Numerian - Roman Emperor : December 283 – November, 284 A.D. -
Bronze Antoninianus 23mm (3.39 grams) Struck circa  283-284 A.D.
Reference: RIC 416f
IMPNVMERIANVSAVG - Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right.
 PIETASAVGG Exe: KAΔ - Mercury standing left, holding purse and caduceus.

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Hermes was a god of transitions and boundaries. He was quick and cunning, and moved freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, as emissary and messenger of the gods,^[1] intercessor between mortals and the divine, and conductor of souls into the afterlife.

He was protector and patron of travelers, herdsmen , thieves, orators and wit, literature and poets, athletics and sports, invention and trade. In some myths he is a trickster , and outwits other gods for his own satisfaction or the sake of humankind. His attributes and symbols include the herma , the rooster and the tortoise , purse or pouch, winged sandals , winged cap , and his main symbol was the herald's staff, the Greek kerykeion or Latin caduceus which consisted of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff.

In the Roman adaptation of the Greek pantheon (see interpretatio romana ), Hermes was identified with the Roman god Mercury , who, though inherited from the Etruscans , developed many similar characteristics, such as being the patron of commerce.

Etymology

The earliest form of the name Hermes is the Mycenaean Greek *e-ma-a₂ , written in Linear B syllabic script. Most scholars derive "Hermes" from Greek herma (a stone, roadside shrine or boundary marker), dedicated to Hermes as a god of travelers and boundaries; the etymology of herma itself is unknown. "Hermes" may be related to Greek hermeneus ("the interpreter"), reflecting Hermes' function as divine messenger. Plato offers a Socratic folk-etymology for Hermes' name, deriving it from the divine messenger's reliance on eirein (the power of speech). Scholarly speculation that "Hermes" derives from a more primitive form meaning "one cairn " is disputed. The word "hermeneutics", the study and theory of interpretation, is derived from hermeneus. In Greek a lucky find was a hermaion.

 

Hermes with his mother Maia. Detail of the side B of an Attic red-figure belly-amphora, c. 500 BC.

Mythology

Early Greek sources

 

Kriophoros Hermes (which takes the lamb), late-Roman copy of Greek original from the 5th century BC. Barracco Museum , Rome

Homer and Hesiod portrayed Hermes as the author of skilled or deceptive acts, and also as a benefactor of mortals. In the Iliad he was called "the bringer of good luck," "guide and guardian" and "excellent in all the tricks." He was a divine ally of the Greeks against the Trojans. However, he did protect Priam when he went to the Greek camp to retrieve the body of his son Hector , and he accompanies them back to Troy.

Hermes stole Apollo's cattle when he was born. He jumped out of his crib and and hid the cattle. Just when Apollo realized, Hermes jumped back into his crib and pretended to be innocent. Apollo took Hermes by the scruff of the neck and took him to his father, Zeus. Apollo said he was unhappy with he way he was being treated. Instead of punishing young Hermes, Zeus just laughed and found the matter funny.

He also rescued Ares from a brazen vessel where he had been imprisoned by Otus and Ephialtes . In the Odyssey he helped his great-grand son, the protagonist, Odysseus , informing him about the fate of his companions, who were turned into animals by the power of Circe , and instructed him to protect himself by chewing a magic herb ; he also told Calypso Zeus' order for her to free the same hero from her island to continue his journey back home. When Odysseus killed the suitors of his wife, Hermes led their souls to Hades. In The Works and Days , when Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create Pandora to disgrace humanity by punishing the act of Prometheus giving fire to man, every god gave her a gift, and Hermes’ gift was lies and seductive words, and a dubious character. Then he was instructed to take her as wife to Epimetheus .

Aeschylus wrote in The Eumenides that Hermes helped Orestes kill Clytemnestra under a false identity and other stratagems, and also said that he was the god of searches, and those who seek things lost or stolen. In Philoctetes, Sophocles invokes Hermes when Odysseus needs to convince Philoctetes to join the Trojan War on the side of the Greeks, and in Euripides' Rhesus Hermes helps Dolon spy on the Greek navy.

Aesop featured him in several of his fables, as ruler of the gate of prophetic dreams, as the god of athletes, of edible roots, and of hospitality. He also said that Hermes had assigned each person his share of intelligence.

