Who Was Pythagoras Really? Life, Legends, and the Secret Brotherhood

Everyone has heard of Pythagoras. But here’s the paradox — we actually know almost nothing about him. None of his own writings have survived, and the first detailed accounts of Pythagoras’s life were written hundreds of years after his death.

In later sources, legend and myth became thoroughly entangled with reality. Here is what has come down to us.

The Secret Brotherhood: Pythagoras and His Hidden Society

Pythagoras founded a quasi-religious community in Croton, in southern Italy, governed by strict rules and rituals. Members were instructed to “put on the right shoe first” and “never walk on public roads.” Newcomers were required to remain silent for five years.

The Pythagoreans lived communally — they shared property, and the words of Pythagoras were treated as sacred law. This secretive way of life both fascinated outsiders and aroused deep suspicion.

Women in the Brotherhood: An Unusual Equality

Unlike most ancient societies, Pythagoras’s school admitted women on equal terms. One source names at least 28 women among the community’s 300 members.

The History of Pythagoras and the Belief in Reincarnation

Pythagoras believed in the transmigration of souls and claimed to remember his past lives. According to legend, he once stopped a man who was beating a puppy, exclaiming that he could hear the voice of an old friend in the dog’s yelping.

Pythagoras taught respect for all living things and believed that the same soul could inhabit any creature.

Pythagoras, Vegetarianism, and the Bean Prohibition

As a likely consequence of his belief in reincarnation, Pythagoras was a vegetarian. He taught that “all living beings are one family” — and that therefore humans had no more right to eat animals than to eat one another. In antiquity, the phrase “Pythagorean diet” became virtually synonymous with vegetarianism.

Yet he also famously forbade the eating of beans. Explanations vary. One holds that beans are connected to Hades — the underworld — and may serve as vessels for transmigrating souls. More practical theories suggest that beans cause digestive heaviness and “interfere with concentration.”

The Pythagoras Legend: Demigod, Miracle-Worker, and Living Myth

His followers regarded Pythagoras as something close to a deity — the Chuck Norris of antiquity. According to Aristotle’s account, Pythagoras had a “golden thigh,” a mark of divine origin. He was said to have killed a deadly serpent by biting it with his own teeth. When Pythagoras crossed a river, the river reportedly spoke and greeted him by name, acknowledging his extraordinary nature.

It was also claimed that Pythagoras could be in two places at once: witnesses reportedly saw him on the same day in both Croton and Metapontum.

Pythagoras History and the Philosophy That Numbers Rule Reality

The Pythagorean school is credited with the famous axiom: “All is number.” Numbers, in this view, underlie the structure of the cosmos itself. The number ten — the tetractys — was considered sacred, symbolizing the wholeness of nature. Pythagoreans prayed to the tetractys, calling it “the source of ever-flowing creation.”

Pythagoras as a Political Force Behind the Scenes

Pythagoras served as an adviser to the elite of Croton and established an aristocratic council of Pythagoreans that effectively governed the city. Legend has it that a nobleman named Cylon, after being refused admission to Pythagoras’s circle on account of his poor reputation, led an uprising against the community. A mob set fire to the house of Milo, one of Pythagoras’s closest disciples, and many Pythagoreans perished in the flames.

Pythagoras himself escaped the first attack, but his position only deteriorated. The community — a “state within a state” — was broken apart.

The Bean Field: How the Pythagoras Story May Have Ended

When a mob of enemies pursued Pythagoras after the uprising in Croton, he fled until he found himself at the edge of a bean field. He stopped. He refused to cross it, even to save his own life. His pursuers caught him and killed him.

The story of the death at the bean field may well be legend, but it has survived the centuries precisely because of its symbolism: it shows just how seriously Pythagoras took even his most peculiar convictions.