What is Pythagorean in the Pseudo-Pythagorean Literature?

Philologus: Zeitschrift für Antike Literatur Und Ihre Rezeption 163 (1):72-94 (2019)
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Abstract

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.

Author's Profile

Leonid Zhmud
Institute for The History of Science and Technology, RAS

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