The offices of Hermes were many, and supposed to be useful, nor was his many sided character thought bad when judged by the moral code of a people who made him a god after their own likeness. Crafty, dishonest merchants did not mean to impeach his honesty when they implored him to give them such shrewdness as to outwit and supplant others in the bargains they made. Rogues and thieves prayed to him, just as bandits and robbers in the same country and in parts of Italy ask the patron saints to aid their assaults on defenseless travelers, and give them a rich booty.
Arcadian shepherds invoked Hermes as the guardian of flocks while he inspired their pastoral songs and directed in the manufacture of the rustic instruments on which they played.
Moreover, he was regarded and often spoken of as the fleet messenger and dextrous agent of his father, Zeus. In this character the epic poets most frequently present him. Swifter than the wind he passes over the land and sea to execute whatever commissions are intrusted to him. Once he destroyed the hundred eyed Argus, the guardian of Io, on which account he is called by Homer the Argus slayer.
Seemans suggests that Argus in that myth represents the starry heavens, and the suggestion is plausible—Argus is slain by the rain god; that is, the stars are hid by the thick clouds.
As represented in art, he bears the herald’s staff, or wand, given him by Apollo, by the means of which he can induce sleep or rouse the slumberer; but it was supposed to be used chiefly in guiding souls to their abodes in the under world. The earliest Greeks, as indeed men of all nations, and in every state of society, civilized, semi-civilized or savage, cherished the expectation of a state after death, and though vaguely hoping for happiness hereafter, they also felt the need of an escort, though unseen, to that “land of deepest shade unpierced by human thought.” The belief in Hermes as psychopompus,[9] or conductor of the soul, doubtless gave the dying mythologist when consciously loosing his hold on things visible and tangible, some crumbs of comfort. With no other rod or staff on which to lean, a heathen poet could say:
“Non ego omnis moriar.”[10]
Such was at least the longing for immortality in the darkest ages.
The statues and plastic representations of Hermes, as also of the other divinities, changed with the progress of this ideal development. They represent him as a shepherd, sometimes a herald, or messenger, and always as a powerful, bearded man. Those of later date show him as a beardless youth, but of great strength, with broad chest, lithe but powerful limbs, curly hair, small mouth and eyes, a wonderful combination of grace and vigor. “If we add to this the expression of kindly benevolence which plays around his finely cut lips, and the inquiring look of his face as he bends forward thoughtfully, we have the principal characteristic features artists have given of this god.” Of existing statues, in bronze and marble, we can not speak more particularly—such are found in the Vatican, at Naples, and in the British Museum.
Hades.—This name now, and from the beginning of the Christian era, used only to distinguish a place, was in mythology a personal appellative, and given to one of the Olympic divinities who received, by allotment, control of the lower world. He was son of Cronos and Rhea, and there are but few legends of him that the reader would care to see recorded, on account of the mysterious gloom that enveloped his person and his kingdom. It is enough to say he was at first regarded with dread as the unpitying, unrelenting foe of mankind, and while all were fated in their appointed time to descend to his dismal realms, heedless of their mortal reluctance and agony, he gathered them in, and deaf to their prayers kept his gate so guarded by that hundred headed monster Cerberus[11] that none could ever escape. The conception was so horrible that men shrank from it in dismay. Hades, being inexorable, was not worshiped. Prayer had no encouragement, no utterance. Those who dreaded to become his victims might wail in their agony or curse bitterly, but no door of hope was open for them.
In the course of time—how long none can tell, as no details are given, but in after ages—the Greek conception of Hades as a divinity seemed to undergo considerable change. Not only other but very different characteristics were given to him. He even received a new name, Pluton (riches), possibly indicating for him some agency in sending up, from the bosom of the earth, nourishment for things that grow on its surface, and also as offering unbounded wealth to mankind in the metals whose mines are in the subterranean chambers. But though the original dismal conception of this stern, inexorable deity was partially relieved, mention of him seems always to have conveyed to the mind the idea of something grim and painfully mysterious, and that probably caused them to speak of him but seldom, and with fear.