 Most of our evidence for Archytas’ ethical views is, unfortunately, not based on fragments of his writings but rather on anecdotes, which probably ultimately derive from Aristoxenus’ Life of Archytas. The good life of the individual, no less than the stability of the state, appears to have been founded on rational calculation. Aristoxenus presented a confrontation between the Syracusan hedonist, Polyarchus, and Archytas. Polyarchus’ long speech is preserved by Athenaeus and Archytas’ response by Cicero (A9 = Deip. 545a and Sen. XII 39–41 respectively). Schofield (2014: 70, n.2) raises doubts about whether Cicero really preserves Archytas’ response (See Huffman 2005: 323–37). Horky (2011: 120) assumes without argument that Aristoxenus presented Archytas as delivering his speech in the presence of Plato and the Samnite C. Pontius, but this is part of Cicero’s frame story and there is no evidence that it derives from Aristoxenus. Polyarchus’ defense of always striving for more (pleonexia) and of the pursuit of pleasure is reminiscent of Plato’s presentations of Callicles and Thrasymachus, but is not derived from those presentations and is better seen as an important parallel development (Huffman 2002b). Archytas bases his response on the premise that reason (= rational calculation) is the best part of us and the part that should govern our actions. Polyarchus might grant such a premise, since his is a rational hedonism. Archytas responds once again with a thought experiment. We are to imagine someone in the throes of the greatest possible bodily pleasure (sexual orgasm?). Surely we must agree that a person in such a state is not able to engage in rational calculation. It thus appears that bodily pleasure is in itself antithetical to reason and that, the more we succeed in obtaining it, the less we are able to reason. Aristotle appears to refer to this argument in the Nicomachean Ethics (1152b16–18). Archytas’ argument is specifically directed against bodily pleasure and he did not think that all pleasure was disruptive; he enjoyed playing with children (A8) and recognized that the pleasures of friendship were part of a good life (Cicero, Amic. XXIII 88). Other anecdotes emphasize that our actions must be governed by reason rather than the emotions: Archytas refused to punish the serious misdeeds of his slaves, because he had become angry and did not want to act out of anger (A7); he restrained himself from swearing aloud by writing his curses on a wall instead (A11). Palmer argues that Archytas was working with a Pythagorean conception of the soul as divided into two parts: the intellect and a part responsible for the affective states such as emotions and appetites (2014: 209). 