In vain had their mother warned
them to beware of the powerful hero : they contemned
her exhortations, and Melampyges, in consequence,
was sent to chastise them.
them to beware of the powerful hero : they contemned
her exhortations, and Melampyges, in consequence,
was sent to chastise them.
Charles - 1867 - Classical Dictionary
In his fury, he caught Liohas,
the ill-fated bearer of the tunic, by the foot, and hurled
him into the sea. He attempted to tear off the tunic,
but it adhered closely to his skin, and the flesh came
away with it. In this wretched state he got on ship-
board, where Deianira, on hearing the consequences
uf what she had done, hanged herself; and Hercules,
charging Hyllus, his eldest son by her, to marry lole
when he was of sufficient age, had himself carried to
the summit of Mount CEta, and there causing a pyre
to be erected, ascended it, and directed his followers
to set it on fire. But no one would venture to obey;
till Poeas, happening to arrive there in search uf his
stray cattle, complied with the desire of the hero, and
received his bow and arrows as his reward. While the
pyre was blazing, a thunder-cloud conveyed the suf-
ferer to heaven, where he was endowed with immor-
tality; and, being reconciled to Juno, he espoused her
daughter Hebe, by whom he had two children, Alexi-
ares(Aidcr-in-vcar) and Anicetus (Unsubdued). The"
legend of Hercules is given in full detail by Apollo-
dorus (2 4, 8, seqq). Other authorities on the sub-
ject are as follows: Diod. Sic, 4, 9, scqq. --Thcocrit. ,
Idyll. , 25 -- l'ind, Oi, 3, 55. -- Thcocrit. , Idyll. , 7,
H9. --l'herccydcs,ap. Schol. ailApoll. Wind. , 2, 1054.
--/(. , 8,867. --Phcrccyd. , ap. Schol. ad Od. , 21,23 --
Hesiod. , Sml. Herc. -- Ovtd, Met. , 9, 165, ct 217. --
Soph. , Trachin--Homer arms Hercules with a bow
and arrows. (II. , 5, 393--Od, 8, 224. ) Hesiod
describes him with shield and spear. Pisander and
Slesichorus were the first who gave him the club and
lion's skin. (Atheneeus, 18, p. 513. )--The mythology
of Hercules is of a very mixed character in the form in
which it has come down to us. There is in it the
identification of one or more Grecian heroes withMel-
carth, the sun-god of the Phoenicians. Hence we find
Hercules so frequently represented as the sun-god,
and his twelve labours regarded as the passage of the
sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac. He is the
powerful planet which animates and imparts fecundity
to the universe, whose divinity has been honoured in
every quarter by temples and altars, and consecrated
in the religious strains of all nations. From Meroe
in Ethiopia, and Thebes in Upper Egypt, even to
Britain, and the icy regions of Scythia; from the an
eitr. t Taprobana and Palibothra in India, to Cadiz
? od the shores of the Atlantic ; from the forests of
? ? Germany to the burning sands of Africa; everywhere,
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? HEKUUI. ES.
HERCULES.
. iij extended i jder the sign I. eo, and only ending at
t ie later degrees of the sign Virgo. On this is based
the fable of the continual reappearance of the mon-
ster's heads; the constellation being of so great a
length, that the stars of one part reappear after the
sun has passed onward to another part, and while the
stars ot this latter part are merged in the solar fires.
In the third month the sun enters the sign Libra, at
the beginning of autumn, when the constellation of the
rer. taur rises, represented as bearing a wine-skin full
of liquor, and a thyrsus adorned with vine-leaves and
grapes. Bayer represents him in his tables with a
thyrsur in one hand and a flask of wine in the other.
. Uran. laid. , 41. ) The Alphonsine tables depict him
with a cup or goblet in his hand. (Tab. , Alph. , p.
209. ) At this same period, what is termed by some
astronomers the constellation of the boar rises in the
evening; and in his third labour Hercules, after be-
ing hospitably entertained by a centaur, encountered
and slew the other centaurs who fought for a cask
of wine: he slew also, in this labour the Eryman-
thian boar. In tho fourth month the sun enters
the sign of Scorpio, when Cassiopeia rises, a con-
stellation in which anciently a stag was represented;
and in his fourth labour Hercules caught the famous
stag with golden horns and brazen feet. It is said
also to have breathed fire from its nostrils. (Quint.
Smyrn. , 6, 22fi. ) The horns of gold and the breath-
ing of flames are traits that harmonize well with a
constellation studded with blazing stars, and which,
in the summer season, unites itself to the solstitial
tires of the sun, by rising in the evening with its spouse
Cephcus. In the fifth month the sun enters the sign
Sagttlariut. . :onsecrated to Diana, who had a temple
at Stymphalus, in which were seen the birds called
Stymphahdes. At this same time rise tho three birds:
narnciv, the constellations of the vulture, swan, arid
eagle pierced with the arrows of Hercules; and in his
fifth labour Hercules destroyed the birds near Lake
Stymphalus, which are represented as three in number
in the medals of Perinthus. (Med. du Cardin. Allan. ,
vol. 2, p. 70, n. 1. ) In the sixth month the sun passes
into the sign Capricornus, who was, according to
some, a grandson of the luminary. At this period the
stream which flows from Aquarius sets; its source is
between the hands of Aristsus, son of the river Penc-
ils. In his sixth labour Hercules cleansed, bv means
of the Peneus, the stables of Augeas, son of Phoebus.
