What are some cool facts about the Greek god Hermes?
Hermes (Mercury) is cool all the way to the ground. Usually represented as young man, he is one of the oldest gods. Hermes was at first a daemon haunting heaps of stone, or perhaps a stone, set up by the roadside. Check out the “hermae,” little phallic statues that were all over. He was a secondary figure in myth, mostly the messenger of Zeus, but as such is represented as an ideal athlete and orator. As a newborn, he invented the lyre and stole cattle. He represents fertility, necromancy (although he is not to be confused with Hermes Trimegistos and hence the magical adjective hermetic), thievery and athletics. He also guides the souls of the Dead to Hades, and is thus unlike all other gods and heroes, who inhabit either the upper or the lower regions, not both. There’s an upside-down aspect to his cult. At the main festival in his name, the Hermaea, the masters waited upon their slaves as they feasted.In Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and the nymph Maia.
