Hermes

Hermes is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also 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, and is often presented as the son of Zeus and Maia, the Pleiad. Hermes is regarded as "the divine trickster," about which the Homeric Hymn to Hermes offers the most well-known account.

His 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. However, his main symbol is the caduceus, a winged staff intertwined with two snakes copulating and carvings of the other gods. His attributes had previously influenced the earlier Etruscan god Turms, a name borrowed from the Greek "herma".

In Roman mythology and religion many of Hermes' characteristics belong to Mercury, a name derived from the Latin merx, meaning "merchandise," and the origin of the words "merchant" and "commerce."

All pictures are © Dr. Günther Eichhorn, unless otherwise noted.

Hermes Mythology

God of boundaries, roads and travelers, thieves, athletes, shepherds, commerce, speed, cunning, wit and sleep. Psychopomp and divine messenger.
He is a member of the Twelve Olympians.

Homer and Hesiod

Homer and Hesiod portrayed Hermes as the author of skilled or deceptive acts and also as a benefactor of mortals. In the Iliad, he is called "the bringer of good luck", "guide and guardian", and "excellent in all the tricks". He was a divine ally of the Greeks against the Trojans. However, he did protect Priam when he went to the Greek camp to retrieve the body of his son Hector and accompanied them back to Troy.

He also rescued Ares from a brazen vessel where he had been imprisoned by Otus and Ephialtes. In the Odyssey, Hermes helps his great-grand son, the protagonist Odysseus, by informing him about the fate of his companions, who were turned into animals by the power of Circe. Hermes instructed Odysseus to protect himself by chewing a magic herb; he also told Calypso of Zeus' order to free Odysseus from her island to allow him to continue his journey back home. When Odysseus killed the suitors of his wife, Hermes led their souls to Hades. In The Works and Days, when Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create Pandora to disgrace humanity by punishing Prometheus's act of giving fire to man, every god gave her a gift, and Hermes' gifts were lies, seductive words, and a dubious character. Hermes was then instructed to take her as wife to Epimetheus.

The Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes, which tells the story of the god's birth and his subsequent theft of Apollo's sacred cattle, invokes him as the one "of many shifts (polytropos), blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods." The word polytropos ("of many shifts, turning many ways, of many devices, ingenious, or much wandering") is also used to describe Odysseus in the first line of the Odyssey. In addition to the chelys lyre, Hermes was believed to have invented many types of racing and the sport of wrestling, and therefore was a patron of athletes.

Athenian tragic playwrights

Aeschylus wrote in The Eumenides that Hermes helped Orestes kill Clytemnestra under a false identity and other stratagems, and also said that he was the god of searches, and those who seek things lost or stolen. In Philoctetes, Sophocles invokes Hermes when Odysseus needs to convince Philoctetes to join the Trojan War on the side of the Greeks, and in Euripides' Rhesus Hermes helps Dolon spy on the Greek navy.

Aesop

Aesop featured him in several of his fables, as ruler of the gate of prophetic dreams, as the god of athletes, of edible roots, and of hospitality. He also said that Hermes had assigned each person his share of intelligence.

Hellenistic Greek sources

Several writers of the Hellenistic period expanded the list of Hermes's achievements. Callimachus said that Hermes disguised himself as a Cyclops to scare the Oceanids and was disobedient to his mother. One of the Orphic Hymns Khthonios is dedicated to Hermes, indicating that he was also a god of the underworld. Aeschylus had called him by this epithet several times. Another is the Orphic Hymn to Hermes, where his association with the athletic games held is mystic in tone.

Phlegon of Tralles said he was invoked to ward off ghosts, and the Bibliotheca reported several events involving Hermes. He participated in the Gigantomachy in defense of Olympus; was given the task of bringing baby Dionysus to be cared for by Ino and Athamas and later by nymphs of Asia, followed Hera, Athena and Aphrodite in a beauty contest; favored the young Hercules by giving him a sword when he finished his education and lent his sandals to Perseus. The Thracian princes identified him with their god Zalmoxis, considering his ancestor.

Anyte of Tegea of the 3^rd century BCE, in the translation by Richard Aldington, wrote, I Hermes stand here at the crossroads by the wind beaten orchard, near the hoary grey coast; and I keep a resting place for weary men. And the cool stainless spring gushes out.

Lovers, victims and children

Peitho, the goddess of seduction and persuasion, was said by Nonnus to be the wife of Hermes.
Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, was wooed by Hermes. After she had rejected him, Hermes sought the help of Zeus to seduce her. Zeus, out of pity, sent his eagle to take away Aphrodite's sandal when she was bathing, and gave it to Hermes. When Aphrodite came looking for the sandal, Hermes made love to her. She bore him a son, Hermaphroditus.
Daeira, an Oceanid and an underworld goddess, mated with Hermes and gave birth to a son named Eleusis.
Apemosyne, a princess of Crete, was traveling to Rhodes one day with her brother Althaemenes. Hermes saw her and fell in love with her, but Apemosyne fled from him. Hermes could not catch her because she ran faster than him. The god then devised a plan and laid some freshly skinned hides across her path. Later, on her way back from a spring, Apemosyne slipped on those hides and fell. At that moment, Hermes caught her and raped her. When Apemosyne told her brother what had happened, he became angry, thinking that she was lying about being molested by the god. In his anger, he kicked her to death.
Chione, a princess of Phokis, attracted the attention of Hermes. He used his wand to put her to sleep and slept with her. To Hermes she bore a son, Autolycus.
Herse, an Athenian princess was loved by Hermes and bore a son named Cephalus to him.
Iphthime, a princess of Doros was loved by Hermes and bore him three Satyroi – named Pherespondos, Lykos and Pronomos.
Lara was a water nymph who had informed Hera about one of Zeus' affairs. Angered, Zeus cut off her tongue and ordered Hermes to conduct her to the underworld. On the way, Hermes raped her and as a result, she bore twin gods named Lares, who were the guards of the cross roads. Lara was later renamed as Muta.
Penelopeia, an Arcadian nymph, was loved by Hermes. It is said that Hermes had sex with her in the form of a goat, which resulted in their son, the god Pan, having goat legs. She has been confused or conflated with Penelope, the wife of Odysseus.
The Oreads, the nymphs of the mountains were said to mate with Hermes in the highlands, breeding more of their kind.
Tanagra was a nymph for whom the gods Ares and Hermes competed in a boxing match. Hermes won and carried her off to Tanagra in Boeotia.

According to Hyginus' Fabula, Pan, the Greek god of nature, shepherds and flocks, is the son of Hermes through the nymph Dryope. It is likely that the worship of Hermes himself actually originated as an aspect of Pan as the god of boundaries, which could explain their association as parent and child in Hyginus. In other sources, the god Priapus is understood as a son of Hermes.

According to Pseudo-Apollodorus' Bibliotheca, Autolycus, the Prince of Thieves, was a son of Hermes and Chione, making Hermes a great-grandfather of Odysseus.

Photius wrote that Polydeuces, one of the Dioscuri, was a lover of Hermes.

Once, Hermes chased either Persephone or Hecate with the aim to rape her; but the goddess snored or roared in anger, frightening him off so that he desisted, hence her earning the name "Brimo" ("angry").

Hermes Pictures

Marble statue of Hermes, from Epidaurus, Greece (CE 250-275). (792k)

Marble statue of Hermes holding the infant Dionysus, from Olympia, Greece (from 340-330 BCE). (528k)

Semicircular marble base with depictions of ten Gods and Heroes of the Greek Pantheon, from Nikopolis, Greece. Hermes is first full figure from the left, with winged feet. (1089k)