her with an arrow, caught her, put her on his shoul- others of his own accord, equally great and celebrated der, and was going with his burden through Arcadia, (Vid. Cacus, Antæus, Busiris, Eryx, &c.), and he had when he met Diana and Apollo. The goddess took also, according to some, accompanied the Argonauts to the hind from him, and reproached him for violating Colchis before he delivered himself up to the King of her sacred animal. But the hero excusing himself on Mycena. Wishing after this to marry again, having the plea of necessity, and laying the blame on Eurys- given Megara to Iolaus, and hearing that Eurytus, king theus, Diana was mollified, and allowed him to take of Echalia, had declared, that he would give his daughthe hind alive to Mycena.-The fourth labour was to ter Iole to him who should overcome himself and his bring alive to Eurystheus a wild boar which ravaged sons in shooting with the bow, he went thither and won the neighbourhood of Erymanthus. In this expedition the victory, but did not obtain the promised prize. Iphhe destroyed the Centaurs (vid. Centauri and Chiron), itus, the eldest son, was for giving his sister to Hercu and then caught the boar by driving him from his lair les, but Eurytus and his other sons refused, lest he with loud cries, and chasing him into a snow-drift, should destroy her children, if she had any, as he had where he seized and bound him, and then took him to done those of Megara. Shortly afterward, the oxen of Mycena. Eurystheus was so frightened at the sight of Eurytus being stolen by Autolycus, his suspicions fell the boar, that, according to Diodorus, he hid himself in on Hercules. Iphitus, who gave no credit to the charge, his brazen apartment for several days.-In his fifth la- betook himself to that hero, and besought him to join bour Hercules was ordered to cleanse the stables of in the search for the lost oxen. Hercules promised to Augeas, where numerous oxen had been confined for do so, and entertained him; but, falling into madness, many years. (Vid. Augeas.)-For his sixth labour he he precipitated Iphitus from the walls of Tiryns. In was ordered to kill the carnivorous birds which rav- order to be purified of this murder, he went to Neleus, aged the country near the Lake Stymphalus in Arcadia. who, being a friend of Eurytus, refused to comply with While Hercules was deliberating how he should scare his desire. Hercules then proceeded to Amycle, them, Minerva brought him brazen rattles from Vulcan. where he was purified by Deiphobus, the son of HipHe took his station on a neighbouring hill, and sound-polytus. But he fell, notwithstanding, into a severe ed the rattles the birds, terrified, rose in the air, and malady on account of the murder of Iphitus; and, gohe then shot them with his arrows.-In his seventh ing to Delphi to seek relief, he was refused a response labour he brought alive into Peloponnesus a prodigious by the Pythia. In his rage at her denial he went to wild bull, which laid waste the island of Crete.-He plunder the temple, and, taking the tripod, was about then let him go, and the bull roved over Sparta and establishing an oracle for himself, when Apollo came Arcadia, and, crossing the isthmus, came to Marathon to oppose him; but Jupiter hurled a thunderbolt bein Attica, where he did infinite mischief to the inhab- tween the combatants, and put an end to the contest. itants. In his eighth labour he was employed in ob- Hercules now received a response, that his malady taining the mares of Diomedes, the Thracian king, would be removed if he let himself be sold for three which fed on human flesh. (Vid. Diomedes II.)-For years as a slave, and gave the purchase-money to Euhis ninth labour he was commanded to obtain the gir- rytus as a compensation for the loss of his son. Acdle of the queen of the Amazons. (Vid. Hippolyta.) cordingly, in obedience to the oracle, he was conduct-In his tenth labour he killed the monster Geryon, ed by Mercury to Lydia, and there sold to Omphale, king of Erythea, and brought his oxen to Eurystheus, the queen of the country. (Vid. Omphale.) The who sacrificed them to Juno. (Vid. Geryon.)-The purchase-money (three talents, it is said) was offered eleventh labour was to obtain the apples from the gar- to Eurytus, but he refused to accept it. When the den of the Hesperides. (Vid. Hesperides.)