1'90 Origin of Mythology. 



Hercules, then, is a common name of anyfcnnotis tvorkei- ; 

 any person of dlstingiiisbed labor's, or achievments ; and 

 ancient authors alledge that there were many persons of 

 this name.* 



Hercules, then, was a name originally g'iven to any 

 bold, enterprizing hero or adventurer ; any distinguished 

 warrior, hunter, or robber, who, at the head of a tribe or 

 band, performed extraordinary feats of valor. The ap- 

 plication of this name to the sun, or to the zodiac, the 

 twelve labors of Hercules representing the twelve signs 

 or months, if it is not altogether a fiction, must have been 

 long posterior to the origin of the name, and its applica- 

 tion to individuals of cnterprize.f This inference is na- 

 turally drawn from the statues and figures of Hercules, 

 v/hich represent him as covered with the skin of a lion, 

 and armed with a knotted club-. These circumstances 

 prove his origin to have been in the most rude and sav- 

 age state of man, when his clothing consisted of, skins, 

 and his arms of a rude, unshapen club, the first insti'ument 

 of death among iTten,before the knowledge or use of metals ; 

 and indeed as Hercules bears not a bow and arrows, we may 

 conclude that his character was formed before the inven- 

 tion of those weapons. Hercules, then, originated in the 

 Tcry earliest ages of man, and represents a savage warri- 

 or or hunter, clothed with a skin, and armed with a club. 

 His character being formed and attached to this name, 

 the name was, in subsequent periods of society, applied 

 to any bold, cnterpriEing chief of a warring or migrating 

 liorde, whose tabors or achievments became the subject 

 of songs, and were handed down by tradition, perverted 

 by fancy or ignorance, and enibeliished by fiction. These 

 fables were afterwards committed to writing, and now 

 form the basis of the pagan m3i^tliology, and even of the 

 ■Greek and Roman poems and history. 



* Quamquara, quern potlssimum Hcicolem colarnus, scire sa-ne 

 Telim ; plures .enim tradiint nobis ii, qui interiores scrutantur et re- 

 ■conditas literas.... C/cero De .Vat. Deor. lib. iii. 16. This author enu- 

 merates six of this nariie, and mentions that one of them, a native o£ 

 India, was called Bdus. 



¥ifciit,\ei OS ui TfaTO'/jV'i ts km jcaXiTrovq TiXsTiisv ciSXov^. HerCuIcs per- 

 forms many and difficult labors. ...Faun. lib. viii. 32. 



+ See Gebelin's History of Hercules. 



