Hermes was the messenger of the gods and one of the twelve Olympian deities the ancient Greeks believed ruled over the cosmos. He was a patron of merchants and thieves, and a protector of travelers. Identifiable by his herald’s wand and winged sandals, Hermes’ main role in mythology was to act as the voice of Zeus and deliver his decrees. While mostly characterized in his capacity as messenger, Hermes was also one of the more powerful Olympians. In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, his half-brother Apollo says “For my part, I dread the strength that will be yours.”
1. Birth and Invention of the Lyre
The most detailed account of Hermes’ birth comes from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, generally attributed to Homer due to the style and meter of the poem. Hermes is the son of Zeus and Maia, a daughter of Atlas. She was a shy goddess, preferring to spend her time away from the other divinities. In a cave in Kyllene, Zeus visited her in the dead of night after Hera had gone to sleep. They conducted their affair in secret and Maia eventually became pregnant, giving birth to Hermes.
From birth, Hermes already possessed the ability to walk and talk. Shortly after being born, he leapt from his cradle and exited the mountain cave, finding a tortoise grazing in front of the entrance. He killed it and cleaned out its shell, then stretched an ox hide over it. He affixed strings made from sheep gut to a cross piece made from the ox’s horns, creating a stringed instrument. He would later allow Apollo to claim credit for the invention of the lyre.
2. Theft of Apollo’s Cattle
Having invented the lyre, Hermes was struck by another desire, this one full of mischief. He made his way to Pieria, where Apollo kept his cattle. Hermes stole fifty of the livestock and drove them away, wiping aside their hoof prints as he went. He even reversed the prints in places and himself walked backwards, making it appear that they headed in the opposite direction.
Hermes encountered an old man as he made his way back to Kyllene, and he bid the old man to forget what he saw and not to tell a soul. In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the poet claims that during this trip Hermes invented fire and the use of fire sticks.
When Apollo noticed his cattle were missing he immediately took up the search. He found the same man that Hermes passed and asked him if he had seen who had taken the cattle. The man told Apollo that he had seen a child drive the cattle away.
Apollo eventually came to the cave where Maia and Hermes lived. Hermes did his best to appear like an ordinary newborn, but Apollo saw through the ruse and threatened to throw Hermes into Tartarus unless he revealed what happened to the cattle. Hermes tried to deceive Apollo, telling him he didn’t know what happened to his cows and, being a newborn baby only one day old, he didn’t even know what cows were. But again, Apollo wasn’t deceived. They argued back and forth without resolution, eventually going up to Olympus to have Zeus arbitrate.
Zeus was amused by his sons and commanded that Hermes show Apollo the location of the cattle. Hermes complied, but Apollo noticed some cow hides and realized that Hermes had killed and skinned some. Apollo again became angry and tried to restrain the infant with rope, but the rope couldn’t hold him.
Hoping to calm Apollo, Hermes pulled out his lyre and began to play. Apollo was enthralled by the instrument and declared that the song Hermes played was well worth the oxen he stole. The two gods made a trade and Hermes gave him the lyre in exchange for the cattle.
While tending his herd, Hermes invented a new instrument, pipes. Apollo again wanted this art for himself, so he offered Hermes the golden staff he held when herding cattle. Hermes agreed to the exchange as long as he was also granted the power of divination. Apollo agreed and declared all of Hermes’ divine privileges, which Zeus then confirmed by making Hermes his messenger.
3. Divine Messenger and Guide of the Dead
Throughout Greek mythology, Hermes’ main role in the pantheon was as messenger of the gods and guide of the dead. He acted as the hand and the voice of Zeus, providing aid and direction from the king of the gods to mortals or other divinities.
When Athena and Poseidon competed to become the patron deity of Athens, Poseidon was furious at his loss and threatened to flood Attica. Zeus sends Hermes to forbid him from doing that.
After the Great Flood that wiped out mankind, only Deucalion and Pyrrha remained. Deucalion prayed to Zeus, who sent Hermes down to him to grant whatever he requested. Deucalion wished for the restoration of humanity, so Zeus directed him to toss stones over his shoulders. The ones he threw turned to men, the stones thrown by Pyrrha became women.
In his capacity as the guide of souls, Hermes regularly traveled to and from the Underworld. During Heracles‘ labor to retrieve Cerberus from the Underworld, Hermes showed him the way. The messenger god was also sent to retrieve Persephone from the Underworld, but returned empty-handed when he learned that while there she had eaten three pomegranate seeds, forcing her yearly return to the Underworld.
4. The Gigantomachy
When the Olympians overthrew the rule of the Titans and imprisoned them in Tartarus, Gaia summoned her children, the Giants, to war against the Olympians. Known as the Gigantomachy, the war embroiled all of heaven. Even Heracles was said to have taken part on the side of the gods. Hermes, donning Hades’ cap of invisibility, stealthily slew the Giant Hippolytus.