-The term of this servitude had expired, he prepared, being twelfth, and last, and most dangerous of his labours, now relieved of his disease, to take vengeance on Lawas to bring upon earth the three-headed dog Cerbe- omedon, for having refused the promised reward for derus. When preparing for this expedition, Hercules livering Hesione. (Vid. Hippolyta and Laomedon.) went to Eumolpus at Eleusis, desirous of being initia- After succeeding in this enterprise, and slaying Lated; but he could not be admitted, as he had not been omedon, he collected an army and marched against and purified of the blood of the centaurs. Eumolpus, slew Augeas and his sons. Elis was the scene of this however, purified him, and he then saw the mysteries; warfare, and here, when victory had declared for him, after which he proceeded to the Tænarian promontory he established the Olympic games, raised an altar to in Laconia, where was the entrance to the lower world, Pelops, and built altars also to the twelve great deities. and went down to it, accompanied by Mercury and After the conquest of Elis he marched against Pylos, Minerva. The moment the shades saw him they fled took the city, and killed Neleus and all his sons, exaway in terror, all but Meleager and Medusa the Gor- cept Nestor, who was living with the Gerenians. (Il., gon. (Od., 11, 633.) He was drawing his sword on 11, 689.) He is said also to have wounded Pluto and the latter, when Mercury reminded him that she was Juno, as they were aiding the Pylians. Some time a mere phantom. Near the gates of the palace of after this, Hercules went to Calydon, where he sought Hades he found Theseus and Pirithous, who had at- the hand of Deianira, the daughter of Eneus. He tempted to carry off Proserpina, and had, in conse- had to contend for her with the river-god Achelous, quence, been fixed on an enchanted rock by the offend- who turned himself into a bull, in which form one of ed monarch of Erebus. When they saw Hercules, his horns was broken off by the victorious hero. (Vid. they stretched forth their hands, hoping to be relieved Acheloüs.)-One day, at the table of Eneus, as Euby his might. He took Theseus by the hand and nomus, son of Architeles, was, according to custom, raised him up; but when he would do the same for pouring water on the hands of the guests, Hercules Pirithous, the earth quaked, and he left him. He then, happening unawares to swing his hand suddenly, struck after several other acts of prowess, asked Pluto to give the boy and killed him. As it was evidently an accihim Cerberus; and the god consented, provided he dent, the father forgave the death of his son; but Herwould take him without using any weapons. He found cules resolved to banish himself, agreeably to the law him at the gates of Acheron; and protected only by his in such cases, and he set out with his wife for Tracorslet and lion's skin, he flung his arms about his chis, the realm of his friend Ceyx. On his journey to head, and, grasping him by the neck, made him submit, this quarter the affair of Nessus took place. (Vid. though the dragon in his tail bit him severely. He Deianira and Nessus.) While residing with Ceys, brought him through Trazene to Eurystheus, and, he aided Ægimius, king of the Dorians, against whom when he had shown him, took him back to the lower the Lapithæ, under the command of Coronus, had made world. Besides these arduous labours, which the jeal-war, on account of a dispute respecting boundaries. ousy of Eurystheus imposed upon him. he also achieved As he was passing, on a subsequent occasion, by the temple of Apollo at Pagase, he was opposed by Cycnus, the son of Mars, who was in the habit of plundering those that brought the sacrifices to Delphi. Cycnus fell in the combat; and when Mars, who had witnessed the fate of his son, would avenge him, he received a wound in the thigh from the spear of the hero. Returning to Trachis, Hercules collected an army, and made war on Eurytus, king of Echalia, whom he killed, together with his sons, and, plundering the town, led away Iole as a captive. At the Euboan promontory Cænæum he raised an altar to Jupiter, and, wishing to offer a sacrifice, sent to Ceyx for a splendid robe to wear. Deianira, hearing about Iole from the messenger, and fearing the effect of her charms on the heart of her husband, resolved to try the efficacy of the philtre of Nessus (vid. Deianira), and tinged with it the tunic that was sent. Hercules, suspecting nothing, put on the fatal garment, and prepared to offer sacrifice. At first he felt no effect from it; but when it warmed, the venom of the hydra began to consume his flesh. In his fury, he caught Lichas, 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 shipboard, where Deianira, on hearing the consequences of what she had done, hanged herself; and Hercules, charging Hyllus, his eldest son by her, to marry Iole when he was of sufficient age, had himself carried to the summit of Mount Eta, 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 Pœas, happening to arrive there in search of 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 sufferer to heaven, where he was endowed with immortality; and, being reconciled to Juno, he espoused her daughter Hebe, by whom he had two children, Alexiares (Aider-in-war) and Anicetus (Unsubdued). The legend of Hercules is given in full detail by Apollodorus (2, 4, 8, seqq.). Other authorities on the subject are as follows: Diod. Sic., 4, 9, seqq.-Theocrit., Idyll., 25.-Pind., Ol., 3, 55.—Theocrit., Idyll., 7, 149.-Pherecydes, ap. Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod., 2, 1054. -Il., 8, 867.