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Q: Need detailed info or book on Pythagorus' KROTONA gym. ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   1 Comment )
Question  
Subject: Need detailed info or book on Pythagorus' KROTONA gym.
Category: Sports and Recreation > Training
Asked by: mrfire-ga
List Price: $5.00
Posted: 07 Jan 2005 10:06 PST
Expires: 06 Feb 2005 10:06 PST
Question ID: 453649
I'm looking for detailed information -- preferably a book -- on the
first Western gym that was in what is today Sicily, about 500 BCE, the
school at Krotona. It was started by Pythagorus.

Request for Question Clarification by tlspiegel-ga on 07 Jan 2005 11:35 PST
Hi mrfire,

I perfomed an extensive search for your question, and to be honest
there isn't much reference to Pythagorus Krotona Gym.

Some of the keywords I used were:

Pythagorus, Pythagoras, Pythagoreans, Krotona, Kroton, Croton,
Crotone, Crotona, gymansium
 
However, I have found some information for you and if my findings are
satisfactory, please let me know by posting a clarification, and I
will post this as the official answer to your question.

==========

http://www.torqueathletic.com/news.php?ID=87&r=-24929

Physical Culture, Then and Now PART 1  [March 1, 2004]
By Sensei Ken, O?Neill   

Something is fundamentally out of focus, if not dog gone wrong, with
our culture?s leadership. In times of economic ?restructuring? the
most important aspects of life are cut from school budgets. Along with
the fine and performing arts, physical education programs get cut as
if all were frivolous activities. Many a school district these days
either has no physical education, no fine and performing arts, or else
has greatly diminished programs. Diminished physical education, along
with fine and performing arts, threatens the very soul of our cultural
heritage. For the cultures of sports and the arts instills an
experience of life and a self of self unlike those areas of schooling
that keep us in our head.

Binding the great civilizations of Greece, India and China in what is
known as the Axial Period was the emergence of systems of education
for the whole person, education of body and mind. The word education
comes from the verb ?educare? which means ?drawing out potentials
already in the person?. Whole person based education draws out all the
inborn potentialities of a person. Education that emphasizes heady
skills while neglecting the body results in a half-baked system of
education that makes half-people. Education neglecting physical
development results in an unfit population; education negligent of
fine and performing arts produces a drab and dull society. The
ancients knew better.

The Axial Period, about 500 B.C.E. is that time in which humans woke
up to themselves. That was the time of the first great philosophers.
Not long hair philosophers living in ivory towers, but great minds who
questioned everything. Philosophers who aimed at getting to the basic
truths of life. At that time, humanity began to become aware of its
own nature. From those philosophers came the first schools of whole
person education. In Greece those schools were known as gymnasia. Our
word ?gym? comes from their ideas about schools based on educating all
of human nature.

Remember Pythagorus from high school geometry. It?s a darn shame we
aren?t told his story, but just made to learn his theorem about
triangles. As a young man he was an Olympic wrestling champion.
Convinced that the education he received left much out, he set upon a
journey of discovery taking him throughout much of the ancient world
in quest of knowledge. Having broadened himself, he returned home and
founded the school known as Krotona. Krotona?s mission was to educate
the whole, full person. Pythagorus invented the Western musical scale
and the principle of harmony. But his notion of harmony wasn?t
confined to music: it underscored education. Krotona aimed at
developing rich harmony of body, spirit and mind. His notion of
culture included intellectual culture, creativity culture, and
physical culture.

Our first gyms were found in Greece, China, and India. All emphasized
harmony and integration of body and mind. Physical training thrived
until the Dark Ages, and only reappeared after the Latin Renaissance
of 1460."

=========

The following link is a cached page.  Please copy and paste the link
to access the page:

http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:AALbJ0v97NgJ:mailman.acomp.usf.edu/pipermail/cultstud-l/2000-June/002341.html+Pythagorus+The+School+at+Krotona+information&hl=en
 
"No coverage of wrestling is complete without reference to one of the early
Olympic wrestling champions: Pythagorus. Upon winning that he set out on
his journey to the citadels of wisdom of the ancient world, finally
settling in what is today souther Italy to establish his academy, Krotona,
dedicated to harmonia of body, mind and spirit. As I recall he married in
his seventies or eighties and a pack of kids soon followed."

