PHERECYDES ofSyros, one of the earliest Greek philosophers, was the son of Babys and a native of the island of Syros. The dates of his life are variously stated, but there seems to be no doubt that he lived in the 6th century B.c.; amongst his contemporaries were Thales and Anaximander. He was sometimes reckoned one of the Seven Wise Men, and a very uniform tradition represented him as the teacher of Pythagoras. Many wonderful tales were told of him, e.g., that from drinking water drawn from a well he was able to predict an earthquake three days before it took place. The accounts of his death are very discrepant, but the commonest was that he died of the morbus pediculosus. But, if the minute description which Hippocrates gives of the death of Pherecydes refers to the philosopher, he would seem to have died of a virulent fever, perhaps spotted typhus. He is said to have been the first Greek author who wrote in prose, but perhaps the chronicler Cadmus of Miletus preceded him. The statements of late writers, that he drew his philosophy from secret writings of the Phoenicians, and that he was a disciple of the Egyptians and Chaldaeans, deserve little attention, made as they were at a time when it was the fashion to regard all wisdom as derived from the East. He was credited with having originated the doctrine of metempsychosis, while Cicero and Augustine even assert that he was the first to teach the immortality of the soul. Of his astronomical studies he left a proof in the “helio-tropion,” a cave at Syros which served to determine the annual turning-point of the sun, like the grotto of Posillipo at Naples....