Diagoras of Melos

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Diagoras of Melos (* around 475 BC in Melos ; † after 410 BC) was a Greek sophist and poet who also worked as a legislator and lived towards the end of the 5th century BC. Sometimes the nickname "the atheist" is added to him.

Diagoras first appeared around 425 BC. BC as the legislature of the city of Mantineia , where the democratic constitution that he helped to develop was considered exemplary. The strengthening of the democratic elements brought about by the reform resulted in 418 BC. To a political change in favor of Athens .

As a poet, Diagoras initially wrote religiously inspired poetry. In 423 BC However, he was apparently already known as a critic of the belief in gods, since Aristophanes quotes him as such in his comedy The Clouds .

There are different versions of the reason for his becoming an atheist . One version sees the reason that Diagoras, as a student of Democritus , was convinced of his theory, according to which religious ideas emerge from the horror of terrible natural phenomena. Another says that he became an atheist when a student stole from him and then lived a happy life instead of being punished in a false oath by the gods for the deed and subsequent denial of it. The historian Wolfgang Will considers it possible that the enslavement of his home island Melos in 416 BC was possible. The final turn to atheism.

After he responded to the atrocities in Melos in early 415 BC. In a much-noticed speech, he attacked the cult of Demeter and Kore in Eleusis , which was also economically important for Athens , Diagoras was sentenced to death by the Athenians in the spring of that year for godlessness (the same year in which Protagoras was banished) . However, since he still had friends in the city, he was able to flee to Corinth before the execution . After another stop in Pellene , his track was lost. The stele with the ostracism and the manhunt could still be seen in Eleusis centuries later.

After his unspecified death, numerous anecdotes circulated that made Diagoras the most famous atheist of antiquity. According to the common legend, in which poetry and truth are difficult to distinguish, Diagoras polemicized against the orthodox religion of his time and denied miracles. He is said to have thrown the wooden image of a god into the fire, with the words that the deity was supposed to save itself through a miracle.

Cicero narrates an anecdote illustrating Diagoras' atheistic thesis “The gods do not care about human affairs”: A friend shows Diagora's votive tablets depicting people who have been shipwrecked and have been rescued from it. When asked whether he does not recognize from this that the gods do take care of people, Diagoras replies: “Yes. But nowhere are the people shown who were not rescued from distress but perished in the sea. "

The most detailed biographical appraisal of Diagoras was recently presented by Wolfgang Will in his volume on the fall of Melos.

literature

  • Maroun Aouad, Luc Brisson : Diagoras de Mélos. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Volume 2, CNRS Éditions, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-271-05195-9 , pp. 750-757
  • Wolfgang Will: The downfall of Melos. Power politics in the judgment of Thucydides and some contemporaries . Bonn 2006, ISBN 3-7749-3441-X .

Remarks

  1. Will: The Fall of Melos. Pp. 66-68.
  2. Aristophanes : The Clouds , v. 820-831. It is also conceivable, however, that the above-mentioned verses only appeared in the revised version of 417 BC. Found their way into the plant.
  3. Georges Minois: History of Atheism. Weimar 2000, p. 43
  4. Will: The Fall of Melos. Pp. 71-74
  5. Will: The Fall of Melos. Pp. 69-75.
  6. Will: The Fall of Melos. Pp. 60-62.
  7. Cicero, de natura deorum III 89. ( text from The Latin Library )