Hermes/Mercury- god of trickery, messengers, thieves, trade, travelers and athletes. A herald of the gods and a guide to the Underworld. Also the inventor of the lyre and fire.
Born the son of Zeus and the Pleiade Maia, he was born in a cave on Mt. Kyllini/Cyllene and showed himself to be a thief and a trickster from an early age. On the day of his birth he slipped away from his mother, came across a tortoise, killed it and with reeds turned its shell into the first lyre. Next he went to Pieria where he stole Apollo's cattle. He then either made them wear boots or led them backwards to disguise/confuse their tracks. On his way he came across a man called Battos and asked him to stay silent about what he saw. Battos vowed silence in exchange for a reward. Untrusting of him, after Hermes had hidden the cattle in a cave he returned to Battos in disguise and offered him a reward for information on stolen cattle. Battos told him of the theft and Hermes struck him with his wand/caduceus turning him into a stone as punishment. Alternatively, it was Apollo who came across the man and asked him for information and he confessed to him, betraying Hermes.
Hermes then sacrificed two cattle, he then gathered sticks together and created a fire to cook them on, thus inventing fire. After he returned to his swaddling blankets in the cave. Discovering the theft, Apollo accused Hermes but Maia refused to believe a newborn infant was capable of such deeds. Apollo got Zeus to intervene and Zeus sided with Apollo seeing his trickster son for what he was and compelled him to reveal the cattle. When Hermes revealed his lyre however, Apollo was happy to pardon the theft in exchange for it and let Hermes keep the remaining cattle. In some versions Hermes also received Apollo's shepherd's crook and thus became a god of shepherds.
He was always doing favours and delivering messages for Zeus, one of which led to him being called Argeiphontes (Argus/Argos slayer/killer). Argus Panoptes (all-seeing) was a multi-eyed giant who always had some eyes eternally awake. Apollodorus says he slayed the mother of monsters Echidna in her sleep. He was a loyal servant of Hera's and charged by her to guard Io, Zeus' lover whom he had been forced to disguise as a cow to hide her from Hera but Hera was not fooled and demanded the cow as a gift. Zeus sent Hermes to liberate her and he did so in disguise as a shepherd. He got close to Argus and struck him with caduceus putting him to sleep, he then killed him with a sword or a rock. Hera placed Argus' eyes in the tail of a peacock as thanks for his service.
In one version of the story a man, Hierax, warned Argus and was turned into a hawk by Hermes as punishment.
Zeus gave him the infant Dionysus to find a minder for and Hermes took him to either his aunt Ino and her husband Athamas and instructed them to raise him as a girl, or he took him to the nymphs of Nysa. Alternatively he took him to Ino first and when she and her husband were driven mad by Hera, he then took him to the nymphs.
Zeus also charged him with taking Aphrodite, Athena and Hera to Paris/Alexander when they quarreled over the golden apple labelled 'for the fairest'.
Again under Zeus' bidding he aided several heroes. He gave Zeus' son Heracles a sword, and according to Homer and Apollodorus he aided him in the Underworld by helping him with Cerebus and telling him that Medusa was only a shade. He loaned another son of Zeus, Perseus, his sandals, and with Athena guided him to the Graiai. He aided Odysseus, his own great-grandson, son of his granddaughter Anticlea, daughter of his son Autolycus, by giving him a herb to protect him from Circe's potions, and on Zeus' orders, he told the nymph Calypso/Calipso to allow Odysseus, who had become her lover, to return home.
He fought in the Gigantomachy killing the giant Hippolytos/Hippolytus with a sword whilst wearing the cap of invisibility.
He helped with the creation of Pandora, the first woman, giving her a deceitful nature, speech and a name.
He rescued Ares from the giants Otus and Ephialtes when he was trapped in a bronze urn/jar for thirteen months when their stepmother Eriboea told Hermes what they had done.
He also recovered Zeus' sinews after Typhon cut them off and hid them.
