Great Hermes

In the archaic and classical periods Hermes, though very popular, was a god of modest status. This chapter sketches three roads that led him to “stardom.” Each of them was conditioned by a specific “position” of the god. For two of them this was a spatial setting; (1) an isolated cave in Crete and (2) the imaginary area of the Netherworld. The god took advantage of the associations these abodes evoked in terms of function, quality, and status of their hallowed regular tenants, such as Pan and the Nymphs on the one hand and the dreaded Chthonioi gods on the other. The third position is determined by its inclusion into a cultural setting, in casu a stylish literary genre of its time: the hymn. In all three Hermes owed the idiom connected with his new status to the language of hyperbolic esteem, praise and exaltation current in their contemporaneous religious contexts.