The gate of the year

Stone relief representing the god Mercury, dating to the II century A.D., now in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Trier, Germany.
Mercury (Mercurius) was a Roman divinity who protected trade and mercantile activities. His name, in fact, derived from the term merx (“merchandise”), as was stated by the grammarian Festus (Paulus-Festus p. 111 L), “Mercurius a mercibus est dictus” (“Mercury is called after the merchandise”) (Schilling 1981a). His function as patron of exchanges and transactions favoured his identification with the Greek god Hermes, of whom he acquired the main attributes, like the staff entwined by serpents (caduceus) and the traveller’s hat (petasus). After this identification, Mercury acquired the capacity to transmigrate from the world of the living to the world of the dead, accompanying the souls of the deceased in the Underworld. To this capacity to move across the different dimensions of reality it can probably be associated the figure of the cock, a rather common attribute of the god. The cock was regarded as the animal which announced with its crow the passage from the night to the day. It was furthermore a symbol of sexual potency and thus of the fecundity power, elements that associate it again with the Greek Hermes, who was frequently represented as a phallic pillar (herma).

[Image: http://library.artstor.org/library/]




Male Symbols

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Stone relief representing the god Mercury, dating to the II century A.D., now in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Trier, Germany. Mercury (Mercurius) was a Roman divinity who protected trade and mercantile activities. His name, in fact, derived from the term merx (“merchandise”), as was stated by the grammarian Festus (Paulus-Festus p. 111 L), “Mercurius a mercibus est dictus” (“Mercury is called after the merchandise”) (Schilling 1981a). His function as patron of exchanges and transactions favoured his identification with the Greek god Hermes, of whom he acquired the main attributes, like the staff entwined by serpents (caduceus) and the traveller’s hat (petasus). After this identification, Mercury acquired the capacity to transmigrate from the world of the living to the world of the dead, accompanying the souls of the deceased in the Underworld. To this capacity to move across the different dimensions of reality it can probably be associated the figure of the cock, a rather common attribute of the god. The cock was regarded as the animal which announced with its crow the passage from the night to the day. It was furthermore a symbol of sexual potency and thus of the fecundity power, elements that associate it again with the Greek Hermes, who was frequently represented as a phallic pillar (herma). [Image: http://library.artstor.org/library/]