EUHEMERUS (EUEMERUS, EVEMERUS) (fl. C. 300 B.C.), Greek mythographer, born at Messana, Sicily (others say at Chios, Tegea or Messene in Peloponnese), and lived at the court of Cassander. He is chiefly known by his Sacred History (`Iepc pack), a philosophical romance, based upon archaic inscrip tions which he claimed to have found during his travels in Greece. In this work he for the first time systematized an old Oriental (perhaps Phoenician) method of interpreting the popular myths, asserting that the gods of popular worship had been originally heroes and conquerors. The word "euhemeristic" is consequently applied to such explanations of primitive myths. Euhemerus was a firm upholder of the Cyrenaic philosophy, and by many ancient writers he was regarded as an atheist. His work exists only in a few fragments of the Latin trans. by Ennius.
See Raymond de Block, Evhemere, son livre et sa doctrine (Mons, 1876) ; G. N. Nemethy, Euhemeri relliquiae (Budapest, 1889) ; Ganss, Quaestiones Euhemereae (Kempen, 186o) ; O. Sieroka, De Euhemero (1869) ; Susemihl, Gesch. der griech. Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit, vol. i. (Leipzig, 1891) .