Chapter XII.
§ 1. Peloponnesian mythology of Hercules. Adventures of Hercules: his combats with wild beasts. § 2. His martial exploits. § 3. His establishment of the Olympic games. § 4. Complexity of the mythology of Hercules. § 5. Worship of Hercules carried from Sparta to Tarentum and Croton. § 6. Coan fable of Hercules. § 7. Hercules and Hylas. § 8. Identification of Hercules and Melcart. § 9. Human character of Hercules. § 10. His joviality and love of mirth.
1. We must now entreat the indulgence of our readers when we enter upon an obscure and difficult part of our subject, and one lying beyond the limits of historical record. We allude to the Peloponnesian mythology of Hercules; a collection of legends doubtless for the most part invented subsequently to the Doric invasion, and intended by that nation in great measure to justify their conquest of the peninsula, and to make their expedition appear, not as an act of wrongful aggression, but as a re-assertion of ancient right. Some hero (perhaps even of the same name) must have existed in the Argive traditions in the time of the Persidæ, and the resemblance may have been sufficiently striking to identify him with the father of the Doric Hyllus. We shall therefore consider the destroyer of the Nemean lion as a native Argive hero; but the delay experienced at his birth, and his consequent exposure to want and toil, evidently belong to the Doric tradition, as well as the enmity of Here; fables which were partly borrowed from the worship of Apollo, and may partly have been intended to indicate [pg 433] the contrast between the ancient worship of Argos and that of the invading race.[1814]
We shall now proceed without further preface to consider the different adventures of Hercules, which may be divided into two classes; the first consisting of his warlike exploits, the second of his combats with wild beasts. We shall commence with the examination of the latter.[1815]
Nemea was separated from the Argive temple of Here, the most ancient one in the country, by a chain of mountains and a long rocky ravine. It cannot be denied that the moon was often invoked in this worship, although it would not be safe to consider Here as the goddess of the moon. Now Nemea is called the daughter of the moon,[1816] from which deity the Nemean lion is also said to have sprung; the antiquity of which fable may be inferred from the circumstance that Anaxagoras availed himself of it, as being generally received, to account for the physical hypothesis of the Antichthon.[1817] Connected with this is Hesiod's tradition that the goddess Here had herself brought [pg 434] up the lion, which she is by that poet represented as having done out of enmity to Hercules. Hence we detect the symbolical character of the fable, which resembles that of Perseus and Gorgo, &c.; although we can scarcely attempt to explain the whole legend in a similar manner. The combat with the Lernæan hydra may also be thus explained. Hercules is represented as employing in this contest the same sickle with which Perseus beheaded Medusa.[1818]
Whatever meaning we may attach to these combats, whether we consider them as symbolical, or as memorials of a remote antiquity, in which it was the hero's principal occupation to free Greece from monsters and wild beasts, it is nevertheless evident that they are as little adapted to the time assigned to them (shortly previous to the Pelopidæ) as to the character of the other parts of the fable. A mere consideration of Hercules' costume will sufficiently convince us of this fact. It is certain that the Hercules of the early poets was either a hero armed with a spear and buckler, as in the poem attributed to Hesiod,[1819] or with a bow and sword, as in the Odyssey.[1820] The latter description occurs particularly in the battle of the giants; the former is founded on all the traditions which represent Hercules as the first of warriors and conquerors. Pisander and Stesichorus were the first who [pg 435] introduced him as a half-naked savage, with the lion's skin round his loins, the jaws covering his head instead of a helmet, and merely a club in his hand.[1821] There were extant so late as the time of Strabo some ancient wooden statues of Hercules very different from this description. Pisander, too, was (as far as we know) the first who represented in detail the combats of Hercules with wild beasts, collected from scattered accounts in the Theogony, and who composed the “Labours of Hercules;” for which he perhaps availed himself of different local traditions.
2. We now come to the martial exploits of Hercules, which, as it appears, were intended to represent the conquests of the Dorians in Peloponnesus. We have only to direct our attention to the account that Hercules, towards the close of his life, being prince of Mycenæ,[1822] delivered Sparta from the Hippocontidæ into the hands of Tyndareus, and, after conquering Pylos from Neleus, transferred, it to Nestor,[1823] in order to perceive the coincidence of tradition and history. The circumstances which have chiefly contributed to the formation of these traditions may best be traced in the combat at Pylos. The share which Hades had in this adventure, when that god was himself wounded by the bold son of Zeus,[1824] may be considered, [pg 436] according to the connexion established above, as having been transferred from Ephyra, where Hades had a greater inducement to the protection of oppressed cities than at Pylos.[1825] But Hercules is said to have destroyed Pylos because Neleus would not purify him from the murder of Iphitus;[1826] an act which Deiphobus afterwards performed in the temple of Apollo at Amyclæ.[1827] Here it seems to be assumed that Œchalia, the native city of Iphitus, was situated in Messenia, which, as we have shown above,[1828] was not the original tradition.
