[Diagoras], son of Telekleides or Teleklytos; a Melian, a philosopher and a lyric poet; whom Democritus from Abdera,[1] seeing that he was naturally talented, bought -- since he was a slave -- for ten thousand drachmas and made a pupil. And he also applied himself to the lyric art, being in time after Pindar and Bacchylides, but older than Melanippides:[2] he flourished in the 78th Olympiad.[3] And he was called Atheos since he held such an opinion, after the time when someone of the same art, being accused by him of stealing a paean which he himself had made, swore he did not steal this, and performing it a short while later, met with success. Thereupon Diagoras, being upset, wrote the so-called Apopyrgizontes Logoi, which includes his withdrawal and falling away from his belief concerning the divine.[4] But Diagoras, settling in Corinth, lived out his life there.