Alejandro
Active Member
The story of the birth of Hermes makes it sound like he was originally mortal and that he somehow managed to bribe his way into becoming the last of the Twelve Olympians, after appeasing his half-brother Apollon (Apollo) with a musical instrument, and taking some of the stolen cattle to use in a sacrifice to their owner Apollon, to the other ten Olympians, and to himself(!).
Hermes' mother Maia was a daughter of the Titan Atlas. By some of this Titan's other daughters, Zeus and Poseidon also had other sons, who all seem to have been born mortal. So there must have been something special about Maia herself, or Hermes was at birth a mortal just like his half-brothers and cousins, and his father granted him immortality after he performed his amazing feats of theft on his first birthday.
In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, Apollon threatens to cast the baby Hermes into Tartaros "to rule over the little folk there," a threat which no other god but Zeus ever seems to make to any other person in Greek myth. Is this an indication of Hermes' mortality at this point?
Hermes' mother Maia was a daughter of the Titan Atlas. By some of this Titan's other daughters, Zeus and Poseidon also had other sons, who all seem to have been born mortal. So there must have been something special about Maia herself, or Hermes was at birth a mortal just like his half-brothers and cousins, and his father granted him immortality after he performed his amazing feats of theft on his first birthday.
In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, Apollon threatens to cast the baby Hermes into Tartaros "to rule over the little folk there," a threat which no other god but Zeus ever seems to make to any other person in Greek myth. Is this an indication of Hermes' mortality at this point?