or HERMA, among antiquaries, a sort of square or cubical figure of the god Mercury, usually made of marble, though sometimes of brass or other materials, without arms or legs, and planted by the Greeks and Romans in their cross-ways.

Servius gives us the origin thereof, in his comment on the eighth book of the Æneid. Some shepherds, says he, having one day caught Mercury, called by the Greeks Hermes, asleep on a mountain, cut off his hands; from which he, as well as the mountain where the action was done, became denominated Cyllenus, from κυλλεῖν: and thence, adds Servius, it is that certain statues without arms are denominated Hermēs or Herma. But this etymology of the epithet of Cyllenus contradicts most of the other ancient authors; who derive it hence, that Mercury was born at Cyllene, a city of Elis, or even on the mountain Cyllene itself, which had been thus called before him.

Suidas gives a moral explication of this custom of making statues of Mercury without arms. The Hermēs, says he, were statues of stone placed at the vestibules or porches of the doors and temples at Athens; for this reason, that as Mercury was held the god of speech and of truth, square and cubical statues were peculiarly proper; having this in common with truth, that on what side forever they are viewed, they always appear the same.

It must be observed, that Athens abounded more than any other place in Hermēs: there were abundance of very signal ones in divers parts of the city, and they were indeed one of the principal ornaments of the place. They were also placed in the high-roads and cross-ways, because Mercury, who was the courier of the gods, presided over the highways; whence he had his surname of Trivium, from trivium; and that of Via-cus, from via.

From Suidas's account, above-cited, it appears, that the terms termini, used among us in the door-cases, balconies, &c. of our buildings, take their origin from these Athenian Hermēs; and that it was more proper to call them hermetes than termini, because, though the Roman termini were square stones, whereon a head was frequently placed, yet they were rather used as landmarks and mere stones than as ornaments of building. See the articles MERCURY and THOTH.