Hermes was one of the Olympian gods and was considered a divine messenger, often acting on behalf of Zeus. He was also considered a Chthonic god with responsibility for showing people the path to the underworld. This seems to have been an extension of his role as the god of crossroads, which meant that he could pass boundaries that others could not.
Hermes was generally considered a mischievous but kind god, who was highly intelligent and invented many things, which he shared with mankind, making him a kind of god of wisdom. He was also the god of those who wander, whether they be shepherds or traders, as he was associated with travel.
Birth and Infancy
According to legend, Hermes was the son of Zeus, the king of the gods, and Maia, a daughter of Atlas and one of the Pleiades nymphs that were companions of Artemis. They made love in a cave where they could not be seen by the gods, especially Zeus’ jealous wife Hera. Hesiod says that he was born as “the herald of the deathless gods” (Theogony 983f.).
In the Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes, the youth is described as a trickster: “of many shifts, 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.”
Even as an infant Hermes was intelligent and precocious. He invented the lyre, made from tortoiseshell, on which the most beautiful music could be created. He also jumped out of his cot one day and stole the flock of the god Apollo. He was so cunning that he turned the footprints of the cattle around so that it looked like they had gone in the other direction. He also wore adult-sized shoes so that no one would suspect him.
In the end, he was only detected because his father Zeus had seen him. He ordered Zeus to return the flock to Apollo. He then gave Apollo the lyre he had created in exchange for the cattle. He also created the pan pipes, that were commonly used by Greek shepherds.
This story shows off the trickster side of Hermes. In relation to that, when all the gods gather gifts for Pandora’s box, Hermes gives her lies, seductive words, and dubious character, suggesting he was kind of a charlatan. But he was also called the bringer of good luck.
This myth also links Hermes with shepherds, and he was considered the patron god of flocks. It is possible that the idea of Hermes as “the good shepherd” influenced Christian ideas as Jesus as “the Good Shepherd.”
The Inventor
The lyre and the pan pipes were not the only things that Hermes invented. He is credited with inventing the alphabet and writing, fire, the sport of wrestling, dice, knucklebones, and many games, and he was also considered a god of gambling.
In the Hellenistic period, he became closely associated with the god Thoth, who was the god of wisdom credited with inventing things such as mathematics and science. In Hellenistic Egypt, the two gods were syncretized as Hermes Trismegistus. Together they are said to be texts of all human wisdom written by the god.
Historical research suggests that they were written down between 200 BCE and 300 CE, and the current collection was then compiled by medieval Byzantine editors. These texts inspired Hermeticism, a philosophical tradition focused on alchemy, astrology, and other mystical and occult practices.
Chthonic God
While Hermes is often described as a messenger of the gods, there are few examples of him doing this, and he was not the only divine messenger. He did, for example, tell Calypso Zeus’ order to free Odysseus and his men. But the idea of him as a messenger is linked to the idea that he can travel around the cosmos swiftly and with ease.
According to the myth of Hades kidnapping Persephone to be his wife and Demeter searching for her daughter, Zeus sent Hermes to the underworld to order Hades to return Persephone. In the end, she had already eaten the fruit of the underworld so she could not fully return and had to spend half her time in the underworld with Hades and half the time with her mother, which is what caused the changing seasons.
Hermes had the power to move between the worlds, and did not have to undergo the same grueling journey to the underworld as heroes like Heracles. Consequently, this made Hermes the perfect god to guide the dead into the afterlife. This image of Hermes as a “psychopomp” was common in Greek funerary dedications.
God of Crossroads
Hermes was also associated with phallic symbols and herma, phallic posts with the head of Hermes, were placed at the entrances of households, which may have been to protect the entranceway and invite fertility into the home.
Herma was also the name of wayside markers on traveling routes, marking territorial crossroads, in a similar fashion to the Roman god Janus. In this way, he is also closely related to the Voodoo god Papa Legba, who was a god of the crossroads and mediated between the mortal and divine realms.
As an extension of this, he became associated with many realms of life including commerce, social intercourse, unexpected enrichment, travel, agreements and contracts, friendship, hospitality, games, and more.
Mythological Appearances
Hermes participated in the Gigantomachy in defense of Mount Olympus. He killed the giant Hippolytos with his golden sword and is often depicted in this capacity, fighting with the giant. When he fled to Egypt with the other gods due to Typhon and they transformed into animals, he became an ibis, an animal associated with Thoth.