Augeas is made by some to have been a son of Nvc-
teus, a name which bears an evident reference to the
night (vi5f), and which contains, therefore, in the pres-
ent instance, an allusion to the long nights of the wili-
er solstice. In the seventh month the sun passes into
;he sign Aquarius. The constellation of the I. yre, or
celestial vulture, now sets, which is placed by the side
of the constellation called Prometheus, and at this
same period the celestial bull, called the bull of Pasi-
phae, the bull of Marathon, in fine, the bull of Europa,
passes the meridian. In his seventh labour, Hercules
brings alive into the Peloponnesus a wild bull, which
laid waste the island of Crete. Ho slays also the vul-
ture that preyed upon the liver of Prometheus. It is
to be remarked that, as the constellation sets at this
period, Hercules is said to have killed that bird;
whereas the bull, which crosses the meridian merely,
is made to have been brought alive into Greece. The
bull in question was also fabled to have vomited flames
? ? (Au. . Gell. , 1, I), an evident allusion to the celestial
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? HERCULES.
HERCULES.
in offer up a solemn sacrifice, and clothes himself in a
robe dipped in the blood of the Centaur, whom he had
slam in crossing a river. The robe takes fire, and the
buro perishes amid the flames, but only to resume his
youth in the heavens, and become a partaker of immor-
? ali-. y. The Centaur thus terminates the mortal career
of Hercules; and in like manner the new annual period
commences with the passage of the sun into Leo,
marked by a group of stars in the morning, which
glitter like the flames that issued from the vestment
of Nessus. --If Hercules be regarded as having actually
existed, nothing can be more monstrous, nothing more
at variance with every principle of chronology, nothing
more replete with contradictions, than the adventures
of such an individual as poetry makes him to have
been. But, considered as the luminary that gives
light and life to the world, as the god who impregnates
ill nature with his fertilizing rays, every part of the le-
gend teems with animation and beauty, and is marked
by a pleasing and perfect harmony. The sun of the
summer solstice is bere represented with all the attri-
butes of that strength which he has acquired at this
season of the year. He enters proudly on his course,
in obedience to the eternal order of nature. It is no
longer the sign Leo that he traverses; he combats a
fearful lion which ravages the plains. The Hvdra is
the second monster that opposes the hero, and the
constellation in the heavens becomes a fearful animal
on earth, to which the language of poetry assigns a hun-
dred heads, with the power of reproducing them as
they are crushed by the weapon of the hero. All the
obstacles that array themselves against the illustrious
champion are gifted with some quality or attribute that
exceeds the bounds of nature: the horses of Diomcde
fe^d on human fesh; the females rise above the timid-
ly of their sex, and become formidable heroines; the
apples of the Hcspcrides are of gold; the stag has
ifj? ui hoofs; the dog of Hades bristles with serpents;
jverything, even down to the very crab, is formidable;
fcr everything is great in nature, and must, therefore,
be equally so in the various symbols that are used to
designate her various powers. (Consult, on this whole
? object, the remarks of Dupuis, Origine de tons les
Cultei, vol. 2, p. 168, seqq. --Abrigi, p. 116, seqq. )
The conclusion to which we have here arrived, will
appear still plainer if we take a hasty sketch of the Ori
entalorigin of the fable of Hercules, and its passage from
the East into the countries of the West. And it will be
seen that tho Greeks, in conformity with their national
character, appropriated to themselves, and gave a hu-
man form to, an Oriental deity; and that, metamor-
phosing the stranger-god into a Grecian hero, they
took delight in making him an ideal type of that heroic
courage and might which triumphs over every obstacle.
Hercules, 'ie invincible Hercules, has strong analogies
with tho Persian Mithras, tho type of the unconquered
sun. (Crcuzer, Symbolik, par Guigniaut, vol. 1, p.
376, 4c. ) Mithras, Perseus, and Hercules the de-
scendant of Perseus, connect together the two families
of fielus, that of Asia and that of Egypt. According
. to the Greek genealogies, the son of Amphitryon and
Alcmena was of Egyptian blood both on the father's
and mother's side, while he was descended by Perseus
from Belus, the solar god. (Consult the tables of ge-
nealogy, X, Xa, and Xb, at the end of Heyne's Apol-
todorus. ) But, added the tradition, the figure of Am-
phitryon only served as a mask to the king of gods and
? ? men when he wished to give birth to Hercules. The
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? "ERCULES.
HERCULES.
? nn oi\J lie retarded by chaining his image, and ac-
celerated by removing the fetters. Hence, in this way,
they wished to represent his strength and his weak-
seas--The worship of Hercules prevailed also ii
Phrygia. Hercules, according to Enscbius (Chron ,
1, p. 26. --Bocharl, Gcogr. Sacr. , p. 472), here bore
the name of Diodas, or, as the Latin version gives it,
Vcsnnaus, which last Vossius makes equivalent to
'' etiong," "powerful," an idea conveyed also by the
1 yrian appellation of Mclkarlh. (Voss, At Idolol. , I,
12. )--As a colon) from Tyre had carried the worship
of Hercules into Boeolia by the way of Thasus, so
tnother colony conveyed it to the Ionians of lower
Asia. At Erythra? , on the coast of Ionia, was to be
seen a statue of Hercules, of an aspect completely
Egyptian. The worship of the god was here cele-
brated by certain Thracian females, because tho females
of the country were said to have refused to make to the
god an offering of th*ir locks on his arrival at Erylhre.
(Pauxan. , 7, 5. ) The females of Byblos sacrificed to
Adonis their locks and their chastity at one and the
same time, and it is probable that the worship of Her-
cules was not more exempt, in various parts of the
ancient world, from the same dissolute offerings. In
Lydia, particularly, it seems to have been marked by
an almost delirious sensuality. Married and unmar-
ried females prostituted themselves at the festival of
the god. (Hcrodot. , 1, 93. --Compare Clearck. , ap.
Athcn. , 12, p. 416, ed. Schweigh. ) The two sexes
changed their respective characters; and tradition re-
ported that Hercules himself had given an example of
this, when, assuming the vestments and occupation
of a female, he subjected himself to the service of the
voluptuous Omphale. (Vrcuzcr, Fragm. Hist. An-
liq. , p. 187 ) The Lydian Hercules was named San-
don, after the robo dyed with sandyx, in which Om-
phale had arrayed him, and which the females of the
country imitated in celebrating his licentious worship.
