Blog week 10 - Final Blog - the importance of being Hermes

Over the weeks it has become clear that Hermes was an important part of the ancient Greek pantheon, where the gods were used to check each other’s balance and no one of them assumed  control over the others.  Though we have seen that Hermes was not a threat to Zeus’ sovereignty, he was much more the helper than the balance of power to Zeus which we have seen in previous posts.  It has been interesting and now I can see why Hermes has been included in the game ‘Rise of the Argonauts’, a game fundamentally about travel, but also a dialogue heavy game with a range of action scenes included in it. With all the other myths that surround Hermes you can see where the modern interpretation for Hermes comes from, if it is from the old movie based on the Odyssey, the Kalypso scene can be found here. Or the recently released film ‘Immortals’, find the trailer here.  Not all the gods are properly introduced, I believe that Hermes is represented by the god with the winged helmet and later on is wielding a sword; we know that he used a sword to slay Argos Panopes, mentioned in the very first blog entry.  In both these films he is represented as a young and fresh faced god, much like his representation in some of the Greek mythology, like the Odyssey.  Though he is also represented as being older, like on the Herms, as seen in a previous post where he is bearded. This is something that happened later to the ancient Greeks due to their diet, though it is not represented in modern interpretations of Hermes. This is possibly because he is a bit of fun character and trickster, which is most likely seen today as something of a more youthful trait.

Blog Week 9 – Dionysus: Rise to Christianity

This week’s lecture was solely based on Dionysus.  Having already done some work on Dionysus in week five I decided to take some time out from Hermes and create a short clip on a much debated topic; Dionysus and his comparisons to Jesus of Nazareth.  This clip was researched and created with my fellow student Alice Jennings.

Bibliography

Harris, S & Platzner, G, ‘Classical Mythology: Images & Insights’, McGraw-Hill, 2008

Price, S & Kearns, E, ‘Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion’, Oxford University, 2004

Seaford, R, ‘Dionysos’, Routeledge, 2006

Blog week 8 - Politics and Religion

Having looked at the Moodle site I already had an idea for the blog entry for this week, which will follow, however after the lecture I shall update the entry with any new ideas that I have come across from what I have learned.  One of the biggest events that involve Hermes is the incident of the Herms being vandalised in Athens in 415 BC, which involved the Athenian statesman Alcibiades, at least he was accused of this crime.  This is a great example of how religion being involved with politics can cause catastrophic events that can turn a society on itself. 

Alcibiades had attained much power and influence in Athens during his years as a general in the Peloponnesian war; it was first attempted by a man called Hyperbolus to have either Alcibiades or his rival Nicias ostracised.  This was a political manoeuvre that was brought in after the Phye incident in order to exile anyone gaining too much power, like Pisistratus, who became tyrant of Athens after this (Aristotle: 14-19).  Much like the god Hermes though, Alcibiades was able to talk and trick his way out of this situation. By secretly meeting with Nicias he was able to join his votes with Nicias’ and had Hyperbolus ostracised instead, interestingly ostracism was never used again after this (Rhodes 2011: 41).  Hyde points out that Alcibiades was one of only three characters in ancient Greek literature to be referred to as (polutropos), which can mean wily, much travelled or versatile.  The other two characters are Odysseus and Hermes.  This is interesting as Alcibiades is much like some of the other trickster characters we have come across.  Unlike Hermes it has been seen that he was not a welcome part of the societies that he was part of during his life, Hyde describes him as a “deceitful Athenian general and Socratic pretty-boy” (Hyde 2008: 52-3).

The next step in this drama was to take place in 414 BC, the Athenians, mainly under the direction of Alcibiades had planned the Sicilian expedition.  This was to help the Athenian allies against Syracuse (the main polis on Sicily), but with the eventual aim of placing Sicily under Athenian influence. This eventuality was scuppered when the night before the expedition the Herms in the city, as previously mentioned in other posts, were vandalised by being mutilated about the face.  This happened to almost all of them as Thucydides tells us in his history of the Peloponnesian war (Thucydides 6.27).

