Diagoras
From Philosopedia
Diagoras (c. 415 B.C.E.)
Diagoras the Atheist of Melos, about whom little can be documented, is not the same as Diagoras of Rhodes but is said to have been a sophist and poet in the 5th century B.C.E.
William Smith's editing of the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is a 3,700-page three-volume companion to his Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities and Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Smith cites Theodorus (c. 300 B.C.E.) but not Diagoras.
Cicero in De natura decorum III 89 tells how a friend of Diagoras discussed his atheistic views and argued that many votive pictures describe people who were 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." Cicero tells also that a crew postulated that their ship was having troubles because of foul weather and assumed the gods had brought the storm on them because Diagoras was aboard. Diagoras countered that he was only one who was aboard and reasoned that he was not aboard all other ships having the same problem.
Athenagoras of Athens (circa 133-190) was a Christian who explained that Diagoras was punished for having "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." In Chapter 4 of his Plea for Christians, he wrote:
- As regards, first of all, the allegation that we are atheists - for I will meet the charges one by one, that we may not be ridiculed for having no answer to give to those who make them-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. But to us, who distinguish God from matter, and teach that matter is one thing and God another, and that they are separated by a wide interval (for that the Deity is uncreated and eternal, to be beheld by the understanding and reason alone, while matter is created and perishable), is it not absurd to apply the name of atheism? If our sentiments were like those of Diagoras, while we have such incentives to piety-in the established order, the universal harmony, the magnitude, the colour, the form, the arrangement of the world-with reason might our reputation for impiety, as well as the cause of our being thus harassed, be charged on ourselves
According to J. M. Robertson's History of Freethought in the Nineteenth Century (1899), Diagoras of Melos was a poet who declared that the non-punishment of a certain act of iniquity proved that there are no gods. Diagoras had been a student of Democritus, who is said to have freed him from slavery. Allegedly, he became an atheist after being the victim of an unpunished perjury. He was accused of impiety, because he threw a wooden image of a god into a fire, remarking that the deity should perform another miracle and save itself. As a result, he had to flee from Athens to Corinth. He was charged with divulging the Eleusinian and other mysteries, with making firewood of an image of Heracles in order to prepare a dish of lentils, and of telling the god to perform his thirteenth labor by cooking the preparation. As a result, a silver talent was offered to anyone who would kill him, or two talents if he could be captured alive. He escaped and died in Corinth.
Jennifer Michael Hecht's Doubt: A History (2003) describes Diagoras:
- The poet Diagoras of Melos was perhaps the most famous atheist of the fifth century. 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.
About Diagoras of Melos, Stefan Stenudd, a Swedish artist, author, and astrologist, wrote of Diagoras
- According to Sextus Empiricus he became an atheist when an enemy of his perjured himself in court and got away with it. There are some variations in other sources to this anecdote, though not changing its moral content – immorality seems to go unpunished, so how can there be any gods in the sense of watchers over human virtue?
- He is said to have been a student of Democritus, who may have initiated his disbelief in the existence of the gods, and was expelled from Athens in 411 BC for his attacks on religion. Other sources claim that he was bought from slavery by Democritus in 411 BC, when Melos was captured by Alcibiades, and then became his student.
When Diagoras was condemned to death in Athens, he allegedly fled to Corinth, where he died.
If Diagoras is not an actual historical figure, he at least is symbolic of an early intellectual who doubted gods that he could not touch and see.
About
- Barnes, Jonathan, The Presocratic Philosophers, volume 2, London 1979.
- Cicero, De natura deorum, 1.2, translated by H. Rackham, Loeb, London 1979.
- Freeman, Kathleen, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Oxford 1946
- Janko, R., 2001, "The Derveni Papyrus (Diagoras of Melos, Apopyrgizontes Logoi?):
- A New Translation," Classical Philology 96: 1–32.
(See entry for Theodorus.)
