property. Pu ̄s
̇
an for his part is the patron of professional trackers, and can
bring lost, hidden, or stolen goods to light.^10 In general he is a god of gain
(RV 1. 89. 5; 6. 54. 4, 8; TS 1. 2. 3. 2; 2. 4. 5. 1), and the same can be said of
Hermes.
So the Arcadian Pan and the Panhellenic Hermes overlap, and both have
many features in common with Pu ̄s
̇
an. Pan was held to be Hermes’ son. It
seems likely that they were originally the same. Paon-Pan in the mountain
fastnesses of Arcadia preserved the old Graeco-Aryan name, which elsewhere
in Greece, already in the Mycenaean period, was replaced by the title ‘herma-
god’.^11 Herma seems to have had the basic meaning of an upright stone or pile
of stones; hence it is used of a prop for a beached ship, an underwater reef, a
foundation stone. It was no doubt used of the occasional stone pillars which
marked out the way through the mountains, and to which every passing
traveller added a stone to build up a cairn. These erections once belonged to
Pan, but in time he was remembered only as the herma-god. The pillar itself
became a Hermes, a herm.
The Roman Mercury was primarily a god of commerce. He was equated
with Hermes, who also had this function, but he is not (except in consequence
of this equation) notable for the features that link Hermes with Pan and
Pu ̄s
̇
an, and I am not inclined to identify him with them. However, among
the various Celtic gods that the Romans equated with Mercury there was
perhaps one who does belong here. Caesar (Bell. Gall. 6. 17. 1) names
Mercury as the Gauls’ principal god and says that they regard him as, among
other things, the patron of roads and journeys, uiarum atque itinerum ducem.
The god of roads appears again, without a name, in a dedication of 191
from Thornbrough, North Yorkshire, deo qui uias et semitas commentus est
(CIL vii. 271).
In Lithuania too there is record of such a figure. The sixteenth-century
chronicler Matys Stryjkowski lists ‘Kielu Dziewos der Reisegott’ (i.e. Keliu ̃
die ̃vas, ‘god of roads’). He describes the sacrifice and prayer made to him by
those setting out on a journey. Something over a century later, Matthaeus
Praetorius knows him as ‘Kellukis, der auf die Wege Achtung hat’.^12
(^10) RV 1. 23. 13; 6. 48. 15, 54. 1–2, 8, 10; AV 7. 9. 4; Macdonell (1898), 36; Hillebrandt
(1927–9), ii. 328–30; Oberlies (1998), 202.
(^11) Mycenaean Herma ̄ha ̄s, later UΕρμεα,UΕρμα ́ ων, UΕρμH, etc. For this interpretation
of Hermes’ name cf. M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste von religiöser Bedeutung (Leipzig 1906),
388–90; id., Geschichte der griechischen Religion (3rd edn., Munich 1967), i. 503–5.
(^12) Mannhardt (1936), 331, 545; Usener (1896), 93, 114.
- Nymphs and Gnomes 283