The Homeric hymn to Hermes invokes him as the one "of many shifts (polytropos), blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods." Hermes, as an inventor of fire, is a parallel of the Titan Prometheus . In addition to the lyre, Hermes was believed to have invented many types of racing and the sports of wrestling and boxing, and therefore was a patron of athletes.

Hellenistic Greek sources

Several writers of the Hellenistic period expanded the list of Hermes’ achievements. Callimachus said he disguised himself as a cyclops to scare the Oceanides and was disobedient to his mother. One of the Orphic Hymns Khthonios is dedicated to Hermes, indicating that he was also a god of the underworld. Aeschylus had called him by this epithet several times. Another is the Orphic Hymn to Hermes, where his association with the athletic games held in tone is mystic.

Phlegon of Tralles said he was invoked to ward off ghosts, and Pseudo-Apollodorus reported several events involving Hermes. He participated in the Gigantomachy in defense of Olympus; was given the task of bringing baby Dionysus to be cared for by Ino and Athamas and later by nymphs of Asia, followed Hera, Athena and Aphrodite in a beauty contest; favored the young Hercules by giving him a sword when he finished his education and lent his sandals to Perseus . The Thracian princes identified him with their god Zalmoxis , considering his ancestor.

Anyte of Tegea of the 3rd century BC, in translation by R Aldington , wrote:

I Hermes stand here at the crossroads by the wind beaten orchard, near the hoary grey coast; and I keep a resting place for weary men. And the cool stainless spring gushes out.

called Hermes of the Ways after the patronage of travellers.

Epithets of Hermes

Argeiphontes

Hermes' epithet   Argeiphontes (Latin: Argicida), meaning "Argus-slayer", recalls his slaying of the hundred-eyed giant Argus Panoptes , who was watching over the heifer-nymph Io in the sanctuary of Queen Hera herself in Argos. Hermes placed a charm on Argus's eyes with the caduceus to cause the giant to sleep, after this he slew the giant. Argus' eyes were then put into the tail of the peacock, symbol of the goddess Hera.

Messenger and guide

• Diactoros, (angelos) the messenger, is in fact only seen in this role, for Zeus, from within the pages of the Odyssey (Brown 1990).

... Oh mighty messenger of the gods of the upper and lower worlds ... (Aeschylus).

Explicitly, at least in sources of classical writings, of Euripides Electra and Iphigenia in Aulis and in Epictetus Discourses. According to Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine (1849) the chief office of the God was as messenger.

The messenger divine and herald of the Gods, he wears the gifts from his father, the Petasus and Talaria ...

Trade

• Agoraeus , of the agora ; belonging to the market - (in Aristophanes [trans. Ehrenberg],) patron of gymnasia
• Dolios (lit. tricky. [According to prominent folklorist Yeleazar Meletinsky , Hermes is a deified trickster .] ) - god (or patron guidance) and master of thieves ("a plunderer, a cattle-raider, a night-watching" - in Homers' Hymns)...

and deception (Euripides) and (possibly evil) tricks and trickeries, crafty (from lit. god of craft), the cheat, god of stealth and of cunning, (see also to act secretively as kleptein in reference - EL Wheeler), of treachery, the schemer, wily, was worshipped at Pellene [Pausanias, vii. 27, 1]), and invoked through Odysseus.

Hermes is amoral like a baby. although Zeus sent Hermes as a teacher to humanity to teach them knowledge of and value of justice and to improve inter-personal relationships ("bonding between mortals").

• Empolaios "engaged in traffic and commerce"

Worship and cult

Archaic Greek herm, presumably of Hermes

Prior to being known as Hermes, Frothingham thought the god to have existed as a snake-god. Angelo (1997) thinks Hermes to be based on the Thoth archetype. The absorbing ("combining") of the attributes of Hermes to Thoth developed after the time of Homer amongst Greek and Roman; Herodotus was the first to identify the Greek god with the Egyptian (Hermopolis), Plutarch and Diodorus also, although Plato thought the gods to be dis-similar (Friedlander 1992).

