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145-419: Hermes ( / ˈ h ɜːr m iː z / ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Ἑρμῆς ) 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
290-513: A mother goddess , perhaps Rhea or Cybele ; Pindar refers to maidens worshipping Cybele and Pan near the poet's house in Boeotia . The worship of Pan began in Arcadia which was always the principal seat of his worship. Arcadia was a district of mountain people , culturally separated from other Greeks. Arcadian hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in
435-630: A Message. The cry "The Great Pan is dead" has appealed to poets, such as John Milton , in his ecstatic celebration of Christian peace, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity line 89, Elizabeth Barrett Browning , and Louisa May Alcott . Representations of Pan have influenced conventional popular depictions of the Devil . In the late-eighteenth century, interest in Pan revived among liberal scholars. Richard Payne Knight discussed Pan in his Discourse on
580-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
725-427: A bust of a bearded Hermes. An erect phallus rose from the base. In the more primitive Mount Kyllini or Cyllenian herms, the standing stone or wooden pillar was simply a carved phallus. "That a monument of this kind could be transformed into an Olympian god is astounding," Walter Burkert remarked. In Athens, herms were placed outside houses, both as a form of protection for the home, a symbol of male fertility, and as
870-562: A charm on Argus's eyes with the caduceus to cause the giant to sleep, after which he slew the giant with a harpe . The eyes were then put into the tail of the peacock , a symbol of the goddess Hera. Hermes was called Cyllenian ( Greek : Κυλλήνιος ), because according to some myths he was born at the Mount Cyllene , and nursed by the Oread nymph Cyllene . In ancient Greek culture, kriophoros ( Greek : κριοφόρος ) or criophorus ,
1015-584: A collection, these works are referred to as the Hermetica . Though worship of Hermes had been almost fully suppressed in the Roman Empire following the Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I in the 4th century AD, Hermes continued to be recognized as a mystical or prophetic figure, though a mortal one, by Christian scholars. Early medieval Christians such as Augustine believed that
1160-443: A euhemerised Hermes Trismegistus had been an ancient pagan prophet who predicted the emergence of Christianity in his writings. Some Christian philosophers in the medieval and Renaissance periods believed in the existence of a " prisca theologia ", a single thread of true theology that could be found uniting all religions. Christian philosophers used Hermetic writings and other ancient philosophical literature to support their belief in
1305-558: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
1450-560: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
1595-540: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
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#17327731677541740-634: A form of the god Pan , who has been identified as a reflex of the Proto-Indo-European pastoral god * Péh 2 usōn , in his aspect as the god of boundary markers . The PIE root * peh 2 "protect" also shows up in Latin pastor "shepherd" (whence the English pastoral ). A zero grade of the full PIE form — * ph 2 usōn — yields the name of the Sanskrit psychopomp Pushan , who, like Pan,
1885-565: A god associated with the Athenian empire and its expansion, and of democracy itself, as well as all of those closely associated with it, from the sailors in the navy, to the merchants who drove the economy. A section of the agora in Athens became known as the Hermai, because it was filled with a large number of herms, placed there as votive offerings by merchants and others who wished to commemorate
2030-422: A god of nature, farmers, and shepherds. It is also possible that since the beginning he has been a deity with shamanic attributes linked to divination , reconciliation , magic , sacrifices , and initiation and contact with other planes of existence, a role of mediator between the worlds of the visible and invisible. According to a theory that has received considerable scholarly acceptance, Hermes originated as
2175-526: A god with strong chthonic, or underworld, associations. He was a psychopomp , leader of souls along the road between "the Under and the Upper world". This function gradually expanded to encompass roads in general, and from there to boundaries, travelers, sailors, commerce, and travel itself. Beginning with the earliest records of his worship, Hermes has been understood as a chthonic deity (heavily associated with
2320-603: A letter sent by the priest Petosiris to King Nechopso, probably written in Alexandria c. 150 BC, stating that Hermes is the teacher of all secret wisdoms, which are accessible by the experience of religious ecstasy. An epithet of Thoth found in the temple at Esna , "Thoth the great, the great, the great", became applied to Hermes beginning in at least 172 BC. This lent Hermes one of his most famous later titles, Hermes Trismegistus (Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος), "thrice-greatest Hermes". The figure of Hermes Trismegistus would later absorb
2465-477: A link between the household and its gods with the gods of the wider community. In 415 BC, on the night when the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War , all of the Athenian hermai were vandalized. The Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or from the anti-war faction within Athens itself. Socrates 's pupil Alcibiades
2610-524: A mediator and messenger who moves between worlds. Mercury became one of the most popular Roman gods, as attested by the numerous shrines and depictions in artwork found in Pompeii . In art, the Roman Mercury continued the style of depictions found in earlier representations of both Hermes and Turms, a young, beardless god with winged shoes or hat, carrying the caduceus. His role as a god of boundaries,
