Hermes (; ) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or "soul guide"—a conductor of souls into the afterlife.
In myth, Hermes functions as the emissary and messenger of the gods,Burkert, p. 158. Iris has a similar role as divine messenger. and is often presented as the son of Zeus and Maia, the Pleiad. He is regarded as "the divine trickster", about which the Homeric Hymn to Hermes offers the most well-known account.Homer, 1–512, as cited in Powell, pp. 179–189.
Hermes's attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster, the tortoise, satchel or pouch, talaria (winged sandals), and winged helmet or simple petasos, as well as the palm tree, goat, the number four, several kinds of fish, and incense.Austin, M. Hellenistic world from Alexander to the Roman conquest: a selection of ancient sources in translation. Cambridge University Press, 2006. p. 137. However, his main symbol is the caduceus, a winged staff intertwined with two snakes copulating and carvings of the other gods.The Latin word is an adaptation of the Greek , meaning "herald's wand (or staff)", deriving from , meaning "messenger, herald, envoy". Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon; Stuart L. Tyson, "The Caduceus", The Scientific Monthly, 34.6 (1932:492–98), p. 493.
In Roman mythology and religion many of Hermes's characteristics belong to Mercury,Bullfinch's Mythology (1978), Crown Publishers, p. 926. a name derived from the Latin merx, meaning "merchandise", and the origin of the words "merchant" and "commerce."
Name and origin The earliest form of the name () is the Mycenaean Greek *, written () in the Linear B syllabic script. Other forms of the name are (, Epic Greek), (), (, Boeotian and Doric Greek), (, Hesiodus), (, Laconic, Arcadian Greek etc.), (), and ().Nilsson, vol. I, p. 502. Hermes has long been derived from Greek ( 'stone heap, cairn'), but this scholarly speculation is also disputed.
The etymology of (hérma) itself is unclear. It can be connected to several Proto-Indo-European roots, denoting either "protrusions" (), "poles" () or "heavyness" (). R. S. P. Beekes rejects the connection with and suggests a Pre-Greek origin to the God's name.
Other scholars have suggested that Hermes may be a cognate of the Vedic Sarama whose name could mean 'the Runner'.Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, ed. Félix Guirand & Robert Graves, Hamlyn, 1968, p. 123.
Hermes may well have been a pre-Hellenic god, but the exact origins of his Hellenic worship remain as unclear as the nature of those other gods and their worship, whose "heir" he is said to be. In 1916, Arthur Frothingham thought the god to have existed as a Mesopotamian snake-god, similar or identical to Ningishzida, a god who served as mediator between humans and the divine, especially Ishtar, and who was depicted in art as a caduceus.A. L. Frothingham: "Babylonian Origin of Hermes the Snake-God, and of the Caduceus I", in: American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 20, no. 2 (April–June, 1916), pp. 175–211.
Angelo (1997) thinks Hermes to be based on the Thoth archetype. Still the absorbing ("combining") of the attributes of Hermes to Thoth developed after the time of Homer amongst Greeks and Romans; Herodotus was the first to identify the Greek god with the Egyptian writing about Hermopolis. Plutarch and Diodorus also did so, but Plato thought the gods were dissimilar (Friedlander 1992)..
His cult was established in Greece in remote regions, likely making him originally a god of nature, farmers, and shepherds. It is also possible that since the beginning he has been a deity with shamanic attributes linked to divination, reconciliation, magic, sacrifices, and initiation and contact with other planes of existence, a role of mediator between the worlds of the visible and invisible.Danubian Historical Studies, 2, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1988, p. 32. According to a theory that has received considerable scholarly acceptance, Hermes originated as a form of the god Pan, who has been identified as a reflex of the Proto-Indo-European pastoral god ,H. Collitz, "Wodan, Hermes und Pushan," Festskrift tillägnad Hugo Pipping på Hans sextioårsdag den 5 November 1924 1924, pp. 574–587. in his aspect as the god of boundary markers (herma). The PIE root 'protect' also shows up in Latin 'shepherd' (whence the English pastoral). A zero grade of the full PIE form () yields the name of the Sanskrit psychopomp Pushan, who, like Pan, is associated with goats.Beekes, R. (2006) Etymological Dictionary of Greek, p. 600. Hermes might have been an epithet of this (proposed) Indo-European god. Later, the epithet supplanted the original name itself and Hermes took over the role of psychopomp as god of messengers, travelers, and boundaries, which had originally belonged to Pan, while Pan himself continued to be venerated by his original name in his more rustic aspect as the god of the wild in the relatively isolated mountainous region of Arcadia. In later myths, after the cult of Pan was reintroduced to Attica, Pan was said to be Hermes's son.
Iconography
The image of Hermes evolved and varied along with Greek art and culture. In Archaic Greece he was usually depicted as a matured and bearded man, who dressed as a traveler, herald, or shepherd. This image remained common on the Hermai, which served as boundary markers, roadside markers, and grave markers, as well as votive offerings.
