Agias of Sparta

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For other uses, see Agias (disambiguation).

Agias (Gr. Ἀγίας), the son of Agelochus and grand­son of Tisamenus of Elea, was the Spartan seer of Lysander, who predicted that general's victory at the battle of Aegospotami in 404 BC.[1] Some ancient writers considered Agias' prediction--that Lysander would capture the entire fleet except for ten triremes (which fled to Corcyra)--to have been the cause of the victory more than a mere prediction.[2] Pausanias mentions seeing a bronze statue of Agias at the altar of Augustus in the marketplace in Sparta.[3] There was also a statue in Delphi of both Agias and Lysander, reputedly erected by Lysander, which has been partially recovered.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Smith, William (1867), “Agias (1)”, in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 1, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, pp. 71 
  2. ^ Halliday, W. R. (1913). Greek Divination a Study of Its Methods and Principles. 
  3. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece iii. 11. § 5
  4. ^ Flower, Michael Attyah (2007). The Seer in Ancient Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press, 95. ISBN 0-520-25229-2. 

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).