Pythagoras of Crotona
The Triangle and the Pyramid as the central motif. From The Secret Teachings of All Ages.
What is happening
Hall, 1928 “All too lightly the world has passed over the achievements of the first "philosopher" to whom it is indebted for so many of the basic theorems of mathematics, music, and astronomy.”
Key · 1 motif
Tap a motif on the picture, or a line below. Its note opens under the line, with the reading its author gave it.
- Primary motif
The picture
Pythagoras holds a white pyramid; above him the tetractys, the triangle of ten points; a sphere, a lyre and a checkered pavement design around him; by eye. Hall's caption is about the man and his school, not the objects. By eye
Decoded: every motif is marked, and each mark carries the reading its author gave it, quoted from the text, or says that it is observed on the picture and not read. The composition, the picture read whole in our own words, comes with the entry.
No entry yet for this motif. The wall gathers every work that carries it.
By eye The central motif, the tetractys above him, and the white pyramid in his hand.
Hall, 1928 “Pythagoras taught that 10, or the unit of the decimal system, was the most perfect of all numbers, and he symbolized the number ten by the lesser tetractys, an arrangement of ten dots in the form of an upright triangle.”
Hall, 1928 “Theon of Smyrna declares that the ten dots, or tetractys of Pythagoras, was a symbol of the greatest importance, for to the discerning mind it revealed the mystery of universal nature.”
Also carrying the Triangle and the Pyramid
5 works. The symbol.
By the same hand
In the same series
Record
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