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SCIENCES IN CONNEXION WITH THE STATE.other cities of Magna Gr3ecia,and according to some accountseven in Carthage and Gyrene, continued to exist for at leastthirty years, we can realize that it may have borne not onlybut fruits. His disciples came by degrees to fillblossoms,the most important posts,not only in Croton, but also in theother Grecian cities ;and yet at the time of the destructionof Sybaris,the sect must have existed in its full force ;sincePythagoras advised the reception of the banished land;in the war against Sybaris, one of his most distinguishedscholars, the wrestler Milo, 2 held the supreme command,But when a secret society pursues political ends, it naturallyfollows, that an opposing party increases in the same degreein which the preponderatinginfluence of such a society becomes more felt. 3 But in this case, the opposition existedalready in the popular party.4It therefore only needed adaring leader, like Cylon, to scatter the society by violence ;the assembly was surprised, and most of them cut down,while a few only, and with them their master, escaped.After such a victory of the adverse faction, the expulsion ofthe rest of the Pythagoreans who remained alive, from theiroffices, was a natural consequence and the ;political importance of the society was at an end. It was never able toraise its head again.With the politicaldoctrines of the Pythagoreans,we areacquainted only from later writers, who are yet worthy ofcredit, and of whom accounts and fragments have been preserved, especially in the collections of Stobaeus. u Theyregarded anarchy," says Aristoxenus, 5"as the greatest evil;because man cannot exist without social order. They heldthat every thing depended on the relation between the governing and the thatgovernedthe former should be not;only prudent, but mild and that the latter should not;only1DiocL 1. c.2 Violent bodily exercises formed a part of the .discipline of Pythagoras.Six times in one Olympiad, prizes at Olympia were gained in those days byinhabitants of Croton. Must not this too have contributed to increase thefeme of Pythagoras ?3 Need I cite the example of the Illuminati ?4Cylon, the author of that commotion, is described as the leader of thedemocratic party ;and this is proved by the anarchy which ensued after thecatastrophe, and continued tifl order was restored by the mother cities inAchaia.5 Stab. Serm, xli p. 243. This evidence is taken either from. Aristoxenus, orfrom Aristotle Mmself, and therefore, according to Hefners, not to be rejected.