The Pythagorean Hypomnemata reported by Alexander Polyhistor in Diogenes Laertius (8.25–33): a proposal for reading

On various occasions, Aristotle uses a remarkable expression to refer to Pythagoras ’ followers, calling them “ those that are called Pythagoreans ” ( hoi kaloumenoi Pythagoreioi ). Aristotle ’ s caution reflects, at an early date, the problematic nature of the relationship between Pythagoras and his followers. This is true at two levels. First, the use of the plural points to the problem of the relationship between the group and the individual, if indeed the expression refers, in some of the passages mentioned, to the work of Philolaos only; second, and more importantly, the term kaloumenoi shows that in Aristotle ’ s eyes, the relationship between those who were called (and who must have called themselves) “ Pythagoreans ” and Pythagoras himself was not a straightforward one: the expression both identifies and denies the identification, thus opening a crack between Pythagoras and Pythagoreans, which the further history of the Pythagorean school was to both deepen and fill in a variety of ways – from stories about the publication of secret doctrines to the abundant production of pseudepigraphic literature. By the time we reach the latter stage, the crack has become an abyss: in most Neopythagorean texts, the name “ Pythagoras ” is no more than a substitute for either Plato, Aristotle, or a syncretic combination of both. One can wonder whether the main responsibility for Pythagoras ’ Platonization – which is much older, and also easier to understand, given Plato ’ s own clear if indirectly expressed Pythagorean inclinations, than his Aristotelization – belongs to Plato ’ s immediate disciples Speusippus and Xenocrates, as is commonly held, or rather to Aristotle himself, as L. Zhmud interestingly argues in the present volume. © Walter de Gruyter GmbH 2023