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Although there were no actual Modern Humanists until the 20th century, the formation of the building blocks of Humanism started long before that. Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations emphasized reason rather than revelation in answering philosophical questions, and persuasion through democratic debate rather than insistence on scripture or dogma as revealed to elite religious authorities. Many of the ancient Greek and Roman thinkers were forerunners of Humanism for those reasons, and because of their development of human centered ethics, challenges to convention, and naturalism. These include: Anaxagoras, Diagoras of Melos, Theodorus, Protagoras, Sextus, Socrates, Plato, Democritus, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, Cicero, and Seneca. This does not mean that everything they each believed was consistent with Humanism; but they did propose ideas that are central to it, and laid the groundwork.
Diagoras "the Atheist" of Melos (c. 430 BCE) once threw a wooden image of a god into a fire, saying that the deity should perform another miracle and save itself. The Athenians put a price on his capture, dead or alive, and he fled, living the rest of his life in Sparta. Theodorus "the Atheist" of Cyrene (c. 310 BCE) was one of the Cyrenaics. They believed that humankind should seek to control its own destiny, and that pleasure is the meaning of life. However, Theodorus argued that lasting happiness and tranquility are better than intense but transient pleasures. Cyrenaicism was the precursor to the more sophisticated form of hedonism of the Epicurus and his followers. The Greek philosopher Protagoras (480? -411?BC) had said, "Man is the measure of all things". He was an outspoken agnostic who had said, "As to the gods, I have no means of knowing either that they exist or do not exist. For many are the obstacles that impede knowledge, both the obscurity of the question and the shortness of human life." For this he was accused of impiety, banished, and copies of his writings were confiscated for public burning. Sextus Empericus (4th century BCE) was a Greek philosopher and atheist. Sextus wrote about atheists before him such as Euhemerus, Diagoras of Melos, Theodorus and Prodicus of Ceos. Prodicus was also was a Sophist, and Sophists were the first to systematize education. According to the writings of Sextus, Euhemerus believed that the gods were "certain men of power" who were thought to be gods for that reason. Prodicus reduced God to that which benefits life. Critias believed that lawgivers invented the idea of gods and divine vengeance in order to prevent secret wrong doings against others. Theodorus "demolished" Greek theology using various arguments in his treatise "On Gods".
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