Seghers, Hercules, c.1590-c.1638, Dutch landscape painter and etcher. Seghers's work greatly influenced early 17th-century Dutch landscape painting. He studied with the painter Coninxloo (1544-1607) and may have traveled to Italy and in the Alps. Some of the frenzy of his personal life can be seen in his rare paintings and his more numerous, masterly etchings. His landscapes consist of vast, often desolate, panoramas and powerful, smaller scenes rendered with drama and pathos. Rembrandt owned eight paintings by him, and his own landscape style was influenced by Seghers. The best collection of his work is at the Rijks Museum.

Hercules, in astronomy, northern constellation located between Lyra and Corona Borealis. It is traditionally depicted as the hero Hercules in a kneeling position. There are no very bright stars in Hercules and only three of third magnitude, the brightest of which, Ras Algethi (Alpha Herculis), is a red giant and possibly the largest visible star in the sky. The constellation contains the globular star cluster M13, barely visible to the naked eye but spectacular even in a small telescope. Hercules reaches its highest point in the evening sky in late July.

Hercules, Heracles, or Herakles, most popular of all Greek heroes, famous for extraordinary strength and courage. Alcmene, wife of Amphitryon, made love to both Zeus and her husband on the same night and bore two sons, Hercules (son of Zeus) and Iphicles (son of Amphitryon). Hercules incurred the everlasting wrath of Hera because he was the child of her unfaithful husband. A few months after his birth Hera set two serpents in his cradle, but the prodigious infant promptly strangled them.

When he was a young man, Hercules defended Thebes from the armies of a neighboring city, Orchomenus, and was rewarded with Megara, daughter of King Creon. But Hera later drove Hercules insane, and in his madness he killed his wife and children. After he had recovered his sanity, he sought purification at the court of King Eurystheus of Tiryns for 12 years. During those years Hercules performed 12 arduous labors: he killed the Nemean lion and the Hydra; caught the Erymanthian boar and the Cerynean hind; drove off the Stymphalian birds; cleaned the stables of Augeas; captured the Cretan bull and the horses of Diomed; made off with the girdle of the Amazon queen Hippolyte; killed Geryon; captured Cerberus; and finally took the golden apples of Hesperides.

After his labors were completed, Hercules was involved in many other adventures and combats, including the Calydonian hunt and the Argonaut expedition. He killed Iphitus, son of the king of Oichalia, because the king would not give him his daughter Iole. When Neleus, king of Pylos, refused him absolution for that crime, Hercules sacked his kingdom and killed all his sons except Nestor. For that outrage the Delphic oracle bade him serve Omphale, queen of Lydia, who, in some legends, dressed him in women's clothes and had him work with her maids spinning wool. He later was her lover, but after he finished his servitude he returned to Oichalia and carried off Iole.

When his second wife, Deianira, daughter of King Oeneus, was seized by the centaur Nessus, Hercules killed Nessus with arrows dipped in the poisonous blood of the Hydra. As he died, Nessus told Deianira that blood from his wound would restore Hercules' love for her if ever it were to wane. Later, when Deianira sought to win back her husband's love, she contrived to have him don a robe smeared with the blood. The robe stuck fast to Hercules' skin, burning him unbearably. In agony, he built a huge pyre atop Mt. Oite and had it set afire. His mortal parts burned away, but the rest rose to heaven, where he was finally reconciled with Hera and married Hebe.

Although worshiped as a god, Hercules was properly a hero, frequently appealed to for protection from various evils. In art Hercules was portrayed as a powerful, muscular man wearing a lion's skin and armed with a huge club. Perhaps the most famous statue of him is the Farnese Hercules in the National Museum in Naples. He is the hero of plays by Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca.

Latin Hercules

Legendary hero of ancient Greece and Rome. Known for his great strength, he was the son of Zeus and Alcmeme, the granddaughter of Perseus. Zeus's jealous wife Hera sent two serpents to kill Heracles in his cradle, but the infant strangled them. He grew up to marry a princess, then killed her in a fit of rage sent by Hera and was forced to become the servant of Eurystheus, ruler of Greece. Eurystheus obliged Heracles to perform the famous 12 labors, including cleansing the Augean stables, fetching the golden apples of the Hesperides, and descending into Hades to bring back the three-headed dog Cerberus. He married Deianeira, who later sent him a shirt smeared with poison, which she mistakenly believed was a love potion. In agony, Heracles burned himself to death on a pyre, and his spirit ascended to heaven. He became an immortal and married Hebe.

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Hercules is the Roman name for the mythical Greek hero Heracles, son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmena. Early Roman sources suggest that the imported Greek hero supplanted a mythic Italian shepherd called "Recaranus" or "Garanus", famous for his strength. While adopting much of the Greek Heracles' iconography and mythology as his own, Hercules adopted a number of myths and characteristics that were distinctly Roman.

Etymology

Hercules' Latin name is not directly borrowed from Greek Herakles but is a modification of the Etruscan name Hercle, which derives from the Greek name via syncope. An oath invoking Hercules (Hercle! or Mehercle!) was a common interjection in Classical Latin.

Character

In Roman works of art and in Renaissance and post-Renaissance art that adapts Roman iconography, Hercules can be identified by his attributes, the lion skin and the club: in mosaic he is shown tanned black, a virile aspect. While he was a champion and a great warrior, he was not above cheating and using any unfair trick to his advantage. However, he was renowned as having "made the world safe for mankind" by destroying many dangerous monsters. His self-sacrifice obtained him the ascent to the Olympian realms and he was welcomed by the gods.

