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Diagoras of Melos

Diagoras "the Atheist" of Melos (Διαγόρας ὁ Μήλιος) was a Greek poet and sophist of the 5th century BCE. Throughout antiquity he was regarded as an atheist. With the exception of this one point, there is little information concerning his life and beliefs. He spoke out against the Greek religion, and criticized the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Athenians accused him of impiety,and he was forced to flee the city. He died in Corinth.
Life
He was the son of Telecleides or Teleclytus, and was born in the island of Melos, one of the Cyclades. 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 mentionan association with Democritus. 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. Among his encomia is mentioned in particular a eulogy on Arianthes of Argos, who is otherwise unknown, another on Nicodorus, a statesman of Mantineia,and a third upon the Mantineians. 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.[2]
We find Diagoras at Athens as early as 423 BC, for Aristophanes in The Clouds,[3] which was performed in that year, alludes to him as a well-known character. 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. 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 isnot 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. Diagoras subsequently went to Corinth, where, as the Suda states, he died.
Philosophy
Little is known for certain concerning his philosophical views or the nature of his atheism. All that we know for certainon 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.
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 tothe gods", to which Diagoras replied that "there are nowhere any pictures of those who have been shipwrecked and drowned at sea." 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 on board. 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 directinterference of gods 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) writes about Diagoras:
With reason did the Athenians adjudge Diagoras guilty of atheism, in that he not only divulged the...