=========

http://ganymede.nmsu.edu/tharriso/ast301/class02.html

"Around 570 BC, the Greek mathematician Pythagoras was born on the
island of Samos, about 100 miles from Miletus. Being an contemporary
of Anaximenes, he was, undoubtedly, aware of the new study of
geometry. To escape the tyrant Polycartes, he moved to Croton, a Greek
town in southern Italy at about 530 BC. In Croton, Pythagoras founded
a religious cult with strict rules about behavior, diet, immortality
and reincarnation, much more of a "supernatural" view of the
universe-in contrast to the ideas of the Milesians.

The Pythagoreans were a peculiar bunch with some strange habits that
even their contemporaries found odd. For example, they did not eat
meat or beans, could not wear clothes made of wool, could not pick up
anything that had fallen or been dropped, and could not stir a fire
with iron.

The Pythagoreans formed the first school. The sect was composed of two
groups the "hearers", and the "learned" (students and teachers). They
believed that the main difficulty to overcome in life was the needs of
the human body. If you could free yourself from this you could lead a
divine life"

=========

PYTHAGORAS AND HIS SCHOOL 
http://theosophy.org/tlodocs/PythagorasandHisSchool.htm

Pythagoras was revered in India as Pitar Guru, Father and Teacher, and
as Yavanacharya, the Ionian philosopher. He was known by other names
in ancient Egypt where he spent twenty years in preparation before, at
the age of fifty-six, he founded the School at Crotona in Magna
Graecia, with great deliberation and in accord with the wisdom and the
vision of the mighty Brotherhood he represented. He taught an entire
emerging community, seeking four hundred pure souls who might
constitute a small brotherhood for the sake of making that polis a
city of souls in search of wisdom in harmony with the larger
fellowship of man. His School was based upon the most stringent rules
for admission, including a probation lasting five years and a
requirement of total silence in the presence of those in the assembly
who had been longer in the school. He initiated those who had passed
all the preliminary trials, making themselves channels for the divine
fount of omniscience, towards which he always pointed and upon which
he enjoined an absolute, reverential silence.

(see article)

=========
The WAWLI Papers No. 201...
http://www.wrestlingclassics.com/wawli/Nos.201-207.html

"The notion that the wrestling manager is an investion of the
post-World War II days is quite false. The fact is that the story of
wrestling managers is traced back to the days of ancient Greece, long
before the world was captured by the master mind of the Grand Wizard.

It all started with a man named Pythagoras. A former wrestler himself,
the Greek nobleman retired from the sport in order to devote his time
and energy to manage his friend, the great Milo.

Students of wrestling are no strangers to Milo. He was the ?living
legend? of his era, proclaimed to be the greatest wrestler of the
civilized world. The reputation of Milo was known all over the Greek
empire. It is true that Milo had a great ability for wrestling,
however, Pythagoras was the man who took Milo at the height of his
admiration in ancient Greece and, by promoting both facts and myths
together, made the wrestler a national hero. The wit and wisdom of
Milo?s manager, Pythagoras, has continued on for centuries and is
still evident today in the fast paced action packed world of
professional wrestling."

==============

PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS
http://www.math.uvic.ca/courses/math415/Math415Web/greece/gmen/pythagtext.html

=========

Pythagoras Superstar
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/PythagorasStar.htm

=========

Pythagoras the Scientific Boxer
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/AthleticScientists.htm

=========

Scroll to A History of Science Volume I, by Henry Smith Williams: 
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/AthleticScientists.htm

=========

The Life of Pythagoras, translated from the Greek by Thomas Taylor (abridged)
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=101275360

========

Iamblichus's Life of Pythagoras
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=102466426

=========

An excellent in depth article but no reference to the first gym (gymnasium)
THE PYTHAGOREAN COUNSELS
http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Philosophy/PythagoreanCounsels.html
 
=========

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/PythagorasStar.htm

Clarification of Question by mrfire-ga on 07 Jan 2005 12:07 PST
This looks good except maybe a book giving me a biography of
Pythagoras would be all that's left. thank you. -joe
Answer  
Subject: Re: Need detailed info or book on Pythagorus' KROTONA gym.
Answered By: tlspiegel-ga on 07 Jan 2005 13:28 PST
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
Hi Joe,

Thank you for accepting my findings, and I also thank you for a
fascinating question.

I'll start with the books I located for you.

