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50 free Pythagoras trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Pythagoras trivia quiz covers both the philosopher and the myth. It follows the son of a Samian gem-engraver who left his island around 530 BC, founded a secretive, ascetic community at Croton in southern Italy, taught that souls pass from body to body, and was credited in antiquity with the theorem, the sphericity of the Earth, the identity of the morning and evening stars and the music of the spheres. It also covers the strange rules of the brotherhood, the ban on fava beans, the tale of the blacksmiths' hammers, the golden thigh, the burning of the meeting house and the long afterlife of his ideas in Plato, Kepler, the Freemasons and the vegetarian movement. The easy questions are ones most people know: the island, the theorem, the triangle. The medium ones ask about his school, his doctrines, his legendary travels and his death. The hard ones dig into Pherecydes, Philolaus, the tetractys, Plimpton 322, the Porta Maggiore basilica and the trick cup that bears his name. It suits a maths class, a philosophy round or a pub quiz with a taste for the ancient world. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which Greek island was Pythagoras born?
Samos
Herodotus and Isocrates agree he was the son of Mnesarchus, said to be a gem-engraver or wealthy merchant.
Q 02What does the Pythagorean theorem state about a right-angled triangle?
The square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides
Babylonians and Indians knew and used the relationship centuries before Pythagoras was born.
Q 03In which southern Italian city did Pythagoras found his school around 530 BC?
Croton
Today's Crotone in Calabria was then part of Magna Graecia, the Greek colonies of southern Italy.
Q 04Pythagoras was reputedly the first man to describe himself with which Greek word?
Philosophos
It means 'lover of wisdom'; Augustine later praised his humility in not calling himself a sage.
Q 05Which teaching is most securely identified with Pythagoras himself?
The transmigration of souls
Metempsychosis holds that every soul is immortal and enters a new body at death.
Q 06What is the doctrine of musica universalis that Pythagoras may have devised?
The planets move in mathematical ratios and produce an inaudible symphony
Kepler's search for the mathematics behind this 'harmony of the spheres' led to his laws of planetary motion.
Q 07How old was Pythagoras when he left Samos, according to Aristoxenus?
40
He left during the reign of the tyrant Polycrates, giving a birth date around 570 BC.
Q 08Which Egyptian pharaoh supposedly taught Pythagoras the Egyptian language, according to a later legend?
Amasis II
He was then said to be the only foreigner allowed to join the priests' worship at Thebes.
Q 09Which Greek sage is most often named as Pythagoras's teacher?
Pherecydes of Syros
One story says Pythagoras returned to Delos to nurse the dying Pherecydes.
Q 10What was the name of the school Pythagoras supposedly founded on Samos for public debate?
The semicircle
He himself was said to study in a secret cave.
Q 11Which famous wrestler was said to have saved Pythagoras's life when a roof was about to collapse?
Milo
The story may confuse the philosopher with an athletics trainer of the same name.
Q 12The city's victory over which neighbouring colony in 510 BC was credited to Pythagorean discipline?
Sybaris
After the victory, supporters of democracy turned on the Pythagoreans and burned their meeting house.
Q 13Who led the democratic faction that roused the city against Pythagoras's brotherhood?
Cylon and Ninon
Cylon was said to be irritated at being excluded from the brotherhood.
Q 21What were the two groups within early Pythagoreanism called?
Mathematikoi and akousmatikoi
'Learners' and 'listeners', traditionally seen as the rationalist and mystical wings.
Q 22How long did new initiates supposedly have to stay silent before being allowed to meet Pythagoras?
Five years
Those who broke the community's laws were expelled and had tombstones erected for them as if dead.
Q 23Which of these was one of the Pythagoreans' surviving 'oral sayings'?
Always put the right sandal on before the left
Q 14In one legend, Pythagoras was caught and killed because he refused to run through what?
A field of fava beans
Doing so would have violated his teachings; the story was probably originally told about later Pythagoreans.
Q 15In Dicaearchus's account, where did Pythagoras and his followers die of starvation after forty days?
The temple of the Muses at Metapontum
They had first pleaded for sanctuary at Locris and been refused.
Q 16In Xenophanes' satirical poem, Pythagoras stops a man beating a dog because he recognises what?
The voice of a departed friend
It is the earliest source for his belief in reincarnation.
Q 17Which minor hero of the Trojan War did Pythagoras claim to have been in a former life?
Euphorbus
He said he could remember four previous lives, including one as a fisherman from Delos.
Q 18What is the tetractys, which Pythagoras's students swore oaths by?
A triangle of four rows of dots adding to ten
The Pythagoreans regarded ten as the 'perfect' number.
Q 19Which later Pythagorean do scholars usually credit with the number philosophy pinned on Pythagoras?
Philolaus of Croton
Walter Burkert argued Pythagoras himself never dealt with numbers at all.
Q 20What was the Pythagorean maxim 'koina ta philon'?
'All things in common among friends'
Members shared all their possessions and ate communal meals in the Spartan manner.
Others forbade breaking bread, poking fires with swords or picking up crumbs.
Q 24How many of the 235 famous Pythagoreans listed by Iamblichus were women?
Seventeen
Pythagoras was said to be unusually progressive towards women, who played an active role in the school.
Q 25Which food is Pythagoras most famously said to have forbidden his followers to eat?
Fava beans
One theory links the ban to favism, an enzyme-deficiency anaemia common around the Mediterranean.
Q 26What did Aristotle say Pythagoras had that he exhibited at the Olympic Games?
A golden thigh
He showed it to Abaris the Hyperborean as proof he was the 'Hyperborean Apollo'.
Q 27What was Pythagoras supposedly given by the priest of Apollo, which let him fly over long distances?
A magic arrow
He was also reportedly seen in two cities at the same time.
Q 28According to a fragment of Aristotle, what did Pythagoras do when a deadly snake bit him?
Bit it back and killed it
He also reportedly persuaded a bear to swear never to harm a living thing again.
Q 29What did the river Kosas supposedly do when Pythagoras crossed it?
Greeted him by name
'Several witnesses' reported it, according to the legend.
Q 30What was Pythagoras said to have sacrificed to the gods after discovering his theorem?
An ox
Cicero rejected the story since Pythagoras supposedly forbade blood sacrifice; Porphyry said the ox was made of dough.