Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/415

Rh one of the Idaean Dactyls, and the third or youngest was Heracles the son of Zeus by Alc- mena, who lived shortly before the Trojan war, and to whom the feats of the earlier ones were as- cribed, Cicero {de Nat. Deor. iii. 16) counts six heroes of this name, and he likewise makes the last and youngest the son of Zeus and Alcraena. Varro (a/). Serv. ad Aen.y'iu. 564) is said to have reckoned up forty-four heroes of this name, while Servius (/. c.) assumes only four, viz. the Tirynthian, the Argive, the Theban, and the Libyan Heracles. Herodotus (ii. 42, &c.) tells us that he made in- quiries respecting Heracles : the Egyptian he found to be decidedly older than the Greek one ; but the Egyptians referred him to Phoenicia as the original source of the traditions. The Egyptian Heracles, who is mentioned by many other writers besides Herodotus and Diodorus, is said to have been called by his Egyptian name Som or Dsora, or, according to others, Chon (Etym. M. s.v. XcSv), and, accord- ing to Pausanias (x. 17. § 2), Maceris, According to Diodorus (i. 24), Som was a son of Amon (Zeus) ; but Cicero calls him a son of Nilus, while, according to Ptolemaeus Hephaestion, Heracles him- self was originally called Nilus. This Egyptian Heracles was placed by the Egyptians in the second of the series of the evolutions of their gods. (Diod. I. c. ; Herod, ii. 43, 145, iii. 73 ; Tac. Ann. ii. 6.) The Thebans placed him 17,000 years before king Amasis, and, according to Diodorus, 10,000 years before the Trojan war ; whereas Macrobius {Sat. i. 20) states that he had no beginning at all. The Greek Heracles, according to Diodorus, became the heir of all the feats and exploits of his elder Egyptian namesake. The "Egyptian Heracles, however, is also mentioned in the second class of the kings ; so that the original divinity, by a process of anthropo- morphism, appears as a man, and in this capacity he bears great resemblance to the Greek hero. (Diod. i. 17, 24, iii. 73.) This may, indeed, be a mere reflex of the Greek traditions, but the state- ment that Osiris, previous to his great expedition, entrusted Heracles with the government of Egypt, seems to be a genuine Egyptian legend. The other stories related about the Egyptian Heracles are of a mysterious nature, and unintelligible, but the great veneration in which he was held is at- tested by several authorities. (Herod, ii. 113; Diod. v. 76 ; Tsic.Ann. ii. 60 ; Macrob. Sat. i. 20.)

Further traces of the worship of Heracles appear in Thasus, where Herodotus (ii. 44) found a temple, said to have been built by the Phoenicians sent out in search of Europa, five generations previous to the time of the Greek Heracles. He was wor- shipped there principally in the character of a saviour ((Tott^p, Pans. v. 25. § 7, vi. 11. § 2).

The Cretan Heracles, one of the Idaean Dactyls, was believed to have founded the temple of Zeus at Olympia (Pans. v. 13. § 5), but to have origin- ally come from Egypt. (Diod. iv. 18.) The tra- ditions about him resemble those of the Greek Hei-acles (Diod. v. 76 ; Paus. ix. 27. § 5) ; but it is said that he lived at a much earlier period than the Greek hero, and that the latter only imitated him. Eusebius states that his name was Diodas, and Hieronymus makes it Desanaus. He was worshipped with funeral sacrifices, and was re- garded as a magician, like other ancient daemones of Crete. (Cic. de Nat. Deor. iii. 16 ; Diod. v. 64.)

In India, also, we find a Heracles, who was called by the unintelligible name Atpaav7s. (Plin. H.N. vi. 16, 22 ; Hesych. s.v. AopadvTjs.) The later Greeks believed that he was their own hero, who had visited India, and related that in India he became the father of many sons and daughters by Pandaea, and the ancestral hero of the Indian kings. (Arrian, Ind. 8, 9 ; Diod. ii. 39, xvii. 85, 96 ; Philostr. Vif. Apoll. iii. 46.)

The Phoenician Heracles, whom the Egyptians considered to be more ancient than their own, was probably identical with the Egyptian or Libyan Heracles. See the learned disquisition in Movers {Die Phoenicier, p. 415, &c.) He was worshipped in all the Phoenician colonies, such as Carthage and Gades, down to the time of Constantine, and it is said that children were sacrificed to him. (Plin. H.N. XXX vi. 5.)

The Celtic and Germanic Heracles has already been noticed above, as the founder of Alesia, Nc- mausus, and the author of the Celtic race. We become acquainted with him in the accounts of the expedition of the Greek Heracles to Geryones, (He- rod, i. 7, ii. 45, 91, 113, iv. 82 ; Pind. 01. iii. 11, &c. ; Tacit. Germ. .3, 9.) We must either suppose that the Greek Heracles was identified with native heroes of those northern countries, or that the notions about Heracles had been introduced there from the East.

 HERACLES or HERCULES ('Hpa»cA-^s), a son of Alexander the Great by Barsine, the daughter of the Persian Artabazus, and widow of the Rhodian Memnon. Though clearly illegitimate, his claims to the throne were put forth in the course of the discussions that arose on the death of Alexander (b.c. 323), according to one account by Nearchus, to another by Meleager. (Curt. x. 6. § 11 ; Justin, xi. 10, xiii. 2.) But the proposal was received with general disapprobation, and the young prince, who was at the time at Perganuis, where he had been brought up by Barsine, con- tinued to reside there, under his mother's care, ap- parently forgotten by all the rival candidates for empire, until the year 310, when he was dragged forth from his retirement, and his claim to the so- vereignty once more advanced by Polysperchon. The assassination of Roxana and her son by Cas- sander in the preceding year (b.c. 311) had left Hercules the only surviving representative of tlie royal house of Macedonia, and Polysperchon skil- fully availed himself of this circumstance to gather round his standard all those hostile to Cassander, or who clung to the last remaining shadow of he- reditary right. By these means he assembled an army of 20,000 foot and 1000 horse, with which he advanced towards Macedonia. Cassander met him at Trampyae, in the district of Stymphaea, but, alarmed at the disposition which he perceived in his own troops to espouse the cause of a son of Alexander, he would not risk a battle, and entered into secret negotiations with Polysperchon, by which he succeeded in inducing him to put the unhappy youth to death. Polysperchon, accord- ingly, invited the young prince to a banquet, which he at first declined, as if apprehensive of his fate, but was ultimately induced to accept the invitation, and was strangled immediately after the feast, b. c. 309. (Diod. XX. 20, 28 ; Justin, xv. 2 ; Plut. de fals. Pud. 4. p. 530 ; Paus. ix. 7. § 2 ; Lycophron. Akx. V. 800—804 ; and Tzetz. ad loc.) Accord-' ing to Diodorus, he was about seventeen years old when sent for by Polysperchon from Pergamus, 