Two of them he mentions with special regard, namely Sotion the Pythagorean, and Attalus the Stoic.

He also heard the lectures of the fluent and musical Fabianus Papirius, but seems to have owed less to him than to his other teachers.
Sotion had embraced the views of Pythagoras respecting the transmigration of souls, a doctrine which made the eating of animal food little better than cannibalism or parricide.

But, even if any of his followers rejected this view, Sotion would still maintain that the eating of animals, if not an impiety, was at least a cruelty and a waste.

"What hardship does my advice inflict on you ?" he used to ask.

"I do but deprive you of the food of vultures and lions." The ardent boy--for at this time he could not have been more than seventeen years old--was so convinced by these considerations that he became a vegetarian.