(/. Laurent. Lydus, de Mag. Rom. , 3, 64, p. 268. )
This Sandon reappears in the Cilician Sandacus, sub-
jected to his male companion Pharnaces, as the Lydian
Hercules was to Omphale. (Crcuzcr, Symboltk, -par
(Hiigniaut, vol. 3, p. 179. ) We find here, as in the
religion of Phoenicia, the same opposition, the same
alternation of strength and weakness, of voluptuous-
ness and courage. Hercules with Omphale, is the so-
lar god descended into the omphalos, or " navel" of
the world, amid the signs of the southern hemisphere;
and it was the festival of this powerful star, enervated
in some degree at the period of the winter solstice,
which the Lydian people celebrated by the changing of
the vestments of the weaker and the stronger sex. --
The fable of Hercules Melampygcs and the Cercopea
has a similar reference. According to Diodorus Sicu-
lus (4, 31), the Ccrcopes dwelt In tho vicinity of
Ephesus, and ravaged the country far and wide, while
Hercules led a life of pleasure anil servitude in the
arms of Omphale.
In vain had their mother warned
them to beware of the powerful hero : they contemned
her exhortations, and Melampyges, in consequence,
was sent to chastise them. He soon brought them to
the queen, loaded with chains. A different tradition
places the Cercopcs in the islands that face the coast
cf Campania. Jupiter, says the legend, being in-
tolved in war with the Titans, came to these islands
to demand aid from the people called Arimi. But the
Arirw, after having promised him assistance, refused to
? ? fulfil that promise, and trifled with the god. As i
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? HERCULES.
HER
pvei by Megasthencs (ap. Arrian, Inu. , c. 8, seqq. ),
is in many respects so very similar to that which has
already been slated with regard to the Lydian Hercu-
les, as to lead to the belief that the legends of Lower
Asia had emanated in some degree from the plains of
the Indian peninsula. The Kama of Hindustan, with
his warlike apes, reminds us, under various striking
aspects, of Hercules and the Cercopes. --The religion
of Hercules, passing from the East like the god whom
it was intended to commemorate, made its way to the
farthest limits of the then known West. The Phceni-
rians, and after them the Carthaginians, extended on
every side the worship of Melkarth, the divine pro-
tector of their colonies. It was from them that the
nations of Spain, after those of Africa, learned to re-
vere his name; and, not content with, placing his col-
umns at the entrance of the Atlantic, the Phoenician
Hercules undertook, on this vast extent of ocean, long
and perilous expeditions. Pursuing also another di-
rection, he crossed the barriers of the Pyrenees and
the Alps: he and his descendants founded numerous
cities, both in Gaul and in the countries adjacent to it.
He was here styled Deusoniensis, an appellation which
again recalls that of Desanaus. Indeed, the occiden-
tal mythology seems here to correspond in every par-
ticular with that of the East. The cup of the sun, in
which Hercules traverses the ocean for the purpose of
reaching the isle of Erythea, represents the marvellous
cup of the Persian Dschemschid. Under the empire
of the latter, no corruption or decay of any kind pre-
vailed; and the columns of wood in the temple of
Hercules at Gades were never carious. The Dschem-
ichid of Persia and the Sem of Egypt gave health to
their votaries; the Romans recognised the same power
in their victorious Hercules. (/. Lyd. dc Mens. , p.
9*2 ) Rome herself connted among her citizens cer-
tain individuals who claimed to be his descendants.
The heroic family of the Fabii, for example, traced
their origin to the son of Alcmena. (I'lut. , Vit. Fab.
Max. , c. 1. ) Tho Latins, as well as the Lydians, as-
<:g-icd various concubines to this powerful deity,
among whom are mentioned Fauna, and Acca Laren-
tia, the nurse of Romulus. (Maccr, ap. Macrob. ,
Sai. , 1,10. --August. , it Civ. Dei, 6, 7. ) Thus, then,
at the same time that we And even in the West the
traces of a sensual worship rendered to Hercules, we
see reproduced that peculiar tendency, so prevalent in
the East, of making heroes and kings the descendants
~>f the divine sun; the children of that victorious and
Jeneficent star, which continually brings us both the
Jay and the year as the prizes of his glorious combats.
And, indeed, what idea can be more natural than this!
Is not the sun himself a powerful king, a hero, placed
in a situation of continual combat with the shades of
darkness and with the evil spirits to which they give
birtli? His numerous adversaries, in the career of the
zodiac which he traverses, are principally the signs of
winter. The solemn rites offered to him, such as the
games celebrated at Chemmis and Olympia; the
chains with which the statue of the Tyrian Hercules
was loaded; the circle of female figures surrounding
bis statue at Sardis, were intended to represent the
alternations of strength and weakness, of victory and
defeat, which mark the course of this courageous
wrestler of the year, whose very death is a triumph.
Hence, among the numerous incarnations of tho star
of day, the warlike spirit of the earlier nations of an-
? ? tiquity would, in order to propose it as an example to
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? HER
HER
letwecn Arrcir. ia and Incitaria, and served as a port to I Hurmaphroditub, a son of Mercury ('Etw^fJ a^d
>. ic city of Cosa. It was one of the principal stations
I * the Roman fleets on the lower sea. (Lib. , 22,11.
