  Some scholars who regard Pythagoras as a mathematician and rational cosmologist, such as Guthrie, admit that the earliest evidence does not support this view (Lloyd 2014, 25), but maintain that the prominence of Pythagoras the mathematician in the late tradition must be based on something early. Others maintain that there is evidence in the sixth- and fifth-century BCE for Pythagoras as a mathematician and cosmologist. They argue that Herodotus’ reference to Pythagoras as a wise man (sophistês) and Heraclitus’ description of him as pursuing inquiry (historiê), show that he was regarded as practicing rational cosmology (Kahn 2002, 16–17; Zhmud 2012a, 33–43). The concept of a wise man in Herodotus’ time was very broad, however, and includes poets and sages as well as Ionian cosmologists; the same is true of the concept of inquiry. Historiê peri physeos (inquiry concerning nature) is later used to refer specifically to the inquiry into nature practiced by the Presocratic cosmologists, but Herodotus’ usage shows that at Heraclitus’ time historiê referred to inquiry in a quite general sense and has no specific reference to the cosmological inquiry of the Presocratics (Huffman 2008b). In one instance in Herodotus it refers to inquiry into the stories of Menelaus’ and Helen’s adventures in Egypt (II. 118). Heraclitus may be thinking of Pythagoras’ inquiry into and collection of the mythical and religious lore that is found in the acusmata (Huffman 2008b; see also Gemelli Marciano 2002, 96–103). Thus the description of Pythagoras as a wise man who practiced inquiry is simply too general to aid in deciding what sort of figure Herodotus and Heraclitus saw him as being. It is certainly true that Empedocles shows that the roles of rational cosmologist and wonder-working religious teacher could be combined in one figure, but this does not prove these roles were combined in Pythagoras’ case. The only thing that could prove this in Pythagoras’ case is reliable early evidence for a rational cosmology and that is precisely what is lacking.