‖ Herma
(ˈhɜːmə)
Also 6–7 Herm.
[L. Herma, pl. -æ, a latinized form of Hermes, a. Gr. Ἑρµῆς Mercury, applied also at Athens to ‘any four-cornered pillar surmounted by a head or bust’.]
A statue composed of a head, usually that of the god Hermes, placed on the top of a quadrangular pillar, of the proportions of the human body: such statues were exceedingly numerous in ancient Athens, where they were used as boundary-marks, mile-stones, sign-posts, pillars, pilasters, etc.
| 1579–80 North Plutarch (1676) 450 By throwing down and mangling of the Herms (to say, the images of Mercury). Ibid. (1631) 496 Three Hermes of stone (which are foure square pillars) vpon the tops of which they set vp heads of Mercurie. 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 401 (Stanf.) They portraied those Hermes, that is to say, the statues of Mercurie, in yeeres, without either hands or feet. 1638 F. Junius Paint. of Ancients 165 Hermæ were stone statues of Mercury. 1796 Holcroft Stolberg's Trav. (1797) II. lvii. 332 Aspasia, as a Herma: which means only the head on a pillar, that, from its base, gradually extends itself. 1850 Grote Greece VII. 227 The mutilation of the Hermæ, one of the most extraordinary events in all Grecian history. 1850 J. Leitch Müller's Anc. Art §345. 412 The isolated statue was historically developed from the pillar; the Herma remained as an intermediate step, inasmuch as it placed a human head on a pillar having the proportions of the human form. |