Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World (29 page)

1.
On the sophists see W. K. C. Guthrie,
A History of Greek Philosophy,
vol. 3,
The Fifth Century Enlightenment. Part 1: The Sophists
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), with pp. 226–47 on the criticism of traditional religion; G. B. Kerferd,
The Sophistic Movement
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); S. Broadie, “Socrates and the Sophists,” in D. N. Sedley (ed.),
The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 73–97. The texts are gathered in D. W. Graham,
The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics,
part 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). The quotation from
On the Gods
is fragment 29.

2.
Dating of the visit: J. Walsh, “The Dramatic Dates of Plato’s
Protagoras
and the Lesson of
Arete,
”
The Classical Quarterly
34 (1984): 101–6, arguing that Plato also blended in details relating to an earlier visit.

3.
Plato,
Protagoras
310a–b.

4.
Protagoras, fragment 21 in Graham,
The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy.

5.
Xenophanes, fragment 33 in Graham,
The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy
(vol. 1).

6.
Exile and book-burning: fragment 31 (Cicero,
On the Nature of the Gods
1.24.63). Reputation for atheism: M. Winiarczyk, “Wer galt im Altertum als Atheist?,”
Philologus
128 (1984): 177–78. Humanistic religion: L. Lampert,
How Philosophy Became Socratic: A Study of Plato’s Protagoras, Charmides, and Republic
(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2010), 60; see, more fully, E. Schiappa,
Protagoras and Logos: A Study in Greek Philosophy and Rhetoric
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991), 141–53. Lampert rests heavily on a book by the notoriously conservative ideologue Werner Jaeger,
The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947), 189–90. The myth: Plato,
Protagoras
320c–322d = Protagoras fragment 45.

7.
Prodicus’s reputation for atheism: Winiarczy, “Wer galt,” 177. For the papyrus see D. Obbink,
Philodemus on Piety Part 1
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); see also A. Henrichs, “Two Doxographical Notes: Democritus and Prodicus on Religion,”
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
79 (1975): 93–123.

8.
For more on Democritus see chapter 5. For the argument (predating the re-examination of Philodemus) that Democritus underlies the anthropological account in Diodorus of Sicily 1.8 see T. Cole,
Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology
(Cleveland: Western Reserve University 1967). Democritus on the origins of religion: see Sextus Empiricus,
Against the Mathematicians
9.24 = fragment 183 in Graham,
The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy.
Herculaneum fragment:
Herculaneum Papyrus
1428, fragment 19. See Henrichs, “Two Doxographical Notes,” 96–106.

9.
Herculaneum Papyrus
1428, fragment 19, which is fragment 72 in R. Mayhew,
Prodicus the Sophist: Texts, Translations, and Commentary
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). I follow Henrichs in translating “thought of [
nomizomenous
] as gods” as “the gods of popular belief” on the grounds that
nomizein
has a distinctive semantic field when it comes to religion: see below, p. 119. Henrichs has a fuller account of Prodicus on atheism in “The Atheism of Prodicus,”
Cronache Ercolanesi
6 (1976): 15–21.

10.
Prodicus and the deification of natural bounty: Cicero,
On the Nature of the Gods
1.42.118; Sextus Empiricus,
Against the Mathematicians
9.18, 9.52. These appear as Prodicus, fragments 29–30 in Graham,
The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy
and 73–75 in Mayhew,
Prodicus the Sophist.
Two-stage process: Henrichs, “Two Doxographical Notes,” 111, 113–15, and Mayhew,
Prodicus the Sophist,
xvii–xiii. Castor and Pollux (“the Dioscuri”) are mentioned in fragment 71 Mayhew, but a gap follows immediately, and their invention is not specified; they are often associated with sailing, but horsemanship is another possibility. “Changing letters”: Philodemus,
On Piety
19 Obbink = fragment 70 in Mayhew. E. R. Dodds thought that Prodicus underlay Euripides,
Bacchae
274–85 (see his
Euripides, Bacchae,
2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), 104–5.

11.
For the alternative translation see Mayhew,
Prodicus the Sophist,
47.

12.
On the Sisyphus fragment see, among others, M. Davies, “Sisyphus and the Invention of Religion (‘Critias’
TrGF
1 [43] F 19 = B 25 DK),”
Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
36 (1989): 16–32; N. Pechstein,
Euripides Satyrographos: ein Kommentar zu den euripideischen Satyrspielfragmenten
(Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner, 1998); P. O’Sullivan, “Sophistic Ethics, Old Atheism, and ‘Critias’ on Religion,”
Classical World
105 (2012): 167–85; D. N. Sedley, “The Atheist Underground,” in V. Harte and M. Lane (eds.),
Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 329–48; T. Whitmarsh, “Atheist Aesthetics: The Sisyphus Fragment, Poetics, and the Creativity of Drama,”
Cambridge Classical Journal
60 (2014): 109–24.

