Hermae

Hermae (‘herms’)at Athens especially (but also elsewhere in Greece), quadrangular stone pillars bearing an erect phallus and surmounted by a bust of the god Hermēs (later other gods as well) depicted with old-style pointed beard, set up as boundary-marks at cross-roads, by the roadside, near public buildings, and in front of houses; some acted as signposts. They replaced the heaps of stones which were the customary ancient boundary marks. Being phallic they were intended to be apotropaic, i.e. to avert evil influences. At Athens some were set up c.520 BC by Hipparchus, son of the tyrant Peisistratus, with moral maxims engraved on them. They were regarded with reverence; hence the indignation and alarm felt at Athens when in the course of a night shortly before the departure of the Sicilian Expedition in 415 BC the herms were mutilated.