Brontinus of Metapontum (, also Brotinus, ; fl. 6th century BCE), Magna Graecia, was a Pythagorean philosopher and a friend and disciple of Pythagoras. Alcmaeon dedicated his works to Brontinus as well as to Leon and Bathyllus.Diogenes Laërtius, viii. 83 Accounts vary as to whether he was the father or the husband of Theano.Diogenes Laërtius, viii. 42; Suda, Theanô; Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. § 267.
Some Orphic poems were ascribed to Brontinus. One was a poem On Nature (Physika),Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, i. 131; Suda, Orpheus another was a poem called The Robe and the Net that was also ascribed to Zopyrus of Heraclea.Kathleen Freeman, (1959), The pre-Socratic philosophers: a companion to Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, page 6.
His fame was sufficient for a spurious work to be ascribed to him in the Neopythagorean literature. Syrianus (5th century CE) refers to "Brotinus"Syrianus, In Metaph. 166 as an author of the view that the monad, or first cause, "transcends all kinds of reason and essence in power and dignity,"Philip Merlan, (1963) Monopsychism mysticism metaconsciousness: Problems of the soul in the neoaristotelian and neoplatonic tradition, page 8. Nijhoff whereby an attempt was made to insert an element of Platonism into Pythagoreanism,Elisabeth Gellert, Jelena O. Krstovic, (2001), Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism: Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of World Authors from Classical Antiquity Through the Fourteenth Century, page 236. Gale/Cengage Learning. which probably refers to Neoplatonism.
See also Hippasus of Metapontum
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