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It was not an uncommon custom in Greece to heroize in this way an ordinary dead man.614 One of the most striking instances of this custom is afforded by the so-called Hermes of Andros, a statue found in a grave-chamber on the island in 1833 and now in Athens615 (Pl. ssss1). It has been a matter of dispute among archæologists whether this statue represents the god Hermes or a mortal in his guise. Although Staïs616 looks on it as un problème peut-être à jamais insoluble, there seems little reason for doubting that it represents a defunct mortal. Its place of finding in a tomb along with the statue of a woman of the Muse type, which probably represents the man’s consort,617 the presence of a snake on the adjacent tree trunk, the absence of sandals and kerykeion, and the portrait—like features—all point to the conclusion that a man and not a god is represented. The downcast, almost melancholy, look seems also to make it a funereal figure. The powerful proportions of a perfectly developed athlete, displaying no tendency toward the representation of brute force, show that the man is idealized into the type of Hermes, the god of the palæstra, rather than into the light-winged messenger of Olympos. The Belvedere Hermes of the Vatican,618 and a better one known as the Farnese Hermes of the British Museum,619 are noteworthy replicas of the type. The latter carries the kerykeion in the left hand and wears sandals, with a small chlamys over the left arm and shoulder. These attributes show that Hermes was intended in this copy. Probably the original of these various replicas, a work dating from the end of the fourth century B.C., and ascribed to Praxiteles or his school in consequence of similarity in pose and build of body and head to the Hermes of Olympia, was intended to represent Hermes. In the one from Andros, at least, the copyist intended to heroize a mortal under the type of the god. Similarly, the statue known as the Standing Hermes in the Galleria delle Statue of the Vatican,620 which has the kerykeion and chlamys, whether its original represented Hermes, hero or mortal, has been made by the copyist to represent Hermes, the god of athletics, as the late attribute of wings in the hair proves. Other examples of dead men represented as Hermes are not uncommon. Thus a Greek grave-stele in Verona621 shows the dead portrayed as a winged Hermes, and a similar figure appears on a stele from Tanagra.622 The so-called Commodus in Mantua623 is interpreted by Conze and Duetschke as the figure of a dead youth in Hermes’ guise. But this custom of representing defunct mortals as gods was less common in Roman art. The bust of a dead youth on a Roman grave-stone in Turin,624 set up in honor of L. Mussius, is a good example. Here the cock, sheep, and kerykeion, symbols of the god, show that the youth is represented as Hermes.

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