-Pherecyd., ap. Schol. ad Od., 21, 23.Hesiod., Scut. Herc.- Ovid, Met., 9, 165, et 217.Soph., Trachin.-Homer arms Hercules with a bow and arrows. (I., 5, 393.—Od., 8, 224.) Hesiod describes him with shield and spear. Pisander and Stesichorus were the first who gave him the club and lion's skin. (Athenæus, 12, 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 with Melcarth, 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 Meroë in Ethiopia, and Thebes in Upper Egypt, even to Britain, and the icy regions of Scythia; from the ancient Taprobana and Palibothra in India, to Cadiz and the shores of the Atlantic; from the forests of Germany to the burning sands of Africa; everywhere, in short, where the benefits of the luminary of day are experienced, there we find established the name and worship of a Hercules. Many ages before the period when Alcmena is said to have lived, and the pretended Tyrinthian hero to have performed his wonderful exploits, Egypt and Phoenicia, which certainly did not borrow their divinities from Greece, had raised temples to the Sun, under a name analogous to that of Hercules, and had carried his worship to the isle of Thasus and to Gades. Here was consecrated a tem ple to the year, and to the months which divided it into twelve parts,- that is, to the twelve labours or victories which conducted Hercules to immortality. It is under the name of Hercules Astrochyton ('Aσтpоxirwv), or the god clothed with a mantle of stars, that the poet Nonnus designates the Sun, adored by the Tyrians. (Dionys., 40, 415.—Ibid., 375.) "He is the same god," observes the poet, "whom different nations adore under a multitude of different names: Belus on the banks of the Euphrates, Ammon in Libya, Apis at Memphis, Saturn in Arabia, Jupiter in Assyria, Serapis in Egypt, Helios among the Babylonians, Apollo at Delphi, Esculapius throughout Greece," &c. Martianus Capella, in his hymn to the Sun, as also Ausonius (Epigr., 2, 4) and Macrobius (Sat., 1, 20), confirm the fact of this multiplicity of names given to a single star. The Egyptians, according to Plutarch (De Is. et Os., p. 367.—Op., ed. Reiske, vol. 7, p. 449), thought that Hercules had his seat in the Sun, and that he travelled with it around the moon. The author of the hymns ascribed to Orpheus, fixes still more strongly the identity of Hercules with the Sun. He calls Hercules "the god who produced time, whose forms vary, the father of all things, and destroyer of all. He is the god who brings back by turns Aurora and the night, and who, moving onward from east to west, runs through the career. of his twelve labours, the valiant Titan, who chases away maladies, and delivers man from the evils which afflict him." (Orph., Hymn., 12.-ed. Herm., p. 272, seq.) The Phoenicians, it is said, preserved a tradition among them, that Hercules was the Sun, and that his twelve labours indicated the sun's passage through, the twelve signs. Porphyry, who was born in Phoenicia, assures. us that they there gave the name of Hercules to the sun, and that the fable of the twelve labours represents the sun's annual path in the heavens (ap. Euseb., Præp. Ev., 3, 11). In like manner the scholiast on Hesiod remarks, "the zodiac, in which the sun performs his. annual course, is the true career which Hercules traverses in the fable of the twelve labours; and his marriage with Hebe, the goddess of youth, whom he espoused after he had ended his labours, denotes the renewal of the year at the end of each solar revolution." (J. Diaconus, Schol. ad Hes., Theog., p. 165.) Among the different epochs at which the year in ancient times commenced among different nations, that of the summer solstice was one of the most remarkable. It was at this period that the Greeks fixed the celebration of their Olympic game, the establishment of which is attributed to Hercules. (Corsini, Fast. Att., vol. 2, p. 235.) It was the origin of the most ancient era of the Greeks.-If we fix from this point the departure of the sun on his annual career, and compare the progress of that luminary through the signs of the zodiac with the twelve labours of Hercules, altering somewhat the order in which they are handed down to us, a very striking coincidence is instantly observed. A few examples will be adduced. In the first month the sun passes into the sign Leo; and in his first labour Hercules slew the Nemean lion. Hence, too, the legend, that the Nemean lion had fallen from the skies, and that it was produced in the regions bordering on the sphere of the moon. (Tatian, Contr. Gent., p. 164.) In the second month the sun enters the sign Virgo, when the constellation of the Hydra sets; and in his second labour Hercules destroyed the Lernæan hydra. It should also be remarked, that the head of the celestial hydra rises with the constellation Cancer, or the Crab, and hence the fable that Hercules was annoyed by a crab in his conflict with the hydra. (Cynesius Calv., p. 64.) The hydra, moreover, is remarkable among the constellations for its great length; its head