§ 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 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 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)