Herm (sculpture)
A herma (
Origin
In the earliest times Greek divinities were worshipped in the form of a heap of stones or a shapeless column of stone or wood. In many parts of Greece there were piles of stones by the sides of roads, especially at their crossings, and on the boundaries of lands. The religious respect paid to such heaps of stones, especially at the meeting of roads, is shown by the custom of each passer-by throwing a stone on to the heap or anointing it with oil.[3] Later there was the addition of a head and phallus to the column, which became quadrangular (the number four was sacred to Hermes).[4]
Uses
In ancient Greece the statues were thought to ward off harm or evil, an
In Roman and Renaissance versions (termini), the body was often shown from the waist up. The form was also used for portrait busts of famous public figures, especially writers like Socrates and Plato. Anonymous female figures were often used from the Renaissance on, when herms were often attached to walls as decoration.
Trial of Alcibiades
In 415 BC, on a night shortly before the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse as part of the Sicilian Expedition of the Peloponnesian War, all of the Athenian hermai were vandalized. Many people at the time thought such an impious act would threaten the success of the expedition.[9]
Though it was never proven, the Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or Spartan sympathizers from Athens itself; one suspect was the writer Xenophon.[10] Enemies of Alcibiades, using the anger of the Athenians as a pretext to investigate further desecrations, accused him of other acts of impiety, including mutilations of other sacred objects and mocking performances of religious mystery ceremonies.[11] He denied the accusations and offered to stand trial, but the Athenians did not want to disrupt the expedition any further, and his opponents wanted to use his absence to incite the people against him at a time when he would not be able to defend himself.
Once he had left on the expedition, his political enemies had him charged and sentenced to death in absentia, both for the mutilation of the hermai, and the supposedly related crime of profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Art and popular culture
In Plato's Hipparchus, Socrates attributes the existence of these statues to Hipparchus. They were meant to educate the people in the country, outside of Athens, and make them admire Hipparchus' wisdom over the wisdom of the Delphic inscriptions. Hence he ordered the carvings of the following two inscriptions: "This is a memorial to Hipparchus: Walk thinking just thoughts" and "This is a memorial to Hipparchus: Don't deceive a friend" (229a–b). Socrates is making fun of Hipparchus, and his interlocutor, by this account.[12]
The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has a large collection of Roman Herma boundary marker stones in its stored collection.
An
In the fantasy novel
Gallery
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Small terracotta herm of Hermes
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Archaic Greek herm, presumably of Hermes, unusual in that the penis has survived
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Herm on an Attic red-figure lekythos, 475–450 BC
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A hermaic sculpture of an old man, probably a philosopher.Ai Khanoum, Afghanistan, 2nd century BC
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Male and female Baroque herms at the Rubenshuis
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Medieval herm of King Saint Ladislaus of Hungary that contains his skull; currently in the Basilica of Győr
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Dionysus herm from Eleutherna, Crete.
See also
- Boundary marker § Greece
- Crossroads (mythology)
- Cairn
- Inuksuk – Arctic North American landmark
- Caryatid – Greek-style column carved in a female human form
- Atlas (architecture) – Greek-style column carved in a male human form
- Lingam – devotional abstract image of Shiva
References
- ^ Anatole Bailly, Abrégé du dictionnaire Grec-Français, Hachette, Paris, 1901, p. 361.
- ^ a b public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hermae". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 365. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Nicand. Ther. 150; Theophrast. Char. 16.
- ^ Paus. vii. 22. § 2; Aristoph. Plut. 1121, 1144; Hom. Od. xiv. 435, xix. 397; Athen. i. p. 16.
- ^ Brunck, Anal. 3.197, no. 234
- ^ The image of a youthful, beardless Hermes was a development of the 5th century BCE.
- ^ Thuc. 6.27; Aelian, Ael. VH 2.41; Suid. s.v. Pollux, 8.72; Athen. 10.437b
- ^ Theophrast. Char. 16; comp. Genesis 28.18, 22, 31.45-48
- ^ Thuc. 6.27, with Grote's remarks, ch. 58, 5.146ff.; Andoc. de Myst.; Aristoph. Lys. 1094
- ^ Introduction "A History of My Times" (Penguin Classics) Paperback – May 31, 1979 by the editor George Cawkwell. Translated from Xenophons' "Hellenica" by Rex Warner
- ^ Thucydides (2008). The Landmark Thucydides. New York: Free Press, sections 6.27–28.
- ^ Plato (1955). Hipparchus. Translated by Lamb, W. R. M. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 229a – via Perseus Digital Library.
- ^ "Hermes and the Dog". Aesopica.
- ISBN 978-1-4405-4338-8.
External links
- Ancient Greek Art: Herm Statue, Theoi Project
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (1890), Perseus Project
- Herm (Greek religion)– Britannica Online Encyclopedia
- Influence of the Phallic Idea: Hermae, Termini, Pillars and "Groves"
- Ice Herms Archived 2009-05-11 at the vase painting, and photos (including a step-by-step guide to the making) of the University of Chicago ice herms