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Description
Pythagoras is mostly known today as the triangle guy, as he's often accredited with the theorem which states that the squares of the two sides of a right angle triangle added together equal the square of the hypotenuse. Of course, the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians were aware of and utilized this theorem thousands of years before Pythagoras was even born (I know, shocking that the Egyptians would know their way around a triangle), but Pythagoras was the first Greek to describe it, so of course that means he gets all the credit. Which in many ways, is actually kind of a disservice to the man. The real Pythagoras was much more than just "the triangle guy", he was in fact the penultimate mystic whose strange math cult was the center of European occult philosophy for centuries to come. He was a wacky character full of strange anecdotes and esoteric ideas, so let's delve a little bit into his life.

Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos sometime around 570 BCE, the son of a gem merchant named Mnesarchus. Later legends espouse that his birth was foretold to his mother by divine insight who spoke of a child of extreme wisdom whose mere presence would be a boon to mankind. How much of this was sourced from the ego of Pythagoras himself is anyone's guess. Pythagoras is said to have traveled the known world, learning his infinite wisdom from scholars in Egypt and Babylon, you know, the real triangle people. By the age of 40, Pythagoras settled down in Croton, a Greek colony on the Italian Peninsula. Here he established his bizarre mystery cult, which was… well… mysterious. We don't exactly know what went on behind his closed doors, but it got at least one man killed, and eventually led to the people of Croton chasing him out of town for his antidemocratic views in 510 BCE. Pythagoras and his followers attempted to flee to the city of Metapontum, but the rioters caught up with them and burned down their safehouse. Sources differ as to whether or not Pythagoras burnt with the building, but the account I find most humorous states that his only means of escape was through a bean field. Pythagoras absolutely hated beans and forbade his disciples from consuming them, so instead of succumbing to the bean menace, he decided to just stop and let the rioters kill him. I'm sure there's some sort of life lesson in there but damned if I could tell you what it is.

So what was it the great philosopher Pythagoras taught which got him kicked out of town in his own time, and revered as the ultimate master of esoteric knowledge by later generations? Well, we don't know for sure. Pythagoras didn't write anything down, and it seems most of his attributed teachings come from disciples of his cult living a few centuries later. From what we can piece together, however, the central focus of Pythagoras's cult was math. Divine math, in fact. He professed the idea that all of reality could be broken down into numbers, geometry, and equations, and that through studying the nature of how these numbers fit together with one another, we could achieve control over the fabric of reality itself. Which brings us back to that guy he had merked that I mentioned earlier. See, the problem with viewing math as discrete units of perfection rears its ugly head in the form of irrational numbers like Pi. Pythagoras despised irrational numbers because they broke his idea of the absolute quantum harmonics inherent to reality. The student who first proposed the idea, Hippasus, was mysteriously found washed up dead on the beach the next morning. Methinks Pythagoras wasn't as enlightened as he liked to proclaim.

Also, despite his hatred of beans, Pythagoras was a vegetarian, as he believed the human soul could be reincarnated into the bodies of animals. One particularly famous legend claims that he stepped in to stop an asshole from beating his dog because, in the animal's yelps, Pythagoras could hear the voice of a friend who died recently. Pythagoras is also said to have been divinely sponsored, firstly by Apollo, who gifted him with, of all things, a thigh made of gold, and according to later traditions, the legendary god-sage Hermes Trismegistus. Indeed, his very name means "Pythian marketman", referring to the legend that states that he was said to speak the truth as clear and real as Apollo's Oracle at Delphi herself. I'm sure Hippasus would have a few disagreements about that, but he's dead so what does he know?

Design notes, the majority of his outfit I referenced from a famous 1926 portrait by American painter John Augustus Knapp. It's slick, simple, and recognizable, so I figured no sense in fixing what's not broken. His headshot though I based on a famous Roman-era bust sculpted at some point during the 2nd or 1st centuries BCE which is now on display in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. While most depictions of Pythagoras paint him in a fairly standard toga, it is said that he actually preferred to wear pants. If you didn't know, to the ancient Greeks, pants were considered absolutely barbarous, a sign of complete indecency only fit for the most disgusting heathens, so this was most unorthodox at the time. So if you want to appear as a civilized folk, discard your trousers right now, and T-pose for dominance while you're at it. Whatever social situation you're currently in will thank you for bringing an air of enlightenment to the room, I'm certain. I mean just look what good pants did for the legendary Pythagoras, he died because he was scared of beans, what a loser.