3. The influence of historical facts upon mythology is most clearly perceivable in the legend of Hercules having founded the Olympic games when he returned victorious from his expedition against Augeas of Elis.[1829] Afterwards the same hero celebrates the first Olympiad as a festival of all Peloponnesus, with various combats, in which heroes from Tiryns, Tegea, Mantinea, and Sparta were victorious.[1830] It was also Hercules who fixed the quinquennial period, and established the sacred armistice.[1831] His bringing the wild olive-tree from the Hyperboreans, and planting it [pg 437] in the grove of Altis, was probably derived from the traditions of Northern Greece;[1832] in which Hercules was represented as more closely connected with Apollo than in the common Peloponnesian legends. It should, moreover, be remarked that Hercules in his expedition against Elis is reported to have founded or visited several temples of Apollo at Pheneus and Thelpusa;[1833] both lying on the road which connected the isthmus and the north of Greece with Olympia.[1834] It would, however, involve us in no slight difficulties to date the tradition of Hercules founding the Olympic games later than the Olympiad of Iphitus; for as since that period the Eleans conducted the festival, and therefore showed a particular veneration for Hercules, it is scarcely probable that a war against Elis should have been considered as the cause of the establishment of this festival, had not the report been handed down from an earlier period. The continual claim of Pisa, that the presidency of the games should be restored to her as an ancient right, is, however, one of several circumstances which render it probable that she had once enjoyed this privilege before the festival had acquired its subsequent celebrity; and that Hercules, to whom a very ancient wooden statue had been erected at Pisa,[1835] was, even at this early [pg 438] period, regarded as the founder: to which facts the story of a war against Elis was easily subjoined. The combat with Augeas, a son of Helius, seems to have been in great part borrowed from some Epirotan fable respecting Geryon.
4. In tracing the various steps which led to the formation of the Peloponnesian mythology of Hercules, it has by no means been our aim to enter minutely into the details of the subject, which would carry us far beyond the limits of the present inquiry; the distinction between the ancient and recent parts of the tradition being so undefined that an accurate separation of the two is almost impossible. Enough has been said to show how frequently the same legend reappears in different shapes; and consequently that some original version was variously modified in different places. We shall once for all remind those who imagine the northern legend of Hercules to have been of later date than the Peloponnesian because the latter is mentioned by the early epic poets, that some higher source must be sought for than a few passages of those poets which have been accidentally preserved: that it should be looked for (if anywhere) in some connected mythological tradition, to which the particular fables owed their rise and development.
The task is comparatively easy to examine the history of fables, the scene of which lies in colonies or countries with which the Greeks did not become acquainted till a late period, as the events on which they are founded took place within the era of our historical knowledge. At the same time the analogy of these facts, sufficiently ascertained, enables us to conjecture as to those which are enveloped in fabulous [pg 439] obscurity; we can reason from what we know to what we do not know.
