Kriophoros
Kriophoros, meaning “ram-bearer,” is an epithet of Hermes in ancient Greek religion. A well-known Tanagra myth says Hermes saved the city from a plague by carrying a ram on his shoulders as he went around the walls. In gratitude, a statue by Calamis depicted Hermes with a ram on his shoulders, and later a festival rite had a handsome youth carrying a lamb around the walls. The story may explain an old ritual to avert miasma, the ritual pollution linked to disease, a custom that became fixed in this iconic image.
The idea of Hermes Kriophoros may also be seen on some Roman coins from Tanagra. In Messenia, at Karnasus, Pausanias notes a joint cult of Apollon Karneios and Hermes Kriophoros, where the kriophoroi joined in male initiation rites. Pausanias also describes a Kriophoros statue at Olympia by the sculptor Onatas, and scholars compare it with a small bronze in Paris to study the artist’s Severe style. Not all kriophoroi show a young ram: the famous Moscophoros, The Calf Bearer, a 6th-century BCE marble from the Athenian Acropolis, bears a calf on the sacrificer’s shoulders—the same iconic pose later associated with kriophoroi.
In later periods, Christian art often reinterpreted the ram-bearer image as the Good Shepherd. Hermes Kriophoros could be seen as Christ giving the Law (Traditio Legis) or as the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd appears in the Catacombs of Rome and in sarcophagus reliefs, where Christian and pagan imagery mix. It also appears in the wall paintings of the Dura-Europos baptistery, in sixth-century mosaics such as the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, and in a notable late antique sculpture once linked to a Christian owner in the Vatican Museums. By the fifth century, many depictions clearly identify the shepherd as Christ. In Constantinople, similar imagery shows up in floor mosaics of the Great Palace, illustrating how the shepherd motif evolved from Hermes to Jesus.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 14:06 (CET).