Aresas () of

Lucania Lucania was a historical region of Southern Italy, corresponding to the modern-day region of Basilicata. It was the land of the Lucani, an Oscan people. It extended from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto. It bordered with Samnium and ...

, and probably of Croton in

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...

, was the head of the

Pythagorean Pythagorean, meaning of or pertaining to the ancient Ionian mathematician, philosopher, and music theorist Pythagoras, may refer to: Philosophy * Pythagoreanism, the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs purported to have been held by Pythagoras * Ne ...

school, and the sixth head of the school in succession from

Pythagoras Pythagoras of Samos (; BC) was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher, polymath, and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His political and religious teachings were well known in Magna Graecia and influenced the philosophies of P ...

himself.

Diodorus of Aspendus Diodorus of Aspendus () was a 4th century BC Pythagoreanism, Pythagorean philosopher, who probably lived after the time of Plato, and must have been still alive in 104th Olympiad, for he was an acquaintance of Stratonicus of Athens, Stratonicus th ...

was one of his students. He lived around the 4th or 5th century BCE. At some point Aresas had to flee Croton, from people hostile to Pythagoreanism. He may have been the last head of the school in an unbroken line from Pythagoras; on the other hand Neoplatonist philosopher

Iamblichus Iamblichus ( ; ; ; ) was a Neoplatonist philosopher who determined a direction later taken by Neoplatonism. Iamblichus was also the biographer of the Greek mystic, philosopher, and mathematician Pythagoras. In addition to his philosophical co ...

mentions Aresas as having "re-established" the school, implying a direct lineage might have been broken. Some attribute to Aresas a work "about Human Nature," of which a fragment is preserved by

Stobaeus Joannes Stobaeus (; ; 5th-century AD), from Stobi in Macedonia (Roman province), Macedonia, was the compiler of a valuable series of extracts from Greek authors. The work was originally divided into two volumes containing two books each. The tw ...

; but others suppose it to have been written by the Pythagorean philosopher

Aesara Aesara of Lucania ( ''Aisara'') (''fl.'' 400BC - 300BC) was a conjectured Pythagorean philosopher who may have written ''On Human Nature'', a fragment of which is preserved by Stobaeus, although the majority of critical scholars follow Holger Thesl ...

. Some sources conflate Aresas with an "Aresandrus of Lucania", though this "Aresandrus" is otherwise unknown, and modern scholars consider this an error.

Notes

References

Pythagoreans Lucanian Greeks {{AncientGreece-philosopher-stub