13.
M. Foucault,
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,
tr. by Alan Sheridan (London: Allen Lane, 1977).

14.
Odysseus in the underworld: Homer,
Odyssey
11.593–94.

1.
Generally on Athenian theater see A. W. Pickard-Cambridge,
The Dramatic Festivals of Athens,
rev. 2nd ed. by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). For orientation on the role of the theater in Athenian society see J. Winkler and F. Zeitlin (eds.),
Nothing to Do with Dionysus? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); E. Csapo and W. J. Slater,
The Context of Ancient Drama
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994); C. Pelling (ed.),
Greek Tragedy and the Historian
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); D. Wiles,
Tragedy in Athens: Performance Space and Theatrical Meaning
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); E. Csapo and M. Miller (eds.),
The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

2.
Aristotle,
Poetics
1449a. On the weakness of the ritual case see S. Scullion, “Nothing to Do with Dionysus: Tragedy Misconceived as Ritual,”
Classical Quarterly
52 (2002): 102–37. For “ritualist” approaches to Greek drama see W. Burkert, “Greek Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual,”
Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies
7 (1966): 88–121; R. Seaford,
Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); C. Sourvinou-Inwood,
Tragedy and Athenian Religion
(Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2003); A. Bierl,
Ritual and Performativity: The Chorus in Greek Comedy
(Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2009).

3.
Euripides,
Trojan Women
67–68. Generally on the representation of gods in tragedy see R. Parker, “Gods Cruel and Kind: Tragic and Civic Theology,” in C. Pelling (ed.),
Greek Tragedy and the Ancient Historian
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 143–60. For the contrary view that tragedy did teach Athenians a form of civic piety, see C. Sourvinou-Inwood, “Tragedy and Religion,” in Pelling,
Greek Tragedy,
161–86.

4.
Aristophanes,
Knights
30–35.

5.
Euripides: Aristophanes,
Thesmophoriazusae
451.
Clouds
quotations: 818–19, 365–84 (quotation from 365–67).

6.
On the date and contemporary resonance of
Oedipus the King
see especially B. M. W. Knox, “The Date of the
Oedipus Tyrannus
of Sophocles,”
American Journal of Philology
77 (1956): 133–47; reprinted in
Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient Theatre
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 112–24. Knox argues that the play should be dated to after the second outbreak of plague in Athens, specifically to 425 (but this seems to push the evidence too far). It should be said that an alternative interpretation of Sophocles’s choice to begin with a plague could be to explain it as an echo of the
Iliad.
Discussion of Sophocles and religion in R. Parker, “Through a Glass Darkly: Sophocles and the Divine,” in J. Griffin (ed.),
Sophocles Revisited: Essays Presented to Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 11–30.

7.
Diopeithes decree: Plutarch,
Pericles
32.1 (see also Diodorus of Sicily 12.39.2); more details in the following chapter. Apollo and Diopeithes: Xenophon,
History of Greece
3.3.3 (if this is the same Diopeithes; see M. A. Flower,
The Seer in Ancient Greece
[Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008], 123–24). The connection with Apollo may also be implied at Aristophanes,
Knights
1086 (if Apollo is distancing himself from his own prophet). Descriptions of Tiresias:
Oedipus the King
387–88. On the overlap of terminology with itinerant prophets of the new gods see H. S. Versnel,
Ter Unus: Isis, Dionysos, Hermes; Three Studies in Greek Henotheism
(Leiden: Brill, 1990), 116–18 (although it should be conceded that Aeschylus’s Cassandra is also called a vagabond prophetess:
Agamemnon
1273–74). Diopeithes the madman: Amipsias, fragment 10, Teleclides fragment 7, scholion on Aristophanes,
Wasps
380a, 380c, 988c. Drums: Phrynichus fragment 9 (also Aelian fragments 22–23). All references to comic fragments are to the edition of R. Kassel and C. Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1983-2001). Aristophanes:
Birds
980–89.

