Hermes (Greek stamp) following June 10, announced the choice of Hermes, messenger of the Gods in the Greek mythology as the effigy of the stamps. The stamps depict a profile of the Greek messenger god Hermes (Mercury) in a frame strongly resembling that used for contemporary stamps of France. The nine values of the stamps of the "large Hermes head" are printed during more than twenty years (from 1861 to 1882) from the same nine typographic plates and stayed in circulation for 25 years (from 1861 to 1886) before to be used again, overprinted, in 1900/1901. The first set was issued on October
Greek sea gods gods in the "Iliad", while in the seventh century BC the Spartan poet Alcman made the sea-nymph Thetis a demiurge-figure. Orpheus's song in Book I of the "Argonautica" hymns the sea-nymph Eurynome as first queen of the gods, as wife of the ocean-born giant Ophion. The pre-Socratic cosmogony of Thales, who made water the first element, may be seen as a natural outgrowth of this poetic thinking. The primacy of aquatic gods is reminiscent of, and may even have been influenced by, ancient Near Eastern mythology - where Tiamat (salt water) and Apsu (fresh water) are the first gods of