Editing Daimon (section)

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{{over-quotation|section|date=December 2023}}
[[File:Woman mirror tambourine MBA Lyon L631.jpg|thumb|230px|Winged [[genius (mythology)|genius]] facing a woman with a tambourine and mirror, from southern Italy, about 320 BC]]

The [[Hellenistic]] Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: ''[[agathodaímōn]]'' ({{lang|grc|ἀγαθοδαίμων}}, "noble spirit"), from ''agathós'' ({{lang|grc|ἀγαθός}}, "good, brave, noble, moral, lucky, useful"), and ''[[kakodaímōn]]'' ({{lang|grc|κακοδαίμων}}, "[[malevolent spirit]]"), from ''kakós'' ({{lang|grc|κακός}}, "bad, evil"). They resemble the Arabic [[jinn]]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]] and adversarial [[demon]], respectively. ''[[Eudaimonia]]'' ({{lang|grc|εὐδαιμονία}}) came to mean "well-being" or "happiness". The comparable Roman concept is the ''[[genius (mythology)|genius]]'' who accompanies and protects a person or presides over a place (see ''[[genius loci]]'').

A distorted view of [[Homer]]'s daemon results from an anachronistic reading in light of later characterizations by [[Plato]] and [[Xenocrates]], his successor as head of the [[Platonic Academy|Academy]], of the daemon as a potentially dangerous lesser spirit:<ref name="Burkert1985">{{cite book |first=Walter |last=Burkert |year=1985 |title=Greek Religion |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-36281-9 |lccn=84025209 |url=https://archive.org/details/greekreligion0000burk |url-access=registration |pages=[https://archive.org/details/greekreligion0000burk/page/179 179]–181, 317, 331, 335}}</ref><ref>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.</ref> Burkert states that in the ''[[Symposium (Plato)|Symposium]]'', Plato has "laid the foundation" that would make it all but impossible to imagine the ''daimon'' in any other way with [[Eros]], who is neither god nor mortal but a mediator in between, and his metaphysical doctrine of an <blockquote><poem>incorporeal, pure actuality, ''energeia''&nbsp;... 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.’ The highest, the best is one; but for the movement of the planets a plurality of [[unmoved mover]]s must further be assumed.

In the monotheism of the mind, philosophical speculation has reached an end-point. That even this is a self-projection of a human, of the thinking philosopher, was not reflected on in ancient philosophy. In Plato there is an incipient tendency toward the [[apotheosis]] of ''[[nous]]''.&nbsp;... 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''.<ref name="Burkert1985"/></poem></blockquote> Daemons scarcely figure in [[Greek mythology]] or [[Art in ancient Greece|Greek art]]: they are felt, but their unseen presence can only be presumed,{{Citation needed|date=June 2020}} with the exception of the ''agathodaemon'', honored first with a [[libation]] in ceremonial wine-drinking, especially at the sanctuary of [[Dionysus]], and represented in [[iconography]] by the [[chthonic]] [[Serpent (mythology)|serpent]].

Burkert suggests that, for Plato, theology rests on two [[Theory of Forms|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.<ref name="Burkert1985"/> Although much like the deities, these figures were not always depicted without considerable moral ambiguity: <blockquote><poem>On this account, the other traditional notion of the daemon as related to the souls of the dead is elided in favour of a spatial scenario which evidently also graduated in moral terms; though [Plato] says nothing of that here, it is a necessary inference from her account, just as Eros is midway between deficiency and plenitude.&nbsp;... Indeed, Xenocrates&nbsp;... explicitly understood ''daemones'' as ranged along a scale from good to bad.&nbsp;... [Plutarch] speaks of ‘great and strong beings in the atmosphere, malevolent and morose, who rejoice in [unlucky days, religious festivals involving violence against the self, etc.], and after gaining them as their lot, they turn to nothing worse.’&nbsp;... The use of such malign daemones by human beings seems not to be even remotely imagined here: Xenocrates' intention was to provide an explanation for the sheer variety of polytheistic religious worship; but it is the potential for moral discrimination offered by the notion of ''daemones'' which later&nbsp;... became one further means of conceptualizing what distinguishes dominated practice from civic religion, and furthering the transformation of that practice into intentional profanation ... Quite when the point was first made remains unanswerable. Much the same thought as [Plato's] is to be found in an explicitly Pythagorean context of probably late Hellenistic composition, the ''Pythagorean Commentaries'', which evidently 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 magic|apotropaic rites]], all kinds of divination, the art of reading chance utterances, and so on.’&nbsp;... 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.<ref name="AnkarlooClark1999">{{cite book |first1=Bengt |last1=Ankarloo |first2=Stuart |last2=Clark |year=1999 |title=Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome |volume=2 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-1705-6 |lccn=99002682 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C80ooPNa0nEC&pg=PA226 |page=226}}</ref></poem></blockquote>

In the [[Archaic Greece|Archaic]] or early [[Classical Greece|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.{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}} Similarly, the first-century Roman [[imperial cult]] began by venerating the ''[[Genius (mythology)#Imperial genii|genius]]'' or ''[[numen]]'' of [[Augustus]], a distinction that blurred in time.