herm
/həːm
/noun
A squared stone pillar with a carved head on top (typically of Hermes), used in ancient Greece as a boundary marker or a signpost.Because herms were boundary markers, they could be used on tombs to signal the terminus of life, or, in Giulio Romano's I modi, they could form an enclosure around a couple making love....
- Shapiro has outlined the way in which Hipparchos's herms, ‘a bearded head of Hermes atop a square pillar with erect phallus,’ appeared in Attica in 521-514.
- Hipparchos patronized performers like Anakreon and Simonides, embellished the herms he set up throughout Attica with gnomic sayings, and added Homeric recitals to the Panathenaia.
Origin
From the Greek name Hermes.