Agathodaemon

Agathodaemon is known only as a correspondent of Isidore of Pelusium (d. c. 450), who in six surviving letters addresses him consistently as "the Grammarian" (grammatikos) — a teacher of letters and literature. The content matches that office: Isidore writes to him about education and natural aptitude (a schooling that makes the quick-witted preeminent but cannot "fashion into men renowned in song" those without vigor), about the surprising power of plain speech over rhetorical skill in pleading a case, and about the madness of avarice he should warn his charges against, using charioteer imagery for the pupils Agathodaemon "drives." Isidore also engages him on Christian themes — an apologetic against pagan Hellenism and a correction of Agathodaemon's expectation of finding sinlessness in monks and priests — suggesting a learned, classically trained man whom Isidore treats partly as an intellectual peer and partly as one to be guided toward Christian doctrine. Beyond this correspondence he is otherwise unattested, situated in the early-to-mid-5th-century Pelusium milieu of the eastern Nile Delta only as a recipient of Isidore's letters.