Diagoras the Atheist of Melos was a Greek poet and sophist of the 5th century BC. Milos (in Greek, Μήλος &mdash not related to the modern word μήλο &ndash milo " Apple " Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" The 5th century BC started the first day of 500 BC and ended the last day of 401 BC. Throughout antiquity he was regarded as an atheist. Atheism With the exception of this one point, we possess only scanty information concerning his life and beliefs. He spoke out against the orthodox religions, and criticized the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Eleusinian Mysteries (Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone The Athenians accused him of impiety, and he was forced to flee the city. Athens (ˈæθənz Αθήνα Athina,) the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery as one of the world's He died in Corinth. Corinth, or Korinth ( Greek Κόρινθος ( is a city in Greece.

Contents 1 Life 2 Philosophy 3 See also 4 References

Life

He was the son of Telecleides or Teleclytus, and was born in the island of Melos, one of the Cyclades. Milos (in Greek, Μήλος &mdash not related to the modern word μήλο &ndash milo " Apple " The CYCLADES Packet switching network was an extremely influential French network system in the early 1970s similar to the ARPANET. According to the Suda,^[1] he was a disciple of Democritus after Democritus had paid a very large ransom to free Diagoras from captivity following the cruel subjugation of Melos under Alcibiades (416 BC); however no early sources mention an association with Democritus. The Suda or Souda ( also, Suidas) is a massive 10th century Byzantine Greek historical encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean Democritus ( Greek:) was a pre-Socratic Greek Materialist Philosopher (born at Abdera in Thrace ca Alcibiades Cleiniou Scambonides (ˌælsɨˈbaɪədiːz (pronunciation Greek:, transliterated Alkibiádēs Kleiníou Skambōnidēs) meaning Alcibiades Events By place Greece With the encouragement of Alcibiades, the Athenians take the island of Melos (which has remained The Suda also states that in his youth Diagoras had acquired some reputation as a lyric poet, and this is probably the cause of his being mentioned together with the lyric poets Simonides, Pindar, and Bacchylides. A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" Pindar (ˈpɪndɚ (or Pindarus, Greek:) (probably born 522 BC in Cynoscephalae a village in Boeotia; died 443 BC in Argos) was an Ancient Bacchylides (5th century BC was an Ancient Greek lyric Poet. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine lyric poets which included Among his encomia is mentioned in particular an eulogy on Arianthes of Argos, who is otherwise unknown, another on Nicodorus, a statesman of Mantineia, and a third upon the Mantineians. Encomium is a Latin word deriving from the Classical Greek ἐγκώμιον ( encomion) meaning the praise of a person or thing Mantineia ( Greek: Μαντίνεια formerly also Antigonia - Αντιγόνεια was a city in ancient Arcadia in the central Peloponnese Nicodorus was celebrated as a statesman and lawgiver in his native place; Aelian informs us that Diagoras was the lover of Nicodorus, and assisted Nicodorus in his legislation. Aelian or Aelianus may refer to Aelianus Tacticus, Greek military writer of the 2nd century who lived in Rome Casperius Aelianus Legislation (or " Statutory law " is law which has been promulgated (or " Enacted quot by a Legislature or other Governing ^[2]

We find Diagoras at Athens as early as 423 BC, for Aristophanes in The Clouds,^[3] which were performed in that year, alludes to him as a well-known character. Athens (ˈæθənz Αθήνα Athina,) the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery as one of the world's Events By place Persian empire Ochus, Satrap of Hyrcania and son of Artaxerxes I and a Babylonian concubine Aristophanes (Ἀριστοφάνης ˌærɪˈstɒfəniːz in English ca The Clouds (Νεφέλαι / Nephelai) is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes lampooning the Sophists A few years later, c. 415 BC, he was involved, as Diodorus informs us,^[4] by the democratic party in a law­suit about impiety, and he thought it advisable to escape its result by flight. Events By place Greece Athenian Orator and politician Andocides is imprisoned on suspicion of having taken part in Religion may have been only the pretext for the accusation, for the mere fact of his being a Melian made him an object of suspicion with the people of Athens. In 416 BC, Melos had been conquered and cruelly treated by the Athenians, and it is not at all impossible that Diagoras, indignant at such treatment, may have taken part in the party-strife at Athens, and thus have drawn upon himself the suspicion of the democratic party. Events By place Greece With the encouragement of Alcibiades, the Athenians take the island of Melos (which has remained Diagoras subsequently went to Corinth, where, as the Suda states, he died. Corinth, or Korinth ( Greek Κόρινθος ( is a city in Greece. The Suda or Souda ( also, Suidas) is a massive 10th century Byzantine Greek historical encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean

Philosophy

Little is known for certain concerning his philosophical views or the nature of his atheism. All that we know for certain on the point is that Diagoras was one of those philosophers who, like Socrates, certainly gave offence by their views concerning the worship of the national gods. SOCRATES is the European Community action programme in the field of Education. God is the principal or sole Deity in Religions and other belief systems that worship one deity.