In a strange story Callimachus said he disguised himself as the cyclops Steropes or as Argus to frighten the Oceanids/Okeanids when they were disobeying their mother Tethys.
During the Trojan War he fought on the side of the Greeks though he refused to battle against Leto. He also guided Priam to his son Hector's body, protecting him, and then guided him back to Troy.
He was given the title of Logios as he was a good orator and good at persuasion.
He travelled with Zeus to view mortals, often in disguise and twice, with Zeus, honoured a select few. One was Hyrieus, a king who was a son of Poseidon and Alycone, a Pleiade, thus making him a cousin of Hermes. In some accounts, Zeus and Hermes visited him with Poseidon. In gratitude for his hospitality they agreed to grant him a wish, as he was childless he asked for a child. So the gods filled a bull's hide with urine or sperm and told him to bury it for nine months, he obeyed and later found a boy there, whom he named Orion. In other accounts Hyrieus is his natural father or Poseidon is.
In disguise as peasants Hermes and Zeus sought sanctuary in a village but were barred from every home save one, that of Baucis and Philemon, an elderly couple who offered them sanctuary and what food and wine they had. When they noticed the wine bowl never drained and realised their guests were gods. Zeus and Hermes commanded them to go to the mountains and when they did the village was flooded and the people who had rejected the gods, drowned. Their home was safe however and transformed into a temple. Zeus then asked them what they wanted and the asked to be priests in the temple and to die at the same hour. Their wish was granted and when their time came to die they were turned into trees.
He was associated with two golden rams. The first was the golden ram Chrysomallus, a son of Poseidon and Theophane, a granddaughter of Helios and Gaia who was very beautiful. Poseidon abducted her and took her to an island where he turned her into an ewe to hide her from her suitors amongst a flock, he then turned himself into a ram and mated with her. When her suitors became to slaughter the flock he turned them into wolves. Hermes was said to have sent Chrysomallus to Phrixus and Helle's mother Nephele, to carry them away from their evil stepmother Ino who was trying to kill them/have them sacrificed. The ram carried them over the sea but Helle fell off and drowned, the ram then spoke to Phrixus giving him courage. In some versions of the myth it is actually Helle and Phrixus' mother Nephele that sends the ram to them. When Phrixus reached safety in King Aeetes' domain he sacrificed the ram to him and King Aeetes kept his Golden Fleece until Jason stole it.
In another tale Hermes sets a golden ram in King Atreus' flock. Arteus was king of Mycenae and father to Agamemnon and Menelaus. His parents Pelops and Hippodamia were cursed by Hermes for bringing about the death of his son Myrtilus. Myrtilus was Hippodamia's father's charioteer and he sabotaged her father Oenomaus' chariot out of love for her and when Oenomaus died he cursed Myrtilus. Myrtilus then either tried to claim Hippodamia's virginity as he had been promised for his treachery or simply tried to rape her and was killed by Pelops.
Atreus had vowed to sacrifice his best lamb to Artemis or Hermes and upon finding the golden lamb he either hid it entirely, giving it to his wife or he killed it but hid the fleece for himself. His wife, Aerope gave it to his brother Thyestes, who was her lover. When there was a dispute between the brothers, Atreus agreed that whoever had the golden fleece should be king, not realising it had been taken from him, and so Thyestes became king. With Hermes help however, or on his advice, he won back his throne by getting Thyestes to agree he should have it when the sun moved backwards in the sky, a feat that either Zeus or Hermes brought about.
Atreus killed his brother's sons and tricked him into eating all but their hands and feet, which he kept as proof. For his cannibalism, Thyestes was forced into exile, he consulted an oracle who told him to have a son with his own daughter Pelopia to bring about his revenge. Pelopia exposed the infant and killed herself out of disgust but not before giving her son, Aegisthus, her father and his father's sword. It was this sword that possibly helped her realise who she was lying with as presumably she had done it unwittingly. Aegisthus was found and raised by Atreus and sent to kill Thyestes but the sword made Thyestes realise who he was and reveal himself as the boy's true father. Aegisthus then killed his uncle, exiled his cousins to Sparta and ruled with his father.
