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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 July 2020
The theme of the gods, of their existence, appearance, and interest in human affairs, was an object of constant attention for the Greeks from the most ancient times. As is widely known, Greek religion presents some highly original features compared with present-day religions: there are no religious texts establishing a body of orthodox doctrines, and no figures to whom worship is officially entrusted. Perhaps precisely because of this fluid situation, the element of the divine marks almost all salient moments in the lives of individuals and cities. This constant presence in itself explains why, from Homer onwards, all writers were so keen to explore the issue of the gods. In particular, many Presocratic philosophers staunchly criticized popular prejudices (often presenting the gods as thieves, adulterers, and seducers) by suggesting alternative and more rigorous conceptions. In doing so, the Presocratics changed the content of the divine, without denying its existence: they opposed the theology of the philosophers to the theology of the poets. The sophists also fit within this broader movement towards the critical redefinition of traditional religiosity, a movement which engaged many leading personalities of the age: let us think of Euripides, of Thucydides’ analysis of the plague, or of the debate on the ‘sacred disease’ (epilepsy) among Hippocratic doctors. In particular, the sophists stand out on account of what we might term their ‘sociological’ perspective: while criticizing the phenomenon of religion, they acknowledged its importance in human life; searching for its causes, they embarked on enquiries into the nature of the gods, the origin of the belief in their existence, their role in people's lives, and myths as a means to convey traditional values.
1 Muir 1985:193–5.
2 Kahn 1997: 250–3.
3 In the ancient world, the term ‘atheist’ did not only describe someone who denies the existence of the gods, but also someone who scorns the gods or has been abandoned by them (see Winiarczyk 1990). In the following pages, the term will mostly be used in its modern sense. In general on ancient atheism, see now Sedley 2013, Whitmarsh 2015, and Gourinat 2019.
4 Usually these lists included the names of Prodicus, Diagoras, Critias, Theodore of Cyrene, Euhemerus of Messene, and – with some reservations – Protagoras: see Gigon 1985: 423.
5 Betegh 2006: 625.
6 Dodds 1951: 188–95.
7 The authenticity of this decree has been repeatedly disputed; a recent defence of its historicity is in Whitmarsh 2015: 117–19.
8 Trials have been recorded for Anaxagoras, Diagoras, Protagoras, Prodicus, Euripides, Phidias, and Aspasia. However, in particular with regard to Protagoras and Prodicus, it seems that the sources are not always reliable: see the overview provided by Ostwald 1986: 528–36, and Bonazzi 2018: 43–7.
9 Burkert 1985a: 311–17.
10 At present, it is still difficult to establish the relation between this text and the Truth. What is more interesting to note is that the sources also credit Protagoras with a treatise On What Is in Hades (80A1 D.-K. = 31D1 L.-M.), which would appear to confirm his interest in the topic. For a recent and very detailed analysis of this fragment, see Corradi 2017 with further bibliography.
11 On the text, see Di Benedetto 2001.
12 On Protagoras and the Magi, see Gigon 1985: 427–30.
13 See Corradi 2012: 31–43.
14 Barnes 1979: ii.449–50.
15 Drozdek 2005: 41.
16 See Kerferd 1981a: 165–9.
17 See Di Benedetto 2001.
18 Kahn 1973: 302.
19 Barnes 1979: ii.450.
20 Mansfeld 1981: 41–2.
21 It is interesting to note that a statement similar to Protagoras’ has been attributed to Parmenides’ pupil Melissus, who was a polemical target of the sophists: ‘He said that we ought not to make any statements about the gods, for it was impossible to have knowledge of them’ (D.L. 9.24).
22 Sassi 2013; see also Corradi 2017: 456–61. Alternatively, Protagoras may have been referring to the repeated transformations of the gods in Greek myths: this too militated against the possibility of saying anything definite about their form (Drozdek 2005: 42).
23 On the relation between this passage from Herodotus and Protagoras, see Burkert 1985b, who has emphasized the dependence of the former on the latter, and the words of caution voiced by Sassi 2013.
24 Mansfeld 1981: 43.
25 Jaeger 1947: 176. See also Corradi 2012: 169–70, on the basis of Plato, Cratylus, 400d–401a.
26 In addition to Jaeger, consider for instance Schiappa 1991, pp. 141–148 or, more recently, Drozdek 2005.
27 See Bonazzi 2011.
28 As further confirmation of this humanism, one might recall the ideas on crime and punishment that Plato puts into Protagoras’ mouth in the dialogue named after him (Prot. 323c–324d; however, it is difficult to establish whether these are ideas that may historically be traced back to Protagoras: see Saunders 1981). The underlying thesis – that a just punishment must not be a reprisal, but must rather serve as a means of correction and deterrent – stands out insofar as it aims to investigate the problem of injustice and evil among human beings without invoking, or confiding in, any corrective action on the gods’ part.
29 Henrichs 1975: 111.
30 Guthrie 1971: 238–42 voiced some reservations with regard to the two-phase reconstruction of Prodicus’ theory (which entails first the deification of inanimate objects and then that of particularly distinguished human beings), by arguing that the available sources allow us to attribute to Prodicus only the deification of inanimate objects and not of humans as well (the same view is taken by Gomperz 1912: 113 n. 251). However, an oft-neglected testimony, a papyrus fragment from a treatise On Piety by the Epicurean Philodemus (PHerc. 1428 = 84B5 D.-K. = 34D15 L.-M.), has made it possible to cast these reservations aside and to attribute the whole theory to Prodicus: see Henrichs 1975: 112–23; Mayhew 2011: 180–3.
