Abstract
A human eudaimōn is " loved by the immortal gods ", as Theognis states (v. 653). In his Elegies, which feature a succession of gnomic and moralizing sentences in which the term daimōn has its place, we clearly perceive the distributive value of the actions of daimones, to whom is related the distribution of goods and evils in human life. However, when it comes to praying for a favorable fate, it's to a specific god that the poet turns, even if it means requesting the dispatch of a daimōn. This hierarchization creates the conditions for the crystallization of a god's power in the form of a specific agent, as seen in theOdyssey (cf. above) and in Sappho (" The poem of the brothers ", v. 27-20).
Sometimes, as in the case of Phaethon, a daimōn receives a proper name. This is the case in Theognis, where Eris, " l'Espoir ", and Kindunos, " le Danger ", are seen as " des daimones redoutables " (v. 637-638). But, on the other hand, Eris is seen as " the only beneficent deity among men " (v. 1135), showing once again the daimōn 's participation in divinity and the limits of any categorization. Comparing these elegiac and gnomic assertions with the expression of the human condition as staged in Theogony and The Labors and Days, we can see at work these shifts between divine status and demonic action related to a god.
Pindar's Epinicies further broaden the field of vision by placing the distinction between gods and mortals in the register of the power and action of the former on the course of the latter's life(Pythics, XII, 28-31 ; III, 31-35 ; V, 116-124). This action, whether positive or negative, is again mediated by demonic action. And when the latter is positive, the human is indeed eudaimōn.
