or HERMA, amongst 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 or Romans in their cross-ways.

Servius, in his comment upon the eighth book of the Aeneid, states the origin of this. Some shepherds, says he, having one day caught Mercury, called by the Greeks Hermes, asleep on a mountain, cut off his hands, whence he, as well as the mountain where the action occurred, was denominated Cylleneus, from κυλλεῖν, to maimed; and hence it is, according to Servius, that certain statues without arms are denominated Hermae. But this etymology of the epithet of Cylleneus contradicts most of the other ancient authors, who derive it from this, that Mercury was born at Cyllene, a city of Elis, or even on the mountain Cyllene itself, which had been so called before his time.

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

Athens abounded more in Hermes than any other place; there were numbers of them in different parts of the city, and they were indeed one of its principal ornaments. They were also placed in the high-roads and cross-ways, because Mercury, who was the courier of the gods, presided over the high-ways; hence his surname of Trivius, from trivium, and that of Viacus, from via.

From Suidas's account, above cited, it appears that the termini, used amongst us in the door-cases, balconies, and other parts of our buildings, take their origin from these Athenian Hermes, and that it was more proper to call them hermetes than termini, because, though the Roman termini were square stones, on which a hand was frequently placed, yet they were rather used as landmarks and mere stones than as ornaments of building.