--Id. , 30, 39. )
lli'Kt v\ii, a very extensive forest of Germany, the
breadth of which, according to Caesar, was nine days'
journey, while its length exceeded sixty. It extend-
h! from the territories of the Helvetii, Nemctes, and
Rauraci, along the Danube to the country of the Daci
and Anartes. Then turning to the north, it spread
over many large tracts of land, and is said to have con
Venus ('AQpodiTq), the fable relative to whom and tint
nymph Salinacis may be found in Ovid {Mel. , 4, 285,
seqq. ). It is evidently copied after some Eastern le-
gend, although the Grecian spirit has moulded it in o
a more pleasing form, perhaps, than was possessed by
its original. The doctrine of androgynous divinitioa
lies at the very foundation of the earliest pagan wor-
ship. The union of the two sexes was regarded by the
early priesthoods as a symbol of the generation of the
universe, and hence originated those strange types and
tained many animals unknown in oiher countries, of i still stranger ceremonies, which, conceived at first it.
which Osiir describes two or three kinds. Caesar, j a pure and simple spirit, became eventually the source
following the Greek geographers (Arist. , Meteor. , 1, I of so much licentiousness and indecency. The early
13. --Compare Apoll. Rhiul. , 4, 140), confounds all believer was taught by his religious inslructer, that,
the forests and all the mountains of Central Germany j before the creation, the productive power existed alone
under the name of Hereynia Sifoa. This vague tra-' in the immensity of space. When the process of crea-
dition was propagated among the Roman geographi- tiou commenced, this power divided itself into two
cal writers, nor could either Pliny or Tacitus form a portions, and discharged the functions of an active and
more exact idea of its extent. (Plin. , 4, 12. --Tac. , \ a passive being, a male and a female. Hence arose
Germ. , 28 and 30. ) Ptolemy had obtained more pos- j the beauteous frame of the universe. Tais is the doc-
itive information on the subject: besides his Mount trine, in particular, of the Hindu Vedas, and it is ex-
Abnoba, he distinguished the Hartz Forest under the j plicitly established in the Manara-Duarrna-Sastra, and
name of Meliborus, Ac. On the country's becoming j also in the laws of Mcnou. The Adonis of Syria
more inhabited, the grounds were gradually cleared, i (Creuzcr, Symbolik, vol. 2, p. 12); the Adagous of
and but few vestiges of the ancient forest remain
modern times. These now go by particular names, as
the Black Forest, which separates Alsace from Swa-
bia; the Steuger in Franconia; the Spissard on the
Mayn; the Thuringcr in ThuringU; Hcsscwald in the
duchy of Cleves; the Bohemcrwald, which encompass-
es Bohemia, and was in the middle ages called Her-
eynia Silva; and the Hartz Forest in Luncnburgh.
Some of tho German writers at the present day derive
the ancient name from the term hart, high; others sup-
pose it to come from hartz, resin, and consider the old
name as remaining in the present Hartz Forest.
(Malte- Brun, facets. , &c, vol. 1, p. 108, Brussels cd.
--Mannert, Gcogr. , vol. 3, p. 410. )
HkrbnmIus, 1. Senecio, a native of Spain, and a
senator and quffistor at Rome under Domttian. His
contempt for public honours, his virtuous character,
and his admiration of Helvidius Priscus, whose life he
wrote, rendered him odious to the emperor, and caused
him to be accused of high treason. Ho was condemn-
ed to death, and his work burned by the public execu-
tioner. (Tac. , Vit. Agric. , c. 3. --Plin. , Ep. , 3, 33. )
? --II. The father of Pontius tho Samnite commander,
who advised his son cither to give freedom to the Ro-
mans ensnared at the Caudine Pass, or to exterminate
them all. (Liny, 9, I, seqq. )--III. Caius, a Roman,
to whom the treatise on rhetoric, ascribed by some to
Cicero, is addressed. The treatise in question is gen-
erally regarded as not having been written by the
Roman orator, but either by Antnnius Gnipho or Q.
Cornificius. (Consult on this point the remarks of
Schutz, in his edition of Cicero, vol. 1, p. lv. , seqq. ,
? ? and those of Le Clerc, in his more recent edition,
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? HER
HER
t<<jFC of all tlieir speculations being crowned with no
positive result. He is accused by some critics of
putting nothing in the place of the edilice which he
has destroyed by his sarcasms. Such, however, was
cot the end he had proposed lo himself. It was suffi-
cient for biro to show that the systems of ancient phi-
losophy were untenable. The one which was to oc-
cupy its place they had only to seek for, and Hennas
points it out to them without naming it. This treatise
was published by Seiber, Basil, 1533, Svo, and with
the notes of Wolf in Morell's Compcnd. de Orig. Vet.
i'hil. , Basil, 1580, 8vo. It is found also in the Auc-
tar. BMwtk. PaJrum, Paris, 1624; and in the Oxford
edition of Tatian, 8vo, 1700. The best edition, how-
ever, is that of Dommerich, Hal. , 1774, 8vo. (Schbll,
Hist. Lit. Gr. , vol. 5, p. 2l3. --Lardner, Credibility
of Gospel History, pt. 2, vol. 2, p. 555. )
Hkrviovk, I. more correctly Harmonia, daughter
of Mars and Venus, and wife of Cadmus. (Kid1. Har-
monia. )--II. Daughter of MencUus and Helen. She
was privately engaged to he; cousin Orestes, the son
of Agamemnon; but her father, on his return from
Troy, being ignorant of this, gave her in marriage to
Pyrrhus, otherwise called Neoptolemus. After the
murder of that prince (ml. Pyrrhus), she married Ores-
tes, and received the kingdom of Sparta as her dowry.
'Virg. , JEn. , 3, 327, seiji/. --Heync, Excurs. , 12, ad
Virg. , /En. , 3. --Eurip. , Androm. )--III. A city of Ar-
golis, on the southern coast, opposite Hydrea. It was
founded, according to Herodotus (8, 43), by the Dry-
opes, whom Hercules and the Mclians had expelled
from the banks of the Sperchius and the valley of (Eta.
Pausanias describes this city as situate on a hill of
moderate height, and surrounded by walls. It con-
tained, among others, a temple of Ceres, the sanctuary
of which afforded an inviolable refuge to supplicants,
whence arose the proverb iivff 'Epuidvrft, "as safe an
asylum as that of Henniono. " Not far from this
fracture was a cave, supposed to communicate with
the infernal regions. It was probably owing to this
speedy descent to Orctis, that the Hcrmionians, as
S'. rabo informs us, omitted to put a piece of money in
the mouths of their dead. (Slrab. , 373. --Callim. , ap.