A cult was established in Greece in remote regions, likely making him a god of nature, farmers and shepherds. It is also possible that since the beginning he has been a deity with shamanic attributes linked to divination , reconciliation , magic , sacrifices , and initiation and contact with other planes of existence, a role of mediator between the worlds of the visible and invisible.

During the 3rd century BC, a communication between Petosiris (a priest) to King Nechopso, probably written in Alexandria c. 150 BC, states Hermes is the teacher of all secret wisdoms available to knowing by the experience of religious ecstasy.^[88]

Due to his constant mobility, he was considered the god of commerce and social intercourse, the wealth brought in business, especially sudden or unexpected enrichment, travel, roads and crossroads, borders and boundary conditions or transient, the changes from the threshold, agreements and contracts, friendship, hospitality, sexual intercourse , games, data, the draw, good luck, the sacrifices and the sacrificial animals, flocks and shepherds and the fertility of land and cattle. In addition to serving as messenger to Zeus, Hermes carried the souls of the dead to Hades , and directed the dreams sent by Zeus to mortals.

Temples

One of the oldest places of worship for Hermes was Mount Cilene in Arcadia, where the myth says that he was born. Tradition says that his first temple was built by Lycaon . From there the cult would have been taken to Athens, and then radiate to the whole of Greece, according to Smith, and his temples and statues became extremely numerous. Lucian of Samosata said he saw the temples of Hermes everywhere.

In many places, temples were consecrated in conjunction with Aphrodite, as in Attica, Arcadia, Crete, Samos and in Magna Graecia. Several ex-votos found in his temples revealed his role as initiator of young adulthood, among them soldiers and hunters, since war and certain forms of hunting were seen as ceremonial initiatory ordeals. This function of Hermes explains why some images in temples and other vessels show him as a teenager. As a patron of the gym and fighting , Hermes had statues in gyms and he was also worshiped in the sanctuary of the Twelve Gods in Olympia, where Greeks celebrated the Olympic Games . His statue was held there on an altar dedicated to him and Apollo together. A temple within the Aventine was consecrated in 495 BC.

Symbols of Hermes were the palm tree , turtle , rooster , goat, the number four, several kinds of fish, incense. Sacrifices involved honey, cakes, pigs, goats, and lambs. In the sanctuary of Hermes Promakhos in Tanagra is a strawberry tree under which it was believed he had created, and in the hills Phene ran three sources that were sacred to him, because he believed that they had been bathed at birth.

Festival

Hermes’ feast was the special Hermaea was celebrated with sacrifices to the god and with athletics and gymnastics, possibly having been established in the 6th century BC, but no documentation on the festival before the 4th century BC survives. However, Plato said that Socrates attended a Hermaea. Of all the festivals involving Greek games, these were the most like initiations because participation in them was restricted to young boys and excluded adults.

Hermai/Herms

 

This circular Pyxis or box depicts two scenes. The one shown presents Hermes awarding the golden apple of the Hesperides to Aphrodite, whom he has selected as the most beautiful of the goddesses. The Walters Art Museum.

In Ancient Greece, Hermes was a phallic god of boundaries. His name, in the form herma , was applied to a wayside marker pile of stones; each traveller added a stone to the pile. In the 6th century BCE, Hipparchos , the son of Pisistratus , replaced the cairns that marked the midway point between each village deme at the central agora of Athens with a square or rectangular pillar of stone or bronze topped by a bust of Hermes with a beard . An erect phallus rose from the base. In the more primitive Mount Kyllini or Cyllenian herms, the standing stone or wooden pillar was simply a carved phallus. In Athens, herms were placed outside houses for good luck. "That a monument of this kind could be transformed into an Olympian god is astounding," Walter Burkert remarked.

In 415 BCE, when the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War , all of the Athenian hermai were vandalized one night. The Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or from the anti-war faction within Athens itself. Socrates ' pupil Alcibiades was suspected of involvement, and Socrates indirectly paid for the impiety with his life.

Hermes' possible offspring

Pan

The satyr -like Greek god of nature, shepherds and flocks, Pan , could possibly be the son of Hermes through the nymph Dryope . In the Homeric Hymn to Pan, Pan's mother fled in fright from her newborn son's goat-like appearance.

