For instance, at Acon or Ptolemais as call’d afterward, a city on the Phœnician shore: it regain’d its first name and now is call’d St. John of Acres, from a famous church there. The first city was probably built by our Hercules, at least he made one of these temples there, as I gather from the name of the place, coins and reports relating thereto. The Greeks call it Ακη, and according to their custom, give it a Greek original, from ακεισθαι, because says the Etymologicum magnum, Hercules was there heal’d of the bite of a serpent. Stephanus of Byzance the same, in the word Ptolemais; in the word Ake, he says, that Claudius Julius in his vol. I. of the Phœnician history, writes, “that it had its name from Hercules, who was order’d by the oracle to go eastward, ’till he came to a river, and found the herb Colocasia, which would cure his wound. He came to the river Belus, which here runs into the sea, and there found the herb.” Salmasius in his Plinian exercitations, affirms, the herb is Dracunculus; it grows in our gardens, called Dragons, from its likeness to a snake’s head and tongue; and being spotted like a snake.
All this I can understand no otherwise, than that Hercules made a serpentine temple on the side of this river, where the city Acon was afterward built, and which took its name from this temple, as our Hakpen at Abury; for עכן Acan in the Chaldee, signifies a serpent, as we observed before. Josephus informs us, by the river Belus was the sepulchre of Memnon; which probably was made here in regard to the temple.
When we come into Greece, we hear of Hercules overcoming the Lernean snake, which Heraclides Ponticus writes had 50 heads. We may very well understand this of 50 stones, which compos’d the head, as our temple on Overton-hill of 58. Hephæstion II. recites from Alexander the Myndian, that this Hydra was turn’d into stone. Thus hints and reports are drop’d, which preserve the real truth invelop’d in fable; as was the Greek method in all matters of antiquity.
This snake was of a very unusual bulk, and lay near a great water, call’d the Lernean-lake, by a large plane-tree, and the spring Anymone. Further ’tis said, in overcoming this animal (by which they mean the labour he bestow’d in accomplishing the work) he us’d the help of Iolaus the waggoner. Such help must be highly useful to him, to bring the stones. But I observe from the name Iolaus his waggoner and companion, and Hylas another great friend of his, and Iole his mistress, that the ancient druidical festival is couch’d under that name, call’d Yule, which I shall speak largely upon in its proper place. In the mean time (we are told) the snake was assisted against him, by a very great crab. This will appear strange, ’till we are directed to its meaning by this consideration. As the serpent means the Dracontian temple, so the crab was a symbol like in figure and meaning to the globus alatus or winged circle, which was the ancient picture of the anima mundi, or divine spirit. Thus does mythology, when rightly consider’d, help us in these ancient enquiries. We may say of the work as Statius does of the temple of Hercules Surrentinus,
——Deus obluctantia saxa
Summovit nitens, & magno pectore montem
Repulit.———
There are like vestiges of other Dracontian temples founded by Hercules in Spain, Africa, and elsewhere.
“Hercules,” says bishop Cumberland, “was a very learned prince, bred or conversant in the Phœnician universities, whereof Debir was one, Josh. xv. 15. 49. call’d for its eminence, Kirjath-sepher, the city of books; and Kirjath-sanna, the city of learning.” The bishop thinks he retreated from Egypt about the time of Abraham’s death. But, from what chronological evidence I gave before, it must be a good while before it. And I do not doubt but he with pleasure renew’d his acquaintance with his old friend Abraham, in the land of Canaan.
There seems to be a very pregnant proof of this, in that Hercules had a son call’d Isaac, to whom one would imagine Abraham was sponsor at his baptism, or perhaps his son Isaac; for baptism was one part of the patriarchal religion. And they had susceptors, sponsors, or what we call god-fathers at the font, as we have. Of this Isaac son of Hercules, Plutarch informs us, de Isid. & Osir. remembred by the Phrygians, for he was planted in Phrygia by his father Hercules. Hence it became a common name there, and Æsacus son of king Priam is but the same name, as my learned friend Mr. Baxter thinks, in his glossar. Antiq. Rom. If this consideration be joined to what I wrote in Stonehenge about Phryxus, or Apher, grandson of Abraham, having a concern in planting, and even naming of Britain, it may afford us another hint about our Phrygian extract, which the old Britons are so fond of. And we can expect no other than these kind of hints, in matters of such extreme antiquity. And further, as he was concern’d in settling colonies in Spain, we may attribute to him the claim which the Gallæci there had, to a Trojan descent, of which Justin informs us.