Euhemerus (
Greek: Euemeros) was an author from
Messene who lived circa 300
BCE. His major contribution to history was a fantasy
travel novel called
Sacred Scripture (Greek: Hiera anagraphe). Though today we only have bits and pieces of the original story, it was highly influential in its day (well, 'influential' in a relatively
Ancient Greek fashion).
He presented the theory of divine right through a philosophy called Euhemerism. This was expressed by an imaginative story of traveling to an island called Panchaia in the Indian Ocean where he learned that the great Greek gods had originally been kings deified by their subjects. The rulers of the Hellinistic world, of course, pounced on it as justification for forcing their subjects to worship them in the hopes of ascending to godhood through legend. It also promoted a sort of rationalistic atheism; the gods weren't really gods, just extra special supermen and wonderous rulers whose traditions had been expanded upon. Exageration, basically.