Herma

Herma

:"For the piano piece by Iannis Xenakis, see Herma (Xenakis)."In ancient Greece, before his role as protector of merchants and travelers, Hermes was a phallic god, associated with fertility, luck, roads and borders. His name comes from the word "herma" (plural "hermai") referring to a square or rectangular pillar of stone, terracotta, or bronze; a bust of Hermes' head, usually with a beard, sat on the top of the pillar, and male genitals adorned the base. The "hermai" were used as boundary markers on roads and borders. In Athens, they were placed outside houses for good luck. [The male genitals would be rubbed or anointed with olive oil to obtain luck] .Fact|date=February 2007 This superstition persists, for example in the Porcellino bronze boar sculpture (and numerous others like it round the world), where the nose is shiny from being continually touched for good luck or fertility.

In 415 BC, on the night before the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War (see Sicilian Expedition), all of the Athenian "hermai" were vandalized. This was a horribly impious act and many people believed it threatened the success of the expedition. Though it was never proven, the Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or anti-war doves from Athens itself. In fact, Alcibiades was accused of being the originator of the crime. He denied the accusations and offered to stand trial, but the Athenians did not want to disrupt the expedition any further. His opponents were eager to have Alcibiades' trial in his absence when he could not 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 herms, and the supposedly related crime of profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Art and popular culture

In February 2007, a group of University of Chicago students fashioned a set of life-size hermai out of ice and placed them around their campus in the middle of the night as a prank. [ [http://neoherm.googlepages.com/ The Rise of the Hermai!] ]

References


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать реферат

Look at other dictionaries:

  • HERMA — GmbH Unternehmensform GmbH Gründung 1906 Unternehmenssitz …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Herma — de Demóstenes. En la Antigua Grecia, una herma (en griego antiguo έρμα, plural έρμαι hermai) era un pilar cuadrado o rectangular de piedra, terracota o bronce (el estípite) sobre el que se colocaba un …   Wikipedia Español

  • Herma — steht für: einen weiblichen Vornamen, Kurzform von Hermine Herma Koehn (* 1944), eine deutsche Schauspielerin und Hörspielsprecherin Herma, ein ehemaliger Name des Schwergutschiffs Beldis Herma GmbH, ein deutsches Unternehmen …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • herma — (Del lat. Herma y Hermes, y este del gr. ῾Ηρμῆς, Hermes). m. Busto sin brazos colocado sobre un estípite …   Diccionario de la lengua española

  • Herma — Her ma, n.; pl. {Herm[ae]}. [L.] See {Hermes}, 2. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Hermä — (Kunstgesch.), so v.w. Hermen …   Pierer's Universal-Lexikon

  • Herma — Herma, Hermi, Hermy althochdeutscher Ursprung, Kurz und Koseformen von → Hermina …   Deutsch namen

  • HERMA — civ. Hisp. Avien. Item urbs in tribu Iudae. Ioh. c. 12. v. 14 …   Hofmann J. Lexicon universale

  • hermă — hérmă s. f., g. d. art. hérmei; pl. hérme Trimis de gall, 22.01.2008. Sursa: DOOM 2 …   Dicționar Român

  • herma — hérma ž <G mn ā/ ī> DEFINICIJA umj. u antičkoj Grčkoj poprsje ili glava (božanstva ili pokojnika) na stupu ETIMOLOGIJA grč. Hermȇs: Hermes, poprsje Hermesa, zatim poprsje općenito …   Hrvatski jezični portal

  • Herma — ► sustantivo masculino ARTE, ESCULTURA Busto sin brazos colocado sobre un estípite o soporte en forma de pirámide truncada invertida. * * * herma (del lat. «Herma» y «Hermes», del gr. «Hermês», Mercurio) m. Busto sin brazos colocado sobre una… …   Enciclopedia Universal

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”