The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2

by Karl Otfried Müller

Chapter XI.

§ 1. Legends respecting Hercules in the earliest settlements of the Dorians. § 2. Servitude of Hercules. § 3. Legends respecting Hercules in the second settlements of the Dorians. § 4. Legends respecting Tlepolemus, Antiphus, and Phidippus. § 5. Legend of Geryoneus. § 6. Legends respecting Hercules in the neighbourhood of Thermopylæ. § 7, 8, and 9. Bœotian legends respecting Hercules. § 10. Attic legends respecting Hercules.

1. In the following attempt to unravel the complicated mythology of Hercules, we will begin with [pg 411] those fables in which this hero appears evidently as the progenitor of the Doric Heraclidæ,[1722] as representative of the heroes of the Hyllean tribe, the highest order in the Doric nation.

We will first direct our attention to the locality described in the beginning of the first book, the ancient country of the Dorians in the most mountainous part of Thessaly, where this nation was continually at enmity with its immediate neighbours, the Lapithæ. In this war Hercules appears as the hero of the Hyllean tribe, according to the epic poem Ægimius, and gained for them a third part of the conquered territory. With this contest is, as it appears, also connected the celebrated conquest of Œchalia, the subject of an epic poem called Οἰχαλίας ἅλωσις, which was ascribed to Homer or Creophylus.[1723] In this poem it was related how Eurytus of Œchalia, the skilful archer, who was said to have surpassed Hercules himself in this mode of fighting, and who dared to engage with Apollo,[1724] promised his daughter Iole as a prize to the person who should excel himself and his sons in archery; but Hercules having accepted the challenge, Eurytus refused to perform his engagement: upon which Hercules collected an army, conquered Œchalia, killed Eurytus and his sons, carried away Iole prisoner, and gave her in marriage to his son Hyllus.[1725]

The situation of this “well-fortified”[1726] Œchalia is an ancient subject of controversy. There were three places of this name; one on the banks of the Peneus in Thessaly, in the ancient country of the Lapithæ, between Pelinna to the east and Tricca to the west, not far from Ithome:[1727] another in the island of Eubœa, in the district of Eretria.[1728] The third was a town in Messenia, which in latter times was called Carnasium, upon the boundary of Arcadia;[1729] in which region there was also a town named Ithome; and, as it is stated, another named Tricca; so that we must suppose that there was some early connexion between the inhabitants of this district and the tribes near the Peneus. Now it may be presumed that each of these Œchalias was considered by the respective inhabitants as the celebrated town of the great Eurytus; whence among the early poets there was a difference of statement on the subject. For the Messenian Œchalia is called the city of Eurytus in the Homeric catalogue,[1730] and in the Odyssey,[1731] which statement was followed by Pherecydes;[1732] the Eubœan city was selected by the writer [pg 413] of the poem called the Taking of Œchalia;[1733] as also probably in the Ægimius,[1734] and afterwards by Hecatæus of Miletus;[1735] the Thessalian, in another passage in the catalogue of the ships, apparently of considerable antiquity.[1736] Since, then, this question cannot be settled by authority, we can only infer (but with great probability) from the connexion of the traditions that the last-mentioned Œchalia was the city of the original fable. The contest for this city is evidently closely connected with the war with the Lapithæ; Eurytus, as well as the Lapithæ, was hated by Apollo. If Œchalia is placed on the banks of the Peneus, the conquest of it naturally falls in with the other tradition; if not, it stands isolated and unconnected. Again; Hercules, according to all traditions, conquers Iole for his son Hyllus; now Hyllus never occurs in mythology except in connexion with the Dorians; consequently the place of the battle must be looked for in the vicinity of the Doric territory.

Even before the time of this war (according to the common narration) Hercules had embroiled himself with the Œchalians by killing Iphitus, the son of Eurytus, who demanded of him the restitution of some plundered cattle or horses. In the common version of this story, Peloponnesus was the scene of the encounter; for Hercules is said to have hurled him from the walls of Tiryns.[1737] But to expiate this murder, and [pg 414] the violation of the rights of hospitality, Hercules became a slave; and, in order to release himself from the guilt, he was compelled to pay to the father of Iphitus his own ransom.

