Vat.lat.5953

Thus having been nourished, he became the most beautiful of all who were ever named: and he was made most excellent in sacred matters. Moreover, after his father’s death, he was judged to be most chaste and most prudent. Being a diligent young man, he was judged by the elders to be of the highest modesty and decency. Appearing harmonious in all things, he surpassed everyone, and whomever he looked upon, he seemed most wonderful. Therefore, it was rightly affirmed by many that he was the son of a god.

He, however, being confirmed by such opinions—both by the discipline of his childhood and by his natural likeness to God—ordered his life even more strictly, appearing worthy of his present privileges. He adorned himself with religious disciplines and a singular way of life original: "uictu"; refers to his famous "Pythagorean diet" and ascetic lifestyle, being master of a good state of soul. In these matters, he both spoke and acted with a proper and unwavering original: "instabili"; likely a scribal error for "impassibili" (impassible) or "inexhaustible," as it describes his tranquility tranquility. Never was he dissolved by the fury of appetite or anger, nor by laughter, nor by jealousy, nor by the pursuit of strife, nor by any other perturbation, nor by rashness and immodesty; but he lived as if some good spirit original: "demon quis bonus"; in the Neoplatonic sense, a 'daemon' is a tutelary spirit or a being between gods and men had descended upon Samos.

Before his youth original Greek: πρὸ δὲ ἐφήβου; refers to the period before he reached the age of an "ephebe," roughly age 18, with much glory among his own people, he set out to Miletus to see Thales, and to Priene to see Bias, the wise men. And to travel abroad original Greek: ἐξεφοίτησε to the neighboring cities. In Samos, he was already celebrated in proverbs, and many youths everywhere praised him as he prophesied and preached.

However, when the tyranny of Polycrates The ruler of Samos (c. 538–522 BCE) known for his patronage of the arts but also his absolute power immediately followed, Pythagoras being then nearly eighteen years old, he foresaw what his life would be like under such a regime. Seeing that it would be an impediment to his purpose and to philosophy—which he studied more than all other things—he hid himself by night from everyone. Together with Hermodamas (who was surnamed Creophylus, and who was said to be the son of Creophylus, the host of the poet Homer and his friend and teacher in all things), he migrated to Pherecydes Pherecydes of Syros, a thinker often credited with being the first to teach the immortality of the soul, and to Anaximander the natural philosopher, and to Thales in Miletus. He joined their company and conversed with them in such a way that they all loved him, admired his nature, and received him into the communion of their discourses. Indeed, Thales willingly and of his own accord received him into his home, and...