rising, as has just been remarked, with Cancer; its body be, ing extended under the sign Leo, and only ending at the later degrees of the sign Virgo. On this is based the fable of the continual reappearance of the monster'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 of 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 centaur 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 thyrsus in one hand and a flask of wine in the other. (Úran., tabl., 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 being 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 Erymanthian boar. In the fourth month the sun enters the sign of Scorpio, when Cassiopeia rises, a constellation 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, 226.) The horns of gold and the breathing 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 fires of the sun, by rising in the evening with its spouse Cepheus. In the fifth month the sun enters the sign Sagittarius, consecrated to Diana, who had a temple at Stymphalus, in which were seen the birds called Stymphalides. At this same time rise the three birds; namely, the constellations of the vulture, swan, and 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 on the medals of Perinthus. (Med. du Cardin. Alban., 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 Aristæus, son of the river Pene us. In his sixth labour Hercules cleansed, by means of the Peneus, the stables of Augeas, son of Phoebus. Augeas is made by some to have been a son of Nycteus, a name which bears an evident reference to the night (vý), and which contains, therefore, in the present instance, an allusion to the long nights of the winter solstice. In the seventh month the sun passes into the sign Aquarius. The constellation of the Lyre, 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 Pasiphaë, 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. He slays also the vulture 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 (Aul. Gell., 1, 1), an evident allusion to the celestial bull which glitters with a thousand fires. It is at the close of this seventh labour, and under the same title with it, that Hercules is supposed to have arrived in Elis, mounted on the steed Arion, and to have established there the Olympic games on the banks of the Alpheus. Now, when the sun passes into the sign Aquarius, he comes into that quarter of the heavens which is marked by the full moon from year to year. The full moon of the summer-solstice was the period for celebrating the Olympic Games; and hence the poets, observing the phenomenon of the full moon during every year in the sign of Aquarius, ascribed to Hercules the institution of these games, of which Aquarius, by its union with the full moon, was every year the symbol. In the immediate vicinity of Aquarius, moreover, we find the constellation Pegasus identical with the fabled steed Arion. Hence the fable of Hercules having come on this latter animal to the land of Elis. In the eighth month the sun enters into the sign Pisces, when the celestial horse rises in the morning, known by the name of Pegasus and Arion, as we have just remarked; and in his eighth labour Hercules overcame and carried off the horses of Diomede. Eurystheus consecrated these steeds to Juno, to whom, in the division of the zodiac among the twelve great gods, the sign Aquarius was given as her peculiar domain; and it is worthy of remark, that the Thracian Diomede is fabled to have been the son of Cyrene, who was also the mother of Aristæus, and that this last personage is supposed by many to have been the same with Aquarius. In the ninth month the sun passes into the sign Aries, sacred to Mars, which all the ancient authors who have written on astronomy make to be the same with the ram of the golden fleece. When the sun enters into this sign, the celestial ship, called Argo, rises in the evening. At this same period Cassiopeia and Andromeda set. Andromeda is remarkable for many beautiful stars, one of which is called her girdle. Hyginus makes this girdle consist of three stars. Aratus designates it particularly by the name of (ún. Now, in his ninth labour, Hercules, according to one version of the legend, embarked on board the Argo in quest of the golden fleece; he contends with the female warriors, and takes from Hippolyta, their queen, the daughter of Mars, a famous girdle. He also rescues Hesione from a sea-monster, as Peresus did Andromeda. In the tenth month the sun enters into the sign Taurus. The constellation of Orion, who was fabled to have pursued, through love, the Pleiades, or daughters of Atlas, now sets: the herdsman, or conductor of the oxen of Icarus, also sets, as does likewise the river Eridanus. At this period, too, the Pleiades rise, and the she-goat fabled to have been the spouse of Faunus. Now, in his tenth labour, Hercules restores to their father the seven Pleiades, whose beauty and wisdom had inspired with love Busiris, king of Egypt, and who, wishing to become master of their