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.
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]