Roman cult

In popular culture the Europeans adopted the Etruscan Hercle, a hero-figure that had already been influenced by Greek culture — especially in the conventions of his representation — but who had experienced an autonomous development. Etruscan Hercle appears in the elaborate illustrative engraved designs on the backs of Etruscan bronze mirrors made during the fourth century BC, which were favoured grave goods. Their specific literary references have been lost, with the loss of all Etruscan literature, but the image of the mature, bearded Hercules suckling at Uni/Juno's breast, engraved on a mirror back from Volterra, is distinctively Etruscan. This Hercle/Hercules — the Hercle of the ejaculation "Mehercle!" — remained a popular cult figure in the Roman legions. The literary Greek versions of his life and works were appropriated by literate Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards, essentially unchanged, but Latin literature of Hercules added anecdotal detail of its own, some of it linking the hero with the geography of the Western Mediterranean. Details of the Greek cult, which mixed chthonic libations and uneaten holocausts with Olympian services, were adapted to specifically Roman requirements as well, as Hercules became the founding figure of Herculaneum and other places, and his cult became entwined with Imperial cult, as shown in surviving frescoes in the Herculanean collegium. His altar has been dated to the 6th or 5th century BC. It stood near the Temple of Hercules Victor. Hercules became popular with merchants, who customarily paid him a tithe of their profits.

Marcus Antonius identified himself with Hercules, and even invented a son of Hercules, called Anton, from whom Antonius claimed descent. In response, his enemy Octavianus identified with Apollo.

Some early emperors took up the attributes of Hercules (eg Traianus), and later Roman Emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, went further and often identified or compared themselves with him and supported his cult; Maximianus styled himself "Herculius".

The cult of Hercules spread through the Roman world. In Roman Egypt, what is believed to be the remains of a Temple of Hercules are found in the Bahariya Oasis.

Myths of Hercules

The Romans adopted the Greek stories about Heracles essentially unchanged, but added anecdotal detail of their own, some of it linking Hercules with the geography of the Western Mediterranean.

In Roman mythology, Acca Larentia was Hercules' mistress. She was married to Tarutius, a wealthy merchant. When he died, she gave his money to charity. In another version, she was the wife of Faustulus.

In Aeneid 8.195ff., Vergilius relates a myth about Hercules' defeating the monstrous Cacus, who lived in a cave under the Palatine Hill (one of the eventual Seven Hills of Rome).

Germanic association

Tacitus records a special affinity of the Germanic peoples for Hercules. In chapter 3 of his CE 98 work Germania, Tacitus states:

... they say that Hercules, too, once visited them; and when going into battle, they sang of him first of all heroes. They have also those songs of theirs, by the recital of this barditus as they call it, they rouse their courage, while from the note they augur the result of the approaching conflict. For, as their line shouts, they inspire or feel alarm.

Roman era Hercules' Clubs appear from the 2nd to 3rd century, spread over the empire (including Roman Britain, c.f. Cool 1986), mostly made of gold, shaped like wooden apples. A specimen found in Köln-Nippes bears the inscription "DEO HER[culi]", confirming the association with Hercules.

In the 5th to 7th centuries, during the Migration Period, the amulet is theorized to have rapidly spread from the Elbe Germanic area across Europe. These Germanic "Donar's Clubs" were made from deer antler, bone or wood, more rarely also from Bronze or precious metals. They are found exclusively in female graves, apparently worn either as a belt pendant, or as an ear pendant. The amulet type is replaced by the Viking Age Thor's hammer pendants in the course of the Christianization of Scandinavia from the 8th to 9th century.

Art

Roman images of Hercules were based upon Hellenistic Greek images and might be contrasted with the images of Hercules that appear in Attic vase-painting (see Heracles). One aspect of Greek Hercules was not adopted by Roman culture: the ambivalent relationship with his patroness/antagonist Hera that was "Hera's man", Hercules.

Gallery of ancient interpretations

Hercules in popular culture

Since the Renaissance, Hercules has rarely been distinguished from Heracles, the Roman figure overshadowing the Greek. Later interpretations of Hercules' legend cast him as a wise leader and a good friend (many of the movie and TV adaptations cast him in this light, especially the 1995-1999 syndicated TV series). The legend of Hercules endures, though often co-opted to suit the political fashion of the day. Hercules has also had an undeniable influence on modern pop culture characters such as He-Man. The legend of Hercules has been described in many movie and television adaptations, including several comic series featuring the hero.

Hercules in numismatics

Hercules has been the main motif of many collector coins and medals, the most recent one is the famous 20 euro Baroque Silver coin issued in September 11 2002. The obverse side of the coin shows the Grand Staircase in the town palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy in Vienna, currently the Austrian Ministry of Finance. Gods and demi-gods hold its flights, while Hercules stands at the turn of the stairs.

Gallery of modern interpretations

See also

• Heracles
• Pillars of Hercules
• Labours of Hercules
• Zeus

Notes

References

• Etruscan mirror illustrated Uni and Hercle
• Hercle and Menerva on an Etruscan mirror from Città di Castello, c 300 BCE: Badisches Landesmuseum
• Images of Hercules