2. The meaning of this servitude cannot be rightly explained without observing the remarkable coincidence between some parts of the mythology of Hercules and Apollo, which we will here shortly elucidate. As Eurytus is represented sometimes as killed by Apollo, sometimes by Hercules, so in the poem of the Shield of Hercules[1738] this hero punishes Cycnus for profaning the Pagasæan temple; thus, in another tradition, he slays Phylas and Laogoras, princes of the Dryopes, for violating the shrine of Delphi and other temples;[1739] and consecrates the whole nation to the Pythian Apollo.[1740] Nor do I believe that Euripides invented the fable of the restoration of Alcestis, and the contest between Hercules and death.[1741] It is also perhaps fair to infer, from the legends of epic poets, in which Hercules is represented as a hero in brazen armour, who defended the sacred roads with his sword, and overthrew the violent sons of Ares that waylaid the sacrificial processions in the narrow passes and defiles, that in ancient fables he was considered not only as the defender of the Doric race, but also of the Doric worship.

We may now proceed to consider the sale and servitude of Hercules; a point of primary importance in [pg 415] the various forms which the legends concerning this hero assume. In the present instance this degradation originated from the killing of Iphitus. Here also the parallel with the servitude of Apollo at Pheræ cannot fail to strike every one. The god and the hero were chosen, as examples, to impress the people in early times with a strong sense of the sacred character, and necessity of expiation for homicide.[1742] By whom Hercules was supposed to have been purchased in the original legend of northern Thessaly we know not; at a later period Omphale was called his mistress, who (according to Pherecydes)[1743] bought him for three talents.

3. We will now proceed to the second settlements of the Dorians, which comprehend the towns between the ridges of Œta and Parnassus; viz., Erineus, Cytinium, Bœum, and Pindus.[1744]

The neighbours of the Dorians in these settlements were, as has been already stated, the Dryopes, the Melians of Trachis, and the Ætolians. The first were hostile to the Dorians; the other two were for the most part friendly to them. These facts again are expressed with much clearness in the mythology of Hercules. [pg 416] Of the relation between the Dorians and Dryopians, and the manner in which it is expressed in the fables of Hercules, we have already given an account.[1745] Ceyx, the Trachinian, was a faithful friend of Hercules, and of his descendants; in one account, indeed, he is called the nephew of Hercules,[1746] who is said to have founded for him his town of Trachis.[1747] In this place was shown a grave of Deianira,[1748] the daughter of Œneus, whose marriage with Hercules is evidently a mythological expression for the league which existed between the Ætolian and Dorian nations before the invasion of Peloponnesus.[1749] For Deianira was an inhabitant of Calydon;[1750] and the Calydonians had the principal share in this expedition. To this marriage is annexed a series of connected Ætolian fables concerning Hercules. For the peculiarity of this part of the heroic mythology is, that they readily passed from one nation to another; and wherever they obtained a firm ground, formed a large mass of traditions. Among these is the conquest of the bull Achelous,[1751] and the adventure at the ford of the Euenus,[1752] which afterwards occasioned the death of Hercules. It is also probable that the residence of Hercules at Olenus, in the house of Dexamenus, was connected with the Ætolian adventures; although even Hesiod does not in this legend mention the ancient Ætolian town Olenus in the neighbourhood of Calydon, [pg 417] but the Achæan city of the same name on the banks of the Pirus.[1753] Now Dexamenus is frequently placed in connexion with the Calydonian family of Œneus;[1754] the wife of Œneus came from Olenus, and was of the same family. The ancient legend represented him as a hospitable hero: which quality is also expressed in his name (Δεξαμενὸς, from δεξάμενος); in return for which, Hercules released him from his brutal guests, the Centaurs;[1755] to which fable the ancient battle of the Centaurs in the mythology of Hercules probably annexed itself. Lastly, Hercules is said to have led the Ætolians against the Thesprotians of Ephyra. This expedition was perhaps as much celebrated in ancient lays as the taking of Œchalia. Ephyra, which is here spoken of, is an ancient city of Thesprotia,[1756] situated on the spot where the Acherusian lake flows into the sea through the river Selleeis (Acheron). In later times the name of this city was Cichyrus; but even at the present day remains of the original Cyclopian style of building, not unlike those of Tiryns, are extant.[1757] The whole district is celebrated in fables as the dwelling-place of Aidoneus: as the seat of an oracle where departed spirits were questioned, it was always regarded by the inhabitants with an awe, which was further increased [pg 418] by a belief that the natives were very skilful in the preparation of poison.[1758] This city Hercules is said to have attacked as an ally of the Ætolians; whence it appears probable that this circumstance gave occasion for introducing his contest with Hades, and his adventures in the infernal regions, such as the carrying away of Cerberus, the liberation of other heroes,[1759] &c. It must not, however, be thought, that in the style of Euhemerus, I suppose a king Aidoneus to have really once reigned in this district, who had a dog, or rather a general, named Cerberus, whom Hercules overcame in a battle, &c. The following appears to be a more probable method of accounting for the origin of this fable. The gloomy religious rites on the banks of the Acheron, which had always deterred the neighbouring nations from a participation in them, were at an early period contrasted with the free and active habits of the heroic tribes; the awe inspired by the presence of the unearthly spectres with the proud spirit and bold thoughts of a military life. If now the people themselves came into collision with each other, their gods necessarily did the same; the result of which was traditions of contest and war between themselves. On the other hand, it must not be thought that the fable has a purely symbolical meaning; and that Hercules was worshipped, together with [pg 419] Hades, merely as an enemy of Death, as a deity alleviating and removing the terrors of the infernal regions.

