Miscellanies 1.15.69

It is recorded that Pythagoras was a pupil of Sonchis, the Egyptian chief prophet; Plato of Sechnuphis of Heliopolis; and Eudoxus of Cnidus of Conuphis, also an Egyptian. And in his work on the soul, Plato again appears to know of prophecy, introducing a prophet who announces the word of Lachesis to the souls drawing their lots and foretells. And in the Timaeus he introduces the most wise Solon learning from the barbarian. The words run thus: “O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, and there is no old Greek; for you have no learning gray with time.” Democritus made the Babylonian … ethical teachings his own; for he is said to have added to his own writings a translation of the stele of Acicarus, and one can note it by his writing “Thus says Democritus.” Indeed, somewhere, priding himself on his wide learning, he says of himself: “I have wandered over more of the earth than any man of my time, investigating the most distant things; I have seen the most climates and lands, and heard the most learned men; and in the composition of lines with demonstration no one ever surpassed me, not even the Egyptians called rope-stretchers; with all these I spent eighty years abroad.” For he went to Babylon, Persia, and Egypt, studying with the Magi and the priests. Pythagoras emulated Zoroaster the Persian Magus; and the followers of the heresy of Prodicus boast that they possess secret books of this man.