Cicero,^[5] writing in the 1st century BC, tells of how a friend of Diagoras tried to convince him of the existence of the gods, by pointing out how many votive pictures tell about people being saved from storms at sea by "dint of vows to the gods", to which Diagoras replied that "there are nowhere any pictures of those who have been shipwrecked and drowned at sea. Marcus Tullius Cicero ( Classical Latin ˈkikeroː usually ˈsɪsərəʊ in English January 3, 106 BC &ndash December 7, 43 BC was a Roman The 1st century BC started the first day of 100 BC and ended the last day of 1 BC. " And Cicero goes on to give another example, where Diagoras was on a ship in hard weather, and the crew thought that they had brought it on themselves by taking this ungodly man onboard. He then wondered if the other boats out in the same storm also had a Diagoras onboard. ^[6]

This and similar anecdotes^[7] accurately describe the relation in which he stood to the popular religion. That he maintained his own position with great firmness, and perhaps with more freedom, wit, and boldness than was advisable, seems to be attested by the fact, that he in particular obtained the epithet of atheist in antiquity. It is possible that he merely denied the direct interference of God with the world and that as he did not believe in the personal existence of the Athenian gods and their human mode of actings the Athenians could hardly have regarded him as other than an atheist.

The Christian writer Athenagoras of Athens (2nd century AD) mentions that Diagoras was punished because he "divulged the Orphic doctrine, and published the Mysteries of Eleusis and of the Cabiri, and chopped up the wooden statue of Hercules to boil his turnips":

With reason did the Athenians adjudge Diagoras guilty of atheism, in that he not only divulged the Orphic doctrine, and published the mysteries of Eleusis and of the Cabiri, and chopped up the wooden statue of Hercules to boil his turnips, but openly declared that there was no God at all. Athenagoras (ca 133-190 was a Christian Apologist who lived during the second half of the 2nd century of whom little is known for certain besides that he was The 2nd century is the period from 101 to 200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. In Greek mythology, the Cabeiri, ( Cabiri, Kabeiroi, Greek: Κάβειροι were a group of enigmatic Chthonic deities Hercules is the Roman name for the Mythical Greek hero Heracles, son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmena. The Eleusinian Mysteries (Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone In Greek mythology, the Cabeiri, ( Cabiri, Kabeiroi, Greek: Κάβειροι were a group of enigmatic Chthonic deities Hercules is the Roman name for the Mythical Greek hero Heracles, son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmena. ^[8]

To return to the accusation against Diagoras which obliged him to quit Athens, the time was one in which scepticism was beginning to undermine the foundations of the ancient popular belief. Athens (ˈæθənz Αθήνα Athina,) the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery as one of the world's In ordinary usage skepticism or scepticism ( Greek 'σκέπτομαι' skeptomai, to look about to consider see also spelling differences The trial of those who had broken down the statues of Hermes, the profanation of the mysteries, and the accusation of Alcibiades, are symptoms which show that the unbelief, nourished by the speculations of philosophers and the sophists, began to appear very dangerous to the conservative party at Athens. Hermes ( Greek,, ˈhɝmiːz in Greek mythology, is the Olympian god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them of Shepherds and Mystery Religions, Sacred Mysteries or simply Mysteries, were "religious cults of the Graeco-Roman Alcibiades Cleiniou Scambonides (ˌælsɨˈbaɪədiːz (pronunciation Greek:, transliterated Alkibiádēs Kleiníou Skambōnidēs) meaning Alcibiades Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language There is no doubt that Diagoras paid no regard to the established religion of the people, and he may occasionally have ridiculed it; but he also ventured on direct attacks upon public institutions of the Athenian worship, such as the Eleusinian mysteries, which he endeavoured to lower in public estimation, and he is said to have prevented many persons from becoming initiated in them. The Eleusinian Mysteries (Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone These at least are the points of which the ancients accuse him,^[9] and Melanthius, in his work on the mysteries, mentions the decree passed against Diagoras. Melanthius was a notable ancient Greek painter of the 4th century BC. There were undoubtably political motives in all these religious disputes. Diagoras was a Melian, and consequently belonged to the Dorian race; he was a friend of the Dorian Mantineia, which was hated by Athens, and had only recently given up its alliance with Athens; the Dorians and Ionians were opposed to each other in various points of their worship, and this spark of hostility was kindled into a growing hatred by the Peloponnesian war. The Dorians or Dorian Greeks ( Greek:, Dōrieis singular, Dōrieus were Mantineia ( Greek: Μαντίνεια formerly also Antigonia - Αντιγόνεια was a city in ancient Arcadia in the central Peloponnese The Ionians ( Greek:, Iōnes singular) were one of the three populations into which the Ancient Greeks considered the population of Hellenes to have been Diagoras fled from Athens in time to escape the consequences of the attacks which his enemies had made upon him. He was therefore condemned, and the psephisma was engraved on a column, promising a prize for his head, and one talent to the person who should bring his dead body to Athens, and two talents to him who should deliver him up alive to the Athenians. The talent ( Latin: talentum, from Ancient Greek: "scale balance" is an ancient unit of Mass. ^[10]

