 While it is evident that Protagoras’ statement is not a profession of atheism, its overall meaning is less clear. Some interpreters have denied that Protagoras is doubting the existence of the gods in this passage on the ground of a parallel with the use of hos in this statement and in the MM: in the latter case, as we have seen, the preposition clearly has a modal meaning; if we assume that it was used in the same sense in the former passage, we must conclude that, according to this line of interpretation, Protagoras was chiefly interested in the way in which the gods are and present themselves, rather than in their presumed existence or non-existence. Protagoras would thus be claiming that we do not know “how” the gods are or are not, and the words that follow (“nor of what kind they are in form”) would have an almost epexegetic function (or would more concretely refer to the problem of their visible appearance: see Kerferd 1981a: 165–168). This would imply, then, that Protagoras never raised any doubts as to the existence of the gods (and a different translation of the first clause would follow: “I am able to know neither how they exist nor how they do not exist”). The merit of this reading is that it explains the otherwise inappropriate order of the two clauses: since the first statement argues for agnosticism, it makes no sense to discuss the problem of the gods’ form. Against it, however, it must be noted that all the ancient sources, from Plato onwards (see Theaetetus, 162d), unanimously present Protagoras’ thesis as though it concerned the existence of the gods. As there are no reasons to go against such a solid tradition, it is better to interpret the text as discussing both the existence of the gods (“neither that they exist nor that they do not exist”) and their form (“nor of what kind they are in form”). As for the order of the two clauses, the most reasonable explanation is that, like in the MM fragment, these opening statements, whose primary aim was to attract the attention of the audience, were not meant to be too rigorous. To be sure, to begin by professing one’s own ignorance is an unconventional choice. Incidentally, it is worth noting that the statement possibly presents the first recorded use of the verb “to be” in an existential sense (Kahn 1973: 302).