Protesilaus and Laodamia were newlyweds just before Protesilaus was killed in the Trojan War, because she was so aggrieved Hermes returned Protesilaus' spirit to her for three hours. It was not enough however, and she either stabbed herself or built a bronze likeness of him and worshipped it until her father threw it on a pyre to end her grief and she threw herself on the pyre.
Amphion was a son of Zeus and Antiope, a daughter of a river god or a princess who was raped by Zeus in the form of a satyr. He and his twin, Zethus were exposed by their mother after she was dragged back by her uncle Lycus after fleeing to King Epopeus and marrying him after her rape. Amphion was taught singing and music by Hermes and gifted a golden lyre by him, when he played his lyre his brother's stones (for walls) followed after him. Together with his brother he founded Thebes, he later married Niobe a Lydian princess and had fourteen children with her, they were killed by Artemis and Apollo when Niobe boasted that she was greater than their mother Leto because she had more children. Amphion then killed himself in grief.
He attended the wedding of Cadmus/Kadmos and Harmonia with the other gods and gave them either a lyre or a sceptre.
Hermes from God of War 3
Though he often held the image of a playful trickster Hermes could be cruel to lovers as well as to people who affronted the gods. Agron was a man who scorned Hermes, Athena and Artemis, refusing to worship them and declining on behalf of his family to take part in rituals to them. The three visited him at night disguised as a shepherd and maids. Hermes invited him and his father Eumelus to a ritual in his honour and suggested his sisters Byssa and Meropis go to the grove where the other girls were worshipping Artemis and Athena. Meropis mocked Athena's name and was turned into an owl by the goddess, Byssa was turned into a byssa bird and Agron was turned into a plover by Hermes. When Eumelus scorned Hermes he turned him into a raven.
When asked by Zeus to punish the twins Orius and Agrius, giants who were half-bear, cannibals and disrespectful of the gods, Hermes planned to dismember them but their great-grandfather Ares intervened and so the gods turned them into an eagle owl and a vulture, and their mother Polyphonte into a small owl.
He turned the nymph Chelone/Khelone into a tortoise when she was too lazy or too ignorant to attend the wedding of Zeus and Hera.
He was said to have inspired Aesop who wrote famous fables, including several about the god.
He took many lovers, some willing and some not, and had many children.
With Acacallis/Acalle/Akalle, the daughter of King Minos, he had Cydon who founded Cydonia. In other versions he is a son with Apollo, who also had Naxos, Miletus, Oaxes, Amphithemis and Garamas, and possibly Phylacides and Phylander though these may have been sons with a nymph who bore the same name.
He also raped Minos' granddaughter Apemosyne. She tried to flee from him and when he could not catch her he lay animal skins in her path causing her to slip. When she told her brother, Althaemenes, what had happened he refused to believe her and kicked her to death.
With Aglaurus/Agraulos he had a son, Ceryx/Keryx who was a messenger. Aglaurus was a princess, a daughter of the Athenian king Cecrops and with her sisters Herse and Pandrosus she was charged by Athena to guard a box but to not open it. Temptation got the better of Aglaurus and Herse and they opened it and found an infant entangled with snakes or an infant half-man and half-serpent, Hephaestus and Gaia's son Erichthonius, the result of Hephaestus' failed rape of Athena, who rubbed his semen off her leg and dropped it on Gaia. In another version, she was jealous of Hermes' love for her sister Herse and barred his entrance to Herse, Hermes asked her to relay a message of his desire for Herse's hand to Herse and for gold Aglaurus agreed to but then Athena, disgusted with her greed, asked the goddess Envy/Invidia to poison her and so Aglaurus began to waste away and blocked Hermes entry to her sister's room. In rage Hermes turned her to stone or into a marble statue. Sometimes her sister Pandrosus/Pandrosos is said to be Ceryx's mother.
