HKB
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Often appears with: reason and the intellect · numa pompilius · justice as a virtue · counsel and advisers to rulers · zarathustra’s moral rule · treaties, truces, and peacemaking · transmigration of souls · the nature and attributes of God · thales of miletus · socrates and trial · military discipline and training · mercenary soldiers
Usually: narrative (3) · detachment (3) · dialogue (1) · reflection (1) · the test or trial (1) · curiosity (1) · exhortation (1) · skepticism (1)
“But, instead of that, when I look at you, I perceive that you are Romans: men who allow treaties to be the most solemn of religious acts, and faith, pledged therein, the strongest of human ties.” Livy, The History of Rome, Books 27 to 36 · insight
“All things are {ever} changing; nothing perishes; and to begin to be something different from what it was before, is called being born; and to cease to be the same thing, {is to be said} to die.” Ovid, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books VIII-XV · insight
“Over the principal door I read these words which are the precis of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: "When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain.” Voltaire, Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary · precept
Pythagoras, after being left in command at Argos, comes to Lacedaemon with forces under Timocrates of Pellene and joins Nabis as Roman positions tighten after Gythium’s fall.
as commander at Argos, having intrusted the defence of the city to Timocrates of Pellene, with a thousand mercenary soldiers, and two thousand Argives, came to Lacedaemon and joined Nabis. 30. Although Nabis had been greatly alarmed at the first arrival of the Roman fleet, and the surrender of the towns on the sea-coast, yet, as long as Gythium was held by his troops he had quieted his apprehensions with that scanty…
After losing hope on land and sea, Nabis sends a messenger to request permission for ambassadors, and Pythagoras negotiates a conference between Nabis and Titus Quinctius on local hills.
of meeting; Nabis attended by a select party of his body-guards; Quinctius by his brother, king Eumenes, Sosilaus, the Rhodian, Aristaenus, praetor of the Achaeans, and a few military tribunes. 31. Then the tyrant, having the choice given him either to speak first or to listen, began thus: "Titus Quinctius, and you who are present, if I could collect from my own reflections the reason of your having either declared …
Augustine contrasts the “Italic” and “Ionic” philosophical schools by tracing their founders—Pythagoras of Samos and Thales of Miletus—and summarizes their cosmologies from water/air to divine mind and recurring world cycles.
2. _Concerning the two schools of philosophers, that is, the Italic and Ionic, and their founders._ As far as concerns the literature of the Greeks, whose language holds a more illustrious place than any of the languages of the other nations, history mentions two schools of philosophers, the one called the Italic school, originating in that part of Italy which was formerly called Magna Græcia; the other called the I…
Pythagoras arrives at Crotona, gains followers including Numa Pompilius, teaches transmigration of souls, and argues against eating animal flesh, using a long moral and cosmological exhortation.
draws Numa Pompilius to hear his discourses; on which he expounds his principles, and, more especially, enlarges on the transmigration of the soul, and the practice of eating animal food. There was a man, a Samian by birth; but he had fled from both Samos and its rulers,[8] and, through hatred of tyranny, he was a voluntary exile. He too, mentally, held converse with the Gods, although far distant in the region of t…
The narrator questions beneficent heroes in the afterlife—Numa Pompilius, Pythagoras, Zarathustra, and Socrates—who each defend justice and virtue, while Socrates explains his condemnation over priestly and sophistic hostility.
"the heroes of humanity who were the world's benefactors, and who were all united in banishing from the world, as far as they were able, violence and rapine. Question them." I ran to the first of the band; he had a crown on his head, and a little censer in his hand; I humbly asked him his name. "I am Numa Pompilius," he said to me. "I succeeded a brigand, and I had brigands to govern: I taught them virtue and the wo…