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These qualities were combined with similar ones, such as cunning both in words and actions, and even fraud, perjury, and the inclination to steal but acts of this kind were committed by Hermes always with a certain skill, dexterity, and even gracefulness. 14 As heralds and messengers are usually men of prudence and circumspection, Hermes was also the god of prudence and skill in all the relations of social intercourse. 13 Hence the tongues of sacrificial animals were offered to him. 12 As an adroit speaker, he was especially employed as messenger, when eloquence was required to attain the desired object.
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As the herald of the gods, he is the god of skill in the use of speech and of eloquence in general, for the heralds are the public speakers in the assemblies and on other occasions. The principal feature in the traditions about Hermes consists in his being the herald of the gods, and in this capacity he appears even in the Homeric poems his original character of an ancient Pelasgian, or Arcadian divinity of nature, gradually disappeared in the legends. According to the Homeric hymn, 10 Apollo refused to teach Hermes the art of prophecy, and referred him for it to the three sisters dwelling on Parnassus but he conferred upon him the office of protecting flocks and pastures. 9 Apollo presented his young friend with his own golden shepherd's staff, taught him the art of prophesying by means of dice, and Zeus made him his own herald, and also of the gods of the lower world. Hermes now invented the syrinx, and after having disclosed his inventions to Apollo, the two gods concluded an intimate friendship with each other. As, however, he saw that his assertions were not believed, he conducted Apollo to Pylos, and restored to him his oxen but when Apollo heard the sounds of the lyre, he was so charmed that he allowed Hermes to keep the animals. Zeus commanded him to comply with the demand of Apollo, but Hermes denied that he had stolen the cattle. She showed to the god the child in its cradle but Apollo took the boy before Zeus, and demanded back his oxen. 8Īpollo, by his prophetic power, had in the meantime discovered the thief, and went to Cyllene to charge him with it before his mother Maia. The number of strings of his new invention is said by some to have been three and by others seven, and they were made of the guts either of oxen or of sheep. He took the animal's shell, drew strings across it, and thus invented the lyre and plectrum. 7 Hereupon he returned to Cyllene, where he found a tortoise at the entrance of his native cave. 6 The skins of the slaughtered animals were nailed to a rock, and part of their flesh was prepared and consumed, and the rest burnt at the same time he offered sacrifices to the twelve gods, whence he is probably called the inventor of divine worship and sacrifices. 5 In order not to be discovered by the traces of his footsteps, Hermes put on sandals, and drove the oxen to Pylos, where he killed two, and concealed the rest in a cave.
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4 Other accounts, again, refer the theft of the oxen to a more advanced period of the life of the god. 3 In the Iliad and Odyssey this tradition is not mentioned, though Hermes is characterized as a cunning thief. In the first hours after his birth, he escaped from his cradle, went to Pieria, and carried off some of the oxen of Apollo. Hermes, a son of Zeus and Maia, the daughter of Atlas, was born in a cave of Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, 1 whence he is called Atlantiades or Cyllenius but Philostratus 2 places his birth in Olympus.