Agathodaemon: Information from Answers.com

Roman marble sculpture of Agathodaemon restored with an unrelated head, as "Antinous Agathodaemon", purchased in Rome ca. 1760, (Staatliche Museen, Berlin)^[1]

This article is about the Greek god. For other uses of this name, see Agathodaemon (disambiguation).

In ancient Greek religion, Agathos Daimon or Agathodaemon (Greek: αγαθος δαιμων, "very good spirit") was a daemon or presiding spirit of the vineyards and grainfields and a personal companion spirit, similar to the Roman genius, ensuring good luck, health and wisdom. Though he was little noted in Greek mythology (Pausanias conjectured that the name was a mere epithet of Zeus),^[2] he was prominent in Greek folk religion;^[3] it was customary to drink or pour out a few drops of unmixed wine to honor him in every symposium or formal banquet. In Aristophanes' Peace, when War has trapped Peace (Eirene) in a deep pit, Hermes comes to give aid: "Now, oh Greeks! is the moment when, freed of quarrels and fighting, we should rescue sweet Eirene and draw her out of this pit... This is the moment to drain a cup in honour of the Agathos Daimon." A temple dedicated to him was situated on the road from Megalopolis to Maenalus in Arcadia.^[4]

Agathos Daimon was the spouse or companion of Tyche Agathe ("Good Fortune"; Latin, and dialect, Agatha); "Tyche we know at Lebadeia as the wife of the Agathos Daimon, the Good or Rich Spirit."^[5] His numinous presence could be represented in art as a serpent or more concretely as a young man bearing a cornucopia and a bowl in one hand, and a poppy and an ear of grain in the other. The agathodaemon was later adapted into a general daemon of fortuna, particularly of the continued abundance of a family's good food and drink.

In the syncretic atmosphere of Late Antiquity, Agathodaemon could be bound up with Egyptian bringers of security and good fortune: a gem carved with magic emblems bears the images of Serapis with crocodile, sun-lion and Osiris mummy surrounded by the lion-headed snake Cnum-Agathodaemon-Aion, with Harpocrates on the reverse.^[6]

References

^ The torso of an Apollo was found in the Tiber at Rome and was restored as an Antinous with a head found separately; it was purchased through Giovanni Ludovico Bianconi, about 1760; formerly exhibited in the Neues Palais, Potsdam (Arachne Projekt); noted in Karl Otfried Müller, Nouveau manuel complet d'archéologie ou traité sur les antiquités grecques... (1841:vol. I:298) and in Bouillon II:51.
^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, viii. 36. § 3
^ Martin P. Nilsson, Greek Folk Religion. (Columbia University Press), 1981:33, 70, 73.
^ Schmitz, Leonhard (1867), "Agathodaemon", in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1, Boston, pp. 65
^ Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 3rd ed. 1922:355ff, 543.
^ Illustrated in W. Fauth, Helios Megistos: zur synkretistischen Theologie der Spätantike (Leiden: Brill) 1995:85.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

External links

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