Agias

Agias or Hagias (Gr. polytonic|Ἀγίας) was an ancient Greek poet, whose name was formerly written "Augias" through a mistake of the first editor of the "Excerpta of Proclus".Citation | last = Schmitz | first = Leonhard | author-link = | contribution = Agias (2) | editor-last = Smith | editor-first = William | title = Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology | volume = 1 | pages = 71 | publisher = Little, Brown and Company | place = Boston | year = 1867 | contribution-url = http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0080.html ] This misreading was corrected by Friedrich Thiersch, [Friedrich Thiersch, "Acta Philol. Monac." ii. p. 584] from the Codex Monacensis, which in one passage has "Agias", and in another "Hagias". The name itself does not occur in early Greek writers, unless it be supposed that the "Egias" or "Hegias" (polytonic|Ἡγίας) in Clement of Alexandria [Clement of Alexandria, "Stromata" vi. p. 622] and Pausanias, [Pausanias, "Description of Greece" i. 2. § 1] are only different forms of the same name.

Agias was a native of Troezen, and the time at which he wrote appears to have been about the year 740 BC. His poem was celebrated in antiquity, under the name of "Nostoi" (polytonic|Νόστοι), i.e. the history of the return of the Achaean heroes from Troy, and con­sisted of five books. The poem began with the cause of the misfortunes which befell the Achaeans on their way home and after their arrival, that is, with the outrage committed upon Cassandra and the Palladium; and the whole poem filled up the space which was left between the work of the poet Arctinus and the "Odyssey". The ancients themselves appear to have been uncertain about the author of this poem, for they refer to it simply by the name of "Nostoi", and when they mention the author, they only call him "the writer of the "Nostoi" (polytonic|ὁ τοὺς Νόστους γράψας). [Athenaeus, vii. p. 281] [Pausanias, "Description of Greece" x. 28. § 4, 29. § 2, 30. § 2] [Apollodorus, ii. 1. § 5] [Scholiast, "on the Odyssey" iv. 12] [Scholiast, "ad Aristoph. Equit." 1332] [Lucian, "De Saltat." 46] Hence some writers attributed the "Nostoi" to Homer, [Suda, "s.v." polytonic|νόστοι] [Anthol. Planud. iv. 30] while others call its author a Colophonian. [Eustathius of Thessalonica, "on the Odyssey" xvi. 118] Simi­lar poems, and with the same title, were written by other poets also, such as Eumelus of Corinth, [Scholiast, "ad Pind. Ol. xiii. 31] Anticleides of Athens, [Athenaeus iv. p. 157, ix. p. 466] Cleidemus, [Athenaeus xiii. p. 609] and Lysimachus of Alexandria. [Athenaeus iv. p. 158] [Scholiast, "on Apollonius of Rhodes" i. 558] Where the "Nostoi" is mentioned without a name, it was generally understood to have been the work of this Agias.

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