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The number 3,000 recurs in Plat. Phaedrus, 29, p. 249 A, but only for the ‘truly philosophic soul’. Empedocles, who is certainly referred to in οἱ ὕστερον, gives ‘30,000 years’ (ὧραι fr. 115, ed. Diels) as the period for the purification of sinful souls. By οἱ πρότερον H. means probably the Orphic teachers (cf. 81. 2 nn.), and certainly Pythagoras (cf. iv. 95-6). Whether Pythagoras was in this matter the pupil of Pherecydes, ‘qui primus dixit animos hominum esse sempiternos’ (Cic. Tusc. i. 16. 38) is doubtful (cf. Gomperz, i. 542). H. avoids censuring Pythagoras by name, perhaps because he was a Samian (but cf. i. 51. 4 for similar reticence).

The doctrine of metempsychosis was widely diffused in the sixth century, and it is possible that it may have been taught at Croton before Pythagoras came there, by the mysterious Orpheus of Croton (cf. Gruppe, Rosch. Lex. s. v. Orpheus, p. 1131, who accepts H.'s statement that it was an Egyptian doctrine).

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