persons, had sent pirates to carry them off. He slew also Busiris, who is here identical with Orion. In this same labour he bore away from Spain the oxen of Geryon, and arrived in Italy, where he overcame Cacus, and was hospitably received by Faunus. In the eleventh month the sun passes into the sign of Gemini. This period is marked by the setting of Procyon, and the cosmical rising of the dog-star. The constellation of the Swan also rises in the evening. In his eleventh labour, Hercules conquers Cerberus, the dog of Hades. He triumphs also over Cycnus (Swan), and at the very time, too, according to Hesiod (Scut. Herc., 393), when the dog-star begins to parch the fields, and the cicada announces the summer by its song. It is to be remarked, moreover, that the constellation of the Swan gave rise, in a different legend, to the fable of the amour of Leda and Jove, and the birth of the twin-brothers Castor and Pollux. (Eratosth., c. 25.) In the twelfth month the sun enters the sign Cancer, the last of the twelve commencing with Leo. The constellations of the river and the centaur set, that of Hercules Ingeniculus also descends towards the western regions, or those of Hesperia, followed by the dragon of the pole, the guardian of the golden apples of the Hesperides, whose head he crushes with his foot. In his twelfth labour, Hercules travelled to Hesperia in quest of the golden fruit, guarded by the dragon. After this he prepares to offer up a solemn sacrifice, and clothes himself in a | which he is familiar. In vain does he endeavour to robe dipped in the blood of the Centaur, whom he had reconcile the mythic legends of Greece with the foreign slain in crossing a river. The robe takes fire, and the dogmas that he encounters. After a scrupulous exhero perishes amid the flames, but only to resume his amination, and imploring the favour of the gods of his youth in the heavens, and become a partaker of immor- country, he declares that the name Herakles is origitality. The Centaur thus terminates the mortal career nally from Egypt, not from Greece. Hercules with the of Hercules; and in like manner the new annual period Egyptians was the sun of the spring in all his force, commences with the passage of the sun into Leo, an idea to which his very name alluded, which was marked by a group of stars in the morning, which in the Egyptian tongue Sem, Som, or Djom, "the glitter like the flames that issued from the vestment Strong." Sem-Herakles passed for a god of the secof Nessus. If Hercules be regarded as having actually ond class in Egypt. He was the type of the divine existed, nothing can be more monstrous, nothing more power, appearing with glory at the period of the spring, at variance with every principle of chronology, nothing after having conquered the gloomy winter. He was more replete with contradictions, than the adventures the sun traversing his celestial career, contending of such an individual as poetry makes him to have against the numerous obstacles with which his path is been. But, considered as the luminary that gives supposed to be strewed, and obtaining by his immortal light and life to the world, as the god who impregnates vigour a prize worthy of his numerous triumphs. On all nature with his fertilizing rays, every part of the le- the monuments of Egypt he was seen traversing the gend teems with animation and beauty, and is marked fields of air in the bark of the star of day (Plut., de by a pleasing and perfect harmony. The sun of the Is. et Os., p. 506, ed. Wyttenb.); at other times the summer solstice is here represented with all the attri-phoenix was placed in his hand, as a pledge of eternal butes of that strength which he has acquired at this victory, and a symbol of the great year, to which the season of the year. He enters proudly on his course, renewal of each solar year was supposed to allude.in obedience to the eternal order of nature. It is no From the Egyptian let us pass to the Phoenician Herlonger the sign Leo that he traverses; he combats cules. Here he was denominated Melkarth, and befearful lion which ravages the plains. The Hydra is longed to the line of Bel or Baal, called Cronos by the the second monster that opposes the hero, and the Greeks. (Creuzer, Symbolik, par Guigniaut, vol. 3, constellation in the heavens becomes a fearful animal p. 15.) Melkarth was the tutelary divinity of the powon earth, to which the language of poetry assigns a hun-erful city of Tyre, and the Tyrian navigators spread dred heads, with the power of reproducing them as his worship from island to island, and from shore to they are crushed by the weapon of the hero. All the shore, even to the farthest west, even to Gades, where obstacles that array themselves against the illustrious a flame burned continually in his temple, as at Olympia champion are gifted with some quality or attribute that on the altar of Jupiter. (Heeren, Ideen, vol. 1, p. 2, exceeds the bounds of nature: the horses of Diomede seqq.) His name signified, according to some, "the feed on human fesh; the females rise above the timid- king of the city" according to others, and with greater ity of their sex, and become formidable heroines; the probability, "the powerful king" (Bochart, Geogr. apples of the Hesperides are of gold; the stag has Sacr., 2, 2.