Overview

Of all the divinities of classical antiquity, the Greek Hermes (Mercury in his Roman alter ego) is the most versatile, enigmatic, complex, and ambiguous. The runt of the Olympian litter, he is the god of lies and tricks, yet is also kindly towards mankind and a bringer of luck. His functions embrace both the marking of boundaries and their transgression, but also extend to commerce, lucre, and theft, as well as rhetoric and practical jokes. In another guise, he plays the role of mediator between all realms of human and divine activity, embracing heaven, earth, and the netherworld. Pursuing this elusive divinity requires a truly multidisciplinary approach, reflecting his prismatic nature, and the twenty contributions to this volume draw on a wide range of fields to achieve this, from Greek and Roman literature (epic, lyric, and drama), epigraphy, cult, and religion, to vase painting and sculpture. In offering an overview of the myriad aspects of Hermes/Mercury-including his origins, patronage of the gymnasium, and relation to other trickster figures-the volume attempts to track the god's footprints across the many domains in which he partakes. Moreover, in keeping with his deep connection to exchange, commerce, and dialogue, it aims to exemplify and further encourage discourse between Latinists and Hellenists, as well as between scholars of literary and material cultures.

Full Product Details

Author:   John F. Miller (Arthur F. and Marian W. Stocker Professor of Classics, Arthur F. and Marian W. Stocker Professor of Classics, University of Virginia) ,  Jenny Strauss Clay (William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Classics Emerita, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Classics Emerita, University of Virginia)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.40cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 24.00cm
Weight:   0.872kg
ISBN:  

9780198777342

ISBN 10:   0198777345
Pages:   404
Publication Date:   11 March 2019
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

Frontmatter List of Figures List of Abbreviations List of Contributors 1: Jenny Strauss Clay and John F. Miller: Introduction Section I. Son, Father, Brother 2: H. Alan Shapiro: Like Mother, Like Son? Hermes and Maia in Text and Image 3: Carolyn M. Laferrière: Hermes among Pan and the Nymphs on Fourth-Century Votive Reliefs 4: Jennifer Larson: Hermes and Heracles Section II. Trickster 5: Jenny Strauss Clay: Hide and Go Seek: Hermes in Homer 6: Andrea Capra and Cecilia Nobili: Hermes Iambicus Section III. Comic 7: Simone Beta: The God and his Double: Hermes as Character and Speaking Statue in Greek Comedy 8: Erin K. Moodie: Hermes/Mercury: God of Comedy? Section IV. Erotic 9: Joseph Farrell: Hermes in Love: The Erotic Career of a Mercurial Character 10: Micah Young Myers: Lascivus Puer: Cupid, Hermes, and Hymns in Ovid's Metamorphoses Section V. Mediator 11: S. J. Harrison: Horace's Mercury and Mercurial Horace 12: Sergio Casali: Crossing the Borders: Vergil's Intertextual Mercury Section VI. Commerce and Exchange 13: Duncan E. MacRae: Mercury and Materialism: Images of Mercury and the Tabernae of Pompeii 14: Thomas Biggs: Did Mercury Build the Ship of Aeneas? Section VII. Greek Religion and Cult 15: Hélène Collard: Communicating with the Divine: Herms in Attic Vase Painting 16: Jenny Wallensten: Hermes as Visible in Votive Inscriptions 17: Sandra Blakely: Hermes, Kyllene, Samothrace, and the Sea Section VIII. Egypt 18: Ljuba Merlina Bortolani: The Greek Magical Hymn to Hermes: Syncretism or Disguise? The Hellenization of Thoth in Graeco-Egyptian Magical Literature 19: Athanassios Vergados: Hermes and the Figs: On P.Oxy.17.2084 Section IX. Cosmic 20: Nicola Reggiani: Rethinking Hermes: Cosmic Justice and Proportional Distributions 21: Henk Versnel: Great Hermes: Three Ways towards Stardom Endmatter Index

Reviews

The individual chapters are all of high quality. In their totality, they provide a comprehensive review of existing scholarship, and also to varying extents strike out on their own. As such, this book represents a major advance in scholarship. * Andrew Faulkner, University of Waterloo, Canada, Religious Studies Review * The volume covers an impressive chronological and geographical range and is the first sustained, interdisciplinary study of Hermes/Mercury, from which one emerges with an expanded view of the multifaceted god... The individual chapters are all of high quality. In their totality, they provide a comprehensive review of existing scholarship, and also to varying extents strike out on their own. As such, this book represents a major advance in scholarship. * Andrew Faulkner, University of Waterloo, Canada, Religious Studies Review *

The volume covers an impressive chronological and geographical range and is the first sustained, interdisciplinary study of Hermes/Mercury, from which one emerges with an expanded view of the multifaceted god... The individual chapters are all of high quality. In their totality, they provide a comprehensive review of existing scholarship, and also to varying extents strike out on their own. As such, this book represents a major advance in scholarship. * Andrew Faulkner, University of Waterloo, Canada, Religious Studies Review *

Author Information

John F. Miller is Arthur F. and Marian W. Stocker Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1984 and served as chair of the Department of Classics from 1999 to 2014. He is the author of Apollo, Augustus, and the Poets (CUP, 2009), which was awarded the Charles Goodwin Award of Merit by the American Philological Association, and Ovid's Elegiac Festivals: Studies in the 'Fasti' (Peter Lang, 1991), and is also the co-editor of four collaborative volumes on Greek and Roman literature and culture. From 1991 until 1998 he was the Editor of Classical Journal. Jenny Strauss Clay is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Classics Emerita at the University of Virginia, where she taught for 37 years, alongside holding visiting professorships at Duke University, the École des Hautes Etudes, Paris, and the École Normale, Lyon. She has served as the President of the Classical Association of the Midwest and South and of the American Philological Association, and is the author of The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in the Odyssey (PUP, 1983), The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns (PUP, 1989), Hesiod's Cosmos (CUP, 2003), and Homer's Trojan Theater: Space, Vision, and Memory in the Iliad (CUP, 2011). In 2012-13 she was awarded a Humboldt Stiftung Preis.

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