Hermes- Greek GodDeity"Messenger of the Gods"

The Precocious Infant

Hermes was born at dawn in a cave on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, son of Zeus and the nymph Maia. His birth was secret: Maia lived as a recluse, far from the company of gods. But Hermes was not born for obscurity. By noon he had left his cradle. He found a tortoise at the cave's entrance, killed it, stretched hide and sheep-gut strings across the shell, and made the first lyre.

By evening he had grown bored with music and set out to steal Apollo's sacred cattle. He drove fifty cows backward from their pasture so the hoofprints pointed the wrong way, and wove sandals of tamarisk and myrtle to mask his own tracks. Two cows he slaughtered and built a fire by twirling a stick in wood. He sacrificed the meat to the twelve Olympians and counted himself among them. Then he hid the rest of the herd, crept back to his cradle, and pulled the swaddling clothes tight.

When Apollo traced the theft to the day-old infant, he dragged Hermes before Zeus. The baby blinked, wrapped in his blankets, and swore he was far too young to know what cattle even were. Zeus laughed. He ordered the herd returned, but the theft had won the boy his place among the gods. Apollo's anger faded when Hermes offered him the lyre in exchange for the cattle and a golden herdsman's staff. Hermes later traded a second invention, the syrinx, for Apollo's instruction in divination.

The Slaying of Argus

Zeus had taken Io as a lover and turned her into a white heifer to hide her from Hera. Hera was not fooled. She claimed the cow and set Argus Panoptes, the hundred-eyed giant, to guard it. Argus was the perfect watchman: some of his eyes always stayed open while others slept. Zeus sent Hermes to free Io. Hermes approached disguised as a shepherd, played his reed pipe, and told long, drowsy stories until every one of the giant's hundred eyes fell shut. Then he drew his sword and cut off Argus's head. Hera placed her servant's eyes in the tail of the peacock. The killing earned Hermes the epithet Argeiphontes, "Slayer of Argus."

Guide of Souls

Hermes carried a staff wound with two serpents, the kerykeion. He had found the snakes fighting and separated them with the rod; they coiled around it in peace and stayed. The staff marked him as herald of the gods and granted safe passage everywhere.

As Psychopompos, he guided the dead below. In the Odyssey, after the suitors are killed in Odysseus's hall, Hermes comes with his golden wand and summons their shades. They follow him gibbering like bats, down past the streams of Ocean, past the White Rock and the Gates of the Sun, to the Asphodel Meadows where the dead dwell. Gold tablets buried with Orphic initiates invoked his guidance and directed the soul to the springs of Memory rather than Forgetfulness.

Between the Worlds

On Circe's island, Hermes intercepted Odysseus before the hero could fall victim to the witch's power. He pulled a plant from the ground: moly, with a black root and milk-white flower. He told Odysseus what it would do. For gods, the plant came up easily. Mortals could never uproot it.

Near the end of the Trojan War, old Priam needed to cross the Greek camp at night to recover Hector's body from Achilles. Zeus sent Hermes. He took the form of a young man with the first down on his lip and found Priam outside the camp. He put the sentries to sleep and led the king's mule cart through the gates to Achilles's shelter. Before dawn, he woke the old king and led him back with Hector's body on the cart.

Stones at the Crossroads

Throughout Greece, rectangular stone pillars called hermai stood at crossroads, doorways, and property boundaries. Each bore the head of Hermes and an erect phallus. Travelers touched them for luck. Householders set them at their doors. On the eve of Athens's Sicilian Expedition in 415 BCE, someone went through the city and mutilated the hermai in a single night. The investigation that followed tore the city apart.

Cairns of loose stones, hermaia, lined the roads as well. Each traveler added a stone in passing. In Arcadia, on Mount Cyllene where he was born, a primitive image of the god received offerings from shepherds. At Tanagra in Boeotia, he was worshipped as Kriophoros, the Ram-Bearer, where tradition held he had averted a plague by carrying a ram around the city walls. In the gymnasia of every Greek city, his statues stood at the entrances. Victorious athletes dedicated their wreaths to him.

At Pharae in Achaea, an oracle of Hermes operated in the marketplace. A supplicant whispered a question into the ear of the god's statue, stopped their ears, and walked away. The first words they overheard upon unstopping them were the god's answer.