HERMES, the name of a divinity more familiarly known as Mercury, the god of speech, eloquence, the sciences, traffic, theft, and herds. Under this name are comprised several mythological personages, who personified the external expression of thought, whether human or divine. The principal of these are Teti, Thoth, Mewl'. or Taut, the Egyptian Hermes, the Greek god properly so called, the Phenician Taaut. the Carthaginian Sumes, the Etruscan Turins, the Chaldocan lluvanai, and the Latin Mer curius. The oldest of these was undoubtedly the Egyptian, whose worship appears as early as the 11th dynasty. Thoth was generally represented with the head of en ibis (heb), which was his living emblem, and expressed his name in hieroglyphs. These, according to the legends, he had invented and revealed to the monarch 'llamas. Many religious books were believed to have been written by him, and all literary compositions were dedicated to him. He was scribe or clerk of the gods, and in the future state justified the good against their accusers, as he formerly had Osiris in the trial of that god and Typhon. In the contest between Osiris and Typhon, when Horns had torn off the dtadenx of Iris mother Isis, Thoth is reported to have replaced it with the head of a cow. Locally, he was lord of Sesenn, Hermopolis, the modern Eshmunin, but his worship was universal. He was a gilf-ereated, self-existent god, although some legends of later date make hint the son of Chutunis, or of the Nile, In his celestial character he was identified with the moon, oak, and was supposed to preside over that luminary. and the souls which made it their habitation. lie inscribed also the names of monarchs on the aslrt or Persca, the tree of life of the Egyptian paradise.
In the Phenician mythology, Taaut or Hermes seems derived from the Egyptian, and he was the son of .Visor or inventor of writing and tire sciences; while another form of his name, Sumes, is that of tire Punic Hennes of Carthage. It is, however, clear that the mune of Taaut is derived from the Egyptian Tet, " word" or "speech." The tradition of Hermes has passed to the Arabs, who recognize Hermes, one who lived 1000 years after Adam, called by tire Chaldees Ouriai or Duvanai, tire great master; another, surnamed 'Mani, doctor of the world, and liberator of men from error, a prophet and philosopher; and Trismeg,ist, tire thrice-great, who lived at Calovaz, in Chaldtea.
But the most important of all was the Greek Hermes. The various traditions which make him the son Of the Egyptian _Mins, whose name was never pronounced. or the sacred Thoth, are clearly Egyptian; that which derives his origin from Ouranos, and Heinera, is probably the Phenician myth. But the principal Hermes in whom the
actions of the others cen',ered was the sou of Zeus and Main. b. on Mt. Cyllene. in Arcadia, and originally a Pelasgian divinity who presided over cattle and commerce. His birth is placed subsequent to that of Apollo. Four hours after, according to the hymn, he left his cradle, and having found a tortoise, invented tire elAys, or lyre, usher its shell as a sounding-board, and making the strings out of the entrails of a sheep. At nightfall he stole fifty of the sacred herd of Apollo from Pieria, drove them to the banks of the Alpheius, slaughtered and dressed two of them. To escape detee lion, he had bound his feet with branches of tire myrtle and tamarisk. Apollo. miss ing his cattle, dragged Hermes before Zeus, at Olympus, who condemned him to restore them; but Apollo, enchanted by the sound of the newly-invented lyre, offered Hermes his cattle in exchange-, gave him his Whip or goad, taught him how to tend cattle, and presented him with the caduceus. In the !dad and Odyssey arc no traces of iris thievish propensities, which were introduced by the later pouts. In the Gigan tomachia lie liberated Zeus from Typhon, and restored him his limbs. Hermes was messenger, herald, and ambassador of the gods; he bound Prometheus to Caucasus; killed Argus whh the hundred eyes; liberated the wandering Io, etc. In the evenui of the Trojan war, he conducted the goddesses to the fatal judgment of Paris, brought Priam to Achilles, and was patron of Ulysses, to whom he gave the herb molys, to liberate him from Circe. Many heroical and other personages were descended from him. As god of the sciences, lie invented the alphabet from the flight of cranes. astronomy, and numbers, weights and measures, music, the lyre, and syrinx, gymnas tics, tactics, and the cultivation of the olive. Many festivals were celebrated to him in northern Greece and the islands, as at Phenea, Cyllette, and Athens; and some of these Hermafa resembled the Saturnalia, slaves being served on these occasions by their masters. His worship, in fact, extended all over the Peloponnesus, the islands of the ..Egefin. Asia Minor, and even Hesperia or Magna Grrecia. Amongst animals, tire tor toise. pig, lamb, and goat. and the young of beasts, were sacred to him; tire ibis and the gull (larux) amongst birds; and the 'Jahn-tree, black-thorn, cinquefoil, and plirshme amongst plants. Iiernies had a local worship in Samothrace. where he appeared as one of the Cabiri, under the name of Casmilos, the son of Hephaistos or Vulcan, and Cabira. In tire Elettsinian mysteries, he was represented by the hierocuryx.