Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/121

 THE GREEK HEROES 107 upon him his labors, cannot be positively decided. While he was worshiped especially by the Boeotians, Dorians, and Thessalians (as, indeed, it was with the Boeotians that all hero worship in its full develop- ment appeared first), yet from the earliest times in Athens, Marathon, and Leontini, he enjoyed divine honors as Alexikakos (' defender from evil '), and Kallinlkos (' glo- rious victor '). In later times he was regarded as the chief representative of the wrestling art and therefore also as the founder of the Olympian games ; and his statue ap- peared everywhere in the gymnasiums and adjacent baths, so that he became by such association the god of all warm baths and other healing waters or springs. On account of his clearing the highways of enemies, he appears also as the god that escorts travelers (Hegemonies). He is often attended by his protectress Athena, more rarely also by Hermes and Apollo. 137. He was hated by Hera, just as were all the sons of Zeus begotten from other wives. Therefore, since Zeus had decreed the dominion over Argos to the next descendant of Perseus who should be born, Hera delayed the birth of Hercules until his cousin Eurystheus had seen the light of day in Mycenae, and had thus become ruler of Argos, and liege lord of Hercules. Evidently, however, Tiryns was regarded as the birthplace of Hercules ; for the dis- tant Thebes, though spoken of in the Iliad as his home, never can have stood in such a dependent relation to My- cenae as would be implied by the legend just mentioned. While yet in his cradle Hercules strangled two serpents which Hera had dispatched against him. After he had slain with the lyre his teacher Linus, who had chastised him, Amphitryon sent him to tend flocks upon Mount