2755-490: A mediator between celestial and chthonic realms, as well as the one who facilitates interactions between mortals and the divine, often being depicted on libation vessels. Due to his mobility and his liminal nature, mediating between opposites (such as merchant/customer), he was considered the god of commerce and social intercourse, the wealth brought in business, especially sudden or unexpected enrichment, travel, roads and crossroads, borders and boundary conditions or transient,
2900-622: A messenger, and a psychopomp also remained unchanged following his adoption into the Roman religion (these attributes were also similar to those in the Etruscan's worship of Turms). The Romans identified the Germanic god Odin with Mercury, and there is evidence that Germanic peoples who had contact with Roman culture also accepted this identification. Odin and Mercury/Hermes share several attributes in common. For example, both are depicted carrying
3045-516: A name derived from the Latin merx , meaning "merchandise," and the origin of the words " mer chant" and "com merce ." The earliest form of the name Hermes is the Mycenaean Greek * hermāhās , written 𐀁𐀔𐁀 e-ma-a 2 ( e-ma-ha ) in the Linear B syllabic script. Most scholars derive "Hermes" from Greek ἕρμα ( herma ), "stone heap." The etymology of ἕρμα itself is unknown, but
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#17327731677543190-423: A nymph named Pitys , who was turned into a pine tree to escape him. In another version, Pan and the north wind god Boreas clashed over the lovely Pitys. Boreas uprooted all the trees to impress her, but Pan laughed and Pitys chose him. Boreas then chased her and threw her off a cliff resulting in her death. Gaia pitied Pitys and turned her into a pine tree. According to some traditions, Pan taught Daphnis ,
3335-593: A personal success in commerce or other public affair. The Hermai was probably destroyed in the Siege of Athens and Piraeus (87–86 BC) . There was a popular, now lost play by the tragedian Astydamas with Hermes as the primary subject. As Greek culture and influence spread following the conquests of Alexander the Great , a period of syncretism or interpretatio graeca saw many traditional Greek deities identified with foreign counterparts. In Ptolemaic Egypt , for example,
3480-472: A previous association of a more Odin-like Celtic god as the "Celtic Mercurius". A further Roman Imperial-era syncretism came in the form of Hermanubis , the result of the identification of Hermes with the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis . Hermes and Anubis were both psychopomps the primary attribute leading to their conflation as the same god. Hermanubis depicted with a human body and a jackal head, holding
3625-424: A reed. When the air blew through the reeds, it produced a plaintive melody. The god, still infatuated, took some of the reeds, because he could not identify which reed she became, and cut seven pieces (or according to some versions, nine), joined them side by side in gradually decreasing lengths, and formed the musical instrument bearing the name of his beloved Syrinx. Henceforth, Pan was seldom seen without it. Echo
3770-618: A reward the king of the gods placed him amongst the stars as the Constellation Capricorn. The mother of Aegipan, Aix (the goat), was perhaps associated with the constellation Capra. Sybarios was an Italian Pan who was worshipped in the Greek colony of Sybaris in Italy . The Sybarite Pan was conceived when a Sybarite shepherd boy named Krathis copulated with a pretty she-goat amongst his herds. In Pseudo-Plutarch 's De defectu oraculorum ("The Obsolescence of Oracles"), Pan
3915-459: A rustic son of Hermes, how to play the pan-pipes, and also fell in love with him. Women who had had sexual relations with several men were referred to as "Pan girls." Disturbed in his secluded afternoon naps, Pan's angry shout inspired panic ( panikon deima ) in lonely places. Following the Titans' assault on Olympus , Pan claimed credit for the victory of the gods because he had frightened
4060-596: A simile about the whole world being revealed as it really is: "seeing the Great God Pan". The novella is considered by many (including Stephen King ) as being one of the greatest horror-stories ever written. In an article in Hellebore magazine, Melissa Edmundson argues that women writers from the nineteenth century used the figure of Pan "to reclaim agency in texts that explored female empowerment and sexual liberation". In Eleanor Farjeon 's poem "Pan-Worship",
4205-484: A staff and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and both are travelers or wanderers. However, the reasons for this interpretation appear to go beyond superficial similarities: Both gods are connected to the dead (Mercury as psychopomp and Odin as lord of the dead in Valhalla ), both were connected to eloquent speech, and both were associated with secret knowledge. The identification of Odin as Mercury was probably also influenced by
4350-642: A teenager. As a patron of the gym and fighting , Hermes had statues in gyms and he was also worshiped in the sanctuary of the Twelve Gods in Olympia where Greeks celebrated the Olympic Games . His statue was held there on an altar dedicated to him and Apollo together. A temple within the Aventine was consecrated in 495 BC. Pausanias wrote that during his time, at Megalopolis people could see
4495-443: A variety of other esoteric wisdom traditions and become a major component of Hermeticism , alchemy , and related traditions. As early as the 4th century BC, Romans had adopted Hermes into their own religion, combining his attributes and worship with the earlier Etruscan god Turms under the name Mercury . According to St. Augustin, the Latin name "Mercury" may be a title derived from " medio currens ", in reference to Hermes's role as
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4640-524: Is a powerful but secretive nature-god, protector of animals, who casts a spell of forgetfulness on all those he helps. He makes a brief appearance to help Rat and Mole recover the Otter's lost son Portly. The goat-footed god entices villagers to listen to his pipes as if in a trance in Lord Dunsany 's novel The Blessing of Pan (1927). Although the god does not appear within the story, his energy invokes
