A Brief B.C. 411 Diagoras Bio

Diagoras, Greek poet, philosopher, and orator, known as “the Atheist,” b. Melos. A pupil of Democritus, who is said to have freed him from slavery. A doubtful tradition reports that he became an Atheist after being the victim of an unpunished [109]perjury. He was accused (B.C. 411) of impiety, and had to fly from Athens to Corinth, where he died. A price was put upon the Atheist’s head. His works are not extant, but several anecdotes are related of him, as that he threw a wooden statue of Hercules into the fire to cook a dish of lentils, saying the god had a thirteenth task to perform; and that, being on his flight by sea overtaken by a storm, hearing his fellow-passengers say it was because an Atheist was on board, he pointed to other vessels struggling in the same storm without being laden with a Diagoras.