CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.

The Homeric Hymn to Hermes records how the tortoise first came to be associated with the god. It was Hermes 'who first made the tortoise sing' when he encountered the creature on the threshold of Apollo's cave: he was so delighted that he took the tortoise and created the first lyre from its shell. For a seated bronze Mercury with a tortoise in the British Museum see inv. no. 1814,0704.1571.