4785-804: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
4930-444: Is always recorded alongside those of several goddesses, including Potnija, Posidaeja, Diwja, Hera, Pere, and Ipemedeja, indicating that his worship was strongly connected to theirs. This is a pattern that would continue in later periods, as worship of Hermes almost always took place within temples and sanctuaries primarily dedicated to goddesses, including Hera, Demeter, Hecate, and Despoina. In literary works of Archaic Greece , Hermes
5075-773: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system
5220-479: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
5365-411: Is associated with goats. Later, the epithet supplanted the original name itself and Hermes took over the role of psychopomp and as god of messengers, travelers, and boundaries, which had originally belonged to Pan, while Pan himself continued to be venerated by his original name in his more rustic aspect as the god of the wild in the relatively isolated mountainous region of Arcadia . In later myths, after
5510-469: Is both charming and selfish - emphasizing our cultural confusion about whether human instincts are natural and good, or uncivilised and bad. J. M. Barrie describes Peter as 'a betwixt and between', part animal and part human, and uses this device to explore many issues of human and animal psychology within the Peter Pan stories. Arthur Machen 's 1894 novella The Great God Pan uses the god's name in
5655-413: Is called the child of Penelope by Apollo . Apollodorus records two distinct divinities named Pan; one who was the son of Hermes and Penelope, and the other who had Zeus and a nymph named Hybris for his parents, and was the mentor of Apollo. Pausanias records the story that Penelope had in fact been unfaithful to her husband, who banished her to Mantineia upon his return. Other sources ( Duris of Samos ;
5800-474: Is dedicating the altar to the god Pan Heliopolitanus. He built the altar using his own personal money in fulfillment of a vow he made. " In the mystery cults of the highly syncretic Hellenistic era, Pan is identified with Phanes/Protogonos , Zeus , Dionysus and Eros . Numerous different parentages are given for Pan by different authors. According to the Homeric Hymn to Pan , he
5945-483: Is depicted both as a protector and a trickster. In Homer 's Iliad , Hermes is called "the bringer of good luck", "guide and guardian", and "excellent in all the tricks". In Hesiod 's Works and Days , Hermes is depicted giving Pandora the gifts of lies, seductive words, and a dubious character. The earliest known theological or spiritual documents concerning Hermes are found in the c. 7th century BC Homeric Hymns . In Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes describes
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6090-409: Is likely that Hermes is a pre-Hellenic god, though the exact origins of his worship, and its original nature, remain unclear. Frothingham thought the god to have existed as a Mesopotamian snake-god, similar or identical to Ningishzida , a god who served as mediator between humans and the divine, especially Ishtar , and who was depicted in art as a caduceus . Angelo (1997) thinks Hermes to be based on
6235-484: Is probably not a Proto-Indo-European word. R. S. P. Beekes rejects the connection with herma and suggests a Pre-Greek origin. However, the stone etymology is also linked to Indo-European *ser- ("to bind, put together"). Scholarly speculation that "Hermes" derives from a more primitive form meaning "one cairn " is disputed. Other scholars have suggested that Hermes may be a cognate of the Vedic Sarama . It
6380-519: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
6525-633: Is revealed to be in a state of half-death. Pan inspired pieces of classical music by Claude Debussy . Syrinx , written as part of incidental music to the play Psyché by Gabriel Mourey , was originally called "Flûte de Pan". Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune was based on a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé . The story of Pan is the inspiration for the first movement in Benjamin Britten 's work for solo oboe, Six Metamorphoses after Ovid first performed in 1951. Inspired by characters from Ovid 's fifteen-volume work Metamorphoses , Britten titled
6670-929: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Pan (god) In ancient Greek religion and mythology , Pan ( / p æ n / ; Ancient Greek : Πάν , romanized : Pán )
6815-526: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around
6960-708: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
7105-650: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with
7250-463: Is the caduceus , a staff with two intertwined snakes, sometimes crowned with a pair of wings and a sphere. The caduceus, historically, appeared with Hermes, and is documented among the Babylonians from about 3500 BC. Two snakes coiled around a staff was also a symbol of the god Ningishzida , who, like Hermes, served as a mediator between humans and the divine (specifically, the goddess Ishtar or
7395-508: Is the child of Hermes and an (unnamed) daughter of Dryops. Several authors state that Pan is the son of Hermes and " Penelope ", apparently Penelope , the wife of Odysseus : according to Herodotus , this was the version which was believed by the Greeks, and later sources such as Cicero and Hyginus call Pan the son of Mercury and Penelope. In some early sources such as Pindar (c. 518 – c. 438 BC) and Hecataeus (c. 550 – c. 476 BC), he
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#17327731677547540-451: Is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, rustic music and impromptus , and companion of the nymphs . He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr . With his homeland in rustic Arcadia , he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, wooded glens, and often affiliated with sex; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. In Roman religion and myth , Pan
