The daimon (), also spelled daemon (meaning "god", "godlike", "power", "fate"), denotes an "unknown superfactor", which can be either good or hostile. In ancient Greek religion and

mythology Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

a daimon was imagined to be a lesser

deity A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...

or guiding spirit. The word is derived from

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

''daimon'' "provider, divider (of fortunes or destinies)," from the root ''*da-'' "to divide". Daimons were possibly seen as the souls of men of the golden age,

tutelary deities A tutelary (; also tutelar) is a deity or a spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept of safety and ...

, or the forces of fate.

Description

Daimons are lesser divinities or spirits, often

personification Personification is the representation of a thing or abstraction as a person, often as an embodiment or incarnation. In the arts, many things are commonly personified, including: places, especially cities, National personification, countries, an ...

s of abstract concepts, beings of the same nature as both mortals and deities, similar to

ghost In folklore, a ghost is the soul or Spirit (supernatural entity), spirit of a dead Human, person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from a ...

s, chthonic heroes, spirit guides, forces of nature, or the deities themselves (see Plato's '' Symposium''). According to Hesiod's myth, "great and powerful figures were to be honoured after death as a daimon…" A daimon is not so much a type of quasi-divine being, according to

Walter Burkert Walter Burkert (; 2 February 1931 – 11 March 2015) was a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult. A professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he taught in the UK and the US. He has influenced generations of student ...

, but rather a non-personified "peculiar mode" of their activity. In Hesiod's '' Theogony'', Phaëton becomes an incorporeal ''daimon'' or a divine spirit, but, for example, the ills released by Pandora are deadly deities, '' keres'', not ''daimones''. From Hesiod also, the people of the Golden Age were transformed into ''daimones'' by the will of

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

, to serve mortals benevolently as their guardian spirits; "good beings who dispense riches… evertheless they remain invisible, known only by their acts". The ''daimones'' of venerated

hero A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. The original hero type of classical epics did such thin ...

es were localized by the construction of shrines, so as not to wander restlessly, and were believed to confer protection and good fortune on those offering their respects. One tradition of Greek thought, which found agreement in the mind of

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

, was of a daimon which existed within a person from their birth, and that each individual was obtained by a singular daimon prior to their birth by way of lot.

In mythology

SocratesCarnelianGemImprintRome1stBCE1stCE

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

's use of the words ''theoí'' (, "gods") and ''daímones'' () suggests that, while distinct, they are similar in kind. Later writers developed the distinction between the two. Plato in '' Cratylus'' speculates that the word ''daimōn'' (, "deity") is synonymous to ''daēmōn'' (, "knowing or wise"); however, it is more probably ''daiō'' (, "to divide, to distribute destinies, to allot").

Socrates

In Plato's '' Symposium'', the priestess Diotima teaches

Socrates Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...

that love is not a deity, but rather a "great daimōn" (202d). She goes on to explain that "everything daimōnion is between divine and mortal" (202d–e), and she describes daimōns as "interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above..." (202e). In Plato's '' Apology of Socrates'', Socrates claimed to have a ''daimōnion'' (literally, a "divine something") that frequently warned him—in the form of a "voice"—against mistakes but never told him what to do. The Platonic Socrates, however, never refers to the ''daimonion'' as a ''daimōn''; it was always referred to as an impersonal "something" or "sign". By this term he seems to indicate the true nature of the human

soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...

, his newfound self-consciousness.

Paul Shorey Paul Shorey (August 3, 1857 – April 24, 1934) was an American classical scholar. Biography Shorey was born at Davenport, Iowa. After graduating from Harvard University, Harvard in 1878, he studied in Europe at University of Leipzig, Leip ...

sees the ''daimonion'' not as an inspiration but as "a kind of ''spiritual tact'' checking Socrates from any act opposed to his true moral and intellectual interests." Regarding the charge brought against Socrates in 399 BC, Plato surmised "Socrates does wrong because he does not believe in the gods in whom the city believes, but introduces other daemonic beings..." Burkert notes that "a special being watches over each individual, a ''daimōn'' who has obtained the person at his birth by lot, is an idea which we find in Plato, undoubtedly from earlier tradition. The famous, paradoxical saying of

Heraclitus Heraclitus (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Achaemenid Empire, Persian Empire. He exerts a wide influence on Western philosophy, ...

is already directed against such a view: 'character is for man his daimon.

