude; yet we do expect to find what he says at least founded on fact.
What fact could have been the foundation for such a story?
He may have been taken prisoner by the Persians not under Cambyses but by Cequs himself in Lydia 546 B.C.
It might easily have happened that Pythagoras a Somarian was main land so near his home at that time; and it would be natural enough