4. The rest of this fable, however, entirely loses its symbolical character; viz., the manner in which the birth of several Doric heroes is connected with the taking of Ephyra; who, though out of the confines of history, are nevertheless to be considered as real individuals. In the first place, Hercules is stated to have begotten Tlepolemus on Astyocheia, whom, according to Homer, he carried away from Ephyra, on the river Sellecis, after having destroyed many cities;[1760] Antiphus and Pheidippus also were said to have come from Ephyra in Thesprotia, the sons of Thessalus, and grandsons of Hercules, to whom the noblest families of Thessaly, as well as the Heraclidæ of Cos, referred their origin;[1761] the latter, however, according to another and later tradition, sprang from the union of Hercules and the daughter of Eurypylus in Cos itself.[1762] The origin of this intricate fable appears to be as follows: There were in the ancient country of the Dorians some noble families which referred their origin to the conquest of Ephyra; and these were designated by the names of Tlepolemus, Antiphus, and Pheidippus; those families went with the other Dorians to Peloponnesus, and passed through Argos and Epidaurus to Rhodes and Cos, where they partly new-modelled their original family legends. Now it was always admitted [pg 420] that the Thessalian people came also from Ephyra and Thesprotia; and when it settled among the Greeks, and sought to participate in their traditions, it was natural that Hercules, the conqueror of Ephyra, should be placed at the head of its genealogies.

