This paper discusses continuity between ancient Pythagoreanism and the pseudo-Pythagorean writings, which began to appear after the end of the Pythagorean school ca. 350 BC. Relying on a combination of temporal, formal and substantial criteria, I divide Pseudopythagorica into three categories: 1) early Hellenistic writings ascribed to Pythagoras and his family members; 2) philosophical treatises written mostly, yet not exclusively, in pseudo-Doric from the turn of the first century BC under the names of real or fictional Pythagoreans; 3) writings attributed (...) to Pythagoras and his relatives that continued to appear in the late Hellenistic and Imperial periods. I will argue that all three categories of pseudepigrapha contain astonishingly little that is authentically Pythagorean. (shrink)

Discusses the importance of the early history of Greek mathematics to education and civic life through a study of the Parthenon and dialogues of Plato.

Polybius and Diodorus each cite a league of Italiote city-states while chronicling events of the fifth and fourth centuries bc respectively. Scholarly opinion holds that the authors describe the same alliance. This article argues that each ancient historian refers to a different alliance with dissimilar goals. Evidence is marshaled to show that Polybius's fifth-century league was not formed to combat an Italic threat, as is commonly stated by modern authors. Three Achaean states established this alliance to counter their aggressive Italiote (...) neighbors, Thurii and Locri, both of whom were supported by major powers. By the first part of the fourth century, however, the situation in southern Italy had changed dramatically, and the growing power of Dionysius I as well as Italic people threatened the Italiotes. Diodorus describes another alliance formed by a larger group of Italiote states to counter a different set of enemies. (shrink)