8/24/2023 0 Comments Hermes and hadesAs messenger of the underground realms, Hermes is often appealed to in curse tablets, or defixiones, together with Hades and Persephone. In the Odyssey (24.1 –14) Hermes acts as the psychopomp and leads by his staff the souls of the Proci through the cave to the doors of Helios and the asphodel meadows, abode of deceased souls. ![]() The cave of Hermes was a passageway to the netherworld. Hermes was venerated as a giver of fortune -the adjective hermaios meant gainful and the noun hermaion referred to an unexpected piece of luck. The astuteness of Hermes and his friendship with humans earned for him the character of a trickster, a clever inferior god who gave people every means of civilization (Burkert, 1984). In fact, the temples of Hera at Argos and in other towns owned sacred cows, which were used for sacrifices. The murder of Argos was another crime that caused the passage of cattle from the herd of a god (Hera in this case) to the world of humans. ![]() Thus, Hermes was called the Argiphontes (Killer of Argos). Hermes was charged for this murder, but he was carrying out an order of Zeus when he killed Argos, and the gods voted to acquit Hermes by throwing stones, forming the first hermaic heap. The mythic origin of these heaps was the trial of Hermes, who was judged by the gods after he had killed Argos, the Argive cowherd, causing Io, a priestess of Hera who had been transformed into a cow, to run away from the herd. Hermes was worshiped by travelers, whom he protected and guided, and he was the focus of a cult in which heaps of stones where piled near roads (Hesychius, s.v. Like Hercules, Hermes stole cattle from the world of gods in order to take them to the world of humans. 6.26.5) or as a phallic stele called a herma. In addition, Hermes granted fertility to cattle and was thus often represented as a phallus (Paus. Statues of Hermes often depict him with a ram. Hermes was also worshiped by shepherds (Semonides, fr.18 Diehl Homer, Odyssey 14.435 –436) Pan, the god of sheep farming, was his son. The ancestry of the Attic priests Kerykes (literally, "heralds") descended from Hermes (e.g., Pausanias 1.38.3). Hermes' symbol is the herald's staff and his speed is symbolized by little wings on his boots and cap. 314 Radt) and a Persian version of a Hellenistic novel, the Vamiq and Adhra (see H ägg, 1989). The same myth also appears in the Ichneutai of Sophocles (fr. This trade was considered to be the beginning of commerce.Īpollo granted Hermes the power of prophecy known to three sacred women at Delphi, and Zeus made him the lord of every herd and the only messenger to Hades (Homeric Hymn to Hermes 550 –572). Apollo discovered the thief in spite of all Hermes' tricks, but his wrath was assuaged when he saw the lyre and accepted it in exchange for the two cows Hermes had sacrificed. Hermes then discovered a means to light a fire, ritually sacrificed two of the cows, then returned to his cave. Hermes is also reported to have stolen fifty sacred cows from Apollo's herd -he hid the theft by forcing the cows to walk backwards in order to produce reversed tracks. The Homeric Hymn to Hermes describes him as the son of Zeus and the nymph Maia, locates his abode in a cave of Cyllene, and ascribes to him the invention of the lyre, made from a tortoise shell. The ancient authors show the Peloponnesus as the most ancient and important environment where Hermes' cult had developed, but inscriptions and monuments show him worshiped everywhere in the Greek world. ![]() ![]() Hermes gave the kings of Mycenae the scepter of Zeus (Homer, Iliad 100 –108) and the lamb with the golden fleece, a fatal pledge of royalty for the Pelopides (Euripides, Orestes 995 –1000). HERMES was recognized in Mycenaean tablets, and his nature was described in early Greek poems as that of a clever mediator among the gods or between gods and men, or as an archetypal messenger.
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