Etym. Mag. , s.
the ill-fated bearer of the tunic, by the foot, and hurled
him into the sea. He attempted to tear off the tunic,
but it adhered closely to his skin, and the flesh came
away with it. In this wretched state he got on ship-
board, where Deianira, on hearing the consequences
uf what she had done, hanged herself; and Hercules,
charging Hyllus, his eldest son by her, to marry lole
when he was of sufficient age, had himself carried to
the summit of Mount CEta, and there causing a pyre
to be erected, ascended it, and directed his followers
to set it on fire. But no one would venture to obey;
till Poeas, happening to arrive there in search uf his
stray cattle, complied with the desire of the hero, and
received his bow and arrows as his reward. While the
pyre was blazing, a thunder-cloud conveyed the suf-
ferer to heaven, where he was endowed with immor-
tality; and, being reconciled to Juno, he espoused her
daughter Hebe, by whom he had two children, Alexi-
ares(Aidcr-in-vcar) and Anicetus (Unsubdued). The"
legend of Hercules is given in full detail by Apollo-
dorus (2 4, 8, seqq). Other authorities on the sub-
ject are as follows: Diod. Sic, 4, 9, scqq. --Thcocrit. ,
Idyll. , 25 -- l'ind, Oi, 3, 55. -- Thcocrit. , Idyll. , 7,
H9. --l'herccydcs,ap. Schol. ailApoll. Wind. , 2, 1054.
--/(. , 8,867. --Phcrccyd. , ap. Schol. ad Od. , 21,23 --
Hesiod. , Sml. Herc. -- Ovtd, Met. , 9, 165, ct 217. --
Soph. , Trachin--Homer arms Hercules with a bow
and arrows. (II. , 5, 393--Od, 8, 224. ) Hesiod
describes him with shield and spear. Pisander and
Slesichorus were the first who gave him the club and
lion's skin. (Atheneeus, 18, p. 513. )--The mythology
of Hercules is of a very mixed character in the form in
which it has come down to us. There is in it the
identification of one or more Grecian heroes withMel-
carth, the sun-god of the Phoenicians. Hence we find
Hercules so frequently represented as the sun-god,
and his twelve labours regarded as the passage of the
sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac. He is the
powerful planet which animates and imparts fecundity
to the universe, whose divinity has been honoured in
every quarter by temples and altars, and consecrated
in the religious strains of all nations. From Meroe
in Ethiopia, and Thebes in Upper Egypt, even to
Britain, and the icy regions of Scythia; from the an
eitr. t Taprobana and Palibothra in India, to Cadiz
? od the shores of the Atlantic ; from the forests of
? ? Germany to the burning sands of Africa; everywhere,
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? HEKUUI. ES.
HERCULES.
. iij extended i jder the sign I. eo, and only ending at
t ie later degrees of the sign Virgo. On this is based
the fable of the continual reappearance of the mon-
ster's heads; the constellation being of so great a
length, that the stars of one part reappear after the
sun has passed onward to another part, and while the
stars ot this latter part are merged in the solar fires.
In the third month the sun enters the sign Libra, at
the beginning of autumn, when the constellation of the
rer. taur rises, represented as bearing a wine-skin full
of liquor, and a thyrsus adorned with vine-leaves and
grapes. Bayer represents him in his tables with a
thyrsur in one hand and a flask of wine in the other.
. Uran. laid. , 41. ) The Alphonsine tables depict him
with a cup or goblet in his hand. (Tab. , Alph. , p.
209. ) At this same period, what is termed by some
astronomers the constellation of the boar rises in the
evening; and in his third labour Hercules, after be-
ing hospitably entertained by a centaur, encountered
and slew the other centaurs who fought for a cask
of wine: he slew also, in this labour the Eryman-
thian boar. In tho fourth month the sun enters
the sign of Scorpio, when Cassiopeia rises, a con-
stellation in which anciently a stag was represented;
and in his fourth labour Hercules caught the famous
stag with golden horns and brazen feet. It is said
also to have breathed fire from its nostrils. (Quint.
Smyrn. , 6, 22fi. ) The horns of gold and the breath-
ing of flames are traits that harmonize well with a
constellation studded with blazing stars, and which,
in the summer season, unites itself to the solstitial
tires of the sun, by rising in the evening with its spouse
Cephcus. In the fifth month the sun enters the sign
Sagttlariut. . :onsecrated to Diana, who had a temple
at Stymphalus, in which were seen the birds called
Stymphahdes. At this same time rise tho three birds:
narnciv, the constellations of the vulture, swan, arid
eagle pierced with the arrows of Hercules; and in his
fifth labour Hercules destroyed the birds near Lake
Stymphalus, which are represented as three in number
in the medals of Perinthus. (Med. du Cardin. Allan. ,
vol. 2, p. 70, n. 1. ) In the sixth month the sun passes
into the sign Capricornus, who was, according to
some, a grandson of the luminary. At this period the
stream which flows from Aquarius sets; its source is
between the hands of Aristsus, son of the river Penc-
ils. In his sixth labour Hercules cleansed, bv means
of the Peneus, the stables of Augeas, son of Phoebus.
Augeas is made by some to have been a son of Nvc-
teus, a name which bears an evident reference to the
night (vi5f), and which contains, therefore, in the pres-
ent instance, an allusion to the long nights of the wili-
er solstice. In the seventh month the sun passes into
;he sign Aquarius. The constellation of the I. yre, or
celestial vulture, now sets, which is placed by the side
of the constellation called Prometheus, and at this
same period the celestial bull, called the bull of Pasi-
phae, the bull of Marathon, in fine, the bull of Europa,
passes the meridian. In his seventh labour, Hercules
brings alive into the Peloponnesus a wild bull, which
laid waste the island of Crete. Ho slays also the vul-
ture that preyed upon the liver of Prometheus. It is
to be remarked that, as the constellation sets at this
period, Hercules is said to have killed that bird;
whereas the bull, which crosses the meridian merely,
is made to have been brought alive into Greece. The
bull in question was also fabled to have vomited flames
? ? (Au. . Gell. , 1, I), an evident allusion to the celestial
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? HERCULES.
