Would Pythagoras have taken you?

Iamblichus, writing around AD 300, describes how Pythagoras tried those who came to him at Croton: an examination, three years of being ignored, five years of silence. Seven questions, beside the text.

Pythagoras “did not immediately receive into the number of his associates those who came to him for that purpose, till he had made trial of, and judiciously examined them”. This is the trial, step by step. Answer for yourself; nothing is sent anywhere.

1. Are you on good terms with your parents and your relatives?

In the first place he inquired after what manner they associated with their parents, and the rest of their relatives.

Yes Sometimes No

2. Do you know when not to laugh, and when not to speak?

In the next place he surveyed their unseasonable laughter, their silence, and their speaking when it was not proper.

Yes Sometimes No

3. Would you be at ease having your free hours looked at — who you see, what pleases you, what grieves you?

And farther still, what their desires were, with whom they associated, how they conversed with them, in what they especially employed their leisure time in the day, and what were the subjects of their joy and grief.

Yes Sometimes No

4. Could you stay three years in a place where nobody pays you any attention, and still want to learn?

He suffered him to be neglected for three years, in the mean time observing how he was disposed with respect to stability, and a true love of learning, and if he was sufficiently prepared with reference to glory, so as to despise popular honor.

Yes Sometimes No

5. Could you then keep silent for five years?

After this, he ordered those who came to him to observe a quinquennial silence, in order that he might experimentally know how they were affected as to continence of speech, the subjugation of the tongue being the most difficult of all victories.

Yes Sometimes No

6. Would you hand over everything you own to the common fund for the length of the trial?

During this probationary time, however, the property of each was disposed of in common, and was committed to the care of those appointed for this purpose.

Yes Sometimes No

7. Would you accept that, if you fail, your companions treat you as dead?

But if they were rejected they received the double of the wealth which they brought, and a tomb was raised to them as if they were dead.

Yes Sometimes No

Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, chapter XVII, translated by Thomas Taylor, London, 1818.

Where this comes from

Pythagoras founded his school at Croton, in southern Italy, around 530 BC. Nothing he wrote survives. The fullest account of the school is the Life of Pythagoras by the Neoplatonist Iamblichus of Chalcis, written around AD 300. The full 1818 translation is on archive.org.

This page belongs to no order and opens no door. Iamblichus wrote eight centuries after Pythagoras; historians treat his account as tradition, not as a record.