On Hermes: Toward an Interpretation of a Fundamental Deity
Creators: name: Green, Lucca
Publisher: name: My University
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Hermes
subject: Herms
subject: Athenian Imperialism
subject: Mutilation of the Herms
subject: Dissent
subject: Classical Studies
subject: Humanities
subject: FOS: Humanities

description: This is an intervention. The Mutilation of the Herms was an act of dissent, not a prank or loyalty-crime as popularly asserted. With this for a starting point, I present a novel interpretation of the act itself and a dynamic presentation of the god at issue. The Mutilation was an act of demonstrative and revelatory dissent, I argue, demonstrating the presumed result of the Sicilian Expedition (self-destruction) while also revealing the immaturity of the voting body of males in the city through the presentation of a debearded-and-erect herm: a pubescent male, awash in hormonal responses but lacking the experientially acquired wisdom that accumulates with age to culminate in a fully matured capital-m Man. Not here in this city, declares the fully erect and youth-faced herms. There are dozens of alternative interpretations depending on what aspect of Hermes one prefers: as this work also demonstrates Hermes had a hand in everything (whence one of his sons is called simply ‘All,’ Pan). We begin with what was damaged: the beards were mutilated, I argue, not the phalloi as traditionally held. Discussion turns then to the herms themselves: their identificatory capacities as resevoirs of our own projected selves leads to their presence within ancient training facilities, gymnásia, and the herms deployed there as epinician commemorations, as well as Hermes’ significance to maturing males. The herm’s capacity to generate distinction is next considered, whether as a mark of education or initiation, or even Athenian nationalism. Next I turn to Hermes’ mediatory capacities in terms of space, place, gender and existence. The role of Hermes and his herms in frontiers (wild spaces) and fronteras (inhabited zones between polities) reveals him to be the opening, the passageway, allowing for entrance and exit. In terms of gender, I argue a surprising find, that the herm was hermaphróditos, a combination of Hermes and Aphrodite, in which form the herm served as an icon of marriage, specifically the ideal homophrosynous or ‘same-minded’ union. Within the domestic context, Hermes also provides a means of protection against curses before or within the doorways of residences mortal and divine. Hermes’ role in human interactions with the divine and the dead completes our present exploration: the immortals above and within the earth, along with (immortal) souls of the dead. Using Aristophanes’ Peace and Aeschylus’ Choephoroi as our guide, we begin to consider transfixive identificatory mediation as Hermes’ capacity, his modus operandi, distinguished crucially herein from the opera operata that are typically taken as the objects of analysis in the scholarship. Hermes is found to be the force that allows communication of offerings and prayers upward or downward as well as the responses in return, revealing the origin of the herm in stones piled over graves. Thus we come to a potent message also declared by the mutilated herms: that the gods had quite entirely abandoned them—while, practically speaking, severing even the hope of a remaining connection through the offense to Hermes.