William Enfield on Archytas

“Such was the celebrity of this philosopher, that many illustrious names appear in the train of his disciples, particularly Philolaus, Eudoxus, and Plato. ...He excelled, not only in speculative philosophy, but in geometry and mechanics, He is said to have invented a kind of winged automaton, and several curious hydraulic machines. He was in such high reputation for moral and political wisdom, that, contrary to the usual custom, he was appointed seven different times to the supreme magistracy in Tarentum.”

“Of his writings none remain except a metaphysical work, "On the Nature of the Universe," in which he has explained the predicaments; and sundry fragments "On Wisdom," and "On the Good and Happy Man," preserved by Stobaeus and edited from him by Gale.”

“His death, which is said to have been occasioned by a shipwreck, is made a subject of poetical description by Horace, who celebrates him as an eminent geographer and astronomer.”

“Concerning the philosophical tenets of Archytas... Aristotle, who was an industrious collector from the Pythagoreans, borrowed from him the general arrangements which are usually called his ten categories.”

“The sum of his moral doctrine is; that virtue is to be pursued for its own sake in every condition of life; that all excess is inconsistent with virtue; that the mind is more injured by prosperity than by adversity; and that there is no pestilence so destructive to human happiness as pleasure.”

“It is probable that Aristotle was indebted to Archytas for many of his moral ideas; particularly for the notion which runs through his ethical pieces, that virtue consists in avoiding extremes.”