8.
Sophocles,
Oedipus the King
857–58.

9.
Ibid., 906–10.

10.
Naming gods in prayers: Aeschylus,
Agamemnon
160–61: “Zeus, whoever he is, if this name is pleasing to him.” Denying prophecy: Xenophanes, fragment 43 in D. W. Graham,
The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics,
part I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Euripides,
Helen
744–57.

11.
Sophocles,
Oedipus the King
1080; Democritus, fragments 231, 236, 239, 240 in Graham,
The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy.

12.
Oedipus the
atheos:
Sophocles,
Oedipus the King
1360.

13.
Aristophanes,
Women at the Thesmophoria
450–51. Similarly, at
Frogs
836 he is accused by Aeschylus of being an “enemy of the gods.” Satyrus,
Life of Euripides
F6 fr. 39 col. 10, in S. Schorn (ed.),
Satyros aus Kallatis: Sammlung der Fragmente mit Kommentar
(Basel: Schwabe, 2004). M. Winiarczyk, “Wer galt im Altertum als Atheist?,”
Philologus
128 (1984): 171–72 lists seven ancient instances where he is associated with atheism. Many of the “impious” passages from his plays (but not, strangely, the
Bellerophon
fragment) are collected and discussed by M. R. Lefkowitz, “ ‘Impiety’ and ‘Atheism’ in Euripides’ Dramas,”
Classical Quarterly
39 (1989): 70–82 (reprinted in J. Mossman [ed.],
Euripides
[Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003], 102–21). Lefkowitz seeks to limit the impact of such passages by discussing what happens to their speakers rather than the philosophical implications of the words. See also C. Sourvinou-Inwood,
Tragedy and Athenian Religion,
291–458 (especially 294–97 on atheism); A. Rubel,
Fear and Loathing in Ancient Athens: Religion and Politics During the Peloponnesian War
(Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2014), 167–79.

14.
Euripides,
Trojan Women
884–88. The ancient commentator on this passage notes that these words “derive from the sayings of Anaxagoras.”

15.
Euripides,
Heracles
342–47, 1262–65, 1341–46; Xenophanes fragment in Graham,
The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy;
Pindar,
Olympian Ode
1.28–35;
Olympian Ode
9.35–41. On the theological issues raised by
Heracles
see H. Yunis,
A New Creed: Fundamental Religious Beliefs in the Athenian Polis and Euripidean Drama
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1988), 139–71. Sourvinou-Inwood,
Tragedy and Athenian Religion,
361–77, is more conservative.

16.
Bellerophon
fragment 1. On the problem of evil and its consequences for religious thought see M. L. Peterson, “The Problem of Evil,” in S. Bullivant and M. Ruse (eds.),
The Oxford Handbook of Atheism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 71–86. For a recent attempt to reconstruct the plot of
Bellerophon
(arguing, implausibly to my mind, that the “atheistic” fragment is spoken by Stheneboea) see D. W. Dixon, “Reconsidering Euripides’
Bellerophon,
”
Classical Quarterly
64 (2014): 493–506.

17.
Homer,
Iliad
6.200–201; 6.199. Pindar,
Isthmian Ode
7.44–48 (and implicitly at
Olympian Ode
13.91–93).

18.
On the correspondences between
Peace
and
Bellerophon
see M. Telò, “Embodying the Tragic Father(s), Autobiography and Intertextuality in Aristophanes,”
Classical Antiquity
29 (2010): 308–17, with further bibliography. In-depth discussion of the Bellerophon fragment in C. Riedweg, “The ‘Atheistic’ Fragment from Euripides’ Bellerophontes (286 N2),”
Illinois Classical Studies
15 (1990): 39–53.

19.
Pollux 4.127–32.

20.
On the parallel titles see for example R. Janko, “The Derveni Papyrus (‘Diagoras of Melos,
Apopyrgizontes Logoi
?’), A New Translation,”
Classical Philology
96 (2001): 1–32, especially 7. Although
apopyrgizein
is unattested elsewhere in Greek, there is a similar word,
apoteikhizein
, from
teikhos,
“a wall”; the ancient writers on siege craft use it to mean “knock down a city wall.” Connection with Diagoras: T. Bergk,
Griechische Literaturgeschichte
vol. 3, ed. G. Hinrichs (Berlin: Weidmann, 1884), 473. For more on Diagoras see the following chapter.

21.
Aristophanes’s
Birds
and Diagoras: see lines 1072–78. “Melian famine”: 186, with F. E. Romer, “Atheism, Impiety and the
Limos Melios
in Aristophanes’
Birds,
”
American Journal of Philology
115 (1994): 351–65.