Greek philosophers
Theodore of Cyrene
Atheos
Theodore of Cyrene was a Greek philosopher who was the founder of the Theodoric movement. He was born in 340 BC (Kyrenia, in present-day Libya) and died in 270 BC (also Kyrenia).
Theodore of Cyrene was also known as Atheos. The origin of this nickname is related to his criticism of religious beliefs.
His teachers were the Cyrenaics Annikeris and Aristippus the Younger, and he attended the lectures of Dionysius of Chalcedon. Theodoret drew on the hedonistic philosophy of the Cyrenaic school, which he developed further. According to him, bliss does not consist in short-term sensual pleasures, but the goal should be undying cheerfulness, joyful mood and lasting mental well-being. He considers joy to be the best thing and sorrow to be the greatest affliction. Joy should spring from rationality and sorrow from unreason.
Theodore's ethics were very individualistic. He rejected friendship as a thing that limited independence and self-sufficiency. He considered death for one's country to be folly, because to a wise man the whole world is one's country. A wise man, he said, might occasionally steal, commit adultery, and commit sacrilege, for these are acts reprehensible only by convention, not by nature.
Theodorus had many successors who formed a movement within the Cyrenaic school called the Theodoricans. Among his pupils was the Cynic philosopher Bion of Borysthenes.
Of his works, Diogenes Laertios mentions the treatise On Philosophical Schools. He also wrote On the Gods, in which he apparently rejected popular ideas about the gods.
Theodôros was to be expelled from Cyrene, so he lived for a time in Athens, where he was installed as ruler by Demetrios of Phaleros in 317 BC. When Theodôros impiously taunted the high priest Eurycleides, he was put on trial, but it was Demetrios who protected him from it. Eventually he was expelled from Athens as well, probably at the same time as the fall of Demetrios' reign in 307 BC. Subsequently, Theodoros moved to the court of the Egyptian king Ptolemy I. He sent him as his envoy to Lysimachus, ruler of Thrace. Here Theodoret caused considerable trouble with his free speech, which greatly angered Lysimachus. On his return from this journey he lived in Cyrene, where he spent his last years as a highly respected man.