7685-531: Is the only Greek god who actually dies. During the reign of Tiberius (AD 14–37), the news of Pan's death came to one Thamus, a sailor on his way to Italy by way of the Greek island of Paxi . A divine voice hailed him across the salt water, "Thamus, are you there? When you reach Palodes , take care to proclaim that the great god Pan is dead." Which Thamus did, and the news was greeted from shore with groans and laments. Christian apologists , including Eusebius of Caesarea , have long made much of Plutarch's story of
7830-495: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
7975-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
8120-625: The Olympians , if it is true that he gave Artemis her hunting dogs and taught the secret of prophecy to Apollo . Pan might be multiplied as the Pans (Burkert 1985, III.3.2; Ruck and Staples, 1994, p. 132 ) or the Paniskoi . Kerenyi (p. 174) notes from scholia that Aeschylus in Rhesus distinguished between two Pans, one the son of Zeus and twin of Arcas , and one a son of Cronus . "In
8265-472: The Thoth archetype. The absorbing ("combining") of the attributes of Hermes to Thoth developed after the time of Homer amongst Greeks and Romans; Herodotus was the first to identify the Greek god with the Egyptian ( Hermopolis ) (Plutarch and Diodorus also did so), although Plato thought the gods were dissimilar (Friedlander 1992). His cult was established in Greece in remote regions, likely making him originally
8410-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
8555-474: The prisca theologia, arguing that Hermes Trismegistus was a contemporary of Moses, or that he was the third in a line of important prophets after Enoch and Noah. The 10th-century Suda attempted to further Christianize the figure of Hermes, claiming that "He was called Trismegistus on account of his praise of the trinity, saying there is one divine nature in the trinity." There are only three temples known to have been specifically dedicated to Hermes during
8700-432: The rooster , the tortoise , satchel or pouch, talaria (winged sandals), and winged helmet or simple petasos , as well as the palm tree , goat , the number four, several kinds of fish, and incense. However, his main symbol is the caduceus , a winged staff intertwined with two snakes copulating and carvings of the other gods. In Roman mythology and religion many of Hermes's characteristics belong to Mercury ,
8845-419: The "death" of Pan came the advent of theology. To this effect, Chesterton claimed, "It is said truly in a sense that Pan died because Christ was born. It is almost as true in another sense that men knew that Christ was born because Pan was already dead. A void was made by the vanishing world of the whole mythology of mankind, which would have asphyxiated like a vacuum if it had not been filled with theology." It
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#17327731677548990-513: The "ram-bearer," is a figure that commemorates the solemn sacrifice of a ram. It becomes an epithet of Hermes. The chief office of the god was as messenger. Explicitly, at least in sources of classical writings, of Euripides 's Electra and Iphigenia in Aulis and in Epictetus 's Discourses . Hermes ( Diactorus , Angelos ) the messenger, is in fact only seen in this role, for Zeus, from within
9135-470: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into
9280-550: The Classical Greek period, all of them in Arcadia . Though there are a few references in ancient literature to "numerous" temples of Hermes, this may be poetic license describing the ubiquitous herms, or other, smaller shrines to Hermes located in the temples of other deities. One of the oldest places of worship for Hermes was Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, where some myths say he was born. Tradition holds that his first temple
9425-508: The Egyptian god Thoth was identified by Greek speakers as the Egyptian form of Hermes. The two gods were worshiped as one at the Temple of Thoth in Khemenu, a city which became known in Greek as Hermopolis . This led to Hermes gaining the attributes of a god of translation and interpretation, or more generally, a god of knowledge and learning. This is illustrated by a 3rd-century BC example of
9570-489: The Elizabethan poets. Douglas Bush notes, "The goat-god, the tutelary divinity of shepherds, had long been allegorized on various levels, from Christ to 'Universall Nature' (Sandys) ; here he becomes the symbol of the romantic imagination, of supra-mortal knowledge. ' " In the late-nineteenth century Pan became an increasingly common figure in literature and art. Patricia Merivale states that between 1890 and 1926 there
9715-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
9860-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
10005-495: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
10150-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
10295-685: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
10440-526: The Linear B evidence considered Hermes to be a uniquely Athenian god. This region had numerous Hermai , or pillar-like icons, dedicated to the god marking boundaries, crossroads, and entryways. These were initially stone piles, later pillars made of wood, stone, or bronze, with carved images of Hermes, a phallus, or both. In the context of these herms, by the Classical period Hermes had come to be worshiped as
10585-693: The Mediterranean world, and it is possible that the iconography of Hermes as "The Good Shepherd" had an influence on early Christianity, specifically in the description of Christ as "the Good Shepherd" in the Gospel of John. The earliest written record of Hermes comes from Linear B inscriptions from Pylos, Thebes, and Knossos dating to the Bronze Age Mycenaean period . Here, Hermes's name is rendered as e‐ma‐a (Ἑρμάhας). This name
10730-478: The Temple of Pan at Apollonopolis Magna in ancient Egypt . In the fourth century BC Pan was depicted on the coinage of Pantikapaion . Archaeologists, while excavating a Byzantine church of around 400 AD in Banyas , discovered in the walls of the church an altar of the god Pan with a Greek inscription, dating back to the second or third century AD. The inscription reads, " Atheneon son of Sosipatros of Antioch