Pythagoras: His Life and Teachings - Being a Photographic Facsimile of
the Ninth Section of the 1687 Edition of "The History of Philosophy"
Thomas Stanley 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0893144088/026-0437003-2846840

=========

Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras
by John Strohmeier, Peter Westbrook
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0965377458/104-1267179-6984759?v=glance

(9 used & new from $7.89) 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/offer-listing/0965377458/ref=dp_primary-product-display_1//104-1267179-6984759?condition=all

=========

Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras, Or, Pythagoric Life: Accompanied by
Fragments of the Ethical Writings of Certain Pythagoreans in the Doric
Dialect A by Iamblichus
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0892811528/ref=pd_null_recs_b//104-1267179-6984759?v=glance&s=books

=========
 
Biography of Pythagoras - Pythagoras Pass (PDF File for purchase):
http://www.bookrags.com/subscribe/bsingle.html?bookid=pythagoras

? $6.99 for this biography
? Print-friendly PDF available
? Access available for 90 days 

=========

Interesting article from The Internet Encyclopeia of Philosophy
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/pythagor.htm

Pythagoras (fl. 530 BCE.)

and...

Pythagoras of Samos 
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Pythagoras.html

*********

Physical Culture, Then and Now PART 1 By Sensei Ken, O?Neill  [March 1, 2004]
http://www.torqueathletic.com/news.php?ID=87&r=-24929

"Something is fundamentally out of focus, if not dog gone wrong, with
our culture?s leadership. In times of economic ?restructuring? the
most important aspects of life are cut from school budgets. Along with
the fine and performing arts, physical education programs get cut as
if all were frivolous activities. Many a school district these days
either has no physical education, no fine and performing arts, or else
has greatly diminished programs. Diminished physical education, along
with fine and performing arts, threatens the very soul of our cultural
heritage. For the cultures of sports and the arts instills an
experience of life and a self of self unlike those areas of schooling
that keep us in our head.

Binding the great civilizations of Greece, India and China in what is
known as the Axial Period was the emergence of systems of education
for the whole person, education of body and mind. The word education
comes from the verb ?educare? which means ?drawing out potentials
already in the person?. Whole person based education draws out all the
inborn potentialities of a person. Education that emphasizes heady
skills while neglecting the body results in a half-baked system of
education that makes half-people. Education neglecting physical
development results in an unfit population; education negligent of
fine and performing arts produces a drab and dull society. The
ancients knew better.

The Axial Period, about 500 B.C.E. is that time in which humans woke
up to themselves. That was the time of the first great philosophers.
Not long hair philosophers living in ivory towers, but great minds who
questioned everything. Philosophers who aimed at getting to the basic
truths of life. At that time, humanity began to become aware of its
own nature. From those philosophers came the first schools of whole
person education. In Greece those schools were known as gymnasia. Our
word ?gym? comes from their ideas about schools based on educating all
of human nature.

Remember Pythagorus from high school geometry. It?s a darn shame we
aren?t told his story, but just made to learn his theorem about
triangles. As a young man he was an Olympic wrestling champion.
Convinced that the education he received left much out, he set upon a
journey of discovery taking him throughout much of the ancient world
in quest of knowledge. Having broadened himself, he returned home and
founded the school known as Krotona. Krotona?s mission was to educate
the whole, full person. Pythagorus invented the Western musical scale
and the principle of harmony. But his notion of harmony wasn?t
confined to music: it underscored education. Krotona aimed at
developing rich harmony of body, spirit and mind. His notion of
culture included intellectual culture, creativity culture, and
physical culture.

Our first gyms were found in Greece, China, and India. All emphasized
harmony and integration of body and mind. Physical training thrived
until the Dark Ages, and only reappeared after the Latin Renaissance
of 1460."

=========

The following link is a cached page.  If clicking on the link doesn't
work for you, please copy and paste the url to access the page:

http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:AALbJ0v97NgJ:mailman.acomp.usf.edu/pipermail/cultstud-l/2000-June/002341.html+Pythagorus+The+School+at+Krotona+information&hl=en
 
"No coverage of wrestling is complete without reference to one of the early
Olympic wrestling champions: Pythagorus. Upon winning that he set out on
his journey to the citadels of wisdom of the ancient world, finally
settling in what is today souther Italy to establish his academy, Krotona,
dedicated to harmonia of body, mind and spirit. As I recall he married in
his seventies or eighties and a pack of kids soon followed."

