Son of Babys; a Syrian; Syra[1] is one of the Cyclades islands, near to Delos. He lived in the time of Alyattes, king of [the] Lydians,[2] thus contemporary with the Seven Sages, and was born in about the forty-fifth Olympiad.[3] There is a story that Pythagoras[4] was taught by him, but that he had no instructor and instead trained himself after acquiring the secret books of the Phoenicians. Some record that he was the first to publish a composition in prose (although others attribute this to Kadmos of Miletos)[5] and that he introduced the first account of the migration of souls. He was jealous of the reputation of Thales[6] and died from an infestation of lice. This is a complete list of what he wrote: Seven Gulfs or Divine Mixture or Birth of the Gods. There is also a Story of the Gods in ten books, containing the birth and successors[7] of the gods.