(Ἀγίας).

1. A Greek poet, whose name was formerly written Augias, through a mistake of the first editor of the Excerpta of Proclus. It has been corrected by Thiersch in the 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 Egias or Hegias (Ἡγίας) in Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. vi. p. 622), and Pausanias ( 1.2.1), are only different forms of the same name. He was a native of Troezen, and the time at which he wrote appears to have been about the year B. C. 740. His poem was celebrated in antiquity, under the name of 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 befel 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 . The ancients themselves appear to have been uncertain about the author of this poem, for they refer to it simply by the name of Νόστοι, and when they mention the author, they only call him ὁ τοὺς Νόστους γράψας. (Athen. 7.281; Paus. 10.28.4, 29.2, 30.2; Apollod. 2.1.5; Schol. ad Odyss. 4.12 ; Schol. ad Aristoph. Equit. 1332; Lucian, De Saltat. 46.) Hence some writers attributed the Νόστοι to Homer ( Suid. s. v. νόστοι; Anthol. Planud. 4.30), while others call its author a Colophonian. (Eustath. ad Odyss. 16.118.) Similar poems, and with the same title, were written by other poets also, such as Eumelus of Corinth (Schol. ad Pind. Ol. 13.3]), Anticleides of Athens (Athen. 4.157, ix. p. 466), Cleidemus (Athen. 13.609), and Lysimachus. (Athen. 4.158; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. 1.558.) Where the Νόστοι is mentioned without a name, we have generally to understand the work of Agias.