Croton

A prosperous Achaean colony on the toe of Italy, famous for its athletes and physicians even before Pythagoras arrived from Samos around 530 BCE. Here he founded something between a school, a religious order, and a political movement: mathematics, music, and communal living fused into a way of life. Its influence over the city's politics ended violently, with the brotherhood's meeting houses burned.

Croton was a Greek colony on the instep of Italy, known for its doctors and its Olympic wrestlers. Pythagoras arrived around 530 BCE and founded a community that was part school and part order, with rules covering diet, silence, secrecy, and property held in common. Its members took a hand in governing the city, which is why the community was eventually attacked and its meeting house burned with people inside. The survivors scattered through southern Italy, carrying the mathematics and the doctrine of transmigration with them.