Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – Established around 500 B.C. in Crotone, Italy, the Pythagorean Brotherhood was one of the earliest secret societies. Crotone was a flourishing Greek colony and a center for intellectuals who exchanged ideas and theories.
After escaping Samos ‘s tyrannical rule, the great Greek philosopher Pythagoras migrated to Southern Italy and founded the Pythagorean School of Mathematics in Crotone.
Pythagoreans celebrate the sunrise (1869) by Fyodor Bronnikov. Credit: Public Domain
Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570 – c. 495 BC) was one of the greatest minds at the time, but he was a controversial philosopher whose ideas were unusual in many ways. Being a truth-seeker, Pythagoras traveled to foreign lands. It is presumed he received most of his education in ancient Egypt, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Achaemenid Empire, and Crete.