61

104

same. Sundry other authorities support the date
by assertions that harmonize well with it. Let us
begin the building of our hypothesis, then, by supposing
that Pythagoras reached Italy in the
summer of 532 B.C. It would necessarily be
summer, owing to the conditions of navigation at
that time. The most serious contradiction of this
date is by the great historian Livy, who seems to
say that Pythagoras came during the reign of
Servius Tullius who was assassinated two years
before. However, on carefully examining the passage
of Livy, we remark that the historian only
mentions this date in order to refute
a statement by another historian that Numa
Pompilius, the second king, had been aided by