The history of Pythagoreanism is littered with different and incompatible interpretations. This observation directs this book towards a fundamentally historiographical rather than philological approach, setting out to reconstruct the way in which the tradition established Pythagoreanism’s image.

Interpretation of ancient Pythagoreanism is vexed by different and incompatible assessments of the testimonia. This book begins with a valuable survey of Pythagorean scholarship and then turns to the ancient testimony in texts composed over a time-span of several centuries, in an attempt to reconstruct the way in which the idea of Pythagoreanism was shaped.