5. From Sparta the worship of Hercules spread to her colonies, particularly Tarentum[1836] and Croton. In the latter city Hercules enjoyed the honours of a founder,[1837] being reported to have established it on his return from Erythea.[1838] Afterwards the tradition of his purification and atonement was transferred from Amyclæ in Laconia to Croton, an event to which the high reputation enjoyed by the worship of Apollo in the latter town greatly contributed. Hence we perceive on the coins of this place the youthful hero sitting with a bow, quiver, and arrows before a blazing altar, on which he scorches a branch of laurel.[1839] Connected with the above is the tradition of Philoctetes having deposited the arrows of Hercules in the temple of Apollo Alæus at Croton, from whence they were said to have been brought by the Crotoniats into the temple of Apollo within the precincts of their town.[1840] On the coins of that city Hercules is frequently seen with a goblet in his hand, either in a recumbent or erect posture. The allusion is explained by the following story: Hercules, who was always thirsty, had asked for some wine at Croton; but the woman of the house dissuaded her husband from tapping the cask for a stranger; on which account the women of that country never drank wine.[1841]
6. Our readers are, we take for granted, well acquainted [pg 440] with the fable of Hercules in the island of Cos, as related by Homer.[1842] The events which contributed to its formation are, in the first place, the existence of several noble families of Heraclide descent, whose origin, according to ancient traditions, was connected with the conquest of Ephyra, though they were afterwards said to have sprung from the supposed residence of Hercules in the island itself, where the ancestor of these families sprang from his connexion with a daughter of the king of the Meropians. This fiction of his abode in Cos took its rise in a mistaken view of certain ceremonies there practised: for the peculiarity of the worship in question, in which the priest at the festival ἀντιμαχία, celebrated in the spring, put on a female dress (as Hercules is said to have disguised himself in woman's clothes,)[1843] betrays an Asiatic origin; which induced the poets of ancient times to consider Hercules of Cos as identified with the Idæan Dactyli.[1844] This dress was also probably worn in the Lydian worship of Sandon[1845] (who was called Hercules by the Greeks); for Omphale is said to have attired the effeminate hero in a transparent garment dyed with sandyx, a custom which evidently originated in the practice of some festival. The man described as the slave of a lascivious woman was a symbolical representation of a soft and voluptuous elementary [pg 441] religion; while the same allegory was by the Greeks referred to the servitude of Hercules in the house of Eurystheus. This legend is first mentioned by Pherecydes, then by Hellanicus of Lesbos (who refers to the traditions current in the city of Acele),[1846] and also in Herodotus, whose genealogy of the ancient kings of Lydia—Hercules, Alcæus (from the Greek mythology, Belus, the god of Babylon), Ninus (Nineveh), Agron, &c., refers to the Assyrian origin of the ancient Lydian kings, and agrees remarkably with the statement that Hercules-Sandon or Sandes, was originally an Assyrian deity belonging to the same religious system as Belus.[1847]
7. We now come to a fable of kindred origin, the fable of Hylas. Hylas was invoked during midsummer at the sides of fountains by the aboriginal inhabitants of Bithynia,[1848] long before the Greeks founded their city of Cios; but the latter adopted the story of the boy falling into the water, connecting it (as they worshipped Hercules as their founder)[1849] with the fable of that hero. Indeed a legend very similar had previously existed, the minion of Hercules being (according to Hellanicus) Theiomenes, the son of Theiodamas the king of the Dryopes.[1850] The death of Lityerses was in Phrygia the subject of an ancient song; and who else should have slain him, according to the tradition of the Greeks, than he whose power was dreaded throughout the countries of the barbarians?[1851] The Greeks introduced such [pg 442] heterogeneous matter without hesitation into their mythology. Hercules, even in the spot where his worship originated, was represented as a hero of great power abroad: he was the protector of boundaries and (if I may be allowed the expression) of marches: afterwards, when his worship was adopted by the whole of Greece, he was considered as the general guardian of the Grecian colonists. Thus he is represented as contending for the territory of Heraclea on the Pontus, against the aboriginal Bebryces, and in defence of Cyrene against the native Libyans. For it seems very probable that the combat with Antæus,[1852] who derived new vigour from touching the earth, was merely emblematical of the contests sustained by the Greek colonists against the Libyan hordes, which, though often conquered, always sallied forth from the deserts in increased numbers. Thus the fable of Hercules and Busiris was invented at a time when the Greeks first became known in Egypt, and had as yet only an imperfect acquaintance with that country; for which reason Herodotus ridicules it as a silly invention of the Ionians. Busiris appears to me to have been the name of the principal deity with the addition of the article. In this story he is described as a ferocious tyrant, who orders Hercules to be sacrificed, until the latter, recovering himself suddenly, slays the tyrant and his cowardly retinue.
8. While attempting to reconcile these discordant traditions, and mould them into one connected story, it was natural that the Greeks should find some affinity [pg 443] of character between Hercules and the Phœnician god Melcart, the son of Baal and Astarte (Ἀστερία). It was to the existence of a temple of Hercules at Gadira that the fable of this hero having there terminated his voyage after the battle of Geryon, owed its origin; and the neighbouring pillars of Hercules or Briareus[1853] were originally considered as the work of Melcart. The Hercules of the Carthaginians was also represented as a wanderer and conqueror;[1854] his particular province was the island of Sardinia;[1855] which island became also included in the Grecian mythology: he is likewise said to have passed through Spain.[1856] The discoverer of the purple dye, in the Tyrian tradition, is the same personage;[1857] the quail was sacred to him, the smell of that bird having resuscitated him from death.[1858] Great as the confusion soon became between the Doric and Phœnician traditions respecting Hercules, they may still be easily distinguished from each other; and the first effect of their union may perhaps be traced in the wish of Dorieus, the son of Anaxandridas, to found a kingdom near mount Eryx, because Hercules had formerly [pg 444] conquered that country;[1859] now the worship and name of the Phœnician Aphrodite (Astarte) existed on mount Eryx, and probably also that of her son Melcart.
