Aresas

Aresas (Ancient Greek: Ἀρέσας)^[i] of Lucania, and probably of Croton in Magna Graecia, was the head of the Pythagorean school, and the sixth head of the school in succession from Pythagoras himself. Diodorus of Aspendus was one of his students.^[1] He lived around the 4th or 5th century BCE.^[2]

At some point Aresas had to flee Croton, from people hostile to Pythagoreanism. He may have been the last head of the school in an unbroken line from Pythagoras; on the other hand Neoplatonist philosopher Iamblichus mentions Aresas as having "re-established" the school, implying a direct lineage might have been broken.^[2]

Some attribute to Aresas a work "about Human Nature," of which a fragment is preserved by Stobaeus;^[3] but others suppose it to have been written by the Pythagorean philosopher Aesara.

Some sources conflate Aresas with an "Aresandrus of Lucania", though this "Aresandrus" is otherwise unknown, and modern scholars consider this an error.^[2][4]

Notes

1. Catalogued as Oresas, perhaps erroneously, in some modern sources.

References

1. Zhmud, Leonid (2012). Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans. Translated by Windle, Kevin; Ireland, Rosh. Oxford University Press. p. 132. ISBN 9780199289318. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
2. Curnow, Trevor (2006). The Philosophers of the Ancient World: An A-Z Guide. A&C Black. p. 38. ISBN 9781849667715. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
3. Stobaeus, Eclogues i. p. 847, ed. Heeren
4. Horky, Philip Sidney (2016). Plato and Pythagoreanism. Oxford University Press. p. 128. ISBN 9780190465704. Retrieved 2018-01-18.

  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William (1870). "Aresas". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 276-277.