Was Pythagoras a boxer

Answer 1

It's entirely possible a life of Pythagoras states that :

But Eratosthenes says, as Favorinus quotes him, in the eighth book of his Universal History, that this philosopher, of whom we are speaking, was the first man who ever practised boxing in a scientific manner, in the forty-eighth Olympiad, having his hair long, and being clothed in a purple robe; and that he was rejected from the competition among boys, and being ridiculed for his application, he immediately entered among the men, and came off victorious. And this statement is confirmed among other things, by the epigram which Theaetetus composed:Stranger, if e'er you knew Pythagoras,

Pythagoras, the man with flowing hair,

The celebrated boxer, erst of Samos;

I am Pythagoras. And if you ask

A citizen of Elis of my deeds,

You'll surely think he is relating fables.