Hermes: the God of Thieves and Travel and So Much More

Welcome back, Greeks and Geeks! Today, I am going to be talking about Hermes. Hermes was the god of a lot, including, but not limited to, trade, wealth, luck, fertility, animal husbandry, sleep, language, thieves, and travel. He is most well known for trade, travel, and thieves. In many myths, he is often shown as being the messenger of the gods.

He was also very mischievous (being the god of thieves, who would expect anything different?). On his first day of life, he stole Apollo’s sacred cows because why not? And that’s not even the only thing he did on the first day of his life.

He killed a tortoise, invented the lyre and taught himself how to play, stole the cattle, left the cattle with a random guy (Battus), came back to Battus disguised as someone else and asked about the cows, and when Battus said Hermes stole them and left them there, Hermes turned the poor guy into stone! Finally, he sacrificed two of the cows and then just went home and tucked himself back into his cradle (yep, he was still basically a baby when he did this!).

That’s one hell of a first day of being alive.

His second day of being alive, Apollo suspected that Hermes stole his cattle, and was angry all up until he saw the lyre (Apollo being the god of music was in love with this new instrument immediately). Apollo traded his entire heard to Hermes for the lyre. A fair trade, don’t you think?

Soon after this interaction, Zeus declared Hermes the official Messenger of the Gods, to ensure he would not steal again. It was here that Hermes was gifted his winged sandals and his herald’s staff, often shown with two snakes entwined around it.

Hermes helped humans often, specifically travelers who ran into some sort of trouble. He grew quickly famous on Earth – if any traveler got lost or suffered any hardship, they called on Hermes for aid, and he would often show up to help them.

He was very much the younger sibling of the gods, and often got doted on in this way. Artemis (Goddess of the Moon and the Hunt) taught him to hunt and Pan (God of the Wild) taught him how to play the pipes. He was active in many myths surrounding the gods, often leading them to where they were going or sending messages.

Above all, he was very close to his father, Zeus. He always went with Zeus to the human world, and often went on errands for him.

Hermes never married, though did have a fair amount of children. Most famously, he is the grandfather to Odysseus. He had affairs with Aphrodite, Peitho, Hecate, and others.

Hermes is also said to have worked with the Muses to create language, specifically the Greek language.

So, thank you Hermes, for helping to create language and give us this wonderful gift!

And thank you, as always, for reading. I hope to see you again soon, where I will be introducing you all to Apollo, the god of music and archery (among other things). Αντίο, Σοφία.