Alcibiades

This gave way to rumours and lies that circulated around the polis, eventually fingers were pointed at Alcibiades, though not for the correct reasons as we will see.  The expedition was allowed to go on, despite the vandalism done and many people trying to stop it.  Nicias and Alcibiades were leading the expedition and left. It was then decided to have Alcibiades recalled answering for the crime of damaging the Herms, not because he actually did it, which there was no proof of.  Alcibiades was seen as being too powerful and could possibly make a play for power and become a tyrant, so his political enemies decided to prosecute him.  It is also interesting to note that the Athenians did not consider this crime alone to be all that important and they in fact had to add another sacrilege to the charge in order to have Alcibiades recalled for trial.  This was the Eleusinian mysteries, where it is said that mock shows took place in certain citizen’s homes in order to mock the god Dionysus (Rhodes 2011: 47-9).  Furley states in his book 'Andokides and the herms: a study of crisis in fifth-century Athenian religion’, that the mutilation of the Herms was done by an anti-Alcibiades faction and that the Eleusinian was committed by a pro-Alcibiades faction.  We now know that this did not end well for democracy. Alcibiades jumped ship and ended up in bed with the Spartans, giving away valuable information on tactics and eventually convincing the Spartans to set up a permanent outpost in Attica, in Declea, where the Spartans had not gone to before because the Decleans had, in mythology, given Helen (of Troy) back to them after she had been kidnapped and raped by Theseus (Price & Kearns 2004: 245-6).

UPDATE: Unfortunately I discovered no further information for my topic from the lecture.  Though I did read Herodotus’ version of the Phye incident, which was a better written and more interesting version of the story.

Bibliography

Aristotle, ‘The Athenian Constitution’, Rhodes, P.J. Penguin, 1984

Thucydides, ‘History of the Peloponnesian War’, Kindle Edition

Furley 1996 'Andokides and the herms: a study of crisis in fifth-century Athenian religion'.  *Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Stuies* suppl. 65

Murray 1990 'The affair of the myseries: democracy and the drinking group', in O. Murray ed *Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposion* Oxford. 149-61.

Osborne 1990 'The erection and mutilation of the hermai'. *Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society* 31: 47-73

Price, S & Kearns, E, ‘Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion’, Oxford University, 2004

Rhodes, P.J. ‘Alcibiades: Athenian Playboy, General and Traitor’, Pen and Sword, 2011

Blog Week 6 - Challenging Zeus

This week’s lecture was about the female challenge to Zeus’ power in the pantheon; therefore it does not seem like a very poignant topic for Hermes.  This is where I consider though that the topic was interesting, why was Hermes not challenging the will of Zeus?  I have drawn a secondary reading from the Homeric Hymn discussed in more depth last week.  In the Hymn Zeus laughs loudly when Hermes is brought before him (Shelmerdine 1995: pp115: 389), unlike when Apollo comes before his father, it says that all the gods throughout the house of Zeus jump up when he comes near and the only one to not fear him is his mother Leto (Shelmerdine 1995: pp62: 2). I sense that for Hermes he would feel under an oath, which Ken Dowden says that Zeus had an epithet that referred to him as the god of oaths, Zeus Horkios (Dowden 2006: 80).  This shows also that Hermes does not wish to lose his new found acceptance by challenging Zeus for his power, or perhaps he knows that he is not powerful enough to mount a successful challenge on his father.  It says a few lines later in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes that:

“glorious Hermes obeyed, for the will of aegis-bearing Zeus easily persuaded him.”  (Shelmerdine 1995: pp115: 395-6)

