From all the central royal cities they started singly or in small troops, a bevy of young heroes, as eager for the delights of adventure as for the public good. Year after year they wandered across country seeking the most impassable wildernesses, directed by the stories they heard on their way to the dens of the cruel monsters, which they usually overcame by force or cunning.
Then they would return to their homes triumphant, bearing the proof of their incredible prowess, the hides, or horns, or heads of the monsters they had slain. Thus they put new heart into their people. Their trophies seemed to say: “You see these creatures were not so terrible as they might have been; what we have done others can do.” So they did a double good—one immediate by the destruction of the dreaded foes and by the opening of the land to the planters and the tillers; the other even more far-reaching and more beneficent in its results by raising men’s spirits, inspiring them with confidence and with the ambition to show that they were not mere helpless boors, cowed and dependent on their betters.
The Greek nation in years to come proved itself a nation of heroes and was so called by fame. But who can tell how much these heroes were indebted for this honorable distinction which has remained by them to this day, to the early vigorous education which those doughty champions of old imparted to them, not by preaching or advice, but by their own dauntless example.
Can we wonder if their people’s passionate gratitude and unselfish admiration survived those glorious men through ages? Can we wonder if after centuries had come and gone the memory of their deeds and persons appeared to later generations through a halo of wonder and awe?
Deeds of a remote past always assume gigantic proportions. “Surely,” men would say, “surely, those heroes were more than ordinary mortals! They had more than human strength, endurance, wisdom. Neither iron fang nor claw of steel could harm them. They died, indeed, but of their nature they must have been half divine; their mothers were human, but surely the gods themselves were their fathers.”
And thus it was settled, and for many, many hundreds of years the Greeks continued to honor their ancient heroes as half-divine men, or demi-gods, and to erect altars to them and come to them with prayers and offerings. The Greek had to grow in mind and soul high enough to grasp the truth that there can be only one God, and that no man, high as he may tower above his kind, can be more than human.
But it was a beautiful and ennobling belief, and at first sight it seems a pity that it was ever lost, yet in reality it was a great gain, for men may think they have an excuse for not putting forth their bravest efforts if they believe that the gods only can achieve deeds of courage. There is no reason why men may not aspire to any height of bravery which has been gained by other men.
The undying energy embodied in the characters of these old heroes is the inheritance of every child. The children of America are not born the sons of ruling houses. But they are destined to be the guardians and rulers of their native land. And if the children take into their future lives the heroism they first realize in ancient story, they will find themselves, when the time comes, armed with the same courage, endurance, and love of human beings which have made the heroes of all lands and ages.
HERAKLES
AND OTHER HEROES OF THE MYTH