Categories

The

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: '' agathodaímōn'' (, "noble spirit"), from ''agathós'' (, "good, brave, noble, moral, lucky, useful"), and '' kakodaímōn'' (, " malevolent spirit"), from ''kakós'' (, "bad, evil"). They resemble the Arabic

jinn Jinn or djinn (), alternatively genies, are supernatural beings in pre-Islamic Arabian religion and Islam. Their existence is generally defined as parallel to humans, as they have free will, are accountable for their deeds, and can be either ...

i (or ''genie''), and in their humble efforts to help mediate the good and ill fortunes of human life, they resemble the Christian

guardian angel A guardian angel is a type of angel that is assigned to protect and guide a particular person, group or nation. Belief in tutelary deity, tutelary beings can be traced throughout all antiquity. The idea of angels that guard over people played ...

and adversarial

demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore, mythology, religion, occultism, and literature; these beliefs are reflected in Media (communication), media including f ...

, respectively. '' Eudaimonia'' () came to mean "well-being" or "happiness". The comparable Roman concept is the '' genius'' who accompanies and protects a person or presides over a place (see '' genius loci''). A distorted view of

's daemon results from an anachronistic reading in light of later characterizations by

and Xenocrates, his successor as head of the

Academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

, who saw the daemon as a potentially dangerous lesser spirit:Samuel E. Bassett, "ΔΑΙΜΩΝ in Homer" ''The Classical Review'' 33.7/8 (November 1919), pp. 134-136, correcting an interpretation in Finsler, ''Homer'' 1914; the subject was taken up again by F.A. Wilford, "DAIMON in Homer" ''Numen''12 (1965) pp. 217–32. Burkert states that in the '' Symposium'', Plato has "laid the foundation" to imagine the ''daimon'' as being with Eros, who as a mediator is neither god nor mortal but in between. His metaphysical doctrine of an

incorporeal, pure actuality, ''energeia'' ... identical to its performance: ‘thinking of thinking’, ''noesis noeseos'' is the most blessed existence, the highest origin of everything. ‘This is the god. On such a principle heaven depends, and the cosmos.’ In the monotheism of the mind, philosophical speculation has reached an end-point. ... In Plato there is an incipient tendency toward the apotheosis of ''
nous ''Nous'' (, ), from , is a concept from classical philosophy, sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, for the cognitive skill, faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is truth, true or reality, real. Alternative Eng ...
''. ... He needs a closeness and availability of the divine that is offered neither by the stars nor by metaphysical principles. Here a name emerged to fill the gap, a name which had always designated the incomprehensible yet present activity of a higher power, ''daimon''.

Daemons scarcely figure in

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

or Greek art: they are felt, but their unseen presence can only be presumed,. The exception is the ''agathodaemon'', honored in ceremonial wine-drinking --especially at the sanctuary of

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

-- and represented in

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

by the chthonic serpent. Burkert suggests that, for Plato, theology rests on two Forms: the Good and the Simple; which "Xenocrates unequivocally called the unity god" in sharp contrast to the poet's gods of epic and tragedy. Although much like the deities, these figures were not always depicted without considerable moral ambiguity:

Indeed, Xenocrates ... explicitly understood ''daemones'' as ranged along a scale from good to bad. ... lutarchspeaks of ‘great and strong beings in the atmosphere, malevolent and morose, who rejoice in nlucky days, religious festivals involving violence against the self, etc. and after gaining them as their lot, they turn to nothing worse.’ ... Quite when the point was first made remains unanswerable. Much the same thought as lato'sis to be found in a late Hellenistic composition, the ''Pythagorean Commentaries'', which draws on older popular representations: ‘The whole air is full of souls. We call them ''daemones'' and heroes, and it is they who send dreams, signs and illnesses to men; and not only men, but also to sheep and other domestic animals. It is towards these ''daemones'' that we direct purifications and apotropaic rites, all kinds of divination, the art of reading chance utterances, and so on.’ ... This account differs from that of the early Academy in reaching back to the other, Archaic, view of ''daemones'' as souls, and thus anticipates the views of Plutarch and Apuleius in the Principate ... It clearly implies that ''daemones'' can cause illness to livestock: this traditional dominated view has now reached the intellectuals.

In the Archaic or early Classical period, the ''daimon'' had been democratized and internalized for each person, whom it served to guide, motivate, and inspire, as one possessed of such good spirits. Similarly, the first-century Roman

imperial cult An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title) are worshipped as demigods or deities. "Cult (religious practice), Cult" here is used to mean "worship", not in the modern pejor ...

began by venerating the '' genius'' or ''

numen Numen (plural numina) is a Latin term for "divinity", "divine presence", or "divine will". The Latin authors defined it as follows:For a more extensive account, refer to Cicero writes of a "divine mind" (), a god "whose numen everything obeys", ...

'' of

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

, a distinction that blurred in time.

Notes

External links

Maureen A. Tilley, "Exorcism in North Africa: Localizing the (Un)holy"
explores the meanings of ''daimon'' among Christians in Roman

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...