ABSTRACT
The first known statement of a relativist position in Western philosophy is the famous dictum ‘man is the measure of all things’ by the Sophist, Protagoras (c. 490-420 BC). However, intimations of relativism were present in Greek thought even earlier. Increasing contact between the Greeks and other civilisations-the Persians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Scythians, Thracians and Indians-through both war and trade brought with it the realisation that societies arrange their social and political institutions and moral customs in radically different ways.1 The Persian Wars (490-480 BC), in particular, and the political turmoil that ensued, cast doubt over the old certainties and introduced the idea that social and ethical rules which had been construed as unchanging, universal or of divine origin were in fact merely transitory and local. The historian Herodotus (c. 485430 BC) cites a vast array of practices and customs which by Greek standards would be seen as abnormal and unacceptable. For instance, marriage between a brother and sister was considered natural among the Egyptians and was even prescribed by their religion, while to the Greeks it appeared disgusting and reprehensible. He contends that if any man was asked to name the best laws and customs, he would name his own; as the following story illustrates:
Darius, after he had got the kingdom, called into his presence certain Greeks who were at hand, and asked-‘what he should pay them to eat the bodies of their fathers when they died?’ To which they answered, that there was no sum that would tempt them to do such a thing. He then sent for certain Indians, of the race called Callatians, men who eat their fathers, and asked them, while the Greeks stood by, and knew by the help of an interpreter all that was said-‘What he should give them to burn the bodies of their fathers at their decease?’ The Indians exclaimed aloud, and bade him forbear such language. Such is men’s wont herein; and Pindar was right, in my judgement, when he said that law [nomos] is the king over all.
