Listed 5 sub titles with search on: Monuments reported by ancient authors for destination: "FARES Ancient city PATRA".
The market-place of Pharae is of wide extent after the ancient fashion, and in the middle of it is an image of Hermes, made of stone and bearded. Standing right on the earth, it is of square shape, and of no great size. On it is an inscription, saying that it was dedicated by Simylus the Messenian. It is called Hermes of the Market, and by it is established an oracle. In front of the image is placed a hearth, which also is of stone, and to the hearth bronze lamps are fastened with lead. Coming at eventide, the inquirer of the god, having burnt incense upon the hearth, filled the lamps with oil and lighted them, puts on the altar on the right of the image a local coin, called a "copper", and asks in the ear of the god the particular question he wishes to put to him. After that he stops his ears and leaves the marketplace. On coming outside he takes his hands from his ears, and whatever utterance he hears he considers oracular. There is
a similar method of divination practised at the sanctuary of Apis in Egypt.
At Pharae there is also a water sacred to Hermes. The name of the spring is Hermes' stream, and the fish in it are not caught, being considered sacred to the god.
Quite close to the image stand square stones, about thirty in number. These the people of Pharae adore, calling each by the name of some god. At a more remote period all the Greeks alike worshipped uncarved stones instead of images of the gods. At a more remote period all the Greeks alike worshipped uncarved stones instead of images of the gods.
About fifteen stades from Pharae is a grove of the Dioscuri. The trees in it are chiefly laurels; I saw in it neither temple nor images, the latter, according to the natives, having been carried away to Rome. In the grove at Pharae is an altar of unshaped stones.
Hermes, from his close connexion with Apollo, was a god that might be expected to give oracles: this power, however, in the Homeric hymn to Hermes, 552 sqq., is only accorded to him in a limited degree by the more exalted deity. He had an oracle at Pharae in Achaia, where his altar stood in the middle of the market-place. Incense was offered there, oil lamps were lighted before it, a copper coin was placed upon the altar, and after this the question was put to the god by a whisper in his ear. The person who consulted him immediately left the market-place. The first remark that he heard made by any one after leaving the marketplace was believed to imply the answer of Hermes (Pausan. vii. 22, § 2). This mode of oracular disclosure was so much associated with Hermes that he received the name of Kleedonios from it; as we learn from an inscription found at Pitane, near Smyrna (Le Bas et Waddington, Voyage archeol. v. 1724a). Hence it is probable that the Kledonon hieron at Smyrna, mentioned by Pausanias (ix. 11, § 7), was an oracle of Hermes.
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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