5. To the combat of Hercules and Pluto at Ephyra we will now annex the legend of Geryoneus. The cattle of Geryoneus and Pluto grazed together in the island of Erytheia;[1763] but they were supposed to belong to the Sun,[1764] and therefore were of a bright red colour. Now Erytheia was anciently believed to be near the kingdom of Hades. For the statement of Hecatæus, that Erytheia and Geryoneus belonged to Epirus and the region of Ambracia,[1765] could not have been owing to an attempt to give to mythology an appearance of reality: but he seems to have availed himself of some real tradition. This is certain, from the datum of Scylax, who would never have laid down Erytheia in his Periplus[1766] on the authority of a logographer. According to this writer it is situated between the territory of the Atintanes and the Ceraunian mountains, north of Epirus, on the borders of Greece, at no great distance from the earliest seats of the Dorians. Now [pg 421] it is a remarkable fact, that, even in historical times, there were in the same country, viz., near the Aous, a river running from mount Lacmon, herds sacred to the Sun, which were guarded in the daytime on the banks of that river, and in the night in a cave of the mountain, by men whom the inhabitants of the Greek city of Apollonia intrusted with this office as a particular honour.[1767] It is not probable that the Corinthians, who founded Apollonia, should have been the first to introduce this usage, although there are traces of an ancient worship of the Sun in the territory of Corinth;[1768] but we may fairly assume that the colonists merely retained a native custom. This hypothesis clears away all difficulty. The empire of Hades on this earth was conterminous with a district in which the worship of the Sun prevailed, and which contained innumerable herds of cattle, under the protection of the god; but the Greek hero, little caring for their sanctity, had driven them away, and devoted them to his own gods. Epirus was always distinguished for its excellent breed of cattle, which were said to have sprung from the herds of Geryoneus, which Hercules offered to the Dodonæan Zeus.[1769]

6. We were led to these considerations by the Ætolian legends respecting Hercules, from which we [pg 422] will now return to the Dorians, who possessed the mountainous tract along mount Œta towards Thermopylæ. There was perhaps no region in the whole of Greece which abounded more in local fables of Hercules. It was in the pass of Thermopylæ that he caught those strange monsters the Cercopes;[1770] here it was that Athene caused a hot spring to issue for him from the ground;[1771] on the top of mount Œta, on the Phrygian rock,[1772] was raised the fatal pile, which the brook of Dyras in vain strove to extinguish;[1773] and many adjacent cities claimed a connexion with his exploits:[1774] even the Ænianes (who at a later period settled in this district) attempted to appropriate to themselves these traditions;[1775] and Heraclea Trachinia, not founded till the Peloponnesian war, and the neighbouring Cylicrani, were referred to the mythology of Hercules.[1776] It is certain that local traditions of this kind must have originated with the inhabitants of this district. Is it at least probable that the natives of Argos would [pg 423] have placed the death of their deified hero in a foreign region, if they had been the original inventors of this fiction? The career of the Doric hero doubtless closed on the funeral pile of Œta; and this adventure ended a series of fables, of which there are now extant only some fragments. In this point of view we may perceive a connexion between many of the legends detailed above.

The general tendency and spirit of these legends may be described in the following proposition: The national hero is represented as everywhere preparing the way for his people and their worship; and as protecting them from other races. Thus he opens a communication between Tempe and Delphi, between the fabulous worshippers of Apollo, the Hyperboreans, and the worshippers of his own age. At the same time his own person is an outward symbol of the national worship; he complies with its rites of expiation for homicide, being himself both the victim and the sacrificer.

7. We will next consider the Theban legends of Hercules; and will, for the sake of clearness, first state the propositions which the following discussion is intended to establish.

Hercules at Thebes is not to be considered as a Cadmean; and has no connexion with the ancient gods, and traditions of the Cadmeans; but his mythology was introduced into Bœotia partly by the Doric Heraclidæ, and partly from Delphi, together with the worship of Apollo.

