Pythagoras was born in about 580 BC on the island of Samos, in the Aegean Sea. He played a crucial role in formulating principles that influenced Plato and Aristotle. He founded the Pythagorean brotherhood, a group of his followers whose beliefs and ideas were rediscovered during the Renaissance and contributed to the development of mathematics and Western rational philosophy. He spent his early years traveling widely in search of wisdom. He settled in Crotona, a Greek colony in southern Italy, about 530 BC. A brotherhood of di