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106

Pythagoras. Therefore Livy allows his adversary
the earliest date ever assigned for the
coming of Pythagoras. Thus the authority of the
great historian is not against our date. But it
was merely that some author had said something
from which it might be inferred that Pythagoras
might have come as early as Servius Tullius. We
are obliged according to my rules to form some
definite conjecture as to what was
said. We may therefore suppose that the original
authority said that Pythagoras came early in
the third century of the city, or that he said he
was seen on his arrival by some person of Servius
Tullius's time. The assertion that Pythagoras
aided Numa unfortunately yields no
information because it needs no explanation