“And then to say that there are gods in the heavens! Nay, there are none there; if you are not foolish enough to be seduced by the old talk. Think for yourselves about the matter, and do not be influenced by my words. I contend that the tyrants kill the people wholesale, take their money and destroy cities in spite of their oaths; and although they do all this they are happier than people who, in peace and quietness, lead god-fearing lives. And I know small states which honour the gods, but must obey greater states, which are less pious, because their spearmen are fewer in number. And I believe that you, if a slothful man just prayed to the gods and did not earn his bread by the work of his hands—” Here the sense is interrupted; but there remains one more line: “That which builds the castle of the gods is in part the unfortunate happenings ...” The continuation is missing. The argumentation here is characteristic of Euripides. From the injustice of life he infers the non-existence of the gods. The conclusion evidently only holds good on the assumption that the gods must be just; and this is precisely one of the postulates of popular belief. The reasoning is not sophistic; on the contrary, in their attacks the sophists took up a position outside the foundation of popular belief and attacked the foundation itself. This reasoning, on the other hand, is closely allied to the earlier religious thinking of the Greeks; it only proceeds further than the latter, where it results in rank denial. The drama of _Bellerophon_ is lost, and reconstruction is out of the question; if only for that reason it is unwarrantable to draw any conclusions from the detached fragment as to the poet’s personal attitude towards the existence of the gods. But, nevertheless, the fragment is of interest in this connexion. It would never have occurred to Sophocles or Aeschylus to put such a speech in the mouth of one of his characters. When Euripides does that it is a proof that the question of the existence of the gods has begun to present itself to the popular consciousness at this time. Viewed in this light other statements of his which are not in themselves atheistic become significant. When it is said: “If the gods act in a shameful way, they are not gods”—that indeed is not atheism in our sense, but it is very near to it. Interesting is also the introduction to the drama _Melanippe_: “Zeus, whoever Zeus may be; for of that I only know what is told.” Aeschylus begins a strophe in one of his most famous choral odes with almost the same words: “Zeus, whoe’er he be; for if he desire so to be called, I will address him by this name.” In him it is an expression of genuine antique piety, which excludes all human impertinence towards the gods to such a degree that it even forgoes knowing their real names. In Euripides the same idea becomes an expression of doubt; but in this case also the doubt is raised on the foundation of popular belief.