The Pythagoreans in the light and shadows of recent research

Authors

• Holger Thesleff

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67618

Abstract

It has been said' that "Pythagoras casts a long shadow in the history of Greek thought". Indeed, the shadow both widens and deepens spectacularly in course of time. He has not only been considered—on disputable grounds, as we shall see as the first European mystic. No other personality of the Greco–Roman world (except Christ, and perhaps Alexander the Great) has been credited with such powers and all-round capacities.