Hermes (Greek stamp) Hermes (Greek stamp) The Greek god Hermes, messenger of the Gods in the Greek mythology, is the representation chosen, in 1860, by the Kingdom of Greece to illustrate its first postal stamps. The first type, the "large Hermes head", was issued in October 1861, and stayed in circulation up to 1886, it was then replaced by the second type, the "small Hermes head". The "large Hermes head" stamps, have been reissued, overprinted, in 1900 and 1901 in order to mitigate the delay of shipment of the stamps of the third type, the "flying Hermes" by the British printer J. P.
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