 Moderatus was a militant Neopythagorean, who explicitly charges that Plato, Aristotle and members of the early academy claimed as their own the most fruitful aspects of Pythagorean philosophy with only small changes, leaving for the Pythagoreans only those doctrines that were superficial, trivial and such as to bring discredit on the school (Porphyry, VP 53). These trivial doctrines have been thought to be the various taboos preserved in the symbola, but, since his follower Lucius is explicitly said to follow the symbola, it seems unlikely that Moderatus was critical of them. The charge of plagiarism might suggest that Moderatus was familiar with the pseudo-Pythagorean treatises, which appear to have been forged in part to show that Pythagoras had anticipated the main ideas of Plato and Aristotle (see Kahn 2001, 105).