Priapus

Depending on the sources consulted, the god Priapus could be understood as a son of Hermes.

Autolycus

Autolycus , the Prince of Thieves, was a son of Hermes and Chione (mortal) and grandfather of Odysseus.

Extended list of Hermes' lovers and children

Genealogy of the Olympians in Greek mythology

Art and iconography

 

Archaic bearded Hermes from a herm, early 5th century BC.

 

Hermes Fastening his Sandal , early Imperial Roman marble copy of a Lysippan bronze (Louvre Museum)

The image of Hermes evolved and varied according to Greek art and culture. During Archaic Greece he was usually depicted as a mature man, bearded, dressed as a traveler, herald, or pastor. During Classical and Hellenistic Greece he is usually depicted young and nude, with athleticism, as befits the god of speech and of the gymnastics, or a robe, a formula is set predominantly through the centuries. When represented as Logios (speaker), his attitude is consistent with the attribute. Phidias left a statue of a famous Hermes Logios and Praxiteles another, also well known, showing him with the baby Dionysus in his arms. At all times, however, through the Hellenistic periods, Roman, and throughout Western history into the present day, several of his characteristic objects are present as identification, but not always all together.

Among these objects is a wide-brimmed hat, the Petasos , widely used by rural people of antiquity to protect themselves from the sun, and that in later times was adorned with a pair of small wings, sometimes the hat is not present, but may then have wings rising from the hair. Another object is the Porta a stick, called rhabdomyolysis (stick) or skeptron (scepter), which is referred to as a magic wand. Some early sources say that this was the bat he received from Apollo, but others question the merits of this claim. It seems that there may have been two canes, with time in a cast, one of a shepherd's staff, as stated in the Homeric Hymn, and the other a magic wand, according to some authors. His bat also came to be called kerykeion, the caduceus , in later times. Early depictions of the staff it show it as a baton stick topped by a golden way that resembled the number eight, though sometimes with its top truncated and open. Later the staff had two intertwined snakes and sometimes it was crowned with a pair of wings and a ball, but the old form remained in use even when Hermes was associated with Mercury by the Romans.

Hyginus explained the presence of snakes, saying that Hermes was traveling in Arcadia when he saw two snakes intertwined in battle. He put the caduceus between them and parted, and so said his staff would bring peace. The caduceus, historically, there appeared with Hermes, and is documented among the Babylonians from about 3500 BC. The two snakes coiled around a stick was a symbol of the god Ningishzida , which served as a mediator between humans and the mother goddess Ishtar or the supreme Ningirsu . In Greece itself the other gods have been depicted holding a caduceus, but it was mainly associated with Hermes. It was said to have the power to make people fall asleep or wake up, and also made peace between litigants, and is a visible sign of his authority, being used as a sceptre.

He was represented in doorways, possibly as an amulet of good fortune, or as a symbol of purification. The caduceus is not to be confused with the Rod of Asclepius , the patron of medicine and son of Apollo , which bears only one snake. The rod of Asclepius was adopted by most Western doctors as a badge of their profession, but in several medical organizations of the United States, the caduceus took its place since the 18th century, although this use is declining. After the Renaissance the caduceus also appeared in the heraldic crests of several, and currently is a symbol of commerce.

His sandals, called pédila by the Greeks and talaria by the Romans were made of palm and myrtle branches, but were described as beautiful, golden and immortal, made a sublime art, able to take the roads with the speed of wind. Originally they had no wings, but late in the artistic representations, they are depicted. In certain images, the wings spring directly from the ankles. He has also been depicted with a purse or a bag in his hands, and wearing a robe or cloak, which had the power to confer invisibility. His weapon was a sword of gold, which killed Argos; lent to Perseus to kill Medusa .

In other religions

Christianity

In Acts 14, Paul the Apostle visited Lystra and was mistaken for Hermes.

Modern psychological interpretation

For Carl Jung Hermes was guide to the underworld is become the god of the unconscious, the mediator of information between the conscious and unconscious factors of the mind, and the archetypal messenger conveying communication between realms. Hermes is seminally the guide for the inner journey. Jung considered the gods Thoth and Hermes to be counterparts (Yoshida 2006). In Jungian psychology especially (by Combs and Holland 1994 ), Hermes is thought relevant to study of the phenomenon of synchronicity ( together with Pan and Dionysus)

 

Mural representation of Hermes-Mercury in an early 20th-century modernist building in Vigo (Galicia, Spain).