Here are some examples of Hermes obeying Zeus.  Later on in the accepted canon of events Zeus decides that he wishes to have sexual relations with Alkmene, in order for him to produce a powerful son capable of protecting both mortals and immortals. It is fitting then that he must gain her consent for this and has Hermes help him for the ruse to work (Dowden 2006: 48-9).  Time and time again Hermes is used by Zeus as his messenger and to express his will. For example in the Odyssey, Hermes is used to be the messenger and helper to his own descendant Odysseus, though he would also be a descendant of Zeus as well.  Twice Hermes is involved, once saving Odysseus from being turned into an animal by Circe and then also demanding that the Nymph Kalypso let him go.  This is further backed up because Hermes is frequently the voice of Zeus in any of his dealings with the other gods.  A good example of this is in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound where near the end of the play Hermes tells Prometheus of his fate, which is to have his liver consumed every day by an eagle, interestingly the eagle is also a form that Zeus takes (Dougherty 2006: 70).  The last good example is found in Hesiod and completed by Apollodorus and mentioned in last week’s blog post.  Typhon was a threat born out of Hera’s jealousy of Zeus’ sexual scandals.  He was a massively powerful foe that not even the lightning bolt could defeat easily.  Zeus was debilitated and Typhon cut out Zeus’ tendons, incapacitating him and paving the way for him to assume power (Hesiod: 820-867).  However, Hermes as the loyal son, in Apollodorus’ version comes to the rescue and in true trickster fashion he sneaks in undetected and saves Zeus and the rest of the Greek pantheon (Apollodorus: 1.6.3)

Typhon

Bibliography

Apollodorus, ‘Library of Greek Mythology’, Trans, Hard, R, Oxford University, 1997

Dougherty, C, ‘Prometheus’, Routledge, 2006

Dowden, K, ‘Zeus’, Routeledge, 2006

Shelmerdine, S, ‘The Homeric Hymns’, Focus Publishing, 1995

Blog Week 5 – Zeus and legitimising Hermes

This week Zeus was the main focus of our studies, so I have decided to explore his relationship to Hermes and what this may have meant to the ancient Greeks, as a father/son relationship.  It is originally a complicated relationship with Zeus not recognising Hermes as his son, possibly because of mother Maia and not being of legitimate birth.  As already previously discussed in blog week two, Hermes goes on a mission to be recognised legitimately as Zeus’s son by, bettering his half brother Apollo, and he is then legitimised by Zeus.  This shows that it must be the father that recognises his offspring as legitimate, no one else.  Firstly before I give two more examples of Zeus’ divine legitimizing, it is important, I feel, to note that Greek mythology, especially the Homeric Hymns, seem to have no real chronological order.  In Apollo’s Homeric hymn he already has the lyre, though in Hermes he gives the lyre to Apollo in trade for the cattle whip.  Due to different authorship and no centralised power, like the Catholic Church has in the Vatican, it seems that the Greeks ran riot with their mythology.

As Apollo has already been mentioned I will start with him.  After Zeus impregnates Leto with both Artemis and Apollo, Hera interferes with the birth, terrorizing the world that there is nowhere for Leto to give birth.  It is only after Athena’s timely intervention that Hera allows Eileithyia, the Olympian midwife, to leave Olympus and see to the safe delivery of the children (Harris & Platzner 2008: 244).  Graf says that Apollo was so obviously Zeus’ favourite son that Leto even eclipsed his legitimate wife. Furthermore Leto stays calm when Apollo arrives and, takes his weapons; only then does Zeus offer him a drink in a golden cup (Graf 2009: 27).  This shows that Zeus always intended for Apollo to be legitimised, he was too powerful to not be; having killed a huge female snake at Delphi, bringing in parallels with Zeus’ own struggle with Typhon, who nearly overthrew him (Graf 2009: 30-31). 

The second example is that of the god Dionysus.  He has a very engaging opening, where Hera manages to trick his mother, Semele, getting Zeus to appear to her in his purest and most powerful form; the lightning bolt.  Dionysus is then sewn into Zeus’ thigh and becomes “twice born”.  From here his first enemy becomes Hera who punished anyone that tries to help him.  Hermes is then called upon by Zeus to take him away to Semele’s sister, Ino and her husband King Athamas.  Hera finds the infant Dionysus though and drives his protectors mad, he is then saved by Zeus himself who turns him into a goat and transports him far away (Harris & Platzner 2008: 273).  This again shows another example of Zeus legitimising his children against the will of his wife Hera.  More interestingly though it has also shown that only Hermes had to convince Zeus of his worth before being accepted into the Pantheon.