Description
Pythagoras is mostly known today as the triangle guy, as he's often accredited with the theorem which states that the squares of the two sides of a right angle triangle added together equal the square of the hypotenuse. Of course, the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians were aware of and utilized this theorem thousands of years before Pythagoras was even born (I know, shocking that the Egyptians would know their way around a triangle), but Pythagoras was the first Greek to describe it, so of course that means he gets all the credit. Which in many ways, is actually kind of a disservice to the man. The real Pythagoras was much more than just "the triangle guy", he was in fact the penultimate mystic whose strange math cult was the center of European occult philosophy for centuries to come. He was a wacky character full of strange anecdotes and esoteric ideas, so let's delve a little bit into his life.

Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos sometime around 570 BCE, the son of a gem merchant named Mnesarchus. Later legends espouse that his birth was foretold to his mother by divine insight who spoke of a child of extreme wisdom whose mere presence would be a boon to mankind. How much of this was sourced from the ego of Pythagoras himself is anyone's guess. Pythagoras is said to have traveled the known world, learning his infinite wisdom from scholars in Egypt and Babylon, you know, the real triangle people. By the age of 40, Pythagoras settled down in Croton, a Greek colony on the Italian Peninsula. Here he established his bizarre mystery cult, which was… well… mysterious. We don't exactly know what went on behind his closed doors, but it got at least one man killed, and eventually led to the people of Croton chasing him out of town for his antidemocratic views in 510 BCE. Pythagoras and his followers attempted to flee to the city of Metapontum, but the rioters caught up with them and burned down their safehouse. Sources differ as to whether or not Pythagoras burnt with the building, but the account I find most humorous states that his only means of escape was through a bean field. Pythagoras absolutely hated beans and forbade his disciples from consuming them, so instead of succumbing to the bean menace, he decided to just stop and let the rioters kill him. I'm sure there's some sort of life lesson in there but damned if I could tell you what it is.

So what was it the great philosopher Pythagoras taught which got him kicked out of town in his own time, and revered as the ultimate master of esoteric knowledge by later generations? Well, we don't know for sure. Pythagoras didn't write anything down, and it seems most of his attributed teachings come from disciples of his cult living a few centuries later. From what we can piece together, however, the central focus of Pythagoras's cult was math. Divine math, in fact. He professed the idea that all of reality could be broken down into numbers, geometry, and equations, and that through studying the nature of how these numbers fit together with one another, we could achieve control over the fabric of reality itself. Which brings us back to that guy he had merked that I mentioned earlier. See, the problem with viewing math as discrete units of perfection rears its ugly head in the form of irrational numbers like Pi. Pythagoras despised irrational numbers because they broke his idea of the absolute quantum harmonics inherent to reality. The student who first proposed the idea, Hippasus, was mysteriously found washed up dead on the beach the next morning. Methinks Pythagoras wasn't as enlightened as he liked to proclaim.

Also, despite his hatred of beans, Pythagoras was a vegetarian, as he believed the human soul could be reincarnated into the bodies of animals. One particularly famous legend claims that he stepped in to stop an asshole from beating his dog because, in the animal's yelps, Pythagoras could hear the voice of a friend who died recently. Pythagoras is also said to have been divinely sponsored, firstly by Apollo, who gifted him with, of all things, a thigh made of gold, and according to later traditions, the legendary god-sage Hermes Trismegistus. Indeed, his very name means "Pythian marketman", referring to the legend that states that he was said to speak the truth as clear and real as Apollo's Oracle at Delphi herself. I'm sure Hippasus would have a few disagreements about that, but he's dead so what does he know?

Design notes, the majority of his outfit I referenced from a famous 1926 portrait by American painter John Augustus Knapp. It's slick, simple, and recognizable, so I figured no sense in fixing what's not broken. His headshot though I based on a famous Roman-era bust sculpted at some point during the 2nd or 1st centuries BCE which is now on display in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. While most depictions of Pythagoras paint him in a fairly standard toga, it is said that he actually preferred to wear pants. If you didn't know, to the ancient Greeks, pants were considered absolutely barbarous, a sign of complete indecency only fit for the most disgusting heathens, so this was most unorthodox at the time. So if you want to appear as a civilized folk, discard your trousers right now, and T-pose for dominance while you're at it. Whatever social situation you're currently in will thank you for bringing an air of enlightenment to the room, I'm certain. I mean just look what good pants did for the legendary Pythagoras, he died because he was scared of beans, what a loser.