Protagŏras

, a Greek philosopher of Abdera in Thrace, who was originally a porter. He became one of the disciples of Demo crit us, when that philosopher had seen him carrying faggots on his head, poised in a proper equilibrium. He soon rendered himself ridiculous by his doctrines, and in a book which he published, he denied the existence of a Supreme Being. This doctrine he supported by observing, that his doubts arose from the uncertainty of the existence of a Supreme Power, and from the shortne of human life. This book was publicly burnt at Athens, and the philosopher banished from the city, as a worthle and contemptible being. Prot agoras visited from Athens different islands in the Mediterranean, and died in Sicily in a very advanced age, about 400 years before the christian era. He generally reasoned by dilemmas, and always left the mind in suspense about all the questions which he proposed. Some suppose that he was drowned. Diogenes Laërtius , bk. 9 .— ♦ Plato , Prot agoras .――A king of Cyprus, tributary to the court of Persia.――Another. ♦ ‘Plutarch’ replaced with ‘Plato’