[132\5: The idea of the _Lar familiaris_ can be translated into Greek not inadequately by the words ~ho kat' oiki/an hê/rôs, hê/rôs oikouro/s~, as is done by Dionys. Hal., and Plutarch in their accounts of the story {207} of Ocrisia (D.H. 4, 2, 3; Plu. _Fort. Rom._ 9, p. 323 C). But this was not an idea current among the Greeks. The Latin _genius generis_ = _Lar familiaris_ (Laber. 54 Rib.) is most nearly approached by the remarkable expression ~hê/rôs suggenei/as~, _CIA._ iii, 1460. Inside the house, at the family hearth (in whose ~muchoi/~, "dwells" Hekate: E., _Med._ 397), the Greeks worshipped--no longer the spirits of the ancestors--but the ~theoi\ patrô=|oi, ktê/sioi, mu/chioi, herkei=oi~. These were compared with the Roman Penates (D.H. 1, 67, 3; cf. Hyg. ap. Macr. 3, 4, 13), but their relationship to the spirits of the house and of the family is considerably less apparent than in the case of the Penates. (It is simply imitation of Roman custom that makes the dying Peregrinus call upon the ~dai/mones patrô=|oi kai\ mêtrô=|oi~: Luc., _Peregr._ 36. ~Ste/phanos toi=s tou= patro\s hautou= dai/mosin~, ins. from Lykia, _CIG._ 4232 = _BCH._ xv, 552, n. 26. ~toi=s dai/mosi tê=s apothanou/sês gunaiko/s~, Philo, _Leg. ad G._ 65, ii, p. 555 M. More in Lob., _Agl._ 769 n.)] [133\5: The ~_agatho\s dai/môn_~ of which Attic writers in particular often speak has very indefinite features. Those who used the word combined ideas--no longer fully intelligible--of a divine being of fairly definite nature and shape with this name which in itself was altogether too liable to generalization. Modern writers have declared that it was originally a daimon of the fertility of crops. But there is just as little ground for believing this as there is for identifying it with Dionysos, as was done by the physician Philonides in connexion with an absurd story which he has invented on his own account (Ath. 675 B). There is much, however, that points to the connexion of the ~agatho\s dai/môn~ with chthonic powers. He appears as a snake (Gerhard, _Akad. Abh._ ii, 24) like all ~chtho/nioi~. (On a snake on a talisman the words are written ~to\ o/noma tou= agathou= dai/monos~: _P. Mag. Par._ 2427 ff.) ~agathodai/mones~ was the name given to a special kind of non-poisonous snake (described after Archigenes, in the Vatican iologus brought to light by myself: _Rh. Mus._ 38, 278; cf. Photius, ~parei=ai o/pheis~, and again esp. s.v. ~o/pheis parei/as~, 364, 1). Sacrifice was made to them in Alexandria on the 25th Tybi as ~toi=s agathoi=s dai/mosi toi=s _pronooume/nois tô=n **oikiô=n_~: [Callisth.] i, 32 (cod. A, or as "penates dei" as the words are translated by Jul. Valer., p. 38, 29 ff. (Kuebl.). In this instance the ~ag. d.~ is evidently a good spirit who protects the house. Only with this in mind can we understand how anyone could consecrate his house ~agathô=| dai/moni~, as Timoleon did at Syracuse (~_agathô=| dai/moni~_, Plu., _Ips. Laud._, 11, p. 542 E; ~tê\n oiki/an