When the gods defeated the Giants, a monstrous son of Gaia, Typhoeus, or Typhon, was unleashed upon the heavens. Hesiod described him as having the heads of a hundred serpents growing from his shoulders and their eyes glittered with fire. From their mouths came every sound imaginable, sometimes speech while other times the lowing of a bull or the barking of dogs. Apollodorus described Typhon as human in appearance down to his thighs, but so large that his head touched the stars. His legs were coils of hissing snakes and fire blazed from his eyes.
Typhon was so powerful that all the gods, except for Zeus and Athena, fled in terror to Egypt, where they hid in the shape of animals. Apollo became a hawk, Ares became a fish, and Hermes became an ibis.
To the gods’ shock, Zeus was defeated by Typhon, who cut the tendons from his hands and feet with Zeus’ own weapon. Typhon carried Zeus to Sicily and hid his tendons in a bear skin, then set the dragon, Delphyne, in place to guard them. Hermes, ever the cunning thief, stole the tendons out from under the dragon’s nose and put them back into Zeus without being seen. This gave Zeus a chance to recover and eventually defeat Typhon, imprisoning him under Mount Etna in Sicily.
5. Binding Prometheus
When Prometheus stole fire and gave it to mankind, Zeus sent Hermes to deliver his punishment. Hermes chained Prometheus to a rock on Mount Caucasus and set an eagle to eat his liver every day. When Zeus learned that Prometheus knew of a prophecy that Zeus would one day be overthrown by his own son, he sent Hermes to coerce the information out of him. The scene in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound becomes tangibly more tense knowing that Hermes was the one who put him there.
6. Slaying Argus
Io was a mortal lover of Zeus who he transformed into a cow to hide his infidelity from Hera. Not fooled by the ruse, Hera made her husband give her the cow as a gift, which she promptly placed under the watchful guard of a hundred eyed giant named Argus Panoptes. Not willing to let his lover wallow in her bovine state, Zeus commanded Hermes to free her.
Disguised as a herdsman, Hermes drove a flock of goats through pastures, playing his pipes all the while. Argus heard the sweet song and invited Hermes to sit with him. The trickster god stayed with the giant, recounting stories and playing songs, and slowly lulled him to sleep. Once Argus could no longer keep his many eyes open, Hermes used his herald’s wand to magically seal them. He then unsheathed his sword and decapitated the giant, tossing his head down the mountain side. This deed earned Hermes the epithet Argeiphontes, Slayer of Argus.
7. Transforming Polyphonte
Polyphonte, a granddaughter of Ares, scorned Aphrodite and refused to show her proper honors. In retaliation, the goddess made Polyphonte fall in love with a bear. Driven mad by the desire, Polyphonte coupled with the bear and had two children, Agrius and Oreius. They were massive in stature and possessed immense strength, and they scorned all the gods. Regularly they would find strangers on the road and haul them home to eat. Zeus was disgusted by their activities, so he sent Hermes to punish them.
Hermes wanted to cut off their hands and feet, but Ares intervened. Polyphonte and her children were instead turned into birds, all of which were omens of misfortune.
8. The Trojan War
By the close of the Trojan War, Achilles killed the Trojan prince Hector and dragged his body back to the Greek camps. He refused to allow the prince the proper burial rites and left his corpse out to be eaten by dogs and carrion birds. The Trojan king Priam prayed to Zeus that he might retrieve his son’s body, and the king of the gods heard him. Zeus bid Hermes to appear to Priam and guide him to the Greek ships unseen, and guard him until he reached Achilles’ hut.
Hermes took the Trojan king on a chariot, and when they reached the walls protecting the Greek ships, he put all the guards to sleep. Hermes then opened the gates to allow Priam inside. Coming inside Achilles’ hut, Priam entreated the warrior to give him back his son’s body in exchange for a hefty ransom. Pitying the old king, Achilles agreed.
9. The Odyssey
On their voyage home from Trojan war, the hero Odysseus angered Poseidon when he blinded his son, Polyphemus. Unable to stop Odysseus’ return home since it had been preordained by Zeus, Poseidon opted to delay it, making the journey last ten years.
Odysseus and his crew happened on the island of Aiaia, where the sorceress Circe lived. She turned his crew into pigs, and when Odysseus learned of this, he went to confront her. Hermes stopped the rash hero and told him of Circe and her magic. To protect him, Hermes gave Odysseus an herb called moly that would nullify Circe’s spells. Thanks to Hermes’ instructions, Odysseus was able to get the upper hand on Circe and he made her turn his crew back into humans.
Odysseus encountered Hermes again on the island of the goddess Calypso. She had been holding him captive for years, using him as a sex slave and trying to convince him to stay with her, even offering him immortality. But Odysseus longed for home and for his wife Penelope. Zeus eventually decided that Calypso had delayed him long enough, and sent Hermes down to tell her to let Odysseus leave.
Upon Odysseus’ homecoming, his wife Penelope and his home were beset with suitors who refused to leave. Odysseus tricked them into an archery contest, and then he and his son, Telemachus, slew all the suitors. In his capacity as the guide of souls, Hermes arrived to wake the dead and guide them to the underworld.
