Philolâus of Tarentum was active in the latter half of the fifth century B.C.
He was said to have written one book, which was the first published account of Pythagoreanism. The fragments attributed to him are in Doric dialect. Their genuineness has been disputed by modern scholars, probably without justification. 1 This work was usually given the title On the Universe. Another work entitled Bacchae was sometimes attributed to him.
1. Nature in the universe was fitted together from the Non-Limited and the Limiting, both the universe as a whole and everything in it.
2. All existing things must necessarily be either Limiting, or Non-Limited, or both Limiting and Non-Limited. But they could not be merely Non-Limited (nor merely Limited). Since however it is plain that they are neither wholly from the Limiting nor wholly from the Non-Limited, clearly then the universe and its contents were fitted together from both the Limiting and the Non-Limited. This is proved also by actual existing things; for those of them which are made of Limiting (elements) impose Limit, whereas those made of both Limiting and Non-Limited (elements) both do and do not impose Limit, and those made of Non-Limited (elements) will appear Non-Limited.
And you may see the nature of Number and its power at work not only in supernatural and divine existences but also in all human activities and words everywhere, both throughout all technical production and also in music.
The nature of Number and Harmony admits of no Falsehood; for this is unrelated to them. Falsehood and Envy belong to the nature of the Non-Limited and the Unintelligent and the Irrational.
Falsehood can in no way breathe on Number; for Falsehood is inimical and hostile to its nature, whereas Truth is related to and in close natural union with the race of Number.
12. The bodies (physical Elements) of the Sphere are five: the Fire in the Sphere, and the Water, and Earth, and Air, and, fifth, the vehicle(?) 2 of the Sphere.
13. (The Four Elements of the rational animal are: Brain, Heart, Navel, Genital Organ). The Head is the seat of the Mind, the
16. There are certain thoughts which are stronger than ourselves.
Attributed to a prose work called 'Bacchae'
17. (Stobaeus: paraphrase). The universe is one, and it began to come into being from the centre, and from the centre upwards at the same intervals (of distance) as those below. For the parts above from the centre are in inverse relationship to those below; for the centre is to what is below as it is to what is above, and so with all the rest; for both stand in the same relationship to the centre, except in so far as their positions are reversed.
18. (Stobaeus: quotation on the Sun has fallen out).
19. (Proclus: Plato, Pythagorean doctrine and Philolaus in the 'Bacchae' teach theology through mathematical figures).
Doubtful fragments
20. (The Number Seven is like) Nikê (i.e. Athena), the Motherless and Virgin . . . for it is ruler and teacher of all things; it is God, One ever-existing, stable, unmoving, itself like to itself, different from the rest.
20a. The Dyad (Two-ness) is the Bride of Cronos.
Spurious fragments
21. (Quoted by Stobaeus from a work attributed to Philolaus entitled 'On the Soul').
The soul is joined to the body through Number and the immortal and likewise incorporeal Harmony . . . The body is loved by the soul, because without it it cannot use the senses. When the soul has been separated from the body by death, it lives an incorporeal existence in the world.
23. (Iamblichus) Number is the ruling and self-created bond which maintains the everlasting stability of the contents of the universe.
73:1 See Companion, pp. 228-9.
75:1 Gnômôn: here, a figure used in solving geometrical problems. Heath, Greek Mathematics, I. p. 78; and Newbold, Philolaus, in Arch. für Gesch. der Phil. (1906) P. 176 sqq.
75:2 ὁλκάς, 'hull of a ship'; some emend to ὁλκός, 'roll' or 'envelope', an unlikely meaning.
76:1 Plato does not name Philolaus here; but his name is applied by Athenagoras (second century A.D.) to a similar statement.