Note 133 — Chapter V · THE CULT OF SOULS

The ἀγαθὸς δαίμων of which Attic writers in particular often speak has very indefinite features. Those who used the word combined ideas—no longer fully intelligible—of a divine being of fairly definite nature and shape with this name which in itself was altogether too liable to generalization. Modern writers have declared that it was originally a daimon of the fertility of crops. But there is just as little ground for believing this as there is for identifying it with Dionysos, as was done by the physician Philonides in connexion with an absurd story which he has invented on his own account (Ath. 675 B). There is much, however, that points to the connexion of the ἀγαθὸς δαίμων with chthonic powers. He appears as a snake (Gerhard, Akad. Abh. ii, 24) like all χθόνιοι. (On a snake on a talisman the words are written τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ δαίμονος: P. Mag. Par. 2427 ff.) ἀγαθοδαίμονες was the name given to a special kind of non-poisonous snake (described after Archigenes, in the Vatican iologus brought to light by myself: Rh. Mus. 38, 278; cf. Photius, αρεῖαι ὄφεις, and again esp. s.v. ὄφεις παρείας, 364, 1). Sacrifice was made to them in Alexandria on the 25th Tybi as τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς δαίμοσι τοῖς προνοουμένοις τῶν οἰκιῶν: [Callisth.] i, 32 (cod. A), or as “penates dei” as the words are translated by Jul. Valer., p. 38, 29 ff. (Kuebl.). In this instance the ἀγ. δ. is evidently a good spirit who protects the house. Only with this in mind can we understand how anyone could consecrate his house ἀγαθῷ δαίμονι, as Timoleon did at Syracuse (ἀγαθῷ δαίμονι, Plu., Ips. Laud., 11, p. 542 E; τὴν οἰκίαν ἱερῷ δαίμονι καθιέρωσεν, Plu., Timol. 36, where ἱερῷ is evidently an ancient copyist’s error). Cf. also the saying of Xeniades, D.L. vi, 74. Such guardian spirits of the house are of course familiar enough in our own popular superstition, but in their case “the transition from souls of the dead to kindly house-spirits or kobolds is still demonstrable” (Grimm, p. 913). At the household meal the first few drops of unmixed wine belong by right to the ἀγαθὸς δαίμων (Hug, Plat. Symp.2, p. 23); then follows the libation to Zeus Soter. But sometimes it was the “Heroes” and not the ἀγ. δ. who preceded Zeus Soter (Sch. Pi., I v, 10; Gerhard, p. 39): they have taken the place of the ἀγ. δ., which itself reveals the connexion between the ἀγ. δ. and these “souls”. Another fact pointing in the same direction is the worship of the ἀγαθὸς δαίμων in common with many other deities of chthonic nature in the temple of Trophonios at Lebadeia (Paus. 9, 39, 5). In this case it is mentioned by the side of Tyche and these two are sometimes met with together in grave-inscriptions (e.g. CIG. 2465 f.) and Tyche herself appears with such chthonic deities as Despoina, Plouton, and Persephone (CIG. 1464 Sparta). In epitaphic inscriptions δαιμόνων ἀγαθῶν sometimes occurs as completely equivalent to Dis Manibus: e.g. Δαιμόνων ἀγαθῶν Ποτίου, CIG. 2700 b.c. (Mylasa); δαιμόνων ἀγαθῶν Ἀρτέμωνος καὶ Τίτου, Ath. Mitt. ’90, p. 110 (Mylasa); cf. the inscr. from Mylasa in Ath. Mitt. ’90, pp. 276–7 (nn. 23–5, 27). The singular is rare: Δαίμονος ἀγαθοῦ Ἀριστέου κτλ. BCH. ’90, p. 626 (Karia). (δαίμοσιν ἑαυτοῦ τε καὶ Λαιτιτίας τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ = Dis Manibus suis et Laetitiae uxoris in the bilingual ins. from Beroea, CIG. 4452: cf. 4232 and 5827.) All these have come under Roman influence, but it is worth noticing, all the same, that the ἀγαθὸς δ. was identified with the Di Manes; which means that it was regarded as a daimon that had once been a disembodied human soul.—The subject might be dealt with more fully than would be in place here.