1/ Today let's talk about the name of my Twitter account and my Wordpress. Herminius Mons, that is Mountains of Hermes, he who is the sum of the ancestors, patron of shepherds. But what are the Mountains of Hermes and where does the name come from? Let's see!

2/ The Mountains of Hermes historically describe my homeland, which we actually call Serra da Estrela, that is Star Mountain Range. This latter name is much older than the Herminius Mons designation and a name which might've been passed for generations between our people

3/ I've already shown the origin of the Star in the thread below. Herminius Mons was the name given by the Romans. We still use it sometimes to this day, Montes Hermínios in modern Portuguese. Let's see the Historical sources mentioning the Herminius Mons https://twitter.com/Herminius_Mons/status/1237491100140568577

4/ The first written mention of the name Herminius Mons appears in the De Bello Alexandrino, commentaries on Julius Caesar's wars. In chapter 48, an attack of Cassius Longinus to the town of Medobriga and the Herminius Mons is described. Medobriga would be in today's Marialva,

5/ just North of Serra da Estrela. The second Historical mention to Herminius Mons comes from Cassius Dio, who describes Caesar's campaigns in Iberia in his work Historia Romana, book XXXVII. Caesar went to the Herminius Mons to conquer our peoples

6/ He asked the Lusitanians here to abandon their hill forts and go live in the plains instead. Of course, they refused and tried to retaliate. The Lusitanians, those of Herminius Mons included, had long been at war with Rome, almost for 100 years when Caesar arrived.

7/ Weary and against the sheer numbers of Caesar's legions, there was little they could do. Some faced Caesar head on, others fled to the Durius to join their Gallaecian kin in the struggle against Rome, and others surrendered. The last Historical mention is from 1186...

8/ In 1186, King Sancho I of Portugal issues the Carta de Foral to the village of Covilhã, today a city, which can be found at the Southern entrance to Serra da Estrela. A Foral (from Latin forum) is an old Iberian royal document which establishes the borders of a given location

9/ The Foral of Sancho I describes some of the borders of Covilhã like this: "por fora de Pera até à Serra Hermínia, águas vertentes para o Zêzere"

Sancho describes the "Herminian Mountain Range" near the Zêzere river. This is obviously Serra da Estrela, where the Zêzere sources

10/ And well, he was talking about Covilhã as a whole, so it could be no other mountains than those of Hermes. Personally, I think this name is very fitting, as our people have a pastoral lifestyle since the Neolithic (as you can see in the thread linked earlier)

11/ I've no doubt the Romans took that into account when naming the place. Besides, most of the cult to Quangeio, the Lusitanian Hermes, was concentrated in the Eastern part of Serra da Estrela, furthering the relationship between these mountains and this particular deity

12/ Thus Serra da Estrela was immortalised as the Mountains of Hermes. Herminius Mons therefore became the name or "brand" of my work, a tribute to my homeland and to my ancestors as Hermes is the sum of them all. My goal is the revival of our ancient traditions and nothing else

13/ Thank you for reading, and I hope that clarified why I present myself as Herminius Mons. If you ever wondered about the symbolism of my profile picture, you can read all about it here too: https://twitter.com/Herminius_Mons/status/1259570427212509186