J. M. Robertson writes on Diagoras that:

“

It was about that time [415 BC] that the poet Diagoras of Melos was proscribed for atheism, he having declared that the non-punishment of a certain act of iniquity proved that there were no Gods. John Mackinnon Robertson ( 14 November 1856 - 5 January 1933) was a prolific journalist advocate of rationalism and Secularism Milos (in Greek, Μήλος &mdash not related to the modern word μήλο &ndash milo " Apple " It has been surmised, with some reason, that the iniquity in question was the slaughter of the Melians by the Athenians in 416 B. The Melian dialogue is a passage found in Book V (85-113 of the History of the Peloponnesian War by the ancient Greek Historian Thucydides C. , and the Athenian resentment in that case was personal and political rather than religious. For some time after 415 the Athenian courts made strenuous efforts to punish every discoverable case of impiety; and parodies of the Eleusinian mysteries were alleged against Alkibiades and others. The Eleusinian Mysteries (Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone Diagoras, who was further charged with divulging the Eleusinian and other mysteries, and with making firewood of an image of Herakles, telling the god thus to perform his thirteenth labour by cooking turnips, became thenceforth one of the proverbial atheists of the ancient world, and a reward of a silver talent was offered for killing him, and of two talents for his capture alive; despite which he seems to have escaped. In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles ("glory of Hera " or [11]

”

The relation of Diagoras to the popular religion and theology of his age can not be explained without going back to the opinions of the Natural philosophers, and the intellectual movement of the time. For the current in the 19th century German idealism see Naturphilosophie Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature (from The Pre-Socratic philosophers had increasingly explained natural phenomena in terms of natural laws without the need for divine intervention. The Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers were active before Socrates or contemporaneously but expounding knowledge developed earlier In particular, the atomism of Democritus had substituted for a world-governing god the relation of cause and effect as the sources of all things. In Natural philosophy, atomism is the theory that all the objects in the universe are composed of very small indestructible building blocks - Atoms Or stated in Democritus ( Greek:) was a pre-Socratic Greek Materialist Philosopher (born at Abdera in Thrace ca Democritus explained the wide-spread belief in gods as the result of fear of unusual and unaccountable phenomena in nature; and, starting from this principle, Diagoras, at a time when the ancient popular belief had already been shaken, especially in the minds of the young, came forward with the doctrine that there were no gods at all. His attacks seem to have been mainly directed against the dogmas of Greek theology and mythology, as well as against the established forms of worship, According to the fashion of the sophists, which is caricatured by Aristophanes in The Clouds, he substituted the active powers of nature for the activity of the gods; and some isolated statements that have come down to us render it probable that he did this in a witty manner. Theology is the study of a god or the gods from a religious perspective The word mythology (from the Greek grc μυθολογία mythología, meaning "a story-telling a legendary lore" Aristophanes (Ἀριστοφάνης ˌærɪˈstɒfəniːz in English ca The Clouds (Νεφέλαι / Nephelai) is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes lampooning the Sophists

Jennifer Michael Hecht writes on Diagoras that:

“

The poet Diagoras of Melos was perhaps the most famous atheist of the fifth century. Jennifer Michael Hecht (b November 23, 1965) is a Poet, Historian, Philosopher, and Author. Although he did not write about atheism, anecdotes about his unbelief suggest he was self-confident, almost teasing, and very public. He revealed the secret rituals of the Eleusinian mystery religion to everyone and "thus made them ordinary," that is, he purposefully demystified a cherished secret rite, apparently to provoke his contemporaries into thought. In another famous story, a friend pointed out an expensive display of votive gifts and said, "You think the gods have no care for man? Why, you can see from all these votive pictures here how many people have escaped the fury of storms at sea by praying to the gods who have brought them safe to harbor. " To which Diagoras replied, "Yes, indeed, but where are the pictures of all those who suffered shipwreck and perished in the waves?" A good question. Diagoras was indicted for profaning the mysteries, but escaped. A search was out for him throughout the Athenian empire, which indicated that the charges were serious, but he was not found. [12]

”

See also

• Theodorus the Atheist

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870). The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1849 originally published 1844 under a slightly different title is an Encyclopedia / Biographical dictionary Sir William Smith (1813 &ndash 1893 English Lexicographer, was born at Enfield in 1813 of Nonconformist parents

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