Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

LATER ATTRIBUTES OF HERMES. 237
As driving the clouds across the bine fields of heaven, he CHAP.
V.
would be the messenger of Apollon, and this office would
soon be merged in that of the herald of Zeus and all the
gods. As such again, he would be skilled in the use of
words, and he would be employed in tasks where eloquence
was needed. Thus he appears before Priam in the time of
his ang*uish, not in his divine character, but as one of the
servants of Achilleus, and, by the force of his words alone,
persuades the old man to go and beg the body of Hektor. 1
So too he wins the assent of Hades to the return of Persephone
from the underworld. 2 Hermes thus became asso-
ciated with all that calls for wisdom, tact, and skill in the
intercourse between man and man, and thus he is exhibited
at once as a cunning thief, and as the presiding god of
wealth. 3
It is possible, however, or likely, that in later
times, the functions of Hermes were largely multiplied by a
confusion between words, the fruitful source of secondary
myths. If such words as £p/jLr)i>si'a and sp/jbrjvsvsiv, to interpret,
are to be traced to the name Hermes, there are others, as
spfia, a prop, sp/na/css, heaps of stones, sppuaTiQiv, to ballast a
ship, which clearly can have nothing to do with it. Yet on
the strength of these words Hermes becomes a god of
boundaries, the guardian of gymnasia, and lastly the patron
of gymnastic games ; and his statues were thus placed at
the entrance of the Agora. 4 The cause of this confusion
M. Breal finds in the word sp/nlSiov or sp/adSiov, commonly
1
2
11. xxiv. 400.
Hymn to Demeter, 335.
for all who wish to determine the
character of the god: and it is, to say
3
7T/\.outo5uti7s • iraAiyKairriXos. Orph.
xxviii. The so called Orphic hymns, as
we have seen, string together all the
the least, extremely difficult to discern
even the germ of this idea in the Iliad
or Odyssey. The Latin god Mercurius
epithets which the conceptions or in- is, it is true, simply a god of traffickers,
ferences of poets and mythographers (merx, mercari) : but he possessed not
had accumulated during a long series of
ages. Among these the epithet Trismegistos,
the
a single attribute in common with the
Hellenic Hermes ; and the Fetiales
' ter maximus Hermes' of persistently refused to admit th^ir
Ausonius, has degenerated into the identity, in spite of the fashion which
supposed Saracenic idol Termagant,
Grimm, I). M. 137.
4 Hermes Agoraios. We are thus
brought to the later developements which
connected him in some degree with
traffic and merchandise. Of this notion
attached the Greek myths to Latin
deities with which they had nothing to
do. The Hellenic Hermes is a harper,
a thief, a guide, or a messenger—but
not a merchant. Whatever honours he
may have apart from his inherent
not a trace can be found in the so-called
Homeric Hymn to Hermes, which must
powers of song and mischief
bestowed on him by Phoibos.
are
be regarded as of the first importance