Abstract
Abstract In 415 BC a witch-hunt erupted in Athens. Its targets included intellectuals suspected of hostility to the traditional religion, but who, in fact, tried to reconcile it with the latest scientific theories about the universe, notably those of Anaxagoras. They did so by using allegory and etymology to interpret peculiar rites and sacred texts like the Orphic theogony. I argue that the recently reconstructed Derveni papyrus is a book by one of these intellectuals, the poet and sophist Diagoras of Melos, who was condemned to death in 415 for mocking the Eleusinian mysteries. The text proves that its author actually believed in a single, all-pervading and providential God. But most Athenians confused belief in new gods with belief in no gods at all. The new text, combined with evidence from Aristophanes's Clouds, Plato, and other sources, shows that Socrates himself was later executed for having held similar beliefs.
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