Pythagoras's daughter Damo would not sell his writings for any price, and Plato is said to have paid 100 minae for Pythagorean books

Pythagoras lived from about 570 to about 490 BC. Timaeus says his followers put all their possessions into one common stock. The Stanford Encyclopedia says violence against him at Croton around 510 BC drove him to Metapontum, where he died, and that Pythagoras wrote no books. Diogenes Laertius gives one story of his death: a house where he sat with Milo at Croton was set on fire, he fled to a bean field, refused to cross it, and his pursuers cut his throat; about 40 of his followers were killed. A letter attributed to Lysis says Pythagoras gave his notes to his daughter Damo and charged her never to give them to anyone outside the house. She could have sold them for a large sum and refused, preferring poverty and her father's order to gold. Diogenes Laertius also says Plato sent 100 minae to buy three books from the Pythagorean Philolaus, or, according to Hermippus, bought one book from Philolaus's relatives for 40 minae. The Stanford Encyclopedia says this purchase story was probably invented to authenticate three forged treatises of Pythagoras.