This is a very common way in which Hermes the God was represented in Athens; this specific representation of the god is quintessentially Athenian. They were ubiquitous in Athens, found at various places in the city, commonly outside dwelling places. This links nicely with the Hestia and Hermes duality; for Hestia the sacred hearth goddess is inside the dwelling place and then Hermes stands protecting the outside. A stone pillar which is aspects of an an-iconic representation but what the God also had is a head and a phallus. Combining anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic modes of representation together. Hermes is a God of travel and boundaries; he would be part pillar and part humanised in the extent of anthropomorphism because it encapsulates the ambiguity and power of the God. It gets across the sense that he is the God that sets boundaries and marks boundaries, but transgresses them as well because he is always on the move- the God that can go to Olympus- one of the 12 Olympians. He can also journey down to the underworld accompanying souls to the underworld which is a key aspect of travel. One key function of the deity is to mediate between the gods on one hand and the people on the other hand. He is a God but he is also a mediator between this world and the other world, which is another duality on his part. He still form helps where he has got a very sacred aspect of the fact he's got humanised very accessible aspects as well. Just as the case of the wooden Athena; you have got a more powerful divinity of Athena at the Athenians were able to accept control over that deity by arrangement of adding anthropomorphic elements to the statue; jewellery peplos bathing. Maybe we have a comparable here Hermes as others, superior and divine and also as Hermes was humanised.
We have covered a range of ways how gods can be depicted and shown as birds and animals and how gods can manifest as natural phenomena, iconic ways of depicting deities as well. But To focus on the issue of anthropomorphic and nonanthropomorphic ways of representing the gods. I will now move on to why it was that the Greeks anthropomorphise their deities, particularly in view of the range that there were other options that are available to them. Anthropomorphism had a long and distinguished history but it was only one mode of representation against others. When we think about various examples we have looked at so far; most particularly in Hermes image- anthropomorphism can seemed to be a bit strange perhaps less obvious mode of representation compared with these other ones we have looked at. For example looking at Hermes and an iconic representations as a particularly holy aspect of the statues; what does this tell us about humanistic representations? Are they less sacred somehow?
In order to understand the meaning behind forms of representation we need to step back and think about Greek notions of divinity. It is not the case that the Greeks really thought that their gods looked like humans Aubrey behaved like humans. We see instead on one hand the data his powers and on the other their personalities. Athena is viewed as a human woman with her adornments; peplos and jewellery and humanised bathing ritual accredited to her and women like appearance regarding her anthropomorphic statue of Athena Parthenos. However, she is also the powerful goddess of wisdom and abilities closely associated with the city of Athens and also for helping heroes on their quests. She is also a God capable of metamorphosis disguise her godlike attributes from humans, for example Athena in the Iliad. The true divinity takes the form of something that mortals that cannot endure. One thing we often see in Greek literature is that the presence of divine is normally hidden from the mortals. We start to see anthropomorphism is a kind of compromise; away to represent the gods without their otherness, being something that mortals cannot deal with. So it keeps their otherness as something that can be represented rather than something extreme. Alternatively one thing conveyed in Iliad book 5; there's a mist that stops men from seeing the gods. Athena removes the mist from the eyes of the mortal Diomedes. She enables him to do what other mortals cannot do; namely distinguishing gods from mortals. The mist has been taken from his eyes and he is unable to see the gods. Many various interesting connections between Athena and eyesight aspects.
This one is particularly intriguing because the mortal thanks to Athena’s intervention is to do what mortals normally cannot; namely to differentiate gods on the battlefield. Athena in book 5 transforms Diomedes into a frenzied warrior, whose elevated beyond what normal mortal warriors are capable of because he has been inspired by Athena's warrior power. He has become something above the normal eyesight aspect washed and wants to do is although he has now got superpowers he won't go too far and accidentally kill a God. So she wants him to be able to see the gods so he won't accidentally kill them. However goddess he dislikes is Aphrodite and what he deliberately does is wound Aphrodite, which is something he shouldn't have done, as what re-occurs in literature in the vengefulness of the goddess Aphrodite. One thing that we get from this Iliad example is from what extent the example of the divine is normally something that is hidden from mortals. There are some other examples of this as well.
The importance of the secrecy of the bathing of Athena due to the plenty Festival; there is a pathological parallel to this concerning the young man Tyrsisas; the young man that ends up an old blind prophet. He wasn't originally blind- he inadvertently stumbled upon Athena bathing, which in itself is a very interesting parallel to the Palencia Festival, and then his blinded. There are two ways to look at this; either Athena blinds him and punishment because he is seen what he shouldn't have or the site of the bathing Athena is aslindcrable to mortal eyes causing his blindness. Also another young man Action (the hunter) has a worse fate than Tyrsisas when he observes the naked Artemus bathing. As punishment Artemus transforms him into precisely what he is hunting then his own hunting dogs tell him apart. The point being drawn from these sources signifies that any encounters with the deity is a dangerous thing. So not only have we got Aries complaining about Athena disease we also have Aphrodite complaining disease about the behaviour of the Athena inspired Diomedes. Lovely example of squabbling personalities apart from anything from book 5 of the Iliad.
A key way to approach anthropomorphic images is by thinking about the extent that they don't express what the gods are in essence; it's more that their conveniences and compromises. A way to make the gods approachable to humans. It makes them familiar. Gods need to be both other and representable and accessible. The Greeks like to trace their lineage back to the gods also; various heroes like Pericles except who are the offspring to daisies look like their parents, look like humans because they their parents already have a anthropomorphic don't mention. It is a convenience. One thing Zenophanies (an early Greek philosopher) draws attention to is the absurdities of anthropomorphism. He argued for example if oxen had gods than they would have to be ox like; so it is somehow natural perhaps absurd for mortals to depict gods in ways that are humanlike. The important thing to say here is that a response to the notion that Zenophanies makes is the gods were not seen as humanlike in all ways. What we have here is convenience that enables gods to be represented as beautiful humanised perfected versions of mortals. For example Athena who is a woman on the verge of adult hood; Apollo who is a beautiful young man, Zeus the bearded mature male. This is not what the gods essentially are that it helps make them accessible to mankind. So they can be worshipped because they have traits that are recognisable in human world. But the gods never confined to mortal restraints, after all gods are amongst other things athanatio (immortal and ever changing) or non-mortals to find contrast to us because they are undying; because they are perfect.
Apart from when that God is Hephaestus intriguingly; the disabled God-he could be a perfection of the disabled God or is this an indication of where God is not necessarily seen as perfect after all Hephaestus in literary accounts is a servant of the gods, he makes things for the other gods. He is also a figure of ridicule, on some level inferior to his fellow deities. You might have the opportunity to reflect on various ways of nation of anthropomorphism, divine imperfections, relationships between the gods; how some gods can be seen as marginalised and outcast. In the mortal world it would often be precisely men who were disabled who would be skilled craftsmen; in a cold or hot place because they are disabled. This is where the human situation is imposed on the divine God. Hephaestus is disabled therefore he is the Smith deity the craftsmen, who makes weapons and other necessary objects for the gods. An interesting duality of Hephaestus emerges in that in some versions of this myth Hera is so horrified that she has given birth to a disabled God that is not perfect she throws him off of Mount Olympus. Or he becomes disabled only when he hits the sea? So precisely when his disability comes to be is a chicken or the egg scenario; in which there are many classical mythology.
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