10875-650: The Trojan war. Herodotus concluded that that would be when the Greeks first learnt the name of Pan. The goat-god Aegipan was nurtured by Amalthea with the infant Zeus in Crete. In Zeus' battle with Typhon , Aegipan and Hermes stole back Zeus' "sinews" that Typhon had hidden away in the Corycian Cave . Pan aided his foster-brother in the battle with the Titans by letting out a horrible screech and scattering them in terror. According to some traditions, Aegipan
11020-602: The Vergilian commentator Servius ) report that Penelope slept with all 108 suitors in Odysseus' absence, and gave birth to Pan as a result. This myth reflects the folk etymology that equates Pan's name (Πάν) with the Greek word for "all" (πᾶν). According to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology , Apollodorus has his parents as Hermes and Oeneis, while scholia on Theocritus have Aether and Oeneis. Like other nature spirits, Pan appears to be older than
11165-458: The Worship of Priapus (1786) as a symbol of creation expressed through sexuality. "Pan is represented pouring water upon the organ of generation; that is, invigorating the active creative power by the prolific element." John Keats 's "Endymion" (1818) opens with a festival dedicated to Pan where a stanzaic hymn is sung in praise of him. Keats drew most of his account of Pan's activities from
11310-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
11455-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
11600-429: The aptness of the name: "for he may lawfully be said in the Greek tongue to be Pan, since he is our all. For all that we are, all that we live, all that we have, all that we hope, is him, by him, from him, and in him." In this interpretation, Rabelais was following Guillaume Postel in his De orbis terrae concordia . The nineteenth-century visionary Anne Catherine Emmerich , in a twist echoed nowhere else, claims that
11745-613: The attackers. In the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), it is said that Pan favored the Athenians and so inspired panic in the hearts of their enemies, the Persians. In two late Roman sources, Hyginus and Ovid , Pan is substituted for the satyr Marsyas in the theme of a musical competition ( agon ), and the punishment by flaying is omitted. Pan once had the audacity to compare his music with that of Apollo , and to challenge Apollo,
11890-537: The caduceus in modern times, is used by most Western physicians as a badge of their profession. After the Renaissance, the caduceus also appeared in the heraldic crests of several, and currently is a symbol of commerce. Hermes's sandals, called pédila by the Greeks and talaria by the Romans, were made of palm and myrtle branches but were described as beautiful, golden and immortal, made a sublime art, able to take
12035-591: The caduceus. In addition to his function of guiding souls to the afterlife, Hermanubis represented the Egyptian priesthood the investigation of truth. Beginning around the turn of the 1st century AD, a process began by which, in certain traditions Hermes became euhemerised – that is, interpreted as a historical, mortal figure who had become divine or elevated to godlike status in legend. Numerous books of wisdom and magic (including astrology, theosophy, and alchemy) were attributed to this "historical" Hermes, usually identified in his Alexandrian form of Hermes Trismegistus. As
12180-418: The changes from the threshold, agreements and contracts, friendship, hospitality, sexual intercourse , games, data, the draw, good luck, the sacrifices and the sacrificial animals, flocks and shepherds and the fertility of land and cattle. In Athens, Hermes Eion came to represent the Athenian naval superiority in their defeat of the Persians, under the command of Cimon, in 475 BC. In this context, Hermes became
12325-628: The chase. Being a rustic god, Pan was not worshipped in temples or other built edifices, but in natural settings, usually caves or grottoes such as the one on the north slope of the Acropolis of Athens . These are often referred to as the Cave of Pan. The only exceptions are the Temple of Pan on the Neda River gorge in the southwestern Peloponnese – the ruins of which survive to this day – and
12470-461: The cult of Pan was reintroduced to Attica, Pan was said to be Hermes's son. The image of Hermes evolved and varied along with Greek art and culture. In Archaic Greece he was usually depicted as a mature man, bearded, and dressed as a traveler, herald, or shepherd. This image remained common on the Hermai, which served as boundary markers, roadside markers, and grave markers, as well as votive offerings. In Classical and Hellenistic Greece , Hermes
12615-490: The death of Pan. Due to the word "all" in Greek also being "pan," a pun was made that "all demons" had perished. In Rabelais ' Fourth Book of Pantagruel (sixteenth century), the Giant Pantagruel , after recollecting the tale as told by Plutarch, opines that the announcement was actually about the death of Jesus Christ , which did take place at about the same time (towards the end of Tiberius ' reign), noting
12760-590: The detailed illustrated depictions of Pan included in the volume are by the artists Giorgio Ghisi , Sir James Thornhill , Bernard Picart , Agostino Veneziano , Vincenzo Cartari , and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo . In the Percy Jackson novels , author Rick Riordan uses "The Great God Pan is dead" quote as a plot point in the novel The Sea of Monsters , and in The Battle of the Labyrinth Pan
12905-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of
13050-407: The earth or underworld). As a chthonic deity, the worship of Hermes also included an aspect relating to fertility , with the phallus being included among his major symbols. The inclusion of phallic imagery associated with Hermes and placed, in the form of herma , at the entrances to households may reflect a belief in ancient times that Hermes was a symbol of the household's fertility, specifically
13195-618: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute
13340-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in
