Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

222 Pythagoras as Apollon reborn
What are we to think of this pecuHar narrative ? It is always unsafe
to disregard Pythagorean vagaries ; they
are so often found to
contain elements of primitive lore\ We must not, therefore, hastily
assume that Python killing Apollon was a wilful perversion of
Apollon killing Python-. That was not Pythagoras' attitude towards
the gods, least of all towards Apollon, with whom he stood in rela-
tions of exceptional intimacy. Apollonios (of Tyana }*) states that,
according to certain authorities, Pythagoras was nominally the son
of Mnesarchos, but really the son of Apollon by Pythais. Had not
a Samian poet penned the couplet .'
Pythais fairest of the Samian fair
Zeus-Io\'ed Pythagoras to Apollon bare*.
The authorities in question included Epimenides, Eudoxos, and
Xenokrates®. And even those who denied that P)'thagoras was
actually the son of Apollon admitted that there was some mys-
the Pythagorean couplet conceived somewhat as follows : StXiji'oO 76^0$ cTSe Sa/teis Hy^wyt
TidaiTTai I
4>oi/3o9, 6v al rpiacrai dpijveov al Tpioiros.
' Sup-a i. 66, 135, 282 n. 7, 303, 558 n. 5, 646, ii. 40 ff., a/16.
^ The notion, no doubt, is unique in ancient literature ; but so in ancient art is the
vase-painting of lason swallowed by the Colchian snake and disgorged at the bidding of
Athena (E. Gerhard in the A)i!i. d. Inst. 1836 viii. 289— 295, Mon. d. Inst, ii pi. 35,
Welcker Alt. Denkm. iii. 378—384 pi. 24, i f., Baumeister Denkvi. i. 123 f. fig. 129,
K. Seeliger in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 83 f. fig., Reinach K^p. Vases i. 10 r, 102, i,
W. Helbig Fiihrer durch die uffentlichen Sammlungen klassischcr Altertiimcr in Rom"^
Leipzig 1912 i. 344 f. no. 578, J. E. Harrison Themis Cambridge 1912 p. 435 f. fig. 135
from a photograph), to which however H. Schmidt _/