ColossiansOne

Demonic · Goetic Spirit · c. 1577 CE

Agares

Also called Agreas · also recorded as Agarat, Agaros, Agarus (per Wikidata)

An old man riding a crocodile with a goshawk on his fist, credited with teaching every language and with hauling back anyone who has fled. The same entry has him causing earthquakes and stripping men of office, temporal and spiritual alike.

Historical depiction of Agares — Louis Le Breton — http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5754923d/f21.image
Public domain · Louis Le Breton · Wikimedia Commons file page
24attested

Single lineage

Form. An old man riding a crocodile, a goshawk on his fist.

Offices. Teaches all languages, brings back those who have fled, causes earthquakes, and destroys dignities both temporal and spiritual.

Identity

Where does the name come from?

Where it was actually worshipped

None. The Ars Goetia is a conjuring manual and not a liturgy: its spirits are constrained, put to work and dismissed, never housed or offered to. Not one of the seventy-two has a temple, a shrine, a festival or a place-name anywhere.

A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.

At a glance

Vitals

Vitals

Also known as

AgreasAgaratAgarosAgarus
Rank
Duke
Order
Goetic Spirit
Base of operations
None. The Ars Goetia is a conjuring manual and not a liturgy: its spirits are constrained, put to work and dismissed, never housed or offered to. Not one of the seventy-two has a temple, a shrine, a festival or a place-name anywhere.
Era
c. 1577 CE
Traditions
Solomonic, Folk & Demonological

Traits

Traditional form
An old man riding a crocodile, a goshawk on his fist.
Goetic rank
Duke

Stats

Source base24/100
Legions commanded31
Position in the Goetia2 of 72
Texts naming it2
Powers attributed4

4 attributed

What is it said to do?

Where these powers cluster

The 4 offices attributed to Agares, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.

A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.

  • knowledge1
  • martial1
  • transformation1
  • malefic1

One plate

Does it have a seal?

Seal of Agares, from the 1904 printing of the Ars Goetia

This is the engraved shape from the 1904 Mathers and Crowley printing of the Ars Goetia, which is long out of copyright. It is not a manuscript drawing: the Lemegeton witnesses — Sloane 2731, Sloane 3648, Harley 6483 — carry hand-drawn seals that differ in line and sometimes in detail, and none of those are held here. The seals also arrive some seventy years after the list of spirits itself, so a seal is evidence about the printed tradition rather than about the figure.

It is reproduced as an object of study. What the text says such a seal was for is described in the sources below; this site does not carry the procedure for using one.

S. L. MacGregor Mathers & Aleister Crowley (1904 edition) · Public domain · 02-agares-sigilo-ars-goetia.svg

1 mark

Which marks is it attached to?

A mark a figure carries and a mark used against a figure are opposite claims, so each link says which it is.

2 texts

Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?

When these texts were written

Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Agares, placed at that text's approximate date.

A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.

2 texts spanning roughly 327 years

Where the texts differ

  • Rank: given as Duke; The Duke
AgaresDuke#2

Weyer lists this spirit 2th of his sixty-nine, with substantially the same offices. His order is not the Goetia's — the two texts arrange the same spirits quite differently.

AgaresThe Duke#2

Teaches all languages, brings back those who have fled, causes earthquakes, and destroys dignities both temporal and spiritual.

The Second Spirit is a Duke called Agreas, or Agares. He is under the Power of the East, and cometh up in the form of an old fair Man, riding upon a Crocodile, carrying a Goshawk upon his fist, and yet mild in appearance.

Connections

What is it connected to?

Nothing, and that is what the source says. The Ars Goetia gives Agares a rank, a number of legions, a list of offices and a seal, and no relationship to any other spirit in the book — no lineage, no faction, no quarrel. Sixty-seven of the seventy-two are in the same position. A catalogue of self-contained entries is what that text is, and the emptiness here is the shape of it rather than work outstanding.

Placement

Where does it sit in the hierarchies?

Answered from the sources

Common questions

Which texts mention Agares?

ColossiansOne records 2 texts naming Agares: Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and The Lesser Key of Solomon, Book I: Ars Goetia. The earliest is Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577), which gives the name as Agares.

What rank is Agares?

The texts do not agree. Agares is given as Duke and The Duke depending on which source is consulted, which is normal for figures that pass through several traditions — each one assigns a rank from its own system rather than inheriting one.

How else is Agares spelled?

The name appears as Agreas, Agarat, Agaros and Agarus. Variation on this scale is the norm: these names cross Ugaritic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin and vernacular transmission, and each step reshapes the spelling. Every profile records the name as each text gives it.

What is Agares said to do?

The sources credit Agares with 4 distinct powers or offices, including Grants Languages, Commands Legions, Transports Swiftly and Causes Tempests. Each is attributed on the profile to the text that claims it. ColossiansOne describes what the texts say; it does not endorse the claims or reproduce them as instruction.

How old is Agares?

The earliest attestation in this corpus dates to c. 1577 CE. That is when the name first appears in a surviving text, which is a lower bound rather than an origin — a figure known from three tablets was probably named in many more that did not survive. Agares is classified as infernal in ColossiansOne.

Nearest in the corpus

If Agares is what you came for, these are next

Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.

Historical depiction of Astaroth, Duke demonic

Astaroth

Duke · Goetic Spirit

100

The Canaanite goddess Astarte, three thousand years on, made a male duke of hell with her name intact. The Goetia has him discourse willingly on the fall of the spirits, and warns the operator to hold a ring to his face against the stench of his breath.

Infernalc. 1300 BCE40 legions
6 sources5 powers

Aim

Duke · Goetic Spirit

24

The book's arsonist: cities, castles and great houses set alight, by a three-headed spirit carrying a firebrand and riding a viper. The same entry has him making men clever and answering truly on private matters.

Infernalc. 1577 CE26 legions
2 sources4 powers
Historical depiction of Allocer, Duke demonic

Allocer

Duke · Goetic Spirit

24

Speaks loudly and hoarsely from a great horse, red-faced and flaming-eyed like a lion — an alarming delivery for a spirit whose subjects are astronomy and the liberal sciences.

Infernalc. 1577 CE36 legions
2 sources4 powers

Amdusias

Duke · Goetic Spirit

24

Preceded by trumpets and every kind of instrument playing with nobody visible to play them — one of the more theatrical entrances in the Ars Goetia. He makes music heard where he goes, bends trees to the operator's will, and gives excellent familiars.

Infernalc. 1577 CE29 legions
2 sources3 powers

Barbatos

Duke · Goetic Spirit

24

Comes only while the Sun stands in Sagittarius, and comes with four kings and their companies behind him. What he gives is comprehension: the song of birds, the voices of other creatures, and treasure hidden by enchantment rather than by hand.

Infernalc. 1577 CE30 legions
2 sources5 powers

Bathin

Duke · Goetic Spirit

24

Moves people bodily from one country to another without warning, and knows the virtues of herbs and precious stones. He rides a pale horse in the shape of a strong man with a serpent's tail.

Infernalc. 1577 CE30 legions
2 sources3 powers

The books behind Agares

Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.

Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.