Runners used to pray to him for skill in winning foot races.

But this god had many forms and many attributes, and one of his supposed duties was to bring the souls of the dead into the presence of the king of Hades.

So you will see some pictures of him standing before the throne of the king of the Dead, and behind him a long procession of shuddering ghosts.

He is nearly always pictured as holding in his hands a strange sceptre called the _caduceus_, a short staff about which two little serpents are coiled, and at the top of which is a tiny pair of wings.

This is the golden rod referred to by the poet; when Hermes touched anybody with it, the soul of the person touched was obliged immediately to leave the body and follow after him.