31 See Untersteiner 1947.
32 Henrichs 1975: 112.
33 Dorion 2009a: 348.
34 Nestle 1936.
35 Soverini 1998: 105. Further developing his hypothesis, Nestle 1936 had set these doctrines in relation to the famous testimony on Heracles’ choice (see Chapter 5, pp. 106–110): indeed, this argument was featured in a text entitled Horai (84B1 D.-K. = 34D19 L.-M.), and it may reasonably be assumed that the term referred to the seasons, and therefore that Prodicus celebrated Heracles as a symbol of the world of farmers as well. According to this view, then, the Horai provided a praise of agriculture, a theory on the origin of religion connected to agriculture, and an exhortation to virtue (something necessary for agricultural life), embodied by the figure of Heracles at the crossroads. This hypothesis – an intriguing one, yet difficult to prove – may find some confirmation in the testimonies from Aristophanes (Clouds, 360–2, and Birds, 690–2 = 84A5 D.-K. = Dram. T22 L.-M.) and Timon (fr. 18 Di Marco). These present Prodicus as a meteorosophist, an expert on celestial matters: the reference here would not be to cosmological phenomena, but to atmospheric ones such as rain and wind, which Prodicus claimed to know much about (see Soverini 1998: 90–114). However, it is also worth noting that, while certainly important, the connection with agriculture did not exhaust the richness of the apologue on Heracles, which could equally well apply to the world of the polis – indeed, it especially referred to this.
36 Muir 1985: 204. Besides, Antiphon too is credited with a treatise On Agriculture (87B118 D.-K., not in L.-M.), and often the sophists are regarded as experts on celestial matters (meteora; see preceding footnote): see e.g. Protagoras 80A11 D.-K. = Dram. T18a and Gorgias 82A17 = 32P35 L.-M.
37 Henrichs 1976; Willink 1983; Mayhew 2011.
38 See Kerferd 1981a: 171.
39 Dihle 1977 is the main champion of this new attribution, which has attracted much consensus: see e.g. Scodel 1980: 124; Ostwald 1986: 281; Kahn 1997. However, we also find some champions of the Critias attribution: see e.g. Centanni 1997: 144–59 (very useful on the other tragedies possibly written by Critias); Bultrighini 1999: 213–50; Scholten 2003: 238–57 and Alvoni 2017.
40 Sutton 1981.
41 Kahn 1997: 249–50.
42 An interesting parallel here is with Democritus, 68A75 D.-K. = Atom. D207 L.-M.; see too Euripides, Helen, 743.
43 Evident affinities are instead to be found with Antiphon: see Chapter 4, pp. 84–89. This sort of polemic becomes even more interesting when we consider the fact that another target might have been Socrates’ intellectualism. However, it is difficult to agree with Santoro 1997 that the wise inventor of the gods is to be identified precisely with Socrates (more reasonably, Palumbo 2005 suggests the name of Xenophanes – but, again, it is difficult to draw any definite conclusions).
44 Nestle 1948. On this, see now Balla 2018.
45 Burkert 1985a: 315.
46 Untersteiner 1954: 325; Romeyer-Dherbey 1985: 77; and Guthrie 1971: 297 respectively.
47 Bonazzi 2008.
48 See also Chapter 2, pp. 40–41. Some difficulty, in this case, might be raised by fragment 87B10 D.-K. = 37D9a L.-M. (‘that is why he lacks nothing and receive nothing from anyone, but is unlimited and unlacking’), which many scholars believe to be referring to god. Other solutions are possible, however, because the subject might be the cosmos, the intellect, or nature: see the discussion in Pendrick 2002: 256–9.
49 The testimonies were brought together in Winiarczyk 1981 and 2016.
50 Guthrie 1971: 236; but see now the more detailed treatment in Whitmarsh 2015: 109–13.
51 Translated Barnes 1979.
52 See Barnes 1979: ii.455–6 for an analysis of the merits and limitations of this argument.
53 From the few testimonies we have about Diagoras’ life, it seems as though he was charged with impiety and forced to flee Athens precisely in 415/414 bc: see Winiarczyk 2016: 54–59. A scholium to Aristophanes would appear to establish a correlation between his impiety (and in particular his profanation of the Eleusinian Mysteries) and the Melos event (Scholia in Aristoph. Aves, 1073); see also Brisson 1994. However, Diagoras’ atheism had long been known: see Ostwald 1986: 275–7. As far as Euripides’ Bellerophon is concerned, it can be dated between 430 and 426 bc.
54 Significant similarities may be found in Book 10 of the Laws: ‘All this, my friends, is the theme of experts – as our young people regard them – who in their prose and poetry maintain that anything one can get away with by force is absolutely justified. This is why we experience outbreaks of impiety among the young, who assume that the kind of gods the laws tell them to believe in do not exist; this is why we get treasonable efforts to convert people to the “true natural life”, which is essentially nothing but a life of conquest over others, not one of service to your neighbor as the law enjoins’ (Pl. Leg. 10.890a–b). On the possible references to Antiphon in this passage, see above and Chapter 2, pp. 40–41. It is interesting to note that in antiquity Antiphon was regarded as one of Thucydides’ masters: the hypothesis that these passages from the Melians’ dialogue betray the sophist's influence is intriguing, but impossible to demonstrate based on the available testimonies.
55 Crane 1998: 6.