17
I never encountered him in battle, and I could not give you so exact an account of the Achaians' affairs. How could I, seeing that I was an enemy? However, I killed his comrade, Patroklos, without much trouble, piercing him with my spear.
17
And then Menelaos killed you more easily still. But that will do on this subject. Now tell me about Pythagoras.
18
I was a complete sophist, Mikyllos, for it is right, I think, to tell the truth. However, I was not uneducated nor neglectful of the noblest studies, and I even journeyed to Egypt to receive instruction from the priests. I made my way into the temples and mastered the books of Oros and Isis. And then I sailed back to Italy and so wrought upon the Greeks there that they reckoned me a god.
18
I have heard of this, and that you were deemed to have risen from the dead, and that you once showed them that your thigh was gold. But tell me this, why did it occur to you to make a law against eating either flesh or beans?
18
Don't ask such things, Mikyllos.
18
Why not?
18
Because I am ashamed to tell you the truth about them.
18
Now, there is no reason whatever for hesitating to tell a man who is your messmate and friend, for I would no longer call myself your master.
18
I had no sound or reasonable motive; but seeing that if my practices were ordinary and the same as most people's, I should fail to draw on men to wonder at me, but the more outlandish they were the more august I seemed to them, this was the reason why I chose to innovate, pretending that my grounds were too holy for discussion, so that each might have his conjecture, and all stand amazed as at the dark sayings of the oracles. There, even you are laughing at me in your turn.
18
Not so much at you as at the Krotoniates and Metapontines and Tarentines and the others who followed you speechless and kissed the footprints you left as you walked.
19
But when you had laid Pythagoras aside, what character did you clothe yourself with after him?
19
Aspasia, the courtesan from Miletos.