9. Notwithstanding the long digression into which the examination of our subject has led us, we are afraid that the following positions, attempted to be established as the result of the preceding investigation, will by no means carry with them conviction to all readers. We may, however, rest assured, that whatever traces of an elementary religion can be discovered in this fable, they were additions totally at variance with its original structure. The fundamental idea of all the heroic mythology may be pronounced to be a proud consciousness of power innate in man, by which he endeavours to place himself on a level with the gods, not through the influence of a mild and benign destiny, but by labour, misery, and combats. The highest degree of human suffering and courage is attributed to Hercules: his character is as noble as could be conceived in those rude and early times; but he is by no means represented as free from the blemishes of human nature; on the contrary, he is frequently subject to wild, ungovernable passions, when the noble indignation and anger of the suffering hero degenerate into phrensy.[1860] Every crime, however, is atoned for by some new suffering; but nothing breaks his invincible courage, until, purified from earthly corruption, he ascends mount Olympus, and there receives the beauteous Hebe for his [pg 445] bride, while his shade threatens the frightened ghosts in Hades.[1861] As in the fable of Apollo, the godhead descends into the circle of human life, so in Hercules a purely human power is elevated to the gods. Hercules also corresponds to the last-mentioned deity, in his divine attributes, as an averter of evil (ἀλεξίκακος and σωτὴρ);[1862] which the Œtæans carried so far as to worship him as the destroyer of grasshoppers (κορνοπίων), and the Erythræans as the killer of the vine-worm (ἰποκτόνος).[1863] We cannot, however, agree with Herodotus, who derives the deification of Hercules from a combination of the Phœnician or Idæan god, and the hero of Thebes, since Hercules also enjoyed divine honours at places (as Messene and Marathon[1864]) where such an amalgamation can scarcely be imagined. But he is a deity representing the highest perfection of humanity, and therefore the [pg 446] model and aim of human imitation; and the summit of heroic energy was seen where the human passed into the divine nature. His life and actions on earth are in ancient mythology perfectly human; and those fables, which raise him above humanity, for instance, those alluding to the combat with the giants,[1865] betray a later origin.
10. How little the ancient mythology was desirous of divesting Hercules of any feelings of humanity may be collected from various features in his character. Hercules, whether invited or not invited, is a jovial guest, and not backward in enjoying himself. This explains the frequent allusions to him as a great eater (βουθοίνας) and tippler, and also the Herculean goblets and couches. The original source of all these fictions was the ancient tradition of the residence of Hercules with Ceyx and Dexamenus: nay, they may be traced to the ceremonies observed at his worship and festivals.[1866] The Doric,[1867] like the Athenian comic poets and satirists, merely adopted the general outline of the story, filling up the details to suit their own fancy and humour: the latter adding some jokes upon the gluttony of their Bœotian neighbours.[1868] It was Hercules, above all other heroes, whom mythology endeavoured to place in ludicrous situations; and [pg 447] sometimes made the butt of the buffoonery of others. This was the case in the fable of the Cercopes (treated of in a ludicrous epic poem ascribed to Homer),[1869] who are represented as alternately amusing and annoying the hero. In works of art they are often represented as satyrs, who rob the hero of his quiver, bow, and club.[1870] Hercules, annoyed at their insults, binds two of them to a pole, in the manner represented on the bas-relief of Selinus,[1871] and marches off with his prize. Happily for the offenders, the hinder parts of Hercules had become tanned by continued labours and exposure to the atmosphere: which reminded them of an old prophecy, warning them to beware of a person of this complexion;[1872] and the coincidence caused them to burst out into an [pg 448] immoderate fit of laughter. This surprised Hercules, who inquired the reason, and was himself so diverted by it, that he set both his prisoners at liberty. And in general no company better agrees with the character of Hercules, even in his deified state, than that of satyrs and other followers of Bacchus, as might easily be proved by many works of Grecian art. It also seems that mirth and buffoonery were often combined with the festivals of Hercules: thus there was at Athens a society of sixty men, who, on the festival of the Diomean Hercules, attacked and amused themselves and others with sallies of wit.[1873] We shall hereafter show how these exhibitions originated in the propensity of the Doric race to the burlesque and comic.[1874]