Pythagoras

Pythagoras is often referred to as the first pure mathematician. He was born on the island of Samos, Greece in 569 BCE. Various writings place his death between 500 BCE and 475 BCE in Metapontum, Lucania, Italy. His father, Mnesarchus, was a gem merchant. Pythagoras was well educated, and he played the lyre (a musical instrument) throughout his lifetime, knew poetry and recited Homer's Iliad from the top of his head. He was interested in mathematics, philosophy, astronomy and music.

Pythagoras left Samos for Egypt in about 535 BCE to study with the priests in the temples. Ten years later, when Persia invaded Egypt, Pythagoras was taken prisoner and sent to Babylon (in what is now Iraq), where he met the Magoi, priests who taught him sacred rites and theories. A philosopher living in Syria, wrote about Pythagoras, "He surely reached the peak of perfection in arithmetic and music and the other mathematical sciences taught by the Babylonians..." In 520 BCE, Pythagoras, now a free man, left Babylon and returned to Samos, and sometime later began a school called The Semicircle. His methods of teaching were not popular with the leaders of Samos, and their desire for him to become involved in politics did not appeal to him, so he left.

Pythagoras settled in Crotona, a Greek colony in southern Italy, about 518 BCE, and founded a philosophical and religious school where his many followers lived and worked. The Pythagoreans lived by rules of behavior, including when they spoke, what they wore and what they ate. Pythagoras was the Master of the society, and the followers, both men and women, who also lived there, were known as mathematikoi. They had no personal possessions and were vegetarians. They all worked communally on discoveries and theories.