Agias or Hagias was an ancient Greek

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 poet, whose name was formerly written Augias through a mistake of the first editor of the Excerpta of Proclus. This misreading was corrected by Friedrich Thiersch

Friedrich Thiersch

Friedrich Wilhelm Thiersch , was a German classical scholar and educationist.-Biography:He was born at Kirchscheidungen...

, from the Codex Monacensis

Codex Monacensis

Codex Monacensis designated by X or 033 , A3 , is a Greek uncial manuscript of the Gospels, dated palaeographically to the 9th or 10th century...

, 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" in Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria

Titus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...

 and Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

, are only different forms of the same name.

Agias was a native of Troezen

Troezen

Troezen is a small town and a former municipality in the northeastern Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Troizinia, of which it is a municipal unit....

, 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

Nostoi

The Nostoi , also known as Returns or Returns of the Greeks, was a lost epic of ancient Greek literature. It was one of the Epic Cycle, that is, the "Trojan" cycle, which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic verse...

, i.e. the history of the return of the Achaea

Achaea

Achaea is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of West Greece. It is situated in the northwestern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. The capital is Patras. The population exceeds 300,000 since 2001.-Geography:...

n heroes from Troy

Troy

Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

, 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

Cassandra

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy...

 and the Palladium

Palladium (mythology)

In Greek and Roman mythology, a palladium or palladion was an image of great antiquity on which the safety of a city was said to depend. "Palladium" especially signified the wooden statue of Pallas Athena that Odysseus and Diomedes stole from the citadel of Troy and which was later taken to the...

; and the whole poem filled up the space which was left between the work of the poet Arctinus

Arctinus of Miletus

Arctinus of Miletus or Arctinus Milesius was a Greek epic poet whose reputation is purely legendary, as none of his works survive. Traditionally dated between 775 BC and 741 BC, he was said to have been a pupil of Homer. Phaenias of Eresus placed him in the 7th century BC and claimed that he was...

 and the Odyssey

Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

. 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" . Hence some writers attributed the Nostoi to Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, while others call its author a Colophonian. Similar poems, and with the same title, were written by other poets also, such as Eumelus of Corinth

Eumelus of Corinth

Eumelus of Corinth or Eumelos of Korinthos, of the clan of the Bacchiadae, is a semi-legendary early Greek poet, the Corinthian author of the Prosodion, the treasured processional anthem of Messenian independence that was performed on Delos. One small fragment of it survives in a quote by Pausanias...

, Anticleides of Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, Cleidemus

Cleidemus

Cleidemus was a Greek author, perhaps of the fifth or fourth century BCE but definitely later than the battle of Plataea in 479 BCE, who produced a lost book called Atthis , dealing with the traditional origins of Athenian law and institutions...

, and Lysimachus of Alexandria. Where the Nostoi is mentioned without a name, it was generally understood to have been the work of this Agias.