Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

On the night of his birth, after stealing Apollo’s cattle from Pieria, the infant Hermes drives them to the river Alpheus. There he invents the making of fire by rubbed sticks (fire-drills)—the hymn credits him expressly with that craft—and kindles a blaze. He fells two of the herd, kills and butchers them, roasts the meat on spits, and divides it into twelve portions by lot, as for the twelve gods, laying out a share even for himself as if already numbered among them. Though the savor of roasted flesh delights him, he does not eat—immortal longing without mortal consumption. He burns the heads and feet, hides the remaining cattle, and erases traces of the deed before returning to his cradle on Cyllene. The scene is the hymn’s aetiology of sacrificial practice and of Hermes’ double nature: thief and culture-hero who institutes the portions of the gods, yet still a newborn who must later answer Apollo and Zeus for the slaughter. Catalogue the Alpheius sacrifice apart from the cattle-drive and lyre-exchange so fire-sticks, twelvefold division, and the uneaten offering stand as Hermes’ first rite.