HERCULES HERDER. 



705 



(Sext. Emp\r.,4tlo. Phyg. 557 ed. Fabric.) However 

 tliat may lie, every tiling reported of any other 

 Hercules was transferred to this Alcaeus, or Theban 

 Hercules, and these traditions became the founda- 

 tion of the tales of the fabulous hero. 



After this fusion of different traditions, the Greek 

 Hercules became the symbol of the history of Grecian 

 civilization. This was accomplished in three dif- 

 ferent ways : first, physically, as by the draining of 

 morasses and lakes, the digging of canals, and the 

 extirpation of forests, and the wild beasts which 

 infested them, &c. ; secondly, commercially, by 

 navigation and intercourse with distant countries ; 

 thirdly, in a politico-religious way, by the institution 

 of sacred games, laws, &c. All this was effected by 

 the Phcenico-Theban Hercules, to whom a great 

 number of cities, Phoenician colonies, traced oack 

 their origin. They celebrated feasts in honour of 

 him, at which they sang of his exploits. The 

 original astronomical ideas were blended with won- 

 derful tales of the maritime expeditions and the 

 deeds of one or of several Greek heroes. In this 

 way the Heraclea, that is, long poems on the life 

 and adventures of Hercules, were formed. There 

 were, doubtless, poems of this kind, in a simpler 

 form, before the time of Homer. Then came the 

 dramatic poets, who, in the drama satyricon, used to 

 exhibit a sort of burlesque Hercules, which gave 

 rise to a number of comic stories of Hercules, as his 

 having been a great eater and drinker, having 

 laboured at the spinning-wheel of Omphale (a satire 

 on men under petticoat government), &c. 



There seems, then, to be little doubt that Hercules, 

 as a hero, owes his origin to poetry only ; and the 

 plastic art seized with eagerness upon the poetical 

 ideal of strength and virtue. Hercules is represented, 

 in the series of Grecian ideal figures, brawny and 

 muscular, with strong, broad shoulders, a short, thick 

 neck, a high chest and a small head. The expres- 

 sion of the face is spirited and good natured, occa- 

 sionally with a tinge of fierceness. His beard is 

 curly, his hair short. He is generally naked, with a 

 lion's skin and a club. The principal statue of this 

 hero, which remains to us, is the Farnese Hercules, 

 at Rome, a work of the Athenian Glycon. His vari- 

 ous adventures and exploits enabled the artists to 

 represent him under a variety of forms, as a child, a 

 youth, and a man, struggling, suffering, and enjoying, 

 in repose, and in full action. The Torso di Michel- 

 Angelo (in the Vatican), so called because that great 

 artist studied this fragment of a statue of Hercules 

 seven years, is a remarkable figure. From the anatomy 

 of this torso, the figure appears to have been sitting 

 in a stooping posture, leaning on the club, with the 

 head raised. The lion's skin is spread over the 

 seat. The breast and shoulders, the parts particularly 

 characteristic of Hercules, are remarkably fine ; but 

 the muscles are not expressed so forcibly as in other 

 representations, the artist (Apollonius of Athens, son 

 of Nestor) intending to represent, not the struggling 

 hero, but the god reflecting on the deeds which gave 

 him immortality. Another singular representation of 

 Hercules is as the leader of the muses, Hercules 

 Musagetes, which honour he can hardly have attained 

 by his own acquirements ; yet he was sometimes 

 represented in this character, with the lyre. The 

 idea is Roman. Fulvius Nobilior erected a temple 

 to Hercules, in which he placed the muses, which 

 he had brought from Ambracia, as if he intended to 

 remind his countrymen, that warlike virtue and 

 valour were not inconsistent with intellectual accom- 

 plishments. 



HERCULES, one of the northern constellations, 

 containing 1 13 stars, the principal of which is Has 

 Algiatha, a star of the third magnitude. 



HERCULES, PILLARS OF; two pillars which 

 Hercules is said to have erected, on each side of the 

 strait named after him, or the strait of Gades (Gibral- 

 tar), between Europe and Africa, upon the mountains 

 Calpe and Abyla, as the limits of his wanderings to- 

 wards the west. See Gibraltar. 



HERCYN1A ; a celebrated forest of Germany, 

 which, according to Caesar, required nine days' 

 journey to cross it, and which, in some parts, was 

 found without any boundaries, though travelled over 

 for sixty days successively. It contained the modern 

 countries of Switzerland, Basil, Spires, Transylvania, 

 and a great part of Russia. In process of time, the 

 trees were removed, and the greatest part of it was 

 made habitable. 



HERDER, JOHN GODFREY VON, a classical Ger- 

 man author, was born, August 25, 1744, at Mohrun- 

 gen, a small place in Eastern Prussia, where his 

 father taught a school for girls. His early education 

 was not favourable to the development of his faculties. 

 His father permitted him to read only the Bible and 

 the hymn-book, but an insatiable thirst for learning 

 led him to prosecute his studies in secret. The 

 clergyman of the place employed the boy as a copyist, 

 and soon discovered his talents, and allowed him to 

 participate in the lessons which he gave his own 

 children in Latin and Greek. At this time, young 

 Herder suffered from a serious disease of the eyes, 

 which was the occasion of his becoming better known 

 to a Russian surgeon, who lived in the clergyman's 

 house, and who was struck with the engaging man- 

 ners and pleasing appearance of the youth. He 

 offered to take Herder with him to Konigsberg and 

 to Petersburg, and to teacli him surgery gratuitously. 

 Herder, who had no hope of being able to follow his 

 inclinations, left his native city, in 1762 ; but, in 

 Konigsberg, he fainted at the first dissection at which 

 he was present. He now resolved to study theology. 

 Some gentlemen to whom he became known, and 

 who immediately interested themselves in his favour, 

 procured him an appointment in Frederic's college, 

 where he was at first tutor to some scholars, and, at 

 a later period, instructor in the first philosophical and 

 second Latin class, which left him time to study. Dur- 

 ing this period, he became known to Kant, who per- 

 mitted him to hear all his lectures gratis. He 

 formed a more intimate acquaintance with Hamann. 

 His unrelaxing zeal and diligence penetrated the most 

 various branches of science, theology, philosophy, 

 philology, natural and civil history, and politics. In 

 1764, he was appointed an assistant teacher at the 

 cathedral school of Riga, witli which office that of 

 a preacher was connected. His pupils in school, as 

 well as his hearers at church,were enthusiastically at- 

 tached to him, so much that it was thought necessary 

 to give him a more spacious church. His sermons 

 were distinguished by simplicity, united with a 

 sincere devotion to evangelical truth and original in- 

 vestigation. In 1767, he received from Petersburg 

 the offer of the superintendence of St Peter's school, 

 in that city ; but he declined this offer, and even gave 

 up his place at Riga, because he could not resist his 

 inclination to study the arts in their sources, and 

 men on the stage of life. He had already arrived in 

 France, when he was appointed travelling tutor to 

 the prince of Holstein Oldenburg, who was on a 

 tour through France and Italy. But in Strasburg, 

 he was prevented from proceeding by the disease of 

 his eyes, which had returned, with more severity than 

 before ; and here he became acquainted with Goethe, 

 on whom he liad a very decided influence. Herder 

 had already published his Fragments on German 

 Literature, his Critical Wolds, and other productions, 

 which had gained him a considerable reputation, 

 though lie had not, at this time, published any tiling 

 2 Y 



