Day Sixteen: Children of Hermes

Here we have Hermes, god of commerce and thieves, guide to the underworld and messenger of the Olympians. According to the internet, he may have fathered as many as thirty-five children! I guess the winged sandals must have been pretty sexy, no?


So here's a list of the most important kids:

Pan: son of Hermes and the nymph Dryope. He was a satyr and invented the panpipe, which you can see in this picture. He was a trickster and supposedly lured people into the woods with his pipe and then did horrible nasty things to them.

Hermaphroditus: son of Hermes and Aphrodite, goddess of love. He fell in love with the nymph Salmacis, who asked the gods to make it so they would never be apart. They embraced in a pool and were subsequently turned into a hermaphrodite. Hermaphroditus then cursed the pool so that any man who entered it would be castrated.

Priapus: son of Hermes and Aphrodite, cursed by Hera because of his mother's promiscuity. Her curse gave him an enormous permanent erection. Minor fertility god, guardian of livestock, fruit plants, gardens, and protector of male genitalia.

Eros (Cupid): son of Hermes and Aphrodite, although he may have been the son of Ares, Hephaestus, or just sprung from thin air. God of love and given magical arrows to pierce lovers' hearts.

Tyche: daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite. (Man, those two got it on!) Also known as Fortuna, she was the goddess of luck and destiny. She wore a crown shaped like the walls of a city.







Autolycus: no photo available unfortunately, he was the son of Hermes and Chione. Apparently Hermes put Chione to sleep and raped her. Autolycus wasn't all that exciting, but he was the grandfather of Odysseus, which would make Odysseus one-eighth god.

Day Fifteen: Herms

For your viewing pleasure, a few herms from around the world:

<-- Herm of Demosthenes

Unknown herm

Herm of Fundilia Rufa

Another unknown herm. This one seems older than the others.

Day Fourteen: The Cult of Attis

For the great number of people who missed class today, here's a little back story on Attis: He was the child of Agdistis, who was the child of either Hera sponaneously reproducing or a man jacking off on a rock. Agdistis was a hermaphrodite and was wreaking havoc, so the gods tied its man parts to a tree while it slept. When it woke up, it jumped back and became female. Unfortunately, "she" soon died from blood loss (menstration implications?) and a tree grew from "her" blood. A while later, a princess sat under said tree and a pomegranite/almond fell onto her lap/breasts, depending on the version. She gave birth to Attis.

Attis was raised on "he-goat milk" (your guess is as good as mine . . .) and, being the son of a tree and the grandson of a rock, he was a very handsome young man. He is also rumored to have been related to King Minos (symolism of goddess?). He was so handsome that Cybele, the goddess of the earth, fell in love with him. He did not reciprocate and decided to marry a woman named Sangarius. Cybele was so angry that she showed up at his wedding in all of her goddess-y fury, which drove him mad to the extent that he castrated himself and died from the blood loss. Cybele/gods/somebody was so upset that he was resurrected into a pine tree.


Now we come to the exciting part!

The Cult of Attis supposedly began around 1200 B.C. It involved going into the forest and cutting down a pine tree. The tree was decorated with ornaments and carved figures of Attis and Cybele, and everybody danced around in a frenzy and cut themselves, believing that the spattered blood might resurrect Attis. Every year, a few men would get so impassioned during the festival that--get this--they would willingly castrate themselves. These men would then hit the figure of Cybele with their, ahem, severed limbs, then run wildly through the streets and throw their *cough* limbs into the doorway of a house. That house was responsible for giving them women's clothes.

Note: none of this is made up. Seriously.

Day Thirteen: Theophany

The word "theophany" comes from the Greek word "theophania," meaning "appearance of god." I like the Britannica definition: "manifestation of deity in sensible form."

Theophany is also one of the feasts celebrated by the Orthodox church. It occurs on January 6 and celebrates the baptism of Jesus and appearance of the Trinity. According to orthodoxwiki (yeah, that really exists! Crazy, huh?), it's sometimes also referred to as "Epiphany," although apparently that applies more to the feast celebrating the Magi coming to give gifts to baby Jesus. (Does anyone else ever feel like traditional Catholics just really, really liked feasting?)

<-- the theophany of Christ



There are tons of great Biblical examples of theophany--think Moses and the burning bush, the pillars of dust or smoke that led the Israelites across the desert, basically everything in the story of Moses. A few other stories also show that theophany can be so overwhelming that God occasionally uses it as punishment. The shock and awe of it are too much for people to handle, and they almost always die of fear.

The internet yielded no results for any other religion, but I think Zeus appearing to his lady "friends" as various things is a pretty good example.

Day Twelve: Frodo's Hero Cycle

Review time!
The thing I'm most concerned with remembering is the entire hero cycle, so I'm going to try to do it from memory with everybody's favorite Hobbit, Frodo Baggins!

I: Departure
1) Call to Adventure -- *Gandalf voice* You must take the ring to the elves!
2) Refusal -- I don't remember him refusing to carry the ring. I'll have to re-read it
3) Unexpected Aid -- I'm thinking when Aragorn shows up and saves them at the inn
4) 1st Threshold -- if I remember right, he specifically mentions that it's the farthest he's ever been from the Shire at some point. Maybe that was Sam though
5) Belly of the Whale -- getting stabbed. Not much fun. Or maybe when Gandalf dies?

II: Initiation
1) Road of Trials -- separated from the group (except Sam) and making a long scary journey
2) Meeting with Goddess -- elves and Galadriel?
3) Woman as Temptress -- MIA
4) Atonement with Father -- seeing Bilbo again maybe?
5) Apotheosis -- overcoming the power of the ring!
6) Ultimate Boon -- ring is destroyed, yay!

III: Return
1) Refusal -- (we're going to die up here on Mt. Doom, Sam!)
2) Magic Flight -- could it be more obvious? Eagles!
3) Rescue from Without -- eagles take the hobbits to the elves. Elves have magical medicine. And lots of food.
4) 2nd Threshold -- returning to elves/Shire/civilization/not being possessed by evil ring
5) Master of Two Worlds -- savior of known world and Hobbit Extraordinaire
6) Freedom to Live -- elf boat