Homer described Hermes as a youth with the first down on his upper lip, while the 2nd-century satirist Lucian noted the down on his cheeks.Odyssey, 10.275On Sacrifices, 11
In Classical and Hellenistic Greece, Hermes was usually depicted as a young, athletic man lacking a beard. When represented as Logios (Greek: Λόγιος, speaker), his attitude is consistent with the attribute. Hermes Ludovisi by Phidias or Myron possibly represent beardless Hermes Logios. Praxiteles showed him with the baby Dionysus in his arms.
At all times, however, through the Hellenistic periods, Roman, and throughout Western history into the present day, several of his characteristic objects are present as identification, but not always all together.Müller, Karl Otfried. Ancient art and its remains: or, A manual of the archæology of art. B. Quaritch, 1852. pp. 483–488. Among these objects is a wide-brimmed hat, the petasos, widely used by rural people of antiquity to protect themselves from the sun, and that in later times was adorned with a pair of small wings; sometimes this hat is not present, and may have been replaced with wings rising from the hair.
Another object is the caduceus, a staff with two intertwined snakes, sometimes crowned with a pair of wings and a sphere. The caduceus, historically, appeared with Hermes, and is documented among the Babylonians from about 3500 BC. Two snakes coiled around a staff was also a symbol of the god Ningishzida, who, like Hermes, served as a mediator between humans and the divine (specifically, the goddess Ishtar or the supreme Ningirsu). In Greece, other gods have been depicted holding a caduceus, but it was mainly associated with Hermes. It was said to have the power to make people fall asleep or wake up, and also made peace between litigants, and is a visible sign of his authority, being used as a sceptre. A similar-appearing but distinct symbol is the Rod of Asclepius, associated with the patron of medicine and son of Apollo, Asclepius, which bears only one snake. The Rod of Asclepius, occasionally conflated with the caduceus in modern times, is used by most Western physicians as a badge of their profession. After the Renaissance, the caduceus also appeared in the heraldic crests of several, and currently is a symbol of commerce.
Hermes's sandals, called pédila by the Greeks and talaria by the Romans, were made of palm and myrtle branches but were described as beautiful, golden and immortal, made by sublime art, able to take the roads with the speed of wind. Originally, they had no wings, but late in the artistic representations, they are depicted. In certain images, the wings spring directly from the ankles. Hermes has also been depicted with a purse or a bag in his hands, wearing a robe or cloak, which had the power to confer invisibility. His weapon was a harpe, which killed Argos; it was also lent to Perseus to kill Medusa and Cetus.
Functions Hermes began as a god with strong chthonic, or underworld, associations. He was a psychopomp, leader of souls along the road between "the Under and the Upper world". This function gradually expanded to encompass roads in general, and from there to boundaries, travelers, sailors, commerce, and travel itself. Hermes also in time became a figure associated with literary creation, rhetoric and story-telling.
As a chthonic and fertility god
Beginning with the earliest records of his worship, Hermes has been understood as a chthonic deity (heavily associated with the earth or underworld). As a chthonic deity, the worship of Hermes also included an aspect relating to fertility, with the phallus being included among his major symbols. The inclusion of phallic imagery associated with Hermes and placed, in the form of herma, at the entrances to households may reflect a belief in ancient times that Hermes was a symbol of the household's fertility, specifically the potency of the male head of the household in producing children.
The association between Hermes and the underworld is related to his function as a god of boundaries (the boundary between life and death), but he is considered a psychopomp, a deity who helps guide souls of the deceased to the afterlife, and his image was commonly depicted on gravestones in classical Greece.
As a god of boundaries
In Ancient Greece, Hermes was a phallic god of boundaries. His name, in the form herma, was applied to a wayside marker pile of stones, and each traveler added a stone to the pile. In the 6th century BC, Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, replaced the cairns that marked the midway point between each village deme at the central agora of Athens with a square or rectangular pillar of stone or bronze topped by a bust of a bearded Hermes. An erect phallus rose from the base. In the more primitive Mount Kyllini or Cyllenian herms, the standing stone or wooden pillar was simply a carved phallus. "That a monument of this kind could be transformed into an Olympian god is astounding," Walter Burkert remarked.Walter Burkert, 1985. Greek Religion (Harvard University Press) In Athens, herms were placed outside houses, both as a form of protection for the home, a symbol of male fertility, and as a link between the household and its gods with the gods of the wider community.
In 415 BC, on the night when the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War, all of the Athenian hermai were vandalized. The Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or from the anti-war faction within Athens itself. Socrates's pupil Alcibiades was suspected of involvement, and one of the charges eventually made against Socrates, which led to his execution 16 years later, was that he had either corrupted Alcibiades or failed to guide him away from his moral corruption.Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 6.27.
As a messenger god