The Neopythagoreans on Metempsychosis

[sdi]

Diogenes Laertius (The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers VIII i 4) tells us, speaking of Pythagoras,

Heraclides Ponticus says, that he was accustomed to speak of himself in this manner; that he had formerly been Æthalides, and had been accounted the son of Mercury; and that Mercury had desired him to select any gift he pleased except immortality. And that he accordingly had requested that, whether living or dead, he might preserve the memory of what had happened to him. While, therefore, he was alive, he recollected everything; and when he was dead, he retained the same memory. And at a subsequent period he passed into Euphorbus, and was wounded by Menelaus [c.f. Iliad XVI–XVII]. And while he was Euphorbus, he used to say that he had formerly been Æthalides; and that he had received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into whatever plants or animals it pleased; and he had also received the gift of knowing and recollecting all that his soul had suffered in hell, and what sufferings too are endured by the rest of the souls.

But after Euphorbus died, he said that his soul had passed into Hermotimus; and when he wished to convince people of this, he went into the territory of the Branchidæ, and going into the temple of Apollo, he showed his shield which Menelaus had dedicated there as an offering. For he said that he, when he sailed from Troy, had offered up his shield which was already getting worn out, to Apollo, and that nothing remained but the ivory face which was on it. And when Hermotimus died, then he said that he had become Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos; and that he still recollected everything, how he had been formerly Æthalides, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, and then Pyrrhus. And when Pyrrhus died, he became Pythagoras, and still recollected all the circumstances that I have been mentioning.

I had seen this when I was going through The Lives, collecting anecdotes about the Cynics (I still gotta write up all the hilarious back-and-forth between Plato and Diogenes—they really had it out for each other!), thought it was interesting but not terribly useful, and promptly forgot about it. But it seems the Neopythagoreans made hay of it! I found this in the Theology of Arithmetic VI (attributed to Iamblichus, but more likely the lecture notes of some anonymous student):

Since 6³=216, the period pertaining to seven-month offspring, when to the seven months are added the six days in which the [fertilized egg takes to implant in the uterus], then Androcydes the Pythagorean, who wrote On the Maxims, and Eubulides the Pythagorean, Aristoxenus, Hippobotus, and Neanthes—who all recorded Pythagoras' deeds—said that the transmigrations of soul which he underwent occurred at 216-year intervals, that after this many years, at all events, he came to reincarnation and rebirth as Pythagoras, as it were after the first cycle and return of the soul-generating cube of six (and this number is in fact recurrent because of being spherical [e.g. 6² is circular, since 36 contains 6, so 6³ is spherical, having one more dimension]), and that he was born at other times after these intervals. This is consistent with him having had the soul of Euphorbus during that period: for there are about 514 years of history from the Trojan War until the time of [Pythagoras]. [...]

So evidently, the Neopythagoreans considered it to take 216 years between lives. John Dillon wonders whether this were true of Proclus, too: since Marinus (Life of Proclus XXVIII) says that "on the authority of a dream, he was convinced that his was the reincarnated soul of the Pythagorean Nicomachus;" and since, while we don't know the date of his death, it is plausible that Nicomachus died in AD 196 (216 years prior to Proclus' birth). (Certainly, it is plausible that Proclus, a compiler turned up to eleven, is the reincarnation of another compiler!)

As for whether this is generally true, who knows? What little I possess of my previous life suggests it happened almost immediately prior to this one, rather than in colonial times. But on the one hand, I'm not super confident in those memories; and on the other, that little time elapses between lives now doesn't rule out that hundreds of years elapsed between lives back then.