HERCULES.
in offer up a solemn sacrifice, and clothes himself in a
robe dipped in the blood of the Centaur, whom he had
slam in crossing a river. The robe takes fire, and the
buro perishes amid the flames, but only to resume his
youth in the heavens, and become a partaker of immor-
? ali-. y. The Centaur thus terminates the mortal career
of Hercules; and in like manner the new annual period
commences with the passage of the sun into Leo,
marked by a group of stars in the morning, which
glitter like the flames that issued from the vestment
of Nessus. --If Hercules be regarded as having actually
existed, nothing can be more monstrous, nothing more
at variance with every principle of chronology, nothing
more replete with contradictions, than the adventures
of such an individual as poetry makes him to have
been. But, considered as the luminary that gives
light and life to the world, as the god who impregnates
ill nature with his fertilizing rays, every part of the le-
gend teems with animation and beauty, and is marked
by a pleasing and perfect harmony. The sun of the
summer solstice is bere represented with all the attri-
butes of that strength which he has acquired at this
season of the year. He enters proudly on his course,
in obedience to the eternal order of nature. It is no
longer the sign Leo that he traverses; he combats a
fearful lion which ravages the plains. The Hvdra is
the second monster that opposes the hero, and the
constellation in the heavens becomes a fearful animal
on earth, to which the language of poetry assigns a hun-
dred heads, with the power of reproducing them as
they are crushed by the weapon of the hero. All the
obstacles that array themselves against the illustrious
champion are gifted with some quality or attribute that
exceeds the bounds of nature: the horses of Diomcde
fe^d on human fesh; the females rise above the timid-
ly of their sex, and become formidable heroines; the
apples of the Hcspcrides are of gold; the stag has
ifj? ui hoofs; the dog of Hades bristles with serpents;
jverything, even down to the very crab, is formidable;
fcr everything is great in nature, and must, therefore,
be equally so in the various symbols that are used to
designate her various powers. (Consult, on this whole
? object, the remarks of Dupuis, Origine de tons les
Cultei, vol. 2, p. 168, seqq. --Abrigi, p. 116, seqq. )
The conclusion to which we have here arrived, will
appear still plainer if we take a hasty sketch of the Ori
entalorigin of the fable of Hercules, and its passage from
the East into the countries of the West. And it will be
seen that tho Greeks, in conformity with their national
character, appropriated to themselves, and gave a hu-
man form to, an Oriental deity; and that, metamor-
phosing the stranger-god into a Grecian hero, they
took delight in making him an ideal type of that heroic
courage and might which triumphs over every obstacle.
Hercules, 'ie invincible Hercules, has strong analogies
with tho Persian Mithras, tho type of the unconquered
sun. (Crcuzer, Symbolik, par Guigniaut, vol. 1, p.
376, 4c. ) Mithras, Perseus, and Hercules the de-
scendant of Perseus, connect together the two families
of fielus, that of Asia and that of Egypt. According
. to the Greek genealogies, the son of Amphitryon and
Alcmena was of Egyptian blood both on the father's
and mother's side, while he was descended by Perseus
from Belus, the solar god. (Consult the tables of ge-
nealogy, X, Xa, and Xb, at the end of Heyne's Apol-
todorus. ) But, added the tradition, the figure of Am-
phitryon only served as a mask to the king of gods and
? ? men when he wished to give birth to Hercules. The
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? "ERCULES.
HERCULES.
? nn oi\J lie retarded by chaining his image, and ac-
celerated by removing the fetters. Hence, in this way,
they wished to represent his strength and his weak-
seas--The worship of Hercules prevailed also ii
Phrygia. Hercules, according to Enscbius (Chron ,
1, p. 26. --Bocharl, Gcogr. Sacr. , p. 472), here bore
the name of Diodas, or, as the Latin version gives it,
Vcsnnaus, which last Vossius makes equivalent to
'' etiong," "powerful," an idea conveyed also by the
1 yrian appellation of Mclkarlh. (Voss, At Idolol. , I,
12. )--As a colon) from Tyre had carried the worship
of Hercules into Boeolia by the way of Thasus, so
tnother colony conveyed it to the Ionians of lower
Asia. At Erythra? , on the coast of Ionia, was to be
seen a statue of Hercules, of an aspect completely
Egyptian. The worship of the god was here cele-
brated by certain Thracian females, because tho females
of the country were said to have refused to make to the
god an offering of th*ir locks on his arrival at Erylhre.
(Pauxan. , 7, 5. ) The females of Byblos sacrificed to
Adonis their locks and their chastity at one and the
same time, and it is probable that the worship of Her-
cules was not more exempt, in various parts of the
ancient world, from the same dissolute offerings. In
Lydia, particularly, it seems to have been marked by
an almost delirious sensuality. Married and unmar-
ried females prostituted themselves at the festival of
the god. (Hcrodot. , 1, 93. --Compare Clearck. , ap.
Athcn. , 12, p. 416, ed. Schweigh. ) The two sexes
changed their respective characters; and tradition re-
ported that Hercules himself had given an example of
this, when, assuming the vestments and occupation
of a female, he subjected himself to the service of the
voluptuous Omphale. (Vrcuzcr, Fragm. Hist. An-
liq. , p. 187 ) The Lydian Hercules was named San-
don, after the robo dyed with sandyx, in which Om-
phale had arrayed him, and which the females of the
country imitated in celebrating his licentious worship.