This picture is of Apollo when he confronts Hermes in Maia's cave

Bibliography

Apollodorus, ‘Library of Greek Mythology’, Trans, Hard, R, Oxford University, 1997

Hesiod, ‘Theogony’, trans, West, M, Oxford University, 2008

Graf, F, ‘Apollo’, Routledge, 2009

Harris, S & Platzner, G, ‘Classical Mythology: Images & Insights’, McGraw-Hill, 2008

Price, S & Kearns, E, ‘Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion’, Oxford University, 2004

Blog week 4 – Anthropomorphism: Depictions of Hermes

This week we were looking at anthropomorphism within Greek divinities.  It was interesting as this picture of the Herms was used.  This apparently shows a binary between anthropomorphism and it’s opposite. As the central part is of a stone column, and then the head and phallus is very human, with the beard and hair, with the phallus erect, which it normally was as James Davidson states in his book The Greeks and Greek Love (pp201).  He also says that they often had a thought for the day inscribe on them which was a very Athenian thing to do. We could not possibly imagine the Spartans, who were notoriously against long speeches and recording their thoughts with writing doing this.  I believe that these Herms are entirely an Athenian creation.  This comes from Thucydides, where he says (when the Herms were vandalised) that they were made in the local fashion (Thucydides 6.27).  Also Herodotus says that the Athenians learned the making of the Herms first from the Pelasgians, which they did with erect genitals (Herodotus 2.51.1).  It was more common for these markers for travellers were made using simple piles of stones, as noted by Hyde in his work already previously mentioned.  This means for me that the Herms in Athens was a beautification of the city, like the Parthenon, brought about due to the wealth and power of the Athenian Empire during the early and middle of the 5th century BC. 

We also discussed why we felt that the Greeks anthropomorphised their gods.  One uncomplicated reason for this is because the Greeks liked to track their heritage back to the gods. For example the Spartans believed that they were descended from Herakles, who is of course the son of Zeus himself.   Hermes himself had many offspring as he was greatly associated with the Nymphs, one of his most famous descendants was Odysseus.  From this list here we can see that Hermes had been linked too much more than just Ithaca and one of the greatest Tricksters of his time.   Pharis is a good example of the ancient Greeks tracing the lineage back to the gods; he founded the city Pharai in Messenia in southern Greece, here is a link for the rest of Hermes children, both mortal and Immortal.  This links back to the first blog post I made, where I said that the Greeks saw their culture as coming from divine origins, they also desired to see themselves as divine. 

Bibliography

Herodotus, ‘The Histories’, translated by Selincourt, A, Penguin books, 2003

Thucydides, ‘History of the Peloponnesian War’, Kindle Edition

Davidson, J, ‘The Greeks and Greek Love’, Phoenix, 2007

     

Blog week 3 – Scholarly Approaches to Hermes

This week a few new things have come to my attention. Firstly, whilst reading Vernant’s chapter on Hestia and Hermes in his Myth and Thought among the Greeks, (London 1983, 127-75), he states that Hermes is an extremely complicated character, because of all the epithets and roles he has in the Greek Pantheon.  I believe that this directly links back to the Homeric hymn being written much later than all the other sources, and that as these other godly personas were linked into one whole the hymn was then written as Hermes became more important.   Secondly, that Hermes was paired in the Greek pantheon with Hestia, she appears from all intents and purposes to be the exact Binary opposite of Hermes.  That being there isn’t much to her as a character. Her only major role being that of the hearth, something that was located in every Greek dwelling place, and also her not appearing in myths very often, if at all.  So for Vernant Hermes was the exact binary opposite of Hestia, Hermes being of movable space and Hestia being of fixed space.  They were also depicted with each other, as well as being inside the home, Hestia as the hearth and outside, Hermes as the Herms, they were put together in at least one market place in ancient Greece, known from a source by Pausanias;

