It was not an uncommon custom in Greece to heroize in this way an ordinary dead man.[614] One of the most striking instances of this custom is afforded by the so-called _Hermes of Andros_, a statue found in a grave-chamber on the island in 1833 and now in Athens[615] (Pl. 5). It has been a matter of dispute among archæologists whether this statue represents the god Hermes or a mortal in his guise. Although Staïs[616] looks on it as _un problème peut-être à jamais insoluble_, there seems little reason for doubting that it represents a defunct mortal. Its place of finding in a tomb along with the statue of a woman of the Muse type, which probably represents the man’s consort,[617] the presence of a snake on the adjacent tree trunk, the absence of sandals and kerykeion, and the portrait—like features—all point to the conclusion that a man and not a god is represented. The downcast, almost melancholy, look seems also to make it a funereal figure. The powerful proportions of a perfectly developed athlete, displaying no tendency toward the representation of brute force, show that the man is idealized into the type of Hermes, the god of the palæstra, rather than into the light-winged messenger of Olympos. The _Belvedere Hermes_ of the Vatican,[618] and a better one known as the _Farnese Hermes_ of the British Museum,[619] are noteworthy replicas of the type. The latter carries the kerykeion in the left hand and wears sandals, with a small chlamys over the left arm and shoulder. These attributes show that Hermes was intended in this copy. Probably the original of these various replicas, a work dating from the end of the fourth century B. C., and ascribed to Praxiteles or his school in consequence of similarity in pose and build of body and head to the _Hermes_ of Olympia, was intended to represent Hermes. In the one from Andros, at least, the copyist intended to heroize a mortal under the type of the god. Similarly, the statue known as the _Standing Hermes_ in the Galleria delle Statue of the Vatican,[620] which has the kerykeion and chlamys, whether its original represented Hermes, hero or mortal, has been made by the copyist to represent Hermes, the god of athletics, as the late attribute of wings in the hair proves. Other examples of dead men represented as Hermes are not uncommon. Thus a Greek grave-stele in Verona[621] shows the dead portrayed as a winged Hermes, and a similar figure appears on a stele from Tanagra.[622] The so-called _Commodus_ in Mantua[623] is interpreted by Conze and Duetschke as the figure of a dead youth in Hermes’ guise. But this custom of representing defunct mortals as gods was less common in Roman art. The bust of a dead youth on a Roman grave-stone in Turin,[624] set up in honor of L. Mussius, is a good example. Here the cock, sheep, and kerykeion, symbols of the god, show that the youth is represented as Hermes. [Illustration: PLATE 5 Statue of _Hermes_, from Andros. National Museum, Athens.]