(/. Laurent. Lydus, de Mag. Rom. , 3, 64, p. 268. )
This Sandon reappears in the Cilician Sandacus, sub-
jected to his male companion Pharnaces, as the Lydian
Hercules was to Omphale. (Crcuzcr, Symboltk, -par
(Hiigniaut, vol. 3, p. 179. ) We find here, as in the
religion of Phoenicia, the same opposition, the same
alternation of strength and weakness, of voluptuous-
ness and courage. Hercules with Omphale, is the so-
lar god descended into the omphalos, or " navel" of
the world, amid the signs of the southern hemisphere;
and it was the festival of this powerful star, enervated
in some degree at the period of the winter solstice,
which the Lydian people celebrated by the changing of
the vestments of the weaker and the stronger sex. --
The fable of Hercules Melampygcs and the Cercopea
has a similar reference. According to Diodorus Sicu-
lus (4, 31), the Ccrcopes dwelt In tho vicinity of
Ephesus, and ravaged the country far and wide, while
Hercules led a life of pleasure anil servitude in the
arms of Omphale.
In vain had their mother warned
them to beware of the powerful hero : they contemned
her exhortations, and Melampyges, in consequence,
was sent to chastise them. He soon brought them to
the queen, loaded with chains. A different tradition
places the Cercopcs in the islands that face the coast
cf Campania. Jupiter, says the legend, being in-
tolved in war with the Titans, came to these islands
to demand aid from the people called Arimi. But the
Arirw, after having promised him assistance, refused to
? ? fulfil that promise, and trifled with the god. As i
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? HERCULES.
HER
pvei by Megasthencs (ap. Arrian, Inu. , c. 8, seqq. ),
is in many respects so very similar to that which has
already been slated with regard to the Lydian Hercu-
les, as to lead to the belief that the legends of Lower
Asia had emanated in some degree from the plains of
the Indian peninsula. The Kama of Hindustan, with
his warlike apes, reminds us, under various striking
aspects, of Hercules and the Cercopes. --The religion
of Hercules, passing from the East like the god whom
it was intended to commemorate, made its way to the
farthest limits of the then known West. The Phceni-
rians, and after them the Carthaginians, extended on
every side the worship of Melkarth, the divine pro-
tector of their colonies. It was from them that the
nations of Spain, after those of Africa, learned to re-
vere his name; and, not content with, placing his col-
umns at the entrance of the Atlantic, the Phoenician
Hercules undertook, on this vast extent of ocean, long
and perilous expeditions. Pursuing also another di-
rection, he crossed the barriers of the Pyrenees and
the Alps: he and his descendants founded numerous
cities, both in Gaul and in the countries adjacent to it.
He was here styled Deusoniensis, an appellation which
again recalls that of Desanaus. Indeed, the occiden-
tal mythology seems here to correspond in every par-
ticular with that of the East. The cup of the sun, in
which Hercules traverses the ocean for the purpose of
reaching the isle of Erythea, represents the marvellous
cup of the Persian Dschemschid. Under the empire
of the latter, no corruption or decay of any kind pre-
vailed; and the columns of wood in the temple of
Hercules at Gades were never carious. The Dschem-
ichid of Persia and the Sem of Egypt gave health to
their votaries; the Romans recognised the same power
in their victorious Hercules. (/. Lyd. dc Mens. , p.
9*2 ) Rome herself connted among her citizens cer-
tain individuals who claimed to be his descendants.
The heroic family of the Fabii, for example, traced
their origin to the son of Alcmena. (I'lut. , Vit. Fab.
Max. , c. 1. ) Tho Latins, as well as the Lydians, as-
<:g-icd various concubines to this powerful deity,
among whom are mentioned Fauna, and Acca Laren-
tia, the nurse of Romulus. (Maccr, ap. Macrob. ,
Sai. , 1,10. --August. , it Civ. Dei, 6, 7. ) Thus, then,
at the same time that we And even in the West the
traces of a sensual worship rendered to Hercules, we
see reproduced that peculiar tendency, so prevalent in
the East, of making heroes and kings the descendants
~>f the divine sun; the children of that victorious and
Jeneficent star, which continually brings us both the
Jay and the year as the prizes of his glorious combats.
And, indeed, what idea can be more natural than this!
Is not the sun himself a powerful king, a hero, placed
in a situation of continual combat with the shades of
darkness and with the evil spirits to which they give
birtli? His numerous adversaries, in the career of the
zodiac which he traverses, are principally the signs of
winter. The solemn rites offered to him, such as the
games celebrated at Chemmis and Olympia; the
chains with which the statue of the Tyrian Hercules
was loaded; the circle of female figures surrounding
bis statue at Sardis, were intended to represent the
alternations of strength and weakness, of victory and
defeat, which mark the course of this courageous
wrestler of the year, whose very death is a triumph.
Hence, among the numerous incarnations of tho star
of day, the warlike spirit of the earlier nations of an-
? ? tiquity would, in order to propose it as an example to
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? HER
HER
letwecn Arrcir. ia and Incitaria, and served as a port to I Hurmaphroditub, a son of Mercury ('Etw^fJ a^d
>. ic city of Cosa. It was one of the principal stations
I * the Roman fleets on the lower sea. (Lib. , 22,11.