13485-408: The god of the lyre , to a trial of skill. Tmolus , the mountain-god, was chosen to judge. Pan blew on his pipes and gave great satisfaction with his rustic melody to himself and to his faithful follower, Midas , who happened to be present. Then Apollo struck the strings of his lyre. Tmolus at once awarded the victory to Apollo, and all but Midas agreed with the judgment. Midas dissented and questioned
13630-465: The god's birth and his theft of Apollo 's sacred cattle. In this hymn, Hermes is invoked as a god "of many shifts" ( polytropos ), associated with cunning and thievery, but also a bringer of dreams and a night guardian. He is said to have invented the chelys lyre , as well as racing and the sport of wrestling . The cult of Hermes flourished in Attica , and many scholars writing before the discovery of
13775-399: The god. Sacrifices to Hermes involved honey, cakes, pigs, goats, and lambs. In the city of Tanagra , it was believed that Hermes had been nursed under a wild strawberry tree , the remains of which were held there in the shrine of Hermes Promachus , and in the hills Phene ran three waterways that were sacred to him, because he was believed to have been bathed there at birth. Hermes's feast
13920-404: The gods (since he can convey messages between the divine realms, the underworld, and the world of mortals). As a messenger and divine herald, he wears winged sandals (or, in Roman art influenced by Etruscan depictions of Turms , a winged cap). Hermes was known as the patron god of flocks, herds, and shepherds, an attribute possibly tied to his early origin as an aspect of Pan. In Boeotia , Hermes
14065-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
14210-641: The justice of the award. Apollo would not suffer such a depraved pair of ears any longer and turned Midas' ears into those of a donkey . Pan could be multiplied into a swarm of Pans, and even be given individual names, as in Nonnus ' Dionysiaca , where the god Pan had twelve sons that helped Dionysus in his war against the Indians. Their names were Kelaineus, Argennon, Aigikoros, Eugeneios, Omester, Daphoenus, Phobos, Philamnos, Xanthos, Glaukos, Argos, and Phorbas. Two other Pans were Agreus and Nomios . Both were
14355-414: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
14500-413: The love of any man but was enraptured by Narcissus . As Echo was cursed by Hera to only be able to repeat words that had been said by someone else, she could not speak for herself. She followed Narcissus to a pool, where he fell in love with his own reflection and changed into a narcissus flower. Echo wasted away, but her voice could still be heard in caves and other such similar places. Pan also loved
14645-640: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
14790-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
14935-413: The monster Typhon, he dived into the river Nile ; the parts above the water remained a goat, but those under the water transformed into a fish. Pan is famous for his sexual prowess and is often depicted with a phallus . Diogenes of Sinope , speaking in jest, related a myth of Pan learning masturbation from his father, Hermes , and teaching the habit to shepherds. There was a legend that Pan seduced
15080-510: The moon goddess Selene , deceiving her with a sheep's fleece. One of the famous myths of Pan involves the origin of his pan flute , fashioned from lengths of hollow reed. Syrinx was a lovely wood- nymph of Arcadia, daughter of Ladon , the river-god. As she was returning from the hunt one day, Pan met her. To escape from his importunities, the fair nymph ran away and didn't stop to hear his compliments. He pursued from Mount Lycaeum until she came to her sisters who immediately changed her into
15225-563: The movement, "Pan: who played upon the reed pipe which was Syrinx, his beloved." The British rock band Pink Floyd named its first album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in reference to Pan as he appears in The Wind in the Willows . Andrew King, Pink Floyd's manager, said Syd Barrett "thought Pan had given him an understanding into the way nature works. It formed into his holistic view of
15370-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
15515-536: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It
15660-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
15805-573: The pages of the Odyssey . The messenger divine and herald of the Gods, he wears the gifts from his father, the petasos and talaria. Oh mighty messenger of the gods of the upper and lower worlds... (Aeschylus). Hermes is sometimes depicted in art works holding a purse. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ )
15950-543: The patron god of travelers and sailors. By the 5th century BC, Hermai were also in common use as grave monuments, emphasizing Hermes's role as a chthonic deity and psychopomp. This was probably his original function, and he may have been a late inclusion in the Olympic pantheon; Hermes is described as the "youngest" Olympian, and some myths, including his theft of Apollo's cows, describe his initial coming into contact with celestial deities. Hermes therefore came to be worshiped as
16095-494: The phrase "the Great Pan" was actually a demonic epithet for Jesus Christ , and that "Thamus, or Tramus" was a watchman in the port of Nicaea , who, at the time of the other spectacular events surrounding Christ's death, was then commissioned to spread this message, which was later garbled "in repetition." In modern times, G. K. Chesterton has repeated and amplified the significance of the "death" of Pan, suggesting that with
16240-410: The potency of the male head of the household in producing children. The association between Hermes and the underworld is related to his function as a god of boundaries (the boundary between life and death), but he is considered a psychopomp , a deity who helps guide souls of the deceased to the afterlife, and his image was commonly depicted on gravestones in classical Greece. In Ancient Greece, Hermes