With Herse Hermes had Cephalus/Kephalos. Sometimes he is said to be the same Cephalus that Eos fell in love with and abducted. He loved another however, Procris and despite having a son, Phaëthon, with Eos, he pined for Procris. Eventually, Eos returned him to her after eight years but put in his mind the idea that Procris had betrayed him. He disguised himself as a hunter and seduced her, and in shame she fled to either become a follower of Artemis or to Minos. They reconciled and she gifted him with a javelin that never missed its mark and a hound that always caught its prey. Later she had doubts as Cephalus always sneaked off to worship a Nephele, she thought it was a lover when it fact it was a deity and when to spy on him. Sensing something in the bushes he threw his javelin and killed Procris. He then went into exile after she made him swear not to marry Eos. He did marry again and had a son, Arcesius, but he never forgot Procris and killed himself in grief. He may have been a son of Deion/Deioneos/Deioneus a king of Phocis, and Diomede.
Bounos/Bunus was a son with Alcidamia/Alkidameia who became king of Ephyra.
With either Antianeira, Aptale or Laothoe he had Erytus/Eurytus/Eurytos and Echion/Ekhion who were Argonauts and participated in the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
With Eupolemeia, granddaughter of Zeus, he had the Argonaut Aethalides/Aithalides. Aethalides acted as the Argonauts' herald and he had been gifted by Hermes with the ability to remember everything. Even in Hades the waters of the river of forgetfulness Lethe could not effect him.
He fell in love with the goddess Aphrodite but she rejected his advances. Zeus felt sorry for him and sent an eagle to steal her sandal and gave to Hermes. Glad to have it returned she made love to the god, the result of which was Hermaphroditus. He was raised by naiads in Mt. Ida in Phrygia
but left at fifteen. In Caria the nymph Salmacis spotted him and made advances but he rejected her. Thinking her gone he stripped and bathed in her pool, she grabbed and begged the gods to never let them part, they granted her wish and their bodies became one. Hermaphroditus then begged his parents that anyone else who bathed in the pool would be similarly cursed and they granted this. Eros is sometimes given as their son though more popularly he is a son of Aphrodite and Ares or an ancient deity born of Chaos.
Priapus/Priapos is another son though Dionysus is sometimes given as his father, or Zeus, or Pan, or Dionysus and Chione are his parents. Hera was said to have cursed the infant with ugliness and foul-mindedness while he was still in Aphrodite's womb as vengeance for Paris having picked the goddess as most beautiful over her and Athena. He was born with a large phallus but he was impotent. The gods threw him to earth in disgust and he was raised by shepherds before joining Pan and the satyrs.
Tyche the deity of fortune and prosperity for cities was sometimes said to be a daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite though other sources claim she is an Oceanid.
With the nymph Carmentis/Karmentis he had Euandros/Evander/Euander, a Greek hero who introduced the Greek pantheon, laws and alphabet to Italy and founded Pallantium, a city that would become Rome.
Chione/Khione was a beautiful woman with many suitors including Apollo and Hermes. Apollo came to her disguised as an old woman whilst Hermes put her to sleep and raped her. As a result she had twins, Philammon, the son of Apollo and Autolycus/Autolykus, the son of Hermes. She then boasted of her beauty, comparing herself to Artemis who killed her with an arrow for her vanity. Her father, Daedalion, in grief flung himself from a peak and was turned into a hawk by Apollo.
Philammon became a musician whilst Autolycus became a master thief who could turn objects into different things, could never be caught, was good with the lyre and at song. He was sometimes given as the grandfather of Jason of the Argonauts fame through his daughter Polymede/Polymele/Polypheme and was the grandfather of Odysseus through his daughter Anticlea, who had him either with Laërtes or with Sisyphus after he raped her or seduced her when he learned that it was Autolycus who had stolen his cattle.
He stole a helmet from Odysseus to test his skills, taught Heracles to wrestle and was sometimes said to be an Argonaut, though that may have been a different Autolycus. He also stole cattle or mares from Eurytus and he accused Heracles of the theft, Eurytus' son Iphitus believed Heracles was innocent and tried to help him, Heracles threw him from the walls in a fit of anger however and for this had to serve the Lydian queen Omphale for three years in penance. He later killed Eurytus and his sons and took his daughter Iole as a concubine.
