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hermae

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hermae

In ancient Greece, posts or heaps of stones, set up to mark boundaries or distances along roads. The hermae were associated with the cult of Hermes, the messenger of the gods.

In about the 5th century BC the hermae became regularly shaped pillars which tapered downwards and had a head (usually of Hermes) at the top and a phallus halfway up. They were placed at street corners and at the doors of houses.

Hermae were held in great respect, if not actually worshipped. The hermae in Athens were mutilated on the eve of the Sicilian expedition 415 BC, causing great alarm and indignation in the city.
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The minister, or to speak correctly, des Lupeaulx had invited to dinner on this occasion one of those irremovable officials who, as we have said, are to be found in every ministry; an individual much embarrassed by his own person, who, in his desire to maintain a dignified appearance, was standing erect and rigid on his two legs, held well together like the Greek hermae.
Bureaucracy by de Balzac, Honore View in context
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