Influence
Pherecydes' "Pentemychos" was thought to have contained a mystical esoteric teaching, treated allegorically. One ancient commentator said that:
Also, Pherecydes, the man of Syros, talks of recesses and pits and caves and doors and gates, and through these speaks in riddles of becomings and deceases of souls.A comparatively large number of sources say Pherecydes was the first to teach the eternality and transmigration (metampsychosis) of human souls. Both Cicero and Augustine thought of him having given the first teaching of the "immortality of the soul". It is not surprising that some considered Pherecydes to have been the teacher of Pythagoras. That he was the first to teach such a thing is doubtful, but that he was among the first and that he did profess this teaching is certain. Hermann S. Schibli concludes that Pherecydes "included in his book at least a rudimentary treatment of the immortality of the soul, its wanderings in the underworld, and the reasons for the soul’s incarnations".
Pherecydes was occasionally counted among the Seven Sages of Greece. A sun-dial ("helio-tropion"), supposedly made by Pherecydes, was said by Diogenes Laërtius to be "preserved on the island of Syros."
Read more about this topic: Pherecydes Of Syros
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“A bestial and violent man will go so far as to kill because he is under the influence of drink, exasperated, or driven by rage and alcohol. He is paltry. He does not know the pleasure of killing, the charity of bestowing death like a caress, of linking it with the play of the noble wild beasts: every cat, every tiger, embraces its prey and licks it even while it destroys it.”
—Colette [Sidonie Gabrielle Colette] (1873–1954)
“They tell us that women can bring better things to pass by indirect influence. Try to persuade any man that he will have more weight, more influence, if he gives up his vote, allies himself with no party and relies on influence to achieve his ends! By all means let us use to the utmost whatever influence we have, but in all justice do not ask us to be content with this.”
—Mrs. William C. Gannett, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 5, ch. 8, by Ida Husted Harper (1922)
“Nature has taken more care than the fondest parent for the education and refinement of her children. Consider the silent influence which flowers exert, no less upon the ditcher in the meadow than the lady in the bower. When I walk in the woods, I am reminded that a wise purveyor has been there before me; my most delicate experience is typified there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)