Hermathena

As Herma Thene (Greek Ἑρμαθήνη ) Hermen be designated by the head of the Greek goddess Athena or Doppelhermen with the heads of Hermes and Athena.

Antiquity

Herma Thenen were placed primarily in high schools and palaestrae. Cicero asked a Herma Thene on the gymnasium in Tusculum and considered this for a suitable ornament of the Academy. Another Herma Thene was on the Capitol in Rome. In Greek mythology, Hermes appears occasionally as a companion of Athena, which explains the allegorical connection between the two deities.

It has not received a copy of an antique Herma Thene.

Renaissance

The humanist Achille Bocchi joins in his Symbolicarum quaestionum de universo genere ( 1555) to Cicero. He designed the emblem of the Academy as Herma Thene because it ( while with ropes) connects according to the maxim festina lente the speed of Hermes with the deliberation of Athena, an idea that already found in Marsilio Ficino. Vincenzo Cartari describes the Herma Thene in Imagini colla sposizione degli dei degli antichi ( 1556 ) as a hermaphrodite, Federico Zuccari is Hermes and Athena on a fresco in the Villa Farnese in Caprarola ( 1570 ) with their respective attributes enthroned with two bodies and a pair of legs dar.