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250 SHEEP BREEDING AND
Minerva, who were also worshipped in Arcadia, may have con-
tributed to the same effect ; and especially this may have been
the case with Mercury, perhaps the only one of the higher Greek
divinities, who was conceived to have a benevolent character,
who was the father of Pan, and was himself reported to have
been born in a cave of the same mountain in Arcadia, on which
he was worshipped. He was a lover of instrumental music,
having invented the lyre, and he was frequently represented on
coins and gems, riding upon a ram, or with his emblems so
connected with the figures of sheep, and more rarely of goats
and of dogs, as to prove that in his character as the god of gain
the shepherds looked up to him together A\'ith his offspring to
bless the flocks and to increase their produce*. Hence Homer,
in order to convey the idea that Phorbas was remarkably suc-
cessful in the breeding of sheep, says that he was beloved by
Mercury above all the other Trojanst. The inhabitants of one
territory even in Arcadia, viz. the city of Phineos, honored
Mercury more than all the other gods, and expressed this sen-
timent by procuring a statue of him made by a celebrated
* Buonaroti (Osservazioni sopra alcuiii Jledaglioni Antichi, p. 41.) has exhibit-
ed brass coins, in one of which INIercury is riding on a sheep ; in a second the
sheep is seen with Mercurj-'s bag of money on its back ; and in a third the ca-
duceus is over the sheep, and two spikes of com, emblems of agricultural pros-
perity, spring out of the ground before it. Among the gems of the Baron de
Stosch, now belonging to the Royal Cabinet at Berlin, No. 381. Class II. repre-
sents Mercury sitting upon a rock with a dog by his side : Winckelmann ob-
serves, that " the dog is the sjTnbol of Mercury as the protector of shepherds."
Nos. 392, 393, 396-402, in the same collection, represent him with sheep, and
one of them (399.) exhibits him standmg erect in a chariot drawn by four rams,
and holding the bag or purse in his right hand and the caduceus in his left.
Some of the coins of Sicily appear to refer in like maimer to the character of
IVIercury as the promoter of the trade in wool.
The Honorable Keppel Craven (Excursions in the Abrazzi, London, 1838, vol.
i. ch. 4. p. 109.) mentions a temple at Arpinum, a city of Latium, which was
dedicated, as appears from an inscription found on its site, toMERCURIUS LA-
NARIUS. This title evidently represented INIercury as presiding over the
growth of wool and the trade in it.
Perhaps the very ancient idea of Mercurj' making the fleece of Plirj-xus
golden by his touch may have originated in the same view. See ApoUonius
Rhodius, Argonautica, 1. 11. 1144, and Scholion ad locum.
t II. xiv. 490. See also Hom. HjTnn to Mercurj', 569. Hesiod, Theog. 444.