-Selden, de D. S., I, 6), an idea closely brazen hoofs; the dog of Hades bristles with serpents; analogous to that intended to be conveyed by the Egypeverything, even down to the very crab, is formidable; tian appellation Sem. The King of the City, or the for everything is great in nature, and must, therefore, powerful King, was a true incarnation of the sun. be equally so in the various symbols that are used to He was the sun of spring, growing gradually more and designate her various powers. (Consult, on this whole more powerful as it mounts to the skies, sending rains subject, the remarks of Dupuis, Origine de tous les upon the earth, and causing the seed to shoot forth Cultes, vol. 2, p. 168, seqq.-Abrégé, p. 116, seqq.) from the ground. Hence the Phoenicians regarded The conclusion to which we have here arrived, will him as the god of harvests and of the table, the god appear still plainer if we take a hasty sketch of the Ori- who brings joy in his train. (Nonnus, Dionys., 40, ental origin of the fable of Hercules, and its passage from 418.) A mercantile and commercial people, they also the East into the countries of the West. And it will be made him (in a still more special sense, perhaps) the seen that the Greeks, in conformity with their national protector of commerce and colonies. It is to this idea character, appropriated to themselves, and gave a hu- that many seek to refer the etymology of the Greek man form to, an Oriental deity; and that, metamor- and Latin names Herakles and Hercules. Thus, some phosing the stranger-god into a Grecian hero, they assign as the root the Phoenician or Hebrew term took delight in making him an ideal type of that heroic Harkel, "circuitor," "mercator" (Munter, Relig, der courage and might which triumphs over every obstacle. | Carthag., p. 41, ed. 2), but which applies equally well Hercules, the invincible Hercules, has strong analogies to the sun moving along in his celestial career (VTεwith the Persian Mithras, the type of the unconquered piwv). Others write the name Archles, which recalls sun. (Creuzer, Symbolik, par Guigniaut, vol. 1, p. the old Latin or Etrurian Ercle, Hercole. (Beller376, &c.) Mithras, Perseus, and Hercules the de-mann, 1, 22.) The perilous and fertilizing course of scendant of Perseus, connect together the two families the sun in the heavens may, in fact, have passed for a of Belus, that of Asia and that of Egypt. According natural type of those adventurous courses by land and to the Greek genealogies, the son of Amphitryon and sea which enriched the hardy navigators of Phoenicia ; Alcmena was of Egyptian blood both on the father's and beyond a doubt the mythus of Hercules borrowed and mother's side, while he was descended by Perseus more than one incident from their distant expeditions. from Belus, the solar god. (Consult the tables of ge- The ancient nations had a custom of loading with nealogy, X, Xa, and Xb, at the end of Heyne's Apol- chains the statues of their gods, when the state was lodorus.) But, added the tradition, the figure of Am- menaced with danger, in order to prevent their flight. phitryon only served as a mask to the king of gods and Among the Phoenicians, the idol Melkarth was almost men when he wished to give birth to Hercules. The constantly chained. In the same manner, the nations origin of the latter, then, was mediately and immediately of Italy chained their Saturn every year until the tenth divine, and we have a son of Jupiter in the Hellenic month, and at his festival in December they gave him Hercules, as well as in the Sem-Hercules of Egypt. his freedom. (Macrob., Sat., 1, 8.) The fundamenBut, in every other respect, what a difference between tal idea of this symbolical usage was originally the the two. Herodotus, full of the ideas imbibed from same among all these nations, though afterward differthe national poems on Hercules, the illustrious chief ently expressed, and variously modified in various sysof the heroic races of Greece, arrives in Egypt. There tems of religion. In the infantine conceptions of the he finds a Hercules quite different from the one with earliest times, it was believed that the course of the 39 66 sun could be retarded by chaining his image, and ac- | feeble at the period of the winter solstice, which in celerated by removing the fetters. Hence, in this way, some sense turns his back upon the earth, and shows they wished to represent his strength and his weak- his obscurer parts. (Compare the literal meaning of ness.-The worship of Hercules prevailed also in Mɛλáμπvyos, and the note of Guigniaut, vol. 3, p. Phrygia. Hercules, according to Eusebius (Chron., 182.) As long as the solar god abandons himself to 1, p. 26.