=========

http://ganymede.nmsu.edu/tharriso/ast301/class02.html

"Around 570 BC, the Greek mathematician Pythagoras was born on the
island of Samos, about 100 miles from Miletus. Being an contemporary
of Anaximenes, he was, undoubtedly, aware of the new study of
geometry. To escape the tyrant Polycartes, he moved to Croton, a Greek
town in southern Italy at about 530 BC. In Croton, Pythagoras founded
a religious cult with strict rules about behavior, diet, immortality
and reincarnation, much more of a "supernatural" view of the
universe-in contrast to the ideas of the Milesians.

The Pythagoreans were a peculiar bunch with some strange habits that
even their contemporaries found odd. For example, they did not eat
meat or beans, could not wear clothes made of wool, could not pick up
anything that had fallen or been dropped, and could not stir a fire
with iron.

The Pythagoreans formed the first school. The sect was composed of two
groups the "hearers", and the "learned" (students and teachers). They
believed that the main difficulty to overcome in life was the needs of
the human body. If you could free yourself from this you could lead a
divine life"

=========

PYTHAGORAS AND HIS SCHOOL 
http://theosophy.org/tlodocs/PythagorasandHisSchool.htm

"Pythagoras was revered in India as Pitar Guru, Father and Teacher, and
as Yavanacharya, the Ionian philosopher. He was known by other names
in ancient Egypt where he spent twenty years in preparation before, at
the age of fifty-six, he founded the School at Crotona in Magna
Graecia, with great deliberation and in accord with the wisdom and the
vision of the mighty Brotherhood he represented. He taught an entire
emerging community, seeking four hundred pure souls who might
constitute a small brotherhood for the sake of making that polis a
city of souls in search of wisdom in harmony with the larger
fellowship of man. His School was based upon the most stringent rules
for admission, including a probation lasting five years and a
requirement of total silence in the presence of those in the assembly
who had been longer in the school. He initiated those who had passed
all the preliminary trials, making themselves channels for the divine
fount of omniscience, towards which he always pointed and upon which
he enjoined an absolute, reverential silence."

(see article)

=========

The WAWLI Papers No. 201...
http://www.wrestlingclassics.com/wawli/Nos.201-207.html

"The notion that the wrestling manager is an investion of the
post-World War II days is quite false. The fact is that the story of
wrestling managers is traced back to the days of ancient Greece, long
before the world was captured by the master mind of the Grand Wizard.

It all started with a man named Pythagoras. A former wrestler himself,
the Greek nobleman retired from the sport in order to devote his time
and energy to manage his friend, the great Milo.

Students of wrestling are no strangers to Milo. He was the ?living
legend? of his era, proclaimed to be the greatest wrestler of the
civilized world. The reputation of Milo was known all over the Greek
empire. It is true that Milo had a great ability for wrestling,
however, Pythagoras was the man who took Milo at the height of his
admiration in ancient Greece and, by promoting both facts and myths
together, made the wrestler a national hero. The wit and wisdom of
Milo?s manager, Pythagoras, has continued on for centuries and is
still evident today in the fast paced action packed world of
professional wrestling."

==============

PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS
http://www.math.uvic.ca/courses/math415/Math415Web/greece/gmen/pythagtext.html

=========

Pythagoras Superstar
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/PythagorasStar.htm

=========

Pythagoras the Scientific Boxer
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/AthleticScientists.htm

=========

Scroll to A History of Science Volume I, by Henry Smith Williams: 
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/AthleticScientists.htm

=========

The Life of Pythagoras, translated from the Greek by Thomas Taylor (abridged)
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=101275360

========

Iamblichus's Life of Pythagoras
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=102466426

=========

An excellent in depth article but no reference to the first gym (gymnasium)
THE PYTHAGOREAN COUNSELS
http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Philosophy/PythagoreanCounsels.html
 
=========

Pythagoras Superstar by Michael Lahanas
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/PythagorasStar.htm

=========

Best regards,
tlspiegel
mrfire-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars and gave an additional tip of: $3.50
Very detailed and fast. I'm impressed.

Comments  
Subject: Re: Need detailed info or book on Pythagorus' KROTONA gym.
From: tlspiegel-ga on 07 Jan 2005 14:54 PST
 
Hi mrfire,

Thank you for the fine rating, comments and tip!

Best regards,
tlspiegel

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