16385-423: The present day, several of his characteristic objects are present as identification, but not always all together. Among these objects is a wide-brimmed hat, the petasos, widely used by rural people of antiquity to protect themselves from the sun, and that in later times was adorned with a pair of small wings; sometimes this hat is not present, and may have been replaced with wings rising from the hair. Another object
16530-491: The prime Pan, reflecting his dual nature as both a wise prophet and a lustful beast. Aegipan , literally "goat-Pan," was a Pan who was fully goatlike, rather than half-goat and half-man. When the Olympians fled from the monstrous giant Typhoeus and hid themselves in animal form, Aegipan assumed the form of a fish-tailed goat. Later he came to the aid of Zeus in his battle with Typhoeus, by stealing back Zeus' stolen sinews. As
16675-472: The retinue of Dionysos , or in depictions of wild landscapes, there appeared not only a great Pan, but also little Pans, Paniskoi, who played the same part as the Satyrs ". Herodotus wrote that according to Egyptian chronology, Pan was the most ancient of the gods; but according to the version in which Pan was the son of Hermes and Penelope, he was born only eight hundred years before Herodotus, and thus after
16820-446: The roads with the speed of wind. Originally, they had no wings, but late in the artistic representations, they are depicted. In certain images, the wings spring directly from the ankles. Hermes has also been depicted with a purse or a bag in his hands, wearing a robe or cloak, which had the power to confer invisibility. His weapon was a harpe , which killed Argos ; it was also lent to Perseus to kill Medusa and Cetus . Hermes began as
16965-456: 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. Hermes's attributes and symbols include the herma ,
17110-506: The ruins of the temple of Hermes Acacesius. In addition, the Tricrena (Τρίκρηνα, meaning Three Springs) mountains at Pheneus were sacred to Hermes, because three springs were there and according to the legend, Hermes was washed in them, after birth, by the nymphs of the mountain. Furthermore, at Pharae there was a water sacred to Hermes. The name of the spring was Hermes's stream and the fish in it were not caught, being considered sacred to
17255-416: The sailors actually heard the excited shouts of the worshipers of Tammuz , Θαμούς πανμέγας τέθνηκε ( Thamoús panmégas téthnēke , "All-great Tammuz is dead!"), and misinterpreted them as a message directed to an Egyptian sailor named 'Thamus': "Great Pan is Dead!" Van Teslaar explains, "[i]n its true form the phrase would have probably carried no meaning to those on board who must have been unfamiliar with
17400-458: The sons of Hermes, Agreus' mother being the nymph Sose, a prophetess: he inherited his mother's gift of prophecy, and was also a skilled hunter. Nomios' mother was Penelope (not the same as the wife of Odysseus). He was an excellent shepherd, seducer of nymphs, and musician upon the shepherd's pipes. Most of the mythological stories about Pan are actually about Nomios, not the god Pan. Although, Agreus and Nomios could have been two different aspects of
17545-530: The speaker tries to summon Pan to life after feeling "a craving in me", wishing for a "spring-tide" that will replace the stagnant "autumn" of the soul. A dark version of Pan's seductiveness appears in Margery Lawrence 's Robin's Rath , both giving and taking life and vitality. Pan is the eponymous "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" in the seventh chapter of Kenneth Grahame 's The Wind in the Willows (1908). Grahame's Pan, unnamed but clearly recognisable,
17690-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
17835-568: The supreme Ningirsu ). In Greece, other gods have been depicted holding a caduceus, but it was mainly associated with Hermes. It was said to have the power to make people fall asleep or wake up, and also made peace between litigants, and is a visible sign of his authority, being used as a sceptre. A similar-appearing but distinct symbol is the Rod of Asclepius , associated with the patron of medicine and son of Apollo , Asclepius , which bears only one snake. The Rod of Asclepius , occasionally conflated with
17980-476: The twentieth-century Neopagan movement . Many modern scholars consider Pan to be derived from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European god *Péh₂usōn , whom they believe to have been an important pastoral deity ( *Péh₂usōn shares an origin with the modern English word "pasture"). The Rigvedic psychopomp god Pushan (from PIE zero grade *Ph₂usōn ) is believed to be a cognate of Pan. The connection between Pan and Pushan, both of whom are associated with goats,
18125-507: The world." Brian Jones , a founding member of The Rolling Stones , strongly identified with Pan. He produced the live album Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka , about a Moroccan festival that evoked the ancient Roman rites of Pan. Musician Mike Scott of the Waterboys refers to Pan as an archetypal force within us all, and talks about his search for “The Pan Within",
18270-445: The worship of Tammuz which was a transplanted, and for those parts, therefore, an exotic custom." Certainly, when Pausanias toured Greece about a century after Plutarch, he found Pan's shrines, sacred caves and sacred mountains still very much frequented. However, a naturalistic explanation might not be needed. For example, William Hansen has shown that the story is quite similar to a class of widely known tales known as Fairies Send
18415-661: The younger folk of the village to revel in the summer twilight, while the vicar of the village is the only person worried about the revival of worship of the old pagan god. Pan features as a prominent character in Tom Robbins ' Jitterbug Perfume (1984). The British writer and editor Mark Beech of Egaeus Press published in 2015 the limited-edition anthology Soliloquy for Pan which includes essays and poems such as "The Rebirthing of Pan" by Adrian Eckersley, "Pan's Pipes" by Robert Louis Stevenson , "Pan with Us" by Robert Frost , and "The Death of Pan" by Lord Dunsany . Some of
18560-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
