So little is known about the life of Pythagoras that some historians have suggested that such a person did not exist and that the name was for a society of people who studied the mystical properties of numbers. However, the majority of historians, who have based their theories on the works of the later Greek writers Plato (ca. 428 b.c.-ca. 348 b.c.) and Herodotus (ca. 484 b.c.-ca. 430 or 420 b.c.), believe that an individual named Pythagoras did indeed exist.

Believed to have been born on the island of Samos about 560 b.c., Pythagoras traveled extensively in Egypt and Babylon, absorbing the mathematical and mystical doctrines of these cultures. Pythagoras settled in the Greek colony of Croton in southern Italy, becoming the leader of a religious, scientific and philosophical brotherhood. Marked by secrecy and mysticism, the Pythagorean society often followed unique practices; for example, they forbade the...