7U4 



HERCULES. 



re-established on Uie throne of Sparta, Tyndarus, 

 who liad been expelled by Hippocoon. He became 

 one of Dejanira's suitors, and married her, after he 

 liad overcome all his rivals. (See Achelous.) He 

 was obliged to leave Calydon, his father-in-law's 

 kingdom, because he had inadvertent ly killed a man 

 with a blow of his fist ; and it was on account of this 

 expulsion that he was not present at the hunting of 

 the Calydonian boar. From Calydon, he retired to 

 the court of Ceyx, king of Trachinia. In his way, he 

 was stopped by the swollen streams of the Evenus, 

 where the Centaur Nessus attempted to offer violence 

 to Dejanira, under the perfidious pretence of con- 

 veying her over the river. Hercules perceived the 

 distress of Dejanira, and killed the Centaur, who, as 

 lie expired, gave her a tunic, which, as he observed, 

 had the power of recalling a husband from unlawful 

 love. (See Dejanira.) Ceyx, king of Trachinia, 

 received him and his wife with great marks of friend- 

 ship, and purified him of the murder which he had 

 committed at Calydon. Hercules was still mindful 

 that he had once been refused the hand of lole ; he 

 therefore made war against her father, Eurytus, and 

 killed him, with three of his sons. lole fell into the 

 hands of her father's murderer, and found that she 

 was loved by Hercules as much as before. She ac- 

 companied him on mount CEta, where he was going 

 to raise an altar and offer a solemn sacrifice to Jupi- 

 ter. As he had not then the tunic in which he 

 arrayed himself to offer a sacrifice, he sent Lichas to 

 Dejanira, in order to provide himself a proper dress. 

 Dejanira, informed of her husband's tender attach- 

 ment to lole, sent him a filter, or, more probably, 

 the tunic which she had received from Nessus ; and 

 Hercules, as soon as he had put it on, fell into a 

 desperate distemper, and found the poison of the 

 Lernaean hydra penetrate through his bones. He 

 attempted to pull off the fatal dress, but it was too 

 late ; and, in the midst of his pains and tortures, he 

 inveighed, in the most bitter imprecations, against 

 the credulous Dejanira, the cruelty of Eurystheus, 

 and the jealousy and hatred of Juno. As the dis- 

 temper was incurable, he implored the protection of 

 Jupiter, and gave his bow and arrows to Philoctetes, 

 and erected a large burning pile on the top of mount 

 CEta. He spread on the pile the skin of the Nemaean 

 lion, and laid himself down upon it as on a bed, 

 leaning his head on his club. Philoctetes, or, ac- 

 cording to some, Paean or Hyllus, was ordered to set 

 fire to the pile ; and the hero saw himself, on a sud- 

 den, surrounded with the flames, without betraying 

 any marks of fear or astonishment. Jupiter saw 

 him from heaven, and told to the surrounding gods 

 that he would raise to the skies the immortal parts 

 of a hero who had cleared the earth from so many 

 monsters and tyrants. The gods applauded Jupiter's 

 resolution. The burning pile was suddenly sur- 

 rounded with a dark smoke, and, after the mortal 

 parts of Hercules were consumed, he was carried up 

 to heaven in a chariot drawn by four horses. Some 

 loud claps of thunder accompanied his elevation, and 

 his friends, unable to find either his bones or ashes, 

 showed their gratitude to his memory by raising an 

 altar where the burning pile had stood. Mencetius, 

 the son of Actor, offered him a sacrifice of a bull, a 

 wild boar, and a goat, and enjoined the people of 

 Opus yearly to observe the same religious cere- 

 monies. His worship soon became as universal as 

 his fame, and Juno, who had once persecuted him 

 with such inveterate fury, forgot her resentment, 

 and gave him her daughter, Hebe, in marriage. 



Hercules has received many surnames and epithets, 

 either from the place where his worship was estab- 

 lished, or from the labours which he achieved. His 

 temples were numerous and magnificent, and his 



divinity revered. No dogs or flies ever entered his 

 temple at Rome, and that of Gades, according to 

 Strabo, was always forbidden to women and pis. 

 The Phoenicians offered quails on his altars, and, as 

 it was supposed that he presided over dreams, the ' 

 sick and infirm were sent to sleep in his temples, 

 that they might receive in their dreams the agreeable 

 presages of their approaching recovery. The white 

 poplar was particularly dedicated to his service. 

 Hercules is generally represented naked, with strong 

 and well proportioned limbs ; he is sometimes covered 

 with the skin of the Nenuean lion, and holds a 

 knotted club in his hand, on which he often leans. 

 Sometimes he appears crowned with the leaves ot 

 the poplar, and holding the horn of plenty under his 

 arm. At other times, he is represented standing 

 with Cupid, who insolently breaks to pieces his 

 arrows and his club, to intimate the passion of love 

 in the hero, who suffered himself to be beaten and 

 ridiculed by Omphale, who dressed herself in his 

 armour, while he was sitting to spin with her female 

 servants. The children of Hercules are as numerous 

 as the labours and difficulties which he underwent ; 

 and, indeed, they became so powerful, soon after his 

 death, that they had the courage to invade alone all 

 Peloponnesus. See Heraclidee. 



Such are the most striking characteristics of the 

 life of Hercules, who is said to have supported, for a 

 while, the weight of the heavens upon his shoulders 

 (see Atlas), and to have separated, by the force oi 

 his arm, the celebrated mountains which were after- 

 wards called the boundaries of his labours. (See 

 Abyla}. He is held out by the ancients as a true 

 pattern of virtue and piety ; and, as his whole life 

 had been employed for the benefit of mankind, lie 

 was deservedly rewarded with immortality. 



As to the origin of his story, many writers believe 

 that the Oriental deities, called by the Greeks Her- 

 cules, are merely astronomical symbols. The Egyp- 

 tian Hercules (properly Chom, or Dsori) belongs, 

 according to Herodotus and Diodorus, to the twelve 

 great heavenly deities, who, 17,000 years before 

 Amasis, sprung from the eight gods. As these 

 eight gods, as well as the twelve, are to be under- 

 stood in an astronomical sense, it is believed that 

 Hercules is merely the symbol of the course of the 

 sun through the twelve signs, or of a year; and the 

 fable that he lived 17,000 years before Amasis, 

 means that astronomical calculations had existed 

 from that time. The Phoenician Hercules, whose 

 proper name is Melcarthas, points to a similar 

 origin, by the name of his mother, Asteria (the 

 starry heavens). And it is believed that, even in 

 the Theban or Grecian Hercules, many traces of the 

 original Oriental idea are to be found. According to 

 this notion, the twelve labours are only the passage 

 of the sun through the twelve signs. His marriage 

 with Hebe was explained, even by the ancients, 

 as symbolic of his renewing his course, after its 

 completion. We must not forget that the Greek 

 Hercules is of Phoenician origin, his native city, 

 Thebes, being a Phoenician colony. The Phoenician 

 Hercules, as the patron and symbol of the nation, ac- 

 companied them wherever they went and settled, and 

 thus the travels of Hercules appear as a symbol of the 

 extension of this nation by commerce and naviga- 

 tion, and of the civilization which was a consequence 

 of it. It is possible that no Hercules ever existed, 

 in which case we must consider the Heraclides as 

 merely descendants of the Gra?co-Phoenician colony 

 of Thebes. A Theban Hercules, however, may 

 have existed, and this is rendered probable by the 

 circumstance that an old tradition says that his name 

 was not originally Hercules, but Alceeus, and that he 

 received the former name from ti.e god Hercules. 



