killed and skinned as a sacrifice by the Spartans, and their king kept the skin out of respect for Pherecydes' wisdom. However, the same story was also told about Epimenides. Other accounts have the philosopher perishing in a battle between the Ephesians and Magnesians, or throwing himself from Mount Corycus in Delphi, or succumbing to typhoid fever. According to Aelianus typhoid fever was a punishment for his wickedness . The latter story was already known to Aristotle and may have arisen from the idea that wise men did not care about physical care. Other stories connect Pherecydes' death to Pythagoras. However, the historicity of all this is debatable. Influences Pherecydes was designated as 'wise' (sophos), but only Servius calls him a philosopher (philosophus). Aristotle places him between theologians and philosophers, because he no longer expressed himself completely mythical in his research. No consistent teacher of Pherecydes was known by name in late antiquity; according to the doxographer Diogenes Laërtius Pherecydes was taught by Pittacus, but according to the Suda he taught himself after he got his hands on 'the secret books of the Phoenicians'. Although this latter claim is almost certainly fictitious, it may be based on the similarity between Pherecydes' ideas and Eastern religious motifs. For example, in his book he describes an important battle in the earliest times between Kronos and Ophion, and this motif occurs in the Middle East. His father was named Babys, a name that presumably originated from southern Anatolia, based on linguistic evidence. Eternal time as god is also Middle Eastern. In addition, Pherecydes has been associated with Zoroastrianism. Isidore the Gnostic claimed that Pherecydes based his allegorical work on a 'prophecy of Ham'. Ham, as referred to here, may be Zoroaster, who was quite well known in the Greek world of late antiquity. Isidore may have concluded this because the Zoroastrian literature available to him was influenced by Hellenization, or because Pherecydes' work influenced it. There is also a short fragment in which Pherecydes talks about ambrosia of the moon, the potion of the gods. This representation has parallels in the Samaveda, where there the moon is a vessel from which the gods drink soma (god drink) and is important in the reincarnation theory as guardian of heaven. Writings Pherecydes wrote a cosmogony (explanatory model for the origin of the universe) that contained a theogony, an explanatory model for the gods and their