Stilbe, a daughter of the morning star Eosphorus/Phosphorus/Heōsphoros, is sometimes given as Autolycus' mother.
With the princess Chthonophyle of Sicyon, he had a son, Polybus, who became king. She either also had Philas with Dionysus or married Philas.
With the Oceanid Daeira he had a son, Eleusis, a king of Eleusis whose son was was fed divine milk and placed in the fire nightly by Demeter who was in disguise. When Eleusis intervened she killed him. Sometimes Ogyges/Ogygos/Ogygus a primeval first king of Attica is given as his father. Sometimes Brimo is given as Eleusis' mother, Pausanias says she gave her virginity to Hermes. Brimo is said to be another name for the witch goddess Hecate/Hekate. She was connected with Hermes being a psychopomp like him (guide to the dead) and sometimes considered to be his consort because of their connection to the Underworld.
Dryope/Driope was a nymph, a daughter of Dryops a king and son of a river god, or a daughter of Eurytus, the king Heracles killed, or a Pleiade. She was seduced by Apollo in the form of a tortoise who bound her in the form of a snake and raped her, resulting in her outcast from the nymphs and a son, Amphissus, then later Apollo returned when she was serving at his temple, coiled about her in snake form again turning her into a poplar tree. According to Ovid she was turned into a tree by the nymph Lotis after plucking from her tree. Sometimes she is given as the mother of Pan with Hermes.
Pan was the god of shepherds, the wild, flocks and rustic music, depicted as a satyr he was usually accompanied by nymphs and satyrs. Sometimes his mother is given as a nymph called Penelope or as the Penelope who was wife to Hermes' great-grandson Odysseus.
Penelope the nymph is also said to be mother to Nomios with Hermes. Nomios was a shepherd, seducer and player of the panpipes. He was a Pane, a follower or aspect of Pan shaped like a human with goat horns who followed Dionysus.
With the nymph Sose, a prophetess, Hermes had another Pane, Agreus/Argeus who was a prophet and a skilled hunter.
With Erytheia, a princess of Iberia or a daughter of Geryon/Geryones, a giant who was the son of the naiad Callirrhoe and Chrysaor (the giant brother of Pegasus) who had one head but three bodies joined together or three heads and one body and owned cattle Heracles was sent to fetch, Hermes had a son, Norax. Norax became a prince of Iberia and colonised Sardinia.
With Iphthime, daughter of Dorus the founder of the Dorians, Hermes had the satyrs Lycus/Lykos, Pherespondus and Pronomus/Pronomos. They were known as the Satyroi and were messengers to Dionysus.
With Libye a princess of Libya he had a son, Libys.
With the nymph Ocyrhoe/Okyrrhoe he had a son Caicus/Kaikos who became Lord of Teuthrania.
Servius told of how Hermes loved a princess of Arcadia, Palaestra, whose brothers, Plexippus and Enetus, invented wrestling. When Palaestra divulged this to Hermes her father was furious and ordered his sons to punish the god so they dismembered him in his sleep. Hermes complained to Zeus who had the father, Choricus, eviscerated. Another version gives Palaestra as the daughter of Pandocus who lived at a crossroads and killed all passersby until Hermes suffocated him at the will of his daughter.
Philostratus spoke of another Palaestra, a manly daughter of Hermes who looked boyish, was unwomanly and invented wrestling.
Sometimes Peitho, the goddess of persuasion and seduction, an attendant of Aphrodite, and an Oceanid, is given to be Hermes' bride, according to Nonnus.
With Ares, Apollo and Hephaestus he unsuccessfully wooed Persephone, Hermes offered her a rod.
With the Danaide, one of the fifty daughters of the king Danaus, Phylodameia Hermes had a son, Pharis.