--Id. , 30, 39. )
lli'Kt v\ii, a very extensive forest of Germany, the
breadth of which, according to Caesar, was nine days'
journey, while its length exceeded sixty. It extend-
h! from the territories of the Helvetii, Nemctes, and
Rauraci, along the Danube to the country of the Daci
and Anartes. Then turning to the north, it spread
over many large tracts of land, and is said to have con
Venus ('AQpodiTq), the fable relative to whom and tint
nymph Salinacis may be found in Ovid {Mel. , 4, 285,
seqq. ). It is evidently copied after some Eastern le-
gend, although the Grecian spirit has moulded it in o
a more pleasing form, perhaps, than was possessed by
its original. The doctrine of androgynous divinitioa
lies at the very foundation of the earliest pagan wor-
ship. The union of the two sexes was regarded by the
early priesthoods as a symbol of the generation of the
universe, and hence originated those strange types and
tained many animals unknown in oiher countries, of i still stranger ceremonies, which, conceived at first it.
which Osiir describes two or three kinds. Caesar, j a pure and simple spirit, became eventually the source
following the Greek geographers (Arist. , Meteor. , 1, I of so much licentiousness and indecency. The early
13. --Compare Apoll. Rhiul. , 4, 140), confounds all believer was taught by his religious inslructer, that,
the forests and all the mountains of Central Germany j before the creation, the productive power existed alone
under the name of Hereynia Sifoa. This vague tra-' in the immensity of space. When the process of crea-
dition was propagated among the Roman geographi- tiou commenced, this power divided itself into two
cal writers, nor could either Pliny or Tacitus form a portions, and discharged the functions of an active and
more exact idea of its extent. (Plin. , 4, 12. --Tac. , \ a passive being, a male and a female. Hence arose
Germ. , 28 and 30. ) Ptolemy had obtained more pos- j the beauteous frame of the universe. Tais is the doc-
itive information on the subject: besides his Mount trine, in particular, of the Hindu Vedas, and it is ex-
Abnoba, he distinguished the Hartz Forest under the j plicitly established in the Manara-Duarrna-Sastra, and
name of Meliborus, Ac. On the country's becoming j also in the laws of Mcnou. The Adonis of Syria
more inhabited, the grounds were gradually cleared, i (Creuzcr, Symbolik, vol. 2, p. 12); the Adagous of
and but few vestiges of the ancient forest remain
modern times. These now go by particular names, as
the Black Forest, which separates Alsace from Swa-
bia; the Steuger in Franconia; the Spissard on the
Mayn; the Thuringcr in ThuringU; Hcsscwald in the
duchy of Cleves; the Bohemcrwald, which encompass-
es Bohemia, and was in the middle ages called Her-
eynia Silva; and the Hartz Forest in Luncnburgh.
Some of tho German writers at the present day derive
the ancient name from the term hart, high; others sup-
pose it to come from hartz, resin, and consider the old
name as remaining in the present Hartz Forest.
(Malte- Brun, facets. , &c, vol. 1, p. 108, Brussels cd.
--Mannert, Gcogr. , vol. 3, p. 410. )
HkrbnmIus, 1. Senecio, a native of Spain, and a
senator and quffistor at Rome under Domttian. His
contempt for public honours, his virtuous character,
and his admiration of Helvidius Priscus, whose life he
wrote, rendered him odious to the emperor, and caused
him to be accused of high treason. Ho was condemn-
ed to death, and his work burned by the public execu-
tioner. (Tac. , Vit. Agric. , c. 3. --Plin. , Ep. , 3, 33. )
? --II. The father of Pontius tho Samnite commander,
who advised his son cither to give freedom to the Ro-
mans ensnared at the Caudine Pass, or to exterminate
them all. (Liny, 9, I, seqq. )--III. Caius, a Roman,
to whom the treatise on rhetoric, ascribed by some to
Cicero, is addressed. The treatise in question is gen-
erally regarded as not having been written by the
Roman orator, but either by Antnnius Gnipho or Q.
Cornificius. (Consult on this point the remarks of
Schutz, in his edition of Cicero, vol. 1, p. lv. , seqq. ,
? ? and those of Le Clerc, in his more recent edition,
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? HER
HER
t<<jFC of all tlieir speculations being crowned with no
positive result. He is accused by some critics of
putting nothing in the place of the edilice which he
has destroyed by his sarcasms. Such, however, was
cot the end he had proposed lo himself. It was suffi-
cient for biro to show that the systems of ancient phi-
losophy were untenable. The one which was to oc-
cupy its place they had only to seek for, and Hennas
points it out to them without naming it. This treatise
was published by Seiber, Basil, 1533, Svo, and with
the notes of Wolf in Morell's Compcnd. de Orig. Vet.
i'hil. , Basil, 1580, 8vo. It is found also in the Auc-
tar. BMwtk. PaJrum, Paris, 1624; and in the Oxford
edition of Tatian, 8vo, 1700. The best edition, how-
ever, is that of Dommerich, Hal. , 1774, 8vo. (Schbll,
Hist. Lit. Gr. , vol. 5, p. 2l3. --Lardner, Credibility
of Gospel History, pt. 2, vol. 2, p. 555. )
Hkrviovk, I. more correctly Harmonia, daughter
of Mars and Venus, and wife of Cadmus. (Kid1. Har-
monia. )--II. Daughter of MencUus and Helen. She
was privately engaged to he; cousin Orestes, the son
of Agamemnon; but her father, on his return from
Troy, being ignorant of this, gave her in marriage to
Pyrrhus, otherwise called Neoptolemus. After the
murder of that prince (ml. Pyrrhus), she married Ores-
tes, and received the kingdom of Sparta as her dowry.
'Virg. , JEn. , 3, 327, seiji/. --Heync, Excurs. , 12, ad
Virg. , /En. , 3. --Eurip. , Androm. )--III. A city of Ar-
golis, on the southern coast, opposite Hydrea. It was
founded, according to Herodotus (8, 43), by the Dry-
opes, whom Hercules and the Mclians had expelled
from the banks of the Sperchius and the valley of (Eta.
Pausanias describes this city as situate on a hill of
moderate height, and surrounded by walls. It con-
tained, among others, a temple of Ceres, the sanctuary
of which afforded an inviolable refuge to supplicants,
whence arose the proverb iivff 'Epuidvrft, "as safe an
asylum as that of Henniono. " Not far from this
fracture was a cave, supposed to communicate with
the infernal regions. It was probably owing to this
speedy descent to Orctis, that the Hcrmionians, as
S'. rabo informs us, omitted to put a piece of money in
the mouths of their dead. (Slrab. , 373. --Callim. , ap.
Etym. Mag. , s.
