Herculean

Did You Know?

• After the Roman Empire became Christianised, Hercules was identified with the biblical figure Samson in some early patristic texts.
• In medieval mythography, one glossator noted that when Hercules became a constellation, it showed that strength was necessary to gain entrance to Heaven.
• The Etruscan form Herceler derives from the Greek Heracles via syncope.

Mythology

In Roman myth, Hercules was a defender of the helpless, but his own troubles began at birth. Juno tried to stop his birth by sending two witches, but a servant of Alcmene fooled them. Juno then sent snakes to kill him in his cradle, yet the infant strangled them. Another story says Alcmene left him in the woods to shield him from Juno. The goddess Minerva found him and took him to Juno, claiming he was a lost orphan. Juno nursed him until he bit her nipple; her spilled milk created the Milky Way. She returned the baby to Minerva, and the feeding accidentally gave Hercules even more strength.

Roman era

The Latin name for Hercules came from Etruscan, where it was written as Heracle, Hercle, and other ways. The Etruscans loved putting him in their art, especially on bronze mirrors. In Classical Latin, people often used a mild oath like Hercule! or Mehercle! Hercules was not originally part of Italic religion, but he became very popular across southern and central Italy. The Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus said you could hardly find a place in Italy that didn't honor him. Bronze statues of Hercules have turned up in sanctuaries throughout Samnium and the Apennines, including over a hundred from a 3rd-century BCE site in Corfinium. Scholar Karl Galinsky thinks these might have come from an earlier warrior type called Mars. A subtype called the Rorschach Hercules shows the lion skin as a geometric blob, probably from local Italic artistic traditions rather than the Greek style that highlighted muscles.

Renaissance mythography

The Renaissance and the printing press renewed interest in Greek literature, with mythography drawing extensively on the Greek tradition of Heracles under the Romanized name Hercules or the alternate name Alcides. In his Mythologiae (1567), Natale Conti collected and summarized myths of the hero, beginning with a moralizing overview: Hercules subdued monsters, bandits, and criminals, and was honored with temples, altars, ceremonies, and priests for his wisdom and great soul. Renaissance humanists began to consider Hercules as a philosopher and the god of inspired eloquence, connected to the idea of logos. The tradition of Hercules in Gaul, where he was called Ogmios, traced back to Lucian, who described Hercules as eloquent and aged. Echoes appeared in works of Isocrates, Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, and Seneca the Younger. By the early 16th century, Hercules was depicted in the Allegoriae poeticae of Albericus Londoniensis as an astronomer and philosopher.

Worship

The Road of Hercules is a route across Southern Gaul associated with his 10th labor of retrieving the Cattle of Geryon. Hannibal took this path on his march toward Italy and encouraged belief that he was the second Hercules, with primary sources often comparing them. Hannibal started his march by visiting the shrine of Hercules at Gades and performed labors while crossing the Alps, such as fracturing a cliff side as noted by Livy. In ancient Roman society, women were usually limited to cults addressing feminine matters or requiring virginal chastity, but evidence suggests female worshippers of Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Hercules existed. Some scholars believe women were completely prohibited from any of Hercules's cults; others think only the 'Ara Maxima' was forbidden. Macrobius, paraphrasing Varro, wrote that when Hercules brought cattle through Italy, a woman refused him water because it was the day of the Goddess Women. Hercules then forbade women from his sacrifice and ordered Potitius and Pinarius not to allow women to participate. Macrobius stated women were restricted in Hercules cults, but the extent is ambiguous. Aulus Gellius noted Roman women did not swear on Hercules, and Propertius in poem 4.9 provided similar information.