18705-520: Was a nymph who was a great singer and dancer and scorned the love of any man. This angered Pan, a lecherous god, and he instructed his followers to kill her. Echo was torn to pieces and spread all over Earth. The goddess of the Earth, Gaia , received the pieces of Echo, whose voice remains repeating the last words of others. In some versions, Echo and Pan had two children: Iambe and Iynx . In other versions, Pan had fallen in love with Echo, but she scorned
18850-399: Was a phallic god of boundaries. His name, in the form herma , was applied to a wayside marker pile of stones and each traveler added a stone to the pile. In the 6th century BC, Hipparchus , the son of Pisistratus , replaced the cairns that marked the midway point between each village deme at the central agora of Athens with a square or rectangular pillar of stone or bronze topped by
18995-480: Was also called Atlantiades ( Greek : Ατλαντιάδης ), because his mother, Maia was the daughter of Atlas . Hermes's epithet Argeïphontes ( Ancient Greek : Ἀργειφόντης ; Latin : Argicida ), meaning "slayer of Argus", recalls the slaying of the hundred-eyed giant Argus Panoptes by the messenger god. Argus was watching over the heifer-nymph Io in the sanctuary of Queen Hera , herself in Argos. Hermes placed
19140-568: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
19285-505: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
19430-470: Was an "astonishing resurgence of interest in the Pan motif". He appears in poetry, in novels and children's books, and is referenced in the name of the character Peter Pan . In the Peter Pan stories, Peter represents a golden age of pre-civilisation in both the minds of very young children (before enculturation and education), and in the natural world outside the influence of humans. Peter Pan's character
19575-1175: Was built by Lycaon . From there, the Hermes cult would have been taken to Athens, from which it radiated to the whole of Greece. In the Roman period, additional temples to Hermes (Mercury) were constructed across the Empire, including several in modern-day Tunisia. Mercury's temple in Rome was situated in the Circus Maximus , between the Aventine and Palatine hills, and was built in 495 BC. In most places, temples were consecrated to Hermes in conjunction with Aphrodite, as in Attica, Arcadia, Crete, Samos and in Magna Graecia. Several ex-votos found in his temples revealed his role as initiator of young adulthood, among them soldiers and hunters, since war and certain forms of hunting were seen as ceremonial initiatory ordeals. This function of Hermes explains why some images in temples and other vessels show him as
19720-455: Was first identified in 1924 by the German scholar Hermann Collitz . The familiar form of the name Pan is contracted from earlier Πάων , derived from the root * peh₂- (guard, watch over). According to Edwin L. Brown, the name Pan is probably a cognate with the Greek word ὀπάων "companion". In his earliest appearance in literature, Pindar 's Pythian Ode iii. 78, Pan is associated with
19865-487: Was frequently identified with Faunus , a nature god who was the father of Bona Dea , sometimes identified as Fauna ; he was also closely associated with Silvanus , due to their similar relationships with woodlands, and Inuus , a vaguely-defined deity also sometimes identified with Faunus. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement of western Europe and also in
20010-444: Was interpreted with concurrent meanings in all four modes of medieval exegesis : literally as historical fact, and allegorically as the death of the ancient order at the coming of the new. In more modern times, some have suggested a possible naturalistic explanation for the myth. For example, Robert Graves ( The Greek Myths ) reported a suggestion that had been made by Salomon Reinach and expanded by James S. Van Teslaar that
20155-407: Was suspected of involvement, and one of the charges eventually made against Socrates which led to his execution 16 years later was that he had either corrupted Alcibiades or failed to guide him away from his moral corruption. In association with his role as a psychopomp and god who is able to easily cross boundaries, Hermes is predominantly worshiped as a messenger, often described as the messenger of
20300-510: Was the Hermaea , which was celebrated with sacrifices to the god and with athletics and gymnastics, possibly having been established in the 6th century BC, but no documentation on the festival before the 4th century BC survives. However, Plato said that Socrates attended a Hermaea. Of all the festivals involving Greek games, these were the most like initiations because participation in them was restricted to young boys and excluded adults. Hermes
20445-557: Was the son of Pan, rather than his father. The constellation Capricornus is traditionally depicted as a sea-goat , a goat with a fish's tail (see "Goatlike" Aigaion called Briareos, one of the Hecatonchires ). A myth reported as "Egyptian" in Hyginus 's Poetic Astronomy (which would seem to be invented to justify a connection of Pan with Capricorn) says that when Aegipan —that is Pan in his goat-god aspect —was attacked by
20590-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
20735-406: Was usually depicted as a young, athletic man lacking a beard. When represented as Logios (Greek: Λόγιος, speaker), his attitude is consistent with the attribute. Phidias left a statue of a famous Hermes Logios and Praxiteles another, also well known, showing him with the baby Dionysus in his arms. At all times, however, through the Hellenistic periods, Roman, and throughout Western history into
20880-451: Was worshiped for having saved the town from a plague by carrying a ram or calf around the city walls. A yearly festival commemorated this event, during which a lamb would be carried around the city by "the most handsome boy" and then sacrificed, in order to purify and protect the city from disease, drought, and famine. Numerous depictions of Hermes as a shepherd god carrying a lamb on his shoulders ( Hermes kriophoros ) have been found throughout
21025-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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