In the context of psycho-therapy Hermes is our inner friendliness bringing together the disparate and perhaps isolated core elements of our selves belonging to the realms of the other gods;

...He does not fight with the other gods... it is Hermes in us who befriends our psychological complexes centered by the other gods...

— López-Pedraza

He is for some identified as the archetype of healer (López-Pedraza 2003)... in ancient Greece he healed through magic(McNeely 2011).

In the context of abnormal psychology Samuels (1986) states that Jung considers Hermes the archetype for narcissistic disorder, but also lending the disorder a "positive" (beneficious) aspect, that is Hermes is both the good and bad of narcissism.

For López-Pedraza, Hermes is the protector of psychotherapy. For McNeely, Hermes is a god of the healing arts(p. 88).

In a consideration of all the roles Hermes was understood to have fulfilled in ancient Greece Christopher Booker gives the genius of the god to be a guide or observer of transition .

Marcus Aurelius Numerius Numerianus (d. November, 284), known in English as Numerian, was a Roman Emperor (December 283 – November, 284), together with his brother Carinus . They were sons of Carus , a Gaul raised to the office of praetorian prefect under Emperor Probus in 282.

In 282, the legions of the upper Danube in Raetia and Noricum proclaimed Numerian's father, the praetorian prefect Marcus Aurelius Carus , emperor, beginning a rebellion against the emperor Probus. Probus' army, stationed in Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia ), decided they did not wish to fight Carus, and assassinated Probus instead. Carus, already sixty, wished to establish a dynasty; and immediately elevated Carinus and Numerian to the rank of Caesar .

In 283, Carus raised Carinus to the title Caesar, left him in charge of the West, and moved with Numerian and his praetorian prefect Arrius Aper to the East, to wage war against the Sassanid Empire . (The Sassanids had been embroiled in a succession dispute since the death of Shapur , and were in no position to oppose Carus' advance.) According to Zonaras , Eutropius , and Festus , Carus won a major victory against the Persians, taking Seleucia and the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon (near modern Al-Mada'in , Iraq), cities on opposite banks of the Tigris . In celebration, Numerian, Carus, and Carinus all took the title Persici maximi. Carus died in July or early August, reportedly due to a strike of lightning.

Carus' death left Numerian and Carinus as the new Augusti. Carinus quickly made his way to Rome from Gaul, and arrived in January 284. Numerian lingered in the East. The Roman retreat from Persia was orderly and unopposed, for the Persian King, Bahram II , was still struggling to establish his authority. By March 284 Numerian had only reached Emesa (Homs) in Syria ; by November, only Asia Minor. In Emesa he was apparently still alive and in good health, as he issued the only extant rescript in his name there. (Coins are issued in his name in Cyzicus at some time before the end of 284, but it is impossible to know whether he was still in the public eye by that point.) After Emesa, Numerian's staff, including the prefect Aper, reported that Numerian suffered from an inflammation of the eyes, and had to travel in a closed coach. When the army reached Bithynia , some of Numerian's soldiers smelled an odor reminiscent of a decaying corpse emanating from the coach. They opened its curtains. Inside, they found Numerian, dead.

Aper officially broke the news in Nicomedia (İzmit) in November. Numerian's generals and tribunes called a council for the succession, and chose Diocles , commander of the cavalry arm of the imperial bodyguard, emperor, in spite of Aper's attempts to garner support. On November 20, 284, the army of the east gathered on a hill 5 km (3.1 mi) outside Nicomedia. The army unanimously saluted their new Augustus, and Diocles accepted the purple imperial vestments. He raised his sword to the light of the sun, and swore an oath denying responsibility for Numerian's death. He asserted that Aper had killed Numerian and concealed it. In full view of the army, Diocles drew his blade and killed Aper.

According to Historia Augusta , Numerian was a man of considerable literary attainments, remarkably amiable and known as a great orator and poet. However, no other sources, apart from the unreliable Historia, report anything about his personality.