at a number of such
offences--from the felling of sacred trees to the profanation of the
Eleusinian Mysteries--were treated as _asebeia_. When, in the next place,
towards the close of the fifth century B.C., free-thinking began to assume
forms which seemed dangerous to the religion of the State, theoretical
denial of the gods was also included under _asebeia_. From about the
beginning of the Peloponnesian War to the close of the fourth century
B.C., there are on record a number of prosecutions of philosophers who
were tried and condemned for denial of the gods. The indictment seems in
most cases--the trial of Socrates is the only one of which we know
details--to have been on the charge of _asebeia_, and the procedure proper
thereto seems to have been employed, though there was no proof or
assertion of the accused having offended against public worship; as to
Socrates, we know the opposite to have been the case; he worshipped the
gods like any other good citizen. This extension of the conception of
_asebeia_ to include theoretical denial of the gods no doubt had no
foundation in law; this is amongst other things evident from the fact that
it was necessary, in order to convict Anaxagoras, to pass a special public
resolution in virtue of which his free-thinking theories became
indictable. The law presumably dated from a time when theoretical denial
of the gods lay beyond the horizon of legislation. Nevertheless, in the
trial of Socrates it is simply taken for granted that denial of the gods
is a capital crime, and that not only on the side of the prosecution, but
also on the side of the defence: the trial only turns on a question of
fact, the legal basis is taken for granted. So inveterate, then, at this
time was the conception of the unlawful nature of the denial of the gods
among the people of Athens.

In the course of the fourth century B.C. several philosophers were accused
of denial of the gods or blasphemy; but after the close of the century we
hear no more of such trials. To be sure, our knowledge of the succeeding
centuries, when Athens was but a provincial town, is far less copious than
of the days of its greatness; nevertheless, it is beyond doubt that the
practice in regard to theoretical denial of the gods was changed. A
philosopher like Carneades, for instance, might, in view of his sceptical
standpoint, just as well have been convicted of _asebeia_ as Protagoras,
who was convicted because he had declared that