Kriophoros

In ancient Greek cult, kriophoros (Greek: κριοφόρος) or criophorus, the "ram-bearer," is a figure that commemorates the solemn sacrifice of a ram. It becomes an epithet of Hermes: Hermes Kriophoros.

Myth

At the Boeotian city of Tanagra, Pausanias relates a local myth that credited the god with saving the city in a time of plague, by carrying a ram on his shoulders as he made the circuit of the city's walls:

The myth may be providing an etiological explanation of a cult practice, carried out to avert miasma, the ritual pollution that had brought disease, a propitiatory act whose ancient origins had become lost but had ossified in this iconic motif. Reflections of Calamis' lost Hermes Kriophoros may be detectable on Roman coinage of the city.

In Messenia, at the sacred grove of Karnasus, Pausanias noted that Apollon Karneios and Hermes Kriophoros had a joint cult, the ram-bearers (kriophoroi) joining in male initiation rites.

A description by Pausanias of a Kriophoros dedicated at Olympia, by the sculptor Onatas, has been compared by José Dörig with a surviving bronze statuette, 8.6 cm tall, in the Cabinet des Médailles, Paris, as a basis for reconstructing the Severe style of the sculptor.