Alasʹtor

The evil genius of a house: a Nemesis. Cicero says: “Who meditated killing himself that he might become the Alastor of Augustus, whom he hated.” Shelley has a poem entitled “Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude. The word is Greek (alastõr, the aveng ïng god, a title applied to Zeus); the Romans had their Jupiter Vindex; and we read in the Bible, “Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rom. xii. 19).