Daimôn
idea · 3 works · 11 mentions · 19 anchored passages
daimôn · daimon · good daimon · a fate that will doom you · divinity [daimôn] · evil daimon · the daimon
in the texts
Odyssey
A vague divine or supernatural power invoked to explain otherwise inexplicable events, such as Odysseus's transformation and his safe return home.
"You are not my father, but some daimôn is flattering me with vain hopes that I may grieve the more hereafter;
but some daimôn has conveyed him home in spite of us.
As for myself, a daimôn has given me a life of such unmeasurable woe [ penthos], that even by day when I am attending to my duties and looking after the servants, I am still weeping and lamenting during the whole time;
Iliad
The Greek concept of a personal doom or divine fate threatened by Hektor against Diomedes.
neither shall you carry off our wives in your ships, for I shall give you, with my own hand, a fate [ daimôn] that will doom you.
She wrapped her mantle about her and went in silence, following the divinity [ daimôn] and unnoticed by the Trojan women.
Who knows but with the help of a daimôn you may talk him over, for it is good to take a friend's advice.
Orations
The governing power or master-principle of a person's life, here reinterpreted as the political ruler or leader who directs a people's fortunes.
And do you suppose this thing—that which is master of each, which you call the daimon—to be in the man himself, or to be something external, ruling and lord over the man?
And this man, perhaps, it is fitting for neither the Carthaginians nor the Romans to call their good daimon.
And so likewise the Romans might perhaps call Numa their daimon, the Carthaginians Hanno and Hannibal, the Macedonians Alexander or Philip—who made the Macedonians, lowly and weak as they were, and after his father had ceded the rule to the Olynthians, strong and warlike and masters of well-nigh all Europe.