page_title: Hermes
section_title: As a shepherd god
hierarchical_section_title: Hermes / Functions / As a shepherd god
caption_attribution_description: Hermes Kriophoros. Copia tardoromana de original grego do seculo V a.C. Fonte:File:Museo Barracco - Ermes Krioforos V 1010658.JPG
context_page_description: Hermes is a deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods, as well as the protector of human heralds, travellers, 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 functioned as the emissary and messenger of the gods, and was often presented as the son of Zeus and Maia, the Pleiad. Just as well, he is regarded as "the divine trickster," for which Homer offers the most popular account in his Hymn to Hermes.
  His attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster, the tortoise, satchel or pouch, talaria, 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. His attributes had previously influenced the earlier Etruscan god Turms, a name borrowed from the Greek "herma".
context_section_description: 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 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 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.
caption: Kriophoros Hermes (which takes the lamb), late-Roman copy of Greek original from the 5th century BC. Barracco Museum, Rome
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