Similar to his Greek equivalent Hermes, he was awarded a magic wand by Apollo, which later turned into the caduceus, the staff with intertwined snakes.

), mercari (to trade), and merces (wages); another possible connection is the Proto-Indo-European root merĝ- for "boundary, border" (cf.

Old English "mearc", Old Norse "mark" and Latin "margō") and Greek οὖρος (by analogy of Arctūrus/Ἀρκτοῦρος), as the "keeper of boundaries," referring to his role as bridge between the upper and lower worlds.

Additionally, Ovid wrote that Mercury carried Morpheus's dreams from the valley of Somnus to sleeping humans.

The most common and significant of these epithets included the following: In Virgil's Aeneid, Mercury reminds Aeneas of his mission to found the city of Rome.

At the completion of its construction, a dispute emerged between the consuls Appius Claudius Sabinus Regillensis and Publius Servilius Priscus Structus as to which of them should have the honour of dedicating the temple.

The people, because of the ongoing public discord, and in order to spite the senate and the consuls, instead awarded the honour of dedicating the temple to Marcus Laetorius, the senior military officer of one of the legions.

[18] The temple was regarded as a fitting place to worship a swift god of trade and travel, since it was a major center of commerce as well as a racetrack.

[citation needed] Because Mercury was not one of the early deities surviving from the Roman Kingdom, he was not assigned a flamen (priest), but he did have his own major festival, on 15 May, the Mercuralia.