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Comment by dr_dshiv | Hacker News Reader

Speaking of Plato’s wrestling coach…

Pythagoras was also a successful wrestling coach. In fact, he coached the most winningest Olympic athlete of all time: Milo of Croton. Milo won 5 consecutive Olympics over a 20 year period.

Pythagoras himself was thrown out of the boys Olympics at age 16 for being too effeminate (long hair), but then entered the men’s Olympics and won. Supposedly, he introduced some new kind of martial arts technique.

This is documented in Thibodeau, 2019 “The Chronology of the Early Greek Natural Philosophers.” Happy to share the refs. Ok, back to maths…

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There is a PDF of your citation available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335965217_THE_CHRON...

I searched for "long hair" and found only this:

>The man with long hair at Samos’: They say there was a Samian boxer with long hair who went to Olympia and won after being mocked by his opponents for looking like a woman; he became proverbial. Eratosthenes says that Pythagoras of Samos won with long hair during the 48 th Olympiad; Duris represents this as Pythagoras being excluded, challenging the men, and beating many of them.

Like many stories concerning Pythagoras, I wonder if this was some local fable onto which his name later became plastered.

11. Eratosthenes, Olympic Victors 3rd century via Favorinus, Varied History, via Diogenes Laertius, Lives 8.47 “Eratosthenes (according to what Favorinus reports in book eight of his Varied History), said this man [sc. Pythagoras] was the first to box using technique, in the 48th Olympiad, letting his hair grow long and wearing a purple robe; after being excluded from the boys’ games and jeered at, he immediately joined the mens’, and won.” Olympiad 48: 588 to 584 BCE cf. Eusebius, Chronography, p. 93 Karst

According to wikipedia, at least, that's a different Pythagoras of Samos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras_(boxer)

The reference I gave gives a good reason why it isn’t a different Pythagoras… but, always hard to know for sure…

But I tend to think that Pythagoras had an even more incredible life than the legends.

“was the first to box using technique”

Clearly Pythagoras would have sick martial arts moves, if they’d ever make a movie about him.

Thank you so much!

Like my teacher always says: "If at the end of the class, you haven't learned something new, come see me"

I do find it amusing that most if not all of the famous classical philosophers would stand up just fine to the "post physique" meme.

Wouldn't 5 consecutive Olympics be over a 16 year period?

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