Part 2 - AMORC

y Mary Jones , SRCThe philosophers of ancient Greece were thefirst documented enquirers into the workingsof the world and how things worked. They weresceptical about religious explanations for naturalphenomena and sought explanations throughpersonal experience and deep reflection. Of course,after some two and a half thousand years, it canbe difficult to understand the terminology theyused in its original meaning. For that, you needto get into the minds of those distant philosophersand also understand the times in which theylived. This fascinating though academic approachis sadly beyond the scope of this series of articlesabout Pythagoras, one of the most renownedphilosophers of the ancient world. More famousnowadays for his mathematical theorem, thisseries of five articles will, I hope, give you aninsight into a philosophy that shaped the worldas we know it today. Pythagoras was one of theshining lights of ancient Greek thought, whoseteachings became the foundation of modernphilosophical thought and who has influencedRosicrucian teachings to this day.Part IFrom Samos toMetapontumn the Aegean Sea, a shortdistance from the Ionian coast of AsiaMinor, what is today Anatolia or AsiaticTurkey, there is a remarkably fertileisland called Samos. In classical antiquitythe island was a centre of Ionian culture andluxury, renowned for its Samian wines and redpottery, called “Samian ware” by the Romans.At the time of the great Hellenic migrations,it received an Ionian population which traced itsorigin to Epidauros in the Argolis, not far fromancient Mycenae, the capital of the Mycenaeancivilisation and home to Agamemnon of Homer’sIliad. Samos became one of the 12 members ofthe Ionian League. By the 7 th century BCE it hadbecome one of the leading commercial centresof the Greek world. The early prosperity of theSamians seems largely due to the island’s position36The Rosicrucian Beacon -- June 2008