Editing Pythagoras (section)

=== Reputed travels ===
{{anchor|Alleged travels}}
Modern scholarship has shown that the culture of [[Archaic Greece]] was heavily influenced by those of [[Levant]]ine and [[Mesopotamia]]n cultures, which appears to have been recognized by authors later in the Classical and Hellenistic periods, who attributed many of Pythagoras' unusual and unconventional beliefs to invented travels to far off lands, where he learned from those people himself.{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|pages=7–8}} The doctrine of [[metempsychosis]], or reincarnation of the soul after death, which Herodotus had mistakenly attributed to the Egyptians, led to an elaborate tale{{sfnp|Porphyry, Vit. Pyth|loc=§6}} where Pythagoras learned the [[Egyptian language]] from the [[Pharaoh]] [[Amasis II]] himself, and then traveled to study with the Egyptian priests at [[Thebes, Egypt|Diospolis]] (Thebes), where he was the only foreigner ever to be granted the privilege of taking part in their worship.{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|pages=7–8}} Other ancient writers, however, claimed that Pythagoras had learned these teachings from the [[Magi]] in [[Persia]] or even from [[Zoroaster]] himself.{{sfnp|Diog VIII|loc=§1.1, §1.3}}{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|pages=7–8}} The [[Phoenicia]]ns are also reputed to have taught Pythagoras [[arithmetic]] and the [[Chaldea]]ns to have taught him astronomy.{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|pages=7–8}} By the third century BC, Pythagoras was already reported to have studied under the [[Jews]] as well.{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|pages=7–8}} By the third century AD, Pythagoras was also reported by [[Philostratus]] to have studied under sages or [[gymnosophist]]s in [[India]], and, according to [[Iamblichus]], also with the [[Celts]] and [[Iberians]].{{sfnp|Riedweg|2005|pages=7–8}}