HERCULES 



3951 



HERCULES 



] poison caused him such pain that 

 he tore strips of flesh from his body 

 in his attempt to pull off the shirt. 

 In this condition he was brought to 

 Trachis, and made arrangements 

 for his own funeral pyre. When the 

 pyre began to burn, a cloud de- 

 scended upon it in which Hercules 

 was borne away to Olympus. 

 The worship of Hercules was first 

 introduced to Greece by the 

 Phoenicians, the original object of 

 adoration being the Babylonian 

 sun god Baal, who goes through 

 twelve labours as he goes through 



Herculaneum. General view oi the excavations looking along oae o! the streets 

 o! the buried Roman city 



superior, to those of Pompeii. 

 Among the former, a theatre, a 

 temple, a luxuriously appointed 

 private house, and a barber's shop, 

 the latter containing numerous 

 trade requisites, are the most in- 

 teresting. Of the works of art, the 

 pictures of Theseus and the Mino- 

 taur, the statues of Nero and Ger- 

 manicus (nine feet high), of two 

 members of the Balbus family, and 

 a sleeping Faun, deserve mention. 

 Great hopes were once aroused 

 by the discovery, in a country 

 house outside the walls, of a large 

 collection of papyrus rolls, but they 

 proved of little value. See Vesu- 

 vius; consult also Herculaneum 



a Waldstein and L. K. H. 



Shoobridge, 1908. 



Hercules. Northern constella- 

 tion situated betAveen Lyra and 

 Bootes. One of the Ptolemaic con- 

 stellations, it contains several 

 double and variable stars, and the 

 globular cluster Messier 13. 



Hercules (Gr. HeraUea). Hero 

 in Greek classical mythology. He 

 was the son of Zeus by Alcmene, 

 wife of Amphitryon, king of Thebes. 

 The jealous Hera, wife of Zeus, sent 

 two serpents to destroy the baby 

 Hercules in his cradle, but the 

 infant strangled them both with his 

 hands. Receiving the hand of 

 Megara, daughter of the king of 

 Thebes, as reward for having slain 

 Ergmus, king of Orchomenus, the 

 oppressor of the Thebans, he had 

 by her several children, whom, 

 driven mad by his old enemy Hera, 

 he slew. After being purified of 

 this deed, Hercules was instructed 

 by the Delphic oracle to go to 

 Tiryns and serve Eurystheus, the 

 king, for twelve years. 



It was for Eurystheus that he 

 performed the celebrated Twelve 

 Labours: (1) The slaying of the 

 Nemean lion, which he strangled 



with his own hands ; (2) The de- 

 struction of the many-headed Hy- 

 dra of Lernae, a swamp near Argos ; 

 (3) The capture alive of the Arca- 

 dian stag, with golden antlers and 

 brazen feet ; (4) The capture alive 

 in a net of the Erymanthian boar ; 

 (5) The cleansing of the stables of 

 Augeas, which he carried out in a 

 night by turning the rivers Alpheus 

 and Peneus through them ; (6) The 

 destruction of the Stymphalian 

 birds, monsters with brazen beaks 

 and claws, and feeders on human 

 flesh ; (7) The capture of the mad 

 bull which Poseidon had sent to 

 Minos, king of Crete ; (8) The cap- 

 ture of the man-eating horses of 

 Diomedes, king of the Bistones in 

 Thrace ; (9) The taking of the gir- 

 dle of Hippolyte, queen of the 

 Amazons ; (10) The seizure of the 

 oxen of Geryon, the three- headed 

 monster of the island of Erytheia ; 

 (11 ) The taking of the three golden 

 apples from the garden of the Hes- 

 perides ; (12) The bringing of 

 Cerberus, the three-headed dog of 

 Hades, from the lower world. 



Besides these labours Hercules 

 performed many other deeds, In 

 the war between the gods and the 

 giants he assisted Zeus to victory ; 

 he accompanied the Argonauts in 

 the expedition in quest of the 

 Golden Fleece ; and he rescued 

 Hesione, daughter of Laomedon, 

 from a sea-monster. Going mad a 

 second time, he murdered his friend 

 Iphitus. Ordered by the Delphic 

 oracle to work three years for wages 

 as an atonement and to give the 

 wages to Eurytus, father of Iphitus, 

 he entered the service of Omphale, 

 queeji of Lydia. On a visit to 

 Calydon he won the hand of 

 Deianira, who, becoming jealous, 

 sent him a poisonous shirt, steeped 

 in the blood of the centaur Nessus. 

 Hercules put the shirt on and the 



Hercules. Antique colossal statue 

 known as the Farnese Hercules 



Naples Museum 



the twelve signs of the Zodiac. 

 In Italy the worship of the Greek 

 Heracles was combined with that 

 of an old Italian hero. Pron. Her- 

 cu-leez. See Greek Art. 



Hercules, PILLARS OF. Ancient 

 name for the rocks forming the 

 entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, 

 i.e. Calpe (Gibraltar) in Europe, 

 and Abyla (Ceuta) in Africa. Vari- 

 ous legends describe them either as 

 torn asunder by Hercules to admit 

 the Atlantic or as joined together 

 to keep out the ocean monsters. 



Hercules Beetle. Large species 

 of beetle. Belonging to the genus 

 Dynastes, it is found in the tropical 



Hercules Beetle. The male carrying 

 his mate between his horns 



districts of America. It is often 

 between five and six inches long ; 

 and the male has a vertical pair 

 of large horns which somewhat 

 suggest the pincers of a crab. 