To prove that Hercules has no connexion with the Cadmean gods, temples, and princes, it is only necessary to refer to a genealogical table of the Theban mythology, and a plan of Thebes sketched after [pg 424] Pausanias. From the former we perceive that Hercules (whose father is represented as having arrived as a fugitive from Mycenæ) is not made the relation either by blood or marriage of the Cadmeans, Creon (κρέων, the ruler), his supposed father-in-law, being only a fictitious personage, invented to fill up a chasm in the pedigree;[1777] from the latter, that the temples of Hercules were not only not in the citadel (like those of Cadmus, Harmonia, and Semele), or within the walls of the city, but were all without the gates. This fact is of great importance as to the antiquity of any worship in a city. The ancient and original deities, which enjoyed the honours of founders, possessed the citadel as their birthright; while all gods afterwards introduced enjoyed a less honourable abode in the suburbs of the town. Now it is known that the house of Amphitryon and the Gymnasium of Hercules stood in front of the gate of Electra, opposite the Ismenium;[1778] and to this we may add the account of Pherecydes[1779] respecting a village near that same gate, which the Heraclidæ had founded before their invasion of Peloponnesus, and where there was a statue of Hercules in the market-place. What can be clearer than that these Heraclidæ established the worship of their hero at Thebes? Near this place (it should be observed) was the Ismenian sanctuary of Apollo. Opposite to this [pg 425] temple Hercules was said to have been educated; and at a festival of Apollo to have carried the laurel before the chorus of virgins; and afterwards to have consecrated a tripod in the temple, as was the general custom in later times. This tripod is represented on the famous relief of the Argive apotheosis of Hercules, with the inscription Ἀμφιτρύων ὑπὲρ Ἀλκαίου τριπόδ Ἀπόλλωνι.[1780]

With this is evidently connected the story of the robbery of the Delphian tripod, of which the common version is as follows: Hercules was visited with a severe illness, as a punishment for the murder of Iphitus; and, in consequence, he had recourse for relief to Delphi; but as the Pythian priestess refused to answer the questions of one guilty of homicide, he threatened to plunder the temple, and carry off the tripod. Apollo accordingly pursued him, till Zeus separated the combat of his two sons by lightning.[1781] The fable went on to say that a new consecration of the Delphian tripod took place, and a reconciliation of the god and hero: of this part we are only informed by works of art, these being indeed of tolerable antiquity.[1782] But it [pg 426] is manifest that this is not the genuine, ancient, and sacred tradition. How could this hero, who in other respects was entirely dependent on the mandates of the oracle, and who in so many ways protected and promoted the worship of Apollo,[1783] suddenly become a sacrilegious violator of his most holy and ancient temple? This carrying away of the tripod appears from other traditions to signify nothing else than a propagation of the worship of Apollo.[1784] Whither, then, is this tripod stated to have been first moved? By the Arcadians Hercules was said to have brought it to Pheneus, but was compelled again to restore it to Apollo.[1785] The hero, on his journey to Elis, is said to have built a temple to the Pythian Apollo;[1786] which, however, can scarcely be more ancient than the Doric migration. The foundation of this temple, as dependent on the Delphic oracle, was therefore by the tradition expressed under this image of the transportation of the tripod, the bearer of it being Hercules. But it is more important to our present purpose that, according to the Bœotian account,[1787] Hercules was supposed to have brought the tripod to Thebes, that is probably to the Ismenium. This fable therefore shows the connexion [pg 427] between the Ismenium and the great sanctuary of Apollo; and represents Hercules as the intermediate link between these two temples.

8. Several other traditions current in Bœotia are connected with the above explanation of this tradition. The Cretan colony, which, setting out from Cirrha, established the Tilphosian temple at Ocalea in Bœotia, was represented under the person of Rhadamanthus.[1788] Rhadamanthus is said to have there dwelt with Alcmene, and to have instructed the youthful hero in the Cretan art of archery.[1789] For this reason also Zeus raised Alcmene from the dead, and conducted her to the islands of the blest as the wife of Rhadamanthus. A stone remained in her tomb, which was set up in her sacred grove at Thebes.[1790]

9. The Theban traditions of Hercules are not all equally significant; but some, such as those just mentioned, had a religious, some a political[1791] import, and others only express the bodily strength of that hero. The education of Hercules is confided to certain fabulous personages, most of whom were supposed to reside in Bœotia.[1792] His most remarkable instructor is the minstrel Linus, whom (probably in execution of the will of Apollo) he put to death,[1793] justifying himself [pg 428] by the law of Rhadamanthus. The destruction of the lion of Cithæron is an imitation of the legend of Nemea, of which we shall speak hereafter.[1794] After this adventure he went to Thespiæ, to the house of Thestius, where he deflowers in one or in fifty-seven nights the fifty daughters of his host, a fable which has perhaps an astronomical reference.[1795]

