DIAGORAS  , of Melos, surnamed the Atheist, poet and sophist, flourished in the second

half of the 5th century n.c . Religious in his youth and a writer of hymns and dithyrambs, he became an atheist because a great wrong done to him was left unpunished by the gods . In consequence of his blasphemous speeches, and especially his criticism of the Mysteries, he was condemned to death at Athens, and a price set upon his head (Aristoph . Clouds, 83o; Birds, 1073 and Schol.) . He fled to Corinth, where he is said to have died . His work on the Mysteries was called 'Ipirycoe X6yoc or 'A1rolrvp'aovres, in which he probably attacked the Phrygian divinities .