Vitarum auctio

PYTHAGOREAN Then, in addition to this, in counting.

BUYER I know how to count now.

PYTHAGOREAN How dost thou count ?

BUYER One, two, three, four—

PYTHAGOREAN Lo! what thou thinkest four is ten, and a perfect triangle, and our oath.[*](Four is ten, because it contains three, two and one, and 1 2 3 4 10. The perfect triangle is ) BUYER Well, by your greatest oath, by Four, I never heard diviner doctrines or more esoteric.

PYTHAGOREAN Thereafter, my friend, thou shalt learn of earth and air and water and fire, what their flux is, and what form they have and how they move.

BUYER Why, has fire form, or air, or water ?

PYTHAGOREAN Yea, very notably, for without shape and form there can be no motion. And in addition thou shalt learn that God is number and mind and harmony.

BUYER What you say is wonderful.

PYTHAGOREAN And beside all that I have said, thou shalt learn

that thou, who thinkest thyself a single individual, art one person in semblance and another in reality.

BUYER What’s that? I am another and not this man who now talks to you!

PYTHAGOREAN Now thou art he, but erstwhile thou didst manifest thyself in another body and under another name, and in time thou shalt again migrate into another person.

BUYER You mean that I shall be immortal, changing into many forms? But enough of this.

How do you stand in the matter of diet ?

PYTHAGOREAN I eat nothing at all that hath life, but all else save beans.

BUYER Why so? Do you dislike beans?

PYTHAGOREAN Nay, but they are holy, and wonderful is their nature. First, they are nought but seed of man, and if thou open a bean while it is still green, thou wilt see that it resembleth in structure the member of a man ; and again, if thou cook it and set it in the light of the moon for a fixed number of nights, thou wilt make blood. But more than this, the Athenians are wont to choose their magistrates with beans.[*](The offices were filled by lot, and beans were used for lots. This appears to be Lucian’s own contribution to the Pythagorean mysticism, but the other particulars are not very remote from the actual teachings of the Neo-Pythagoreans, Cf. Porphyr. Vit. Pythag., 44.)

BUYER You have explained everything duly and sacerdotally. Come, strip, for I want to see you unclothed. Heracles! His thigh is of gold! He seems to be a god and not a mortal, so I shall certainly buy him. (Yo Hermes.) What price do you sell him for ?

HERMES Ten minas.

BUYER I'll take him at that figure.

ZEUS Write down the buyer’s name and where he comes from.

HERMES He appears to be an Italian, Zeus, one of those who live in the neighbourhood of Croton and Tarentum and the Greek settlements in that quarter of the world. But there is more than one buyer; about three hundred have bought him in shares.[*](A reference to the brotherhood founded by Pythagoras in Magna Grecia, which wielded great political power until it was extirpated in a general revolt about fifty years after the death of Pythagoras.) ZEUS Let them take him away ; let us bring on another.