reason Platonism and Pythagoreanism were able to combine together so easily is that both Plato and the followers of Pythagoras were interested in these stable, immaterial objects. They wanted to get away from the messiness of physical things, with their constant change and their being subject to an infinite number of various features. That certainly isn’t the only idea that drives Plato, but it seems to be one of the most important; and it is even more important for later thinkers who see Pythagoras as the inventor of Platonic philosophy,
