greater traditions and more potent influences and sources of knowledge
than in Egypt, for there is reason for believing that the ancient
Chaldeans were the builders of the Pyramids and in many ways the
intellectual superiors of the Egyptians.

At last, after having travelled still further East, probably as far as
India, PYTHAGORAS returned to his birthplace to teach the men of his
native land the knowledge he had gained. But CROESUS was tyrant over
Samos, and so oppressive was his rule that none had leisure in which to
learn. Not a student came to PYTHAGORAS, until, in despair, so the
story runs, he offered to pay an artisan if he would but learn geometry.
The man accepted, and later, when PYTHAGORAS pretended inability
any longer to continue the payments, he offered, so fascinating did
he find the subject, to pay his teacher instead if the lessons might
only be continued. PYTHAGORAS no doubt was much gratified at this;
and the motto he adopted for his great Brotherhood, of which we shall make
the acquaintance in a moment, was in all likelihood based on this event.
It ran, "Honour a figure and a step before a figure and a tribolus";
or, as a freer translation renders it:--

"A figure and a step onward Not a figure and a florin."


"At all events, as Mr FRANKLAND remarks, "the motto is a lasting witness
to a very singular devotion to knowledge for its own sake."[1]


[1] W. B. FRANKLAND, M.A.: _The Story of Euclid_ (1902), p. 33

But PYTHAGORAS needed a greater audience than one man, however