Exhortation to the Greeks 2.24

May many blessings come to the king of the Scythians, whoever he was [Anacharsis]! When one of his fellow citizens was imitating among the Scythians the rite of the Mother of the gods practiced at Cyzicus, beating a drum, clanging a cymbal, and hung about the neck with images like a begging priest of the goddess, the king shot him dead with arrows, as one who had become unmanly among the Greeks and was teaching the other Scythians the effeminate disease. For this reason (it must not be concealed) I am led to wonder how Euhemerus of Acragas, Nicanor of Cyprus, Diagoras and Hippo of Melos, and besides these that Cyrenian (Theodorus was his name), and many others, came to be called atheists. They lived temperate lives and saw more sharply than the rest of humankind the error about these gods; and even if they did not perceive the truth itself, they at least suspected the error, which is no small seed, springing up as a living spark of wisdom toward the truth. One of them charges the Egyptians: “If you believe they are gods, do not lament them or beat your breasts for them; but if you mourn them, stop thinking them gods.” Another took a Heracles made of wood (he happened to be cooking something at home, as one does) and said: “Come now, Heracles: now is your chance to perform for us, as you did for Eurystheus, this thirteenth labor, and cook Diagoras's dinner”; and then he put him into the fire like a piece of wood.