Pythagoras’s Human Typology

Raphael Sanzio, Pythagoras (detail from The School of Athens)(1509)

Σωσικράτης δ’ ἐν Διαδοχαῖς φησιν αὐτὸν ἐρωτηθέντα ὑπὸ Λέοντος τοῦ Φλιασίων τυράννου τίς εἴη, φιλόσοφος εἰπεῖν. καὶ τὸν βίον ἐοικέναι πανηγύ- ρει· ὡς οὖν εἰς ταύτην οἱ μὲν ἀγωνιούμενοι, οἱ δὲ κατ’ ἐμπορίαν, οἱ δέ γε βέλτιστοι ἔρχονται θεαταί, οὕτως ἐν τῷ βίῳ οἱ μὲν ἀνδραποδώδεις, ἔφη, φύονται δόξης καὶ πλεονεξίας θηραταί, οἱ δὲ φιλόσοφοι τῆς ἀληθείας.

Sosicrates in his Successions of Philosophers says that, when Leon the tyrant of Philus asked him who he was, he said, “a philosopher.” He compared life to the Great Games, where some went to compete for the prize, and others went with wares to sell, but the best as spectators; for similarly, in life some grow up with a servile nature, others are greedy for fame and gain, but the philosopher seeks for truth.

–Diogenes Laërtius (Διογένης Λαέρτιος), The Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων), bk viii, sec viii (Pythagoras)(ca. 230 CE) (transl. following H. Arendt), in the Loeb Library edition of the works of Diogenes Laërtius, vol. ii, pp. 326-29.