-Bochart, Geogr. Sacr., p. 472), here bore an inglorious life, and divides his attention between the name of Diodas, or, as the Latin version gives it, the pleasures and the servile employments of women, Desanaus, which last Vossius makes equivalent to that is, during the entire winter solstice, the Cercopes, "strong, powerful," an idea conveyed also by the who are the divisions of this period of languor, crowd Tyrian appellation of Melkarth. (Voss, de Idolol., 1, around and insult him with impunity. But no sooner 22.)-As a colony from Tyre had carried the worship does the approach of the vernal equinox reinvigorate of Hercules into Boeotia by the way of Thasus, so the solar luminary, than Hercules, coming forth from another colony conveyed it to the Ionians of lower degrading repose, attacks and subjugates his revilers. Asia. At Erythræ, on the coast of Ionia, was to be Jupiter, placed in opposition to the same creatures, so seen a statue of Hercules, of an aspect completely full of artifice and so fair a symbol of it, may equally Egyptian. The worship of the god was here cele- be explained in an astronomical and calendary sense. brated by certain Thracian females, because the females This god was the sun of suns; the supreme force that of the country were said to have refused to make to the combats, subdues, and dissipates whatever tends to god an offering of their locks on his arrival at Erythræ. obscure the light and disturb the harmony of the uni(Pausan., 7, 5.) The females of Byblos sacrificed to verse. The Cercopes are here opposed to him in the Adonis their locks and their chastity at one and the same manner as in other legends the Titans.-It may same time, and it is probable that the worship of Her- be as well, before leaving this part of the subject, to cules was not more exempt, in various parts of the remark, that the monkey, and also various other aniancient world, from the same dissolute offerings. In mals or natural objects, consecrated in public worship Lydia, particularly, it seems to have been marked by both among the Egyptians and elsewhere, wire to an almost delirious sensuality. Married and unmar- garded as having a direct and permanent relation to ried females prostituted themselves at the festival of the stars, their revolutions, and the periods of the year. the god. (Herodot., 1, 93-Compare Clearch., ap. Apes appear to have been honoured with a species of Athen., 12, p. 416, ed. Schweigh.) The two sexes worship, not only in India and Egypt, but also along changed their respective characters; and tradition re- the northern coast of Africa, perhaps even at Carthage ported that Hercules himself had given an example of itself. (Guigniaut, vol. 3, p. 183.)-Hercules, acthis, when, assuming the vestments and occupation cording to the traditions of Lydia, became the father, of a female, he subjected himself to the service of the in this country, by a female slave, perhaps the same voluptuous Omphale. (Creuzer, Fragm. Hist. An- with Omphale, of the chief of a new dynasty of kings. tiq., p. 187.) The Lydian Hercules was named San- The dynasty preceding this had in like manner for its don, after the robe dyed with sandyx, in which Om-founder a chieftain of the name of Atys, homonymous phale had arrayed him, and which the females of the with the solar god of Phrygia and Lydia. The seccountry imitated in celebrating his licentious worship.ond royal race was that of the Heraclidæ, or rather (I. Laurent. Lydus, de Mag. Rom., 3, 64, p. 268.) of the Candaulidæ; for, according to some, the LydiThis Sandon reappears in the Cilician Sandacus, subjected to his male companion Pharnaces, as the Lydian Hercules was to Omphale. (Creuzer, Symbolik, par Guigniaut, 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-time his throne and his life. (Herodot., 1, 12.) Withness and courage. Hercules with Omphale, is the solar 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 Melampyges and the Cercopes has a similar reference. According to Diodorus Siculus (4, 31), the Cercopes dwelt in the vicinity of Ephesus, and ravaged the country far and wide, while Hercules led a life of pleasure and 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 Cercopes in the islands that face the coast of Campania. Jupiter, says the legend, being involved in war with the Titans, came to these islands to demand aid from the people called Arimi. But the Arimi, after having promised him assistance, refused to fulfil that promise, and trifled with the god. As a punishment for this conduct, Jove changed them into monkeys, or, according to others, into stones, and from this period the isles of Inarime and Prochyta have taken the name of Pithecusa, or "Monkey Islands." (Ilonkovσal, from πionкos, "a monkey.") We have here the Cercopes, both in Asia Minor and in the volcanic islands of Campania. The meaning of the fable is evident. The Lydian Hercules is the sun, pale and an Hercules was named Candaules. (Hesych., s. v. out speaking of the marvellous incidents with which |