With Polymele/Polymela he had Eudoros/Eudorus. Hermes fell for Polymele when he saw her dancing to Artemis. Eudoros was raised by his grandfather Phylas and was the second of Achilles' five commanders during the Trojan War.
With the nymph Rhene, who was also a lover of the Argonaut Oileus, Hermes had a son, Saon who became king of Samothrake/Samothrace, he unified the people here and then divided them into five tribes. Sometimes his father is said to be Zeus.
With an unnamed nymph he had a son, Daphnis, a shepherd who invented pastoral poetry. He was exposed and found and raised by shepherds. A naiad Echenai/Nomia loved him but when he was drunk he betrayed her with a princess and for that she blinded him or turned him to stone.
Tanagra was a naiad Ares and Hermes competed for in a boxing match, which Hermes won. Hermes then carried her away. She was a daughter of the river god Asopus, her sisters Aegina, Thebe, and Plataea were abducted by Zeus, Corcyra, Salamis, and Euboea were abducted by Poseidon and Sinope and Thespia were abducted by Apollo.
With Theobule/Cleobule he was father to the ill-fated Myrtilos/Myrtilus who betrayed his master Oenomaus for love of his daughter Hippodameia and was subsequently cursed by Oenomaus for it before being betrayed by Hippodaemeia's husband Pelops and murdered by him. According to the myth he sabotaged Oenomaus' chariot leading to his death, so that Hippodaemeia and Pelops might marry as Oenomaus forced all of Hippodaemeia's suitors to race him and killed them if they lost. Myrtilus did this because he loved Hippodaemeia and was possibly promised her virgnity in exchange. When he tried to take his prize or rape her, he was killed by Pelops and died cursing their family.
With Thronia/Thronie, a princess of Egypt he had a son, Arabus/Arabos, the first king of Arabia.
Abderus/Abderos a prince of Opous and companion of Heracles was sometimes said to have been a son of Hermes' or of Thromius or Opian Menoetius making him Achilles' infamous companion Patroclus' brother. When Heracles captured the man-eating mares of Diomedes and left them in the care of Abderus they devoured him.
Angelina the personification/daimon of messages, tidings and proclamations was his daughter.
Dolops was another son, he died in Magnessa.
Hermes was also said to have male lovers- Amphion the son of Zeus who he granted a golden lyre to, Krokus/Krokos a companion Hermes accidentally killed with a discus and turned into a flower, much like the myth of Apollo and Hyakinthos, and Perseus who Hermes loaned his winged sandals to.
His Roman counterpart was Mercury/Mercurius who was similar to the Etruscan god Turms, god of messengers and travel, his mother was Maia Maiestas who was more important than her Greek counterpart, she was associated with growth and seen as an Earth goddess linked to Fauna, Magna Mater (a title for her and Cybele), she was also linked to Vulcan. Like Hermes he had winged sandals, talaria and a broad brimed hat with wings, petasos.
According to Ovid he carried Morpheus' dreams from Somnus' valley to dreamers.
He was sent by Jupiter to Aeneas to remind him to continue with his journey thus compelling him to leave his lover Dido, which he did in secret leading to her suicide.
Ovid also mentioned a lover, a nymph called Larunda/Larunde/Laranda/Lara, a naiad, daughter of the river god Almo. Larunda was beautiful and talkative and revealed to Juno Jupiter's affair with the wife of Janus, the nymph Juturna. For this Jupiter cut out her tongue and ordered Mercury to take her to the gateway to the Underworld, Avernus. Mercury fell in love with her on the way and either made love to her or raped her resulting in two sons, Lares/Lases, invisible guardians of the house, hearth, fields and other boundaries. Hermes then hid her from Jupiter in a cottage in the woods.
In Orlando Furioso he took Vulcan's net, which he used to capture his wife Venus committing adultery with Mars, and used it to capture the nymph Cloris. Cloris followed the sun scattering flowers after it and it was while she was doing this that Mercury caught her in the net.
There were very few differences between Mercury and Hermes, as they were both gods of thieves, travellers and merchants.
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