Hermes

The tale of Hermes

Hermes was born at dawn in a cave on Mount Cyllene, the son of Zeus and the nymph Maia. By noon he was bored. He climbed out of his cradle, found a tortoise at the mouth of the cave, cleaned out its shell, stretched strings of sheep gut across it, and invented the lyre. By evening he was hungry for adventure, and he set off to steal the sacred cattle of his big brother Apollo.

The cattle thief

He took fifty of Apollo's finest cows from their meadow in Pieria. To hide the theft he drove them backwards, so their tracks pointed the wrong way, and tied bundles of twigs to his own feet so no one would recognise his footprints. He hid the cattle in a cave, sacrificed two of them to the twelve gods (counting himself as the twelfth), then crept home and climbed back into his cradle, wrapped in his blanket like an innocent baby.

Apollo, the god of prophecy, soon worked out who the thief was and stormed into the cave. The baby swore he was only one day old and didn't even know what a cow was. Apollo dragged him to Mount Olympus. Even Zeus could not keep from laughing at his newborn son's lies, but he ordered him to give the cattle back. Hermes played Apollo a song on his new lyre, and Apollo was so enchanted that he gave him the cattle in exchange for it. The two brothers became friends for life. As the game's Hermes says, he's been forgiven for worse since lunch.

Messenger of the gods

Zeus made the clever child his messenger. He gave him a winged hat, winged sandals and a herald's staff, the caduceus, wound with two serpents. Hermes became the god of travellers, roads and boundaries, of merchants and trade, of luck, of thieves and liars, of eloquence, and of sport. He also guides the souls of the dead down to the underworld.

He appears in many myths as the helper of heroes. He lent Perseus a curved sword, gave Odysseus a magic herb to protect him from the witch Circe, and freed Zeus's beloved Io from the hundred-eyed giant Argus by lulling all his eyes to sleep with stories.

Hermes in Battle of Myths

Hermes is a cost 2 Greek assassin and mystic. His ability, Winged Sandals, sends him darting to the weakest enemy for a quick strike, then quickens the attacks of every ally around him. With every Greek hero he shares Glory: whenever an enemy falls, the Greeks grow stronger and heal.

Did you know?

• The Romans called him Mercury, the name of the planet closest to the Sun and of the liquid metal.
• The caduceus is often used as a symbol of medicine, though the true symbol of healing is the single-serpent staff of Asclepius.