Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

VIIl] Hermes as Agathos Daimon 295
with kerykeion summons the souls from the great grave-pithos
on the Jena lekythos 1 in Fig. 78. It is Hermes always who attends
Pandora-Anesidora, she of the
pithos, when she rises from the
earth. Always he carries his
kerykeion with the twin twisted
snakes, that kerykeion which
we saw gathered in the coils
of the Agathodaimon on the
coins of Alexandria 2 , a conjunction
now easily understood. We
understand now why Hermes,
as phallic herm, is god of fer-
tility of flocks and herds, but
also, as Psychopompos, god of
ghosts and the underworld.
He, a snake to begin with and
carrying always the snake-staff,
is the very daimon of reincar-
nation. Homer, who contrives
to forget nearly everything of
^J^RJ3J^JBiHTB^2i
any religious interest, cannot quite forget that; only, for death and
life, he, in his beautiful way, puts sleep and waking. When
Hermes led the ghosts of the slain suitors to Hades, he held
in his hand 3
His rhabdos fair and golden wherewith he lulls to rest
The eyes of men whoso he will, and others by his hest
He wakens.
Under the influence of the epic Hermes is eclipsed ; he was
never allowed into Olympos save as a half outsider, a messenger
probably, but for the Athenian cult of the Hermae, he could never
have forced an entrance at all and his functions would have gone
on being filled by the more pliable, upper-air Iris. Even though
'expurgated' by Homer, it is curious to note how as 'messenger'
he is almost omnipresent in popular art and literature in many a
1 P. Schadow, Eine attische Grablekythos 1897. See also Prolegomena, p. -43.
2 Supra, p. 278, Fig. 67.
3 Od. xxiv. 1—
4
Fig. 78.
...7-77 r dvdpQiv oixfxara de\yei
wv edtXei, tovs 8' avre Kai vTrviJiovras iyeipei.
;