Protagoras the Atheist
Protagoras the Atheist

Summary/Abstract: By following up step by step the formation of the legend of Protagoras’ trial and death in the ancient biographic tradition, this paper provides internal arguments against accepting it as a historical fact. There are several reasons for taking these anecdotes, which are far from being uniform and unambiguous, as unauthentic; two features of the story formation are discussed in more detail. First, certain narrative elements make their appearance not in the order as they would be expected on the basis of their logical and chronological position (e. g. it is Protagoras’ shipwreck, and not his trial around which the legend started to develop; its ending therefore preceded its beginning). Second, there is a clear tendency among the narrators, as they retell and reformulate the legend, to add new details in order to adjust it to the conventional life pattern of the impious or atheist. In the final part of the paper the possibility of a connection between Protagoras’ theology and his theory of language is raised, and it is argued that his agnosticism may well have been complemented with some positive views on the gods.

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