"The market-place of Pharai [in Akhaia] is of wide extent after the ancient fashion, and in the middle of it is an image of Hermes, made of stone and bearded. Standing right on the earth, it is of square shape and of no great size. On it is an inscription, saying that it was dedicated by Simylos the Messenian. It is called Hermes Agoraios (of the Market), and by it is established an oracle. In front of the image is placed a hearth, which also is of stone, and to the hearth bronze lamps are fastened with lead. Coming at eventide, the inquirer of the god, having burnt incense upon the hearth, filled the lamps with oil and lighted them, puts on the altar on the right of the image a local coin, called a 'copper,' and asks in the ear of the god the particular question he wishes to put to him. After that he stops his ears and leaves the marketplace. On coming outside he takes his hands from his ears, and whatever utterance he hears he considers oracular." Pausanias, Description of Greece 7. 22. 2

Hyde takes a more concise approach to his scholarly view on Hermes, stating that he is a trickster god, much akin to Loki or Coyote from other myths and cultures; he sees everything Hermes accomplishes as coming from a need to eat (Hyde 2008: 34-38).  This shows that Hermes was simply just not happy with what he had been given in life, as the illegitimate son of Zeus and a possible courtesan mother Maia who was a nymph. 

Another subject that came up during the lecture was that Apollo was a feared and powerful god, obviously arriving before Hermes on Olympus.  I actually think that Hermes was a counter check to Apollo’s power as well, taking on some of his roles, and an even vaster array than that, though he is never considered a powerful warrior, he was able to trick Apollo in his Homeric Hymn.  He took on Apollo’s shepherding of flocks and was able to get the ability to divination by pebbles.  He was also able to move freely to Hades and back unhindered, something not many of the other gods could do. 

Bibliography

Hyde, L, ‘Trickster Makes this World: How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture’, Canongate Books, 2008

Shelmerdine, S, ‘The Homeric Hymns’, Focus Publishing, 1995

Vernant, J.P, ‘Myth and Thought among the Greeks’, MIT Press, 2006

Blog week 2 - Origins

This week was mainly about origin stories, so as my theme I have decided to reflect on the origins of Hermes and his parenting.  The Homeric hymn to Hermes is one of the most important sources for this; with this poem being one of the latest written it is generally the least respected.  Shelmerdine states in her book of translations of the Homeric hymns that there is no solid evidence but a study of the language used points toward a late 6^th century composition, possibly in Boiotia (Shelmerdine: 1995 91). The poem has a light-hearted theme and shows how, by trickery, rather than by physical might Hermes was able to become an Olympian.  Another story that shows this being achieved by physical strength is the myths surrounding Herakles, though this took him much longer than Hermes, showing perhaps that trickery is the quicker route to success.  Also interestingly explained to us by Hyde, that these trickster gods from around the globe are also shown to have pushed the boundaries of culture, as well as just generally being mischievous.  For example Hermes invents the lyre on his initial journey to steal Apollo’s herd of cows, he was then able to apologise to Apollo by giving him this lyre for him to play and still gain acceptance into the pantheon of Olympian gods (Shelmerdine 1995: 95).  Hyde has stated in his book ‘Trickster Makes this World’ that this shows a clever approach to the problem of hunger with trickster type characters in mythology.  Whereas, for example, Prometheus attempts to trick Zeus into picking the wrong sacrifice (he wraps the nice part of the meat in the intestines, which the ancient Greeks did not eat). Prometheus is later punished ironically for this folly by having his liver eaten everyday, which could represent hunger returning every day (Hyde 2008: 34-38).

http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanPrometheus.html

Hermes does not want to enter this state and instead shares the sacrifices out evenly, therefore becomes divine and avoids hunger pains this way.  This also shows that Hermes has avoided the classic trickster style of being caught, such as Prometheus.  Another example given by Hyde is that of Loki, who turned himself into a salmon to escape the other Norse gods.  He then made a net whilst he was wondering how he might be caught. The other gods then found this net, though it was burnt, they were able to make their own and they eventually went on to capture Loki with it (Hyde 2008: 18).  Hermes does not fall foul to this archetype; he actually becomes indispensible to the other gods as a messenger and especially to Zeus as his herald and voice (Price & Kearns 2004: 253).

