Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/759

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1em  HERCULES (Old Latin, Hercoles, Tercles) is the Latinized form of the mythical Heracles, the chief national hero of Hellas, who has part in all the most important myths of the generation before that which embraces the Homeric warriors at Troy. The name “HpaxAjjs is com- pounded of J/era, the goddess, and the stem of kdées, “ olory.” The thoroughly national character of Heracles is shown by his being the mythical ancestor of the Dorian dynastic tribe, while revered by Ionian Athens, Lelegian Opus, and AXolo-Phcenician Thebes, and closely associated with the Achzan heroes Peleus and Telamon. The Perseid Alcmene, wife of Amphitryon of Tiryns, was Hercules’s mother, Zeus his father (see ). After his putative father he is often called Aminphitryoniades, and Alcides too, after the Perseid Alczus, father of Amphitryon. His mother and her husband lived at Thebes in exile as guests of King Creon. By the craft of Hera, his foe through life, his birth was delayed, and that of Eurystheus, son of Sthenelus of Argos, hastened, Zeus having in effect sworn that the elder of the two should rule the realm of Perseus. Hera sent two serpents to destroy the new-born Hercules, but he strangled them. He was trained in all manly ac- complishments by heroes of the highest renown in each, until he slew Linus, his instructor in music, with the lyre. Thereupon he was sent to tend Amphitryon’s oxen, and at this period slew the lion of Mount Cithzron. By the sub- jection of the Minyans of Orchomenus he won Creon’s 