With respect to the singular legend of Hercules murdering his children by Megara by throwing them into the fire,[1796] it cannot be denied that this had some symbolical meaning, derived from an ancient elementary religion. In general, however, this temporary fury is merely an exaggerated picture of that heroic mind whose courage and endurance had carried Hercules through so many dangers and difficulties for the good of mankind.[1797] According to the Bœotian version, it was a melancholy madness, in which Hercules, regardless even of all that was most dear to him, murdered his children, and was even on the point of slaying his father.[1798] Upon this the hero, oppressed with a deep melancholy, turned for relief to the atoning Apollo; and either to the god of the Ismenium[1799] or of Pytho.[1800] The oracle commands him to serve as a [pg 429] slave, in the same manner as Apollo himself had served after the destruction of the Python. In the broken narrative of Apollodorus a remarkable trace has been preserved as to the time during which, according to the Bœotian tradition, the slavery of Hercules lasted, viz., eight years and one month.[1801] This cannot be considered as an accidental number; but it is probable that the Ennaëteris is signified, which was a period of eight years and three intercalary months; of which only the last month is here mentioned, because the two inserted in the middle were less conspicuous. Hercules, therefore, like Apollo at Pheræ, was supposed to have served for an ἀΐδιος ἐνιαυτὸς, for the octennial period of mythology and ancient astronomy.[1802]

10. We will here add some observations on the Attic worship of Hercules, which was celebrated chiefly at Marathon in the Tetrapolis,[1803] in the three villages of Melite, Diomea, and Collytus,[1804] which lay close to one another in the vicinity of Athens; at Cynosarges[1805] in particular, which belonged to the demus [pg 430] of Diomea; at Acharnæ[1806] and Hephæstia,[1807] and in the city itself; and likewise near the sea in the Tetracomæ, or “Four Hamlets.”[1808] The circumstance that those temples which were not situated in the vicinity of the city were all in the northern part of Attica, seems to prove that the worship was derived from the northern frontiers; and it was attributed to the presence of the Heraclidæ in Attica, though the fable of the great assistance which Athens lent to the Heraclidæ was peculiar to the Athenians.[1809] It is probable, however, that at some early period a division of the Doric people passed through Attica, and there founded that worship which, by the supremacy of the Dorians and their various connexions with other nations, increased in character and importance. If the Lacedæmonians really spared the Tetrapolis in the Peloponnesian war,[1810] their forbearance must be attributed to the respect which they showed to their national hero. There is a tradition worthy of notice, that Theseus consecrated to Hercules all the temples which had been dedicated to himself;[1811] whence it may be inferred that the worship of the former demigod was thus transferred at some early period; only not, it should be observed, at the time of Theseus himself. That the worship of Hercules was only half-nationalized may (as it appears) be inferred from the custom of the Parasiti of that hero at Cynosarges being always [pg 431] Athenians, of whose parents one only was a citizen; a symbolical allusion to the half-foreign origin of their worship.

Of the same description are the traditions which were peculiar to the villages of Aphidna, Decelea, and Titacidæ (likewise situated in the north of Attica), respecting the expedition of the Tyndaridæ; who were said to have conquered Aphidna with the aid of Decelus and Titacus.[1812] From this plunder, according to a Spartan legend, the very ancient temple of Pallas Chalciœcus at Sparta was built. In this instance, likewise, the tradition was recognised as real history; for the Lacedæmonians always kept up a friendly intercourse with Decelea; nor was it, we may be assured, without some particular reason that in the Messenian war at the command of the oracle they called to their aid Tyrtæus, the man of Aphidna. But as the Tyndaridæ, i.e., their images (as was mentioned above),[1813] accompanied every Spartan army on its marches, it is probable that these stories originated in some Doric expedition into the northern parts of Attica, which left behind it these permanent traces and recollections.