Bibliography

Hyde, L, ‘Trickster Makes this World: How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture’, Canongate Books, 2008

Price, S & Kearns, E, ‘Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion’, Oxford University, 2004

Shelmerdine, S, ‘The Homeric Hymns’, Focus Publishing, 1995

Blog week 1 - Introduction

I recently became interested in Hermes whilst playing a computer game over the summer.  He was one of four main gods to appear in the game to help the protagonist, including Ares, Athena and Hades. The game is called ‘Rise of the Argonauts’ and features the adventures of Jason, though not correct to the literature of Apollonius of Rhodes, a link for the trailer is here.   While I could quite understand why these other immortals were featuring in the game, Hermes was a bit of a surprise addition for me; it was only later on in the summer while reading a biography on the Athenian Citizen Alcibiades did I really comprehend why.  During the Peloponnesian war, just before the disastrous Sicilian expedition, the Hermes statue was vandalised. The whole campaign was nearly cancelled and, eventually leads to Alcibiades being recalled for a trial.  This lead to him defecting to the Spartans and costing the Athenians dearly later in the war. Taken from Thucydides history on Peloponnesian war, in which Thucydides only writes about things he feels are important to the war (Rhodes 2011: 39).  This shows a real Importance for the Greek religion, where it was intertwined, not only with travelling, as Hermes was the messenger god, but also with war and politics.

Already mentioned was Hermes as the Herald for Zeus, though he was also important for other reasons.  One reason he was so important was due to the fact that he was the guide to the underworld for the dead, making him a fairly indispensible god in the eyes of the ancient Greeks.  There is also the possibility that Hermes was seen as a bit of a trickster (Hyde2008: 6), which draws parallels to another god, Loki; though it might be interesting to draw similarities between the two I doubt they were identical. It might be interesting to see what other ancient cultures had a trickster in their accepted canon and if this is what is considered needed to drive society on. For example when Hermes disguises himself to help Orestes take revenge upon Clytemnestra, or when he himself slays Argos.  He first attempts to lure Argos to sleep with his lyre, when this fails he slays him with his sword (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1. 583). This is taken from Ovid, though interestingly Apollodorus tells it differently, he says Hermes killed Argos with a stone that he threw (Apollodorus, 11.1).

Hermes is also an interesting god because of the games and other icons he is associated with, like the lyre and pan pipes that it was claimed that he invented in his Homeric hymn.  Like the plectrum on line fifty-three and then sandals on line eighty (Shelmerdine1995: pp95-8, 53-58).  This shows the Greeks building complicated personalities for their gods, but more poignantly that they saw their culture as being from a divine origin. They also saw a lot of their sports and leisure activities as divine, with rituals and sacrifices that preceded them.  A good example of this is the Olympic Games which honoured the King of the gods Zeus.

http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K11.11.html

Here we can see Hermes with his winged sandals and also his heralds’ staff or caduceus, which is another piece of equipment that a messenger god is usually equipped with.

Bibliography

Apollodorus, ‘Library of Greek Mythology’, Trans, Hard, R, Oxford University, 1997

Hyde, L, ‘Trickster Makes this World: How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture’, Canongate Books, 2008

Rhodes, P.J. ‘Alcibiades: Athenian Playboy, General and Traitor’, Pen and Sword, 2011

Shelmerdine, S, ‘The Homeric Hymns’, Focus Publishing, 1995

http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Hermes.html