Évhémère (in Greek old Ευήμερος / Euếmeros ), born with the neighborhoods of 316 av. J. - C., was a Greek mythographe of the court of Cassandre and author of a fantastic novel of voyage the Écriture crowned . The birthplace of Évhémère is disputed. Metz-native in Sicily or Messénie in the Peloponnese being the two most probable places, whereas others lean rather towards Chios or Tégée.

In its novel it presents the theory of the evhemerism. Its work was translated into Latin by Ennius. It presents in its novel the Greek Gods as being of the heroes or great men divinized after their death. The novel presents an initiatory voyage which it would have accomplished in a named island Panchée where it could have contemplated a gold column on which the actions would have been told, but as the death of various men bearing the same names as the various Greek gods. Thus, Zeus would have been a wise and beneficial sovereign, Aphrodite a courtesan of king de Chypre who would have made a goddess and Athéna of it a warlike queen. Sextus Empiricus, which brings back the remarks of Évhémère, gives a vision somewhat different from the theory of Évhémère: in this case, the divinities of these men were not due to the honors of immortality that would have conferred other men to them, but with a title which they themselves would have allotted. Thus, Sextus Empiricus written in Against the teaching of sciences :

“Évhémère, called the Atheistic , said this: when the men were not civilized yet, those which carried it enough on the others in force and intelligence to force everyone to do what they ordered, wishing to enjoy a greater admiration and to obtain more respect, wrongfully allotted a power superhuman and divine, which made them regard by crowd as gods. ”

Later Christian writers will take again his theory to fight the Roman religion.

See too