Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

284 Daimon and Hero [CH.
Greek drinking customs of Zeus Soter with the Agathos Daimon.
Suidas 1
, in his valuable gloss, says
The ancients had the custom after dinner of drinking to the Good
Daimon. They gulped down some unmixed wine and said this was to the
Good Daimon, but when they were about to separate it was to Zeus the
Saviour 2
( The familiar Sosipolis is then in form and function, though
:
not in name, an Agathos Dai-
mon. He is to us especially
instructive, because he shows the
transition from snake to animal
form. Sosipolis changes into a
snake. It is a safe mythological
rule that a metamorphosis of this
kind may always be inverted
the snake takes on the form of a
human child. Another point to
be noted is, that at Elis and
Olympia, when the sn&ke-daimon
takes on human form, he 3 and
his female correlative, Tyche or
Eileithyia, appear in the matri-
archal relation, as Mother and
Son.
On the relief in Fig. 74 we
see Agathe Tyche holding a child
in her arms. The design is
carved in low relief on a column
in the Hall of the Mystae of Dionysos recently excavated at
Melos 4 . Agathe
F,o. 74.
Tyche is clearly here the Good Luck of Melos
'
1
s.v. 'Ayadov Aai/Movos. "E6os tl^ov ol TraXaioi f^era to Seiirvov irivew Ayadov
Acdfiopos, ewippo(povvTfs a.Kpa.Tov, Kai tovto Xeytiv 'Ayadov Aalfiovos' x coP'f6cr ^a ' ^
/xiWovTes Aibs Hurijpos. Suidas adds that the secoud day of the month was called
the day of the Agathos Daimon. The second is one of the few days that are
not mentioned as either lucky or unlucky by Hesiod in his calendar.
2 For the whole discussion of the subject of the final libations at a feast to
Agathos Daimon, Agathe Tyche and Zeus Soter see Athenaeus xv. 47, 48, 692, 693.
He gives as his authorities Philochoros and Theophrastos, and various poets of the
Old and Middle Comedy.
3 The nominal correlative of Tyche is Tychon, a daimon who is but a form of
Priapus, see Kaibel, Daktyloi Idaioi, in Nachrichten d. k. Gesellschaft d. Wissenschaften
zu Gottingen, Phil. -Hist. -Kl. 1901, p. 503.
* J.H. 8. xviii. 1898, p. 60, Fig. 1, and A. Mitth. xv. 1890, p. 248. For Eirene
carrying the child Ploutos see my Mythology and Monuments, pp. 65—8.
;