In the story of the Trojan War, Hermes sided with the Greeks against the Trojans but still protected Priam as he retrieved the body of his son Hector from the Greek camp. He later helped Odysseus by telling him of the fate of his companions, who had been turned into animals, and telling him to protect himself by chewing a magic herb. When Odysseus later killed his wife’s suitors, Hermes led them to the underworld.
After contributing his gifts to Pandora’s box, it was Hermes who was instructed to take Pandora to Epimetheus as his wife.
When Hera had Zeus’ lover Io imprisoned and watched over by the monster Argos, Zeus sent Hermes to free her. He used his lyre to lull the monster to sleep, allowing him to kill Argos and free Io.
When Perseus went off to face Medusa, both Athena and Hermes helped him. Athena lent Perseus her Aegis to use as a mirror to see Medusa without suffering her gaze, and Hermes lent Perseus his sword, and his winged shoes so he could fly off and save Andromeda after beheading Medusa.
Aesop in his fables often casts Hermes as the ruler of the fate of prophetic dreams. He also suggested that Hermes assigns each person their portion of intelligence.
Lovers and Children
Hermes had sex with the Arcadian nymph Penelopeia in the form of a goat and she gave birth to the god Pan, with a human torso and goat legs. Other stories say that Hermes had Pan with the nymph Dryope.
According to Nonnus, Hermes was married to Peitho, the goddess of seduction. ButPseudo-Hyginus also said that Aphrodite was wooed by Hermes, and that Zeus helped him seduce her. Together they had the child Hermaphroditus. With the underworld goddess Daeira he had a son called Eleusis. He competed with Ares in a boxing match for the nymph Tanagra, whom he won and carried off.
Hermes also raped Apemosyne, a Creten princess. When she told her brother about the incident, he did not believe her and kicked her to death. Hermes also cast a sleep spell on Chione, a princess of Phokis, sept with her, and she gave birth to a son Aytolycus. The Athenian princess Herse gave him the son Cephalus. The Doros princess Herse had three children with him, Pherespondos, Lykos, and Pronomos.
Hermes also had male lovers including Pollox of the Dioscuri, whom Hermes gifted the Thessalian horse Dotor. He took Amphion as a lover, and gave him a golden lyre and taught him to play. Crocus was a lover of the god accidentally killed by him in a game of discus.
Symbols of Hermes
In Archaic Greece, Hermes was usually depicted as a mature man with a beard wearing traveling clothing. By the Classical Period, he had evolved into an athletic youth. But throughout his history, even in his Roman guise as Mercury, Hermes was associated with a number of attributes.
Hermes almost always appeared with his characteristic winged shoes, though he also sometimes appeared with a small set of wings. He was often associated with the petasos, a wide-brimmed hat used in rural areas for sun protection, and sometimes the wings were attached to his hat.
Hermes was often depicted holding the caduceus, which is a staff intertwined with two snakes, topped by a sphere and a set of wings. This same staff was associated with the Mesopotamian god Ningishzida, who, like Hermes, was also considered an intermediary between worlds. Some other Greek gods were depicted holding the same staff.
Hermes was also often depicted with a bag and robe, reinforcing him as a traveler, and with a harpe, which is a type of sword, which he appears within the myths of Argos and Perseus.
Cult
Hermes was probably a pre-Hellenic god imported into the Greek pantheon. When his cult first appears in Greece, it is in remote regions, suggesting he was associated with nature, farming, and shepherds. It also seems likely that he had shamanic attributes and was linked to practices such as divination, magic, and initiation rites. He was perhaps considered a mediator between the visible and invisible worlds.
Despite the many herma of Hermes, there are only three known temples of the god from Classical Greece, all of them in Arcadia, in the central Peloponnese. The oldest is probably Mount Cyllene, where it was believed that Hermes was born. His Roman counterpart had several temples in Rome, the most important in the Circus Maximus built in 495 BCE, from where he spread throughout the Roman Empire.
Hermes also seems to have been worshipped alongside Aphrodite in her temples in Attica, Arcadia, Crete, Samos, and Magna Grecia. In this capacity, he seems to have been invoked at the crossroads between childhood and adulthood. He was also celebrated in gymnasiums and alongside the other Olympian gods at the Olympic Games.
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