DIA'OORAS OF MELDS, known also by the name of the Atheist, flourished, aocording to Suidaain, the 76th Olympiad, ft.e. 468-65. Mr. Clinton has adopted this date; but Scaliger (in Euseb. Chron.' p. 101) placed him considerably later, fixing his flight from Athens in the year B.C. 415; and ho has beau generally followed. The date which Mr. Clinton has taken is the more probable. Diazoras is chiefly known for his aaserted open denial of the existence of gods ; but it may be doubted whether this was more than a popular prejudice : what is known of his writings gives no support to the charge of atheism, but the common opinion of the ancients fixes the charge upon him. Diagoras is said to have broached atheism on seeing a man who had stolen one of his writings and published it as his own go unpunished for the crime. (Sext. Empir. 'adv. Math.' p. 3184 On account of this atheism it is generally said that the Athenians put a pried upon his head, offeriog a talent to any who should kill him, and two to any ono who should bring him alive ; though Suidas, Athenagoras, and Tatian attribute the indignation of tho Athenians, and the sub sequent flight of Diagoras, to his having divulged the nature of some of their mysteries. It is not impossible however that this was one of
the overt acts by which his character for atheism was established ; in which case the two Recounts, which seem to differ, would really coincide. He is said to have been bought as a slave by Democritue, and also to have met his death by shipwreck. (Atheu. xiii. p. 611, B.) Aristophanes in his play of the ' Clouds,' one object of which was to raise a religious outcry against Socrates, has maliciously fastened on him the odious name of the Melian. (' Clouds,' 830.) /Elian (' Var. Hist.' ii. 23) says that Diagoras assisted Nicodorus in drawing up the laws of the Mantineans. Diaguraa was also a lyric poet, though some, apparently without sufficient grounds, have attempted to separate the lyric poet from the atheist.
(Bayle, Dictionary; Fabriciva, Bibliothcca Grirea, ed. Harlem, voL ii. pp. 119 and 655; Meier in Griiber's Allgem. Enc. xxiv. pp. 439-48.)