17
Well, and Achilles: was he so much better than other people, or is that all stuff and nonsense?
17
Ah, I never came across Achilles; I am not very strong on the Greeks; I was on the other side, of course. ‘There is one thing, though: I made pretty short work of his friend Patroclus—ran him clean through with my spear.
17
After which Menelaus settled you with still greater facility. Well, that will do for ew And when you were Pythagoras?
18
When I was Pythagoras, I was—not to deceive you— a sophist; that is the long and short of it. At the same time, I was not uncultured, not unversed in polite learning. I travelled in Egypt, cultivated the acquaintance of the priests, and learnt wisdom from their mouths; I penetrated into their temples and mastered the sacred books of Orus and Isis; finally, I took ship to Italy, where I made such an impression on the Greeks that they reckoned me among the Gods.
18
I have heard all about that; and also how you were supposed to have risen from the dead, and how you had a golden thigh, and favoured the public with a sight of it on occasion. But what put it into your head to make that law about meat and beans?
18
Ah, don’t ask me that, Micyllus.
18
But why not?
18
I am ashamed to answer you.
18
Come, out with it! I am your friend and fellow lodger; we will drop the ‘master’ now.
18
There was neither common sense nor philosophy in that law. The fact is, I saw that if I did just the same as other people, I should draw very few admirers; my prestige, I considered, would be in proportion to my originality. Hence these innovations, the motive of which I wrapped up in mystery; each man was left to make his own conjecture, that all might be equally impressed by my oracular obscurity. There now! you are laughing at me; it is your turn this time.
18
I am laughing much more at the folk of Cortona and Metapontum and Tarentum, and the rest of those mute disciples who worshipped the ground you trod on.
19
And in what form was your spirit next clothed, after it had put off Pythagoras?
