C. 105 BCE Miletus c. 35 BCE Laurentum or near Rome Alexander Polyhistor, in full Lucius Cornelius Alexander Polyhistor (born c. 105 bc, Miletus, Asia Minor [now in Turkey] died c. 35 bc, Laurentum, near Rome [Italy]) philosopher, geographer, and historian whose fragmentary writings provide valuable information on antiquarian and Jewish subjects.
One important influence may have been the Greek scholar Alexander Polyhistor, who was born in Miletus but was captured by the Romans during the Mithridatic wars and brought to Rome as a slave and freed by Sulla in 80 BCE.
One of the most discussed treatises among the pseudepigrapha are the Pythagorean Notes, which were excerpted by Alexander Polyhistor in the first century BCE, who was in turn quoted by Diogenes Laertius in his Life of Pythagoras (VIII 24 33).
Numenius argues that for Pythagoras the dyad was a principle independent of the monad; later thinkers, who tried to derive the dyad from the monad (he does not name names but Eudorus, Moderatus and the Pythagorean system described by Alexander Polyhistor fit the description), were thus departing from the original teaching.
However, this interpretation is based on Diogenes Laertius 8.28, which does not mention Philolaus by name and in fact derives from the Pythagorean Memoirs excerpted by Alexander Polyhistor.
Kahn (2001, 83) sees a hint of Pythagorean cult activity in the spurious Pythagorean Memoirs, which must date sometime before the first half of the first century BCE, when they are quoted by Alexander Polyhistor (see section 4.2 below).
The main section on Pythagoras' philosophical doctrines is a long quotation from the first-century polymath Alexander Polyhistor who claims to be in turn drawing on a treatise called Pythagorean Notes (VIII 24 33).
Burkert (1961, 17 28) has argued that this letter was forged to authenticate the "Pythagorean Notes" from which Alexander Polyhistor (1st century BCE) derived his influential account of Pythagoreanism (Diogenes Laertius VIII 24 36 — see the end of this section and for Alexander see section 4.5 below).
24 33) on the Pythagorean Memoirs excerpted by Alexander Polyhistor, which are a forgery dating sometime around 200 BCE and which assign not just Platonic but also Stoic ideas to Pythagoras (Burkert 1972a, 53; Kahn 2001, 79 83).
