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Hermes

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Key facts

Deity.type: Greek
Deity.name: Hermes
Deity.image: Hermes Ingenui Pio-Clementino Inv544.jpg
Deity.caption: Hermes Ingenui (Vatican Museums), Roman copy of the second century BC after a Greek original of the 5th century BC. Hermes has a kerykeion (caduceus), kithara, petasos (round hat) and a traveler's cloak.
Deity.god_of: God of boundaries, roads, travelers, merchants, thieves, athletes, shepherds, commerce, speed, cunning, language, oratory, wit, and messages
Deity.member_of: the Twelve Olympians
Deity.planet: Mercury
Deity.abode: Mount Olympus
Deity.symbol: Talaria, caduceus, tortoise, lyre, rooster, Petasos (winged helmet)
Deity.parents: Zeus and Maia
Deity.siblings: Several paternal half-siblings
Deity.Etruscan_equivalent

Article

43 sections

Contents

Name and origin
Iconography
Functions
As a chthonic and fertility god
As a god of boundaries
As a messenger god
As a shepherd god
Historical and literary sources
In the Mycenaean period
In the Archaic period
In the Classical period
In the Hellenistic period
In the Roman period
In the Middle Ages
Temples and sacred places
Festivals
Epithets
Argeïphontes
Local cults
Related to animals
Messenger and guide
Trade
Dolios ("tricky")
Thief
Patron of thieves
Additional
Mythology
Early Greek sources
Homer and Hesiod
Athenian tragic playwrights
Aesop
Hellenistic Greek sources
Lovers, victims and children
List of offspring
Genealogy
In Jungian psychology
Hermes in popular culture
See also
References
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links

Hermes (; ) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or "soul guide"—a conductor of souls into the afterlife.

In myth, Hermes functions as the emissary and messenger of the gods, and is often presented as the son of Zeus and Maia, the Pleiad. He is regarded as "the divine trickster", about which the Homeric Hymn to Hermes offers the most well-known account.