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