Hercules (also known as Alcides) was the name in Roman mythology of the hero Heracles from Greek mythology, the Roman name being a Metathesis of the Greek name. He is the son of Jupiter or Jove (Roman names for the Greek god Zeus) and the mortal Alcmene. Hercules made the choice of a life of virtue offered to him by Athene, in preference to a life of pleasure offered by Aphrodite, in his youth. He was made to perform twelve great tasks, called The Twelve Labours of Hercules and became a god; the Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged.
Hercules can be identified by his attributes, the lionskin and the club.
The cult of Hercules may have been the first foreign one to be adopted in Rome; his most important shrine, the Ara Maxima, was in the original Palatine settlement. He became popular with merchants, who customarily paid him a Tithe of their profits.
Hercules founded an altar where the Forum Boarium, the cattle market, was later held.
The later Roman Emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximinus, often identified or compared themselves with Hercules.
| Hercules myths as told by storytellers |
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| 1. Hercules and Hylas, read by Timothy Carter |
| Bibliography of reconstruction: Homer, Odyssey, 12.072 (7th c. BCE); Theocritus, Idylls, 13 (350 - 310 BCE); Callimachus, Aetia (Causes), 24. Thiodamas the Dryopian, Fragments, 160. Hymn to Artemis (310 - 250? BCE); Apollonios Rhodios, Argonautika, I. 1175 - 1280 (c. 250 BCE); Apollodorus, Library and Epitome 1.9.19, 2.7.7 (140 BCE); Sextus Propertius, Elegies, i.20.17ff (50 - 15 BCE); Ovid, Ibis, 488 (8 CE - 18 CE); Gaius Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, I.110, III.535, 560, IV.1-57 (1st c. C.E.); Hyginus, Fables, 14. Argonauts Assembled (1st c. CE); Philostratus the Elder, Images, ii.24 Thiodamas (170 - 245 CE); First Vatican Mythographer, 49. Hercules et Hylas |