although he was more of a religious teacher. Having traveled
extensively in the East, he returned to Samos about 540 B.C.;
but, finding the condition of his country, which was then ruled
by the despot Polycrates, unfavorable to the progress of his
doctrines, he moved to Croto'na, in Italy, and established his
school of philosophy there.

Pythagoras,
Vexed with the Samian despot's lawless sway
(For tyrants ne'er loved wisdom), crossed the seas,
And found a home on the Hesperian shore,
Time when the Tarquin arched the infant Rome
With vaults, the germ of Caesar's golden hall.
There, in Crotona's state, he held a school
Of wisdom and of virtue, teaching men
The harmony of aptly portioned powers,
And of well-numbered days: whence, as a god,
Men honored him; and, from his wells refreshed,
The master-builder of pure intellect,
Imperial Plato, piled the palace where
All great, true thoughts have found a home forever.
--J. STUART BLACKIE.

Pythagoras made some important discoveries in geometry, music,
and astronomy. The demonstration of the forty-seventh proposition
of Euclid is attributed to him. He also discovered the chords in
music, which led him to conceive that the planets, striking upon
the ether through which they move in their celestial orbits;
produce harmonious sounds, varying according to the differences
of the magnitudes, velocities, and relative distances of the