A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

HERACLES. THERACLE'S. 393
the instruction of that philosopher, became negli- 25, 36.) His stepfather was Amlphitrybn. (II. V.
gent, and gave himself up to idleness; a change 392, Od. xi. 269; Hes. Scut. Here. 165.) Amwhich drew from Demosthenes, who is said to have phitryon was the son of Alcaeus, the son of Perseus,
been his fellow-disciple, a letter of remonstrance. and Alcmene was a grand-daughter of Perseus.
This letter is noticed in a fragment of the com- Hence Heracles belonged to the family of Perseus'
mentary on the Gorgias of Plato by Olympiodorus, The story of his birth runs thus. Amphitryon,
preserved in a MS. collection of Praeannotanzenta after having slain Electryon, was expelled from
Miscellanea in Platonern, in the imperial library at Argos, and went with his wife Alcmene to Thebes,
Vienna. (Lambecius, Comment. de Biblioth. Cae- where he was received and purified by his uncle
sarea;-lib. vii. No. 77, vol. vii. p. 271, ed. Kollar; Creon. Alcmene was yet a maiden, in accordance
Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vol. iii. p. 176.) [J. C. M.] with a vow which Amphitryon had been obliged
HERA'CLEON ('HpatcXwv), a grammarian, to make to Electryon, and Alcmene continued to
a native of Egypt, mentioned by Suidas (s.v.), refuse him the rights of a husband, until he should
and quoted by Stephanus of Byzantium, Harpo- have avenged the death of her brothers on the
cration (s. V. MapTrvX-sov), Eustathius (pp. 1910, Taphians. While Amphitryon was absent from
106. c. 524. b.), and in the Scholia Marciana on Thebes, Zeus one night, to which he gave the duHomer. (Fabric. Bibl. Graeo. vol. i. pp. 388, 513, ration of three other nights, visited Alcmene, and
vol. vi. p. 368.) [C. P. M.] assuming the appearance of Amphitryon, and reHERACLEO'NAS ('Hpealc;\ 8Ras ), the second lating to her how her brothers had been avenged,
son of the emperor Heraclius, reigned together with he begot by her the hero Heracles, the great bulhis brother, Constantine. III., after the death of wark of gods and men. (Respecting the various
their father in March (February), A. D. 641, and modifications of this story see Apollod. ii. 4. ~
he succeeded his brother in the month of June 7, &c.; Hygin. Fab. 29; Hes. Scut. 35, &c.;
(May) following. Constantine III. had two sons, Pind. Istal. vii. 5, &c., Neir. x. 19, &c.; Schol. ad
but their legitimate rights were disregarded: by Horn. Od. xi. 266.) The day on which Heracles
his ambitious stepmother Martina, who placed her was to be born, Zeus boasted of his becoming the
younger son, Heracleonas, on the throne, and father of a man who was to rule over the heroic
reigned in. his name till the following month of race of Perseus. Hera prevailed upon him to conSeptember, when her misgovernment was'put an firm by an oath that the descendant of Perseus
end to by a revolt of the people, headed by Valen- born that daat should be the ruler. When this was
tinus, the commander of the troops in Asia. Mar- done she-hasteni'd to Argos, and there caused the
tina was punished with the loss of her tongue, and wife of Sthenelus' to give birth to Eurystheus,
Heracleonas was deprived of his nose. They were whereas, by keeping away the Eileithyiae, she
both confined in a convent, and finished their days delayed the confinement of Alcmene, and thus
in obscurity. Heracleonas was succeeded by Con- robbed Heracles of the empire which Zeus had insta.ns IT., the son of his brother, Constantine III. tended for him. Zeus was enraged at the imposi[CONSTANTINUS III.; CONSTANS II.] [VW.P.] tion practised upon him, but could not violate his
HERACLES ('HpacAr.s), and in Latin HER- oath. Alcmene brought into the world two boys,
CULES, the most celebrated of all the heroes of Heracles, the son of Zeus, and Iphicles, the son of
antiquity. The traditions about him are not only Amphitryon, who was one night younger than Hethe richest in substance, but also the most widely racles. (Hom. E. xix. 95, &c.; Hes. Sczt. 1spread; for we find them not only in all the coun- 56, 80, &c.; Apollod. ii. 4. ~ 5, &c.) Zeus, in
tries round the Mediterranean, but his wondrous his desire not to leave Heracles the victim of Hera's
deeds were known in the most distant countries of jealousy, made her promise, that if Heracles exethe ancient world. The difficulty of presenting a cuted twelve great works in the service of Euryscomplete view of these traditions was felt even by theus, he should become immortal. (Diod. iv..9.)
the ancients (Diod. iv. 8); and in order to give a Respecting the place of his birth traditions did
general survey, we must divide the subject, men- not agree; for although the majority of poets
tioning first the Greek legends and their gradual and mythographers relate that he was born
development, next the Roman legends, and lastly at Thebes, Diodorus (iv. 10) says that Amphi* those of the East (Egypt, Phoenicia). tryon was not expelled from Tiryns till after the'
The traditions about Heracles appear in their birth of Heracles, and Euripides (Here. Fur.
national purity down to the time of Herodotus; 18) describes Argos as the native country of the
for although there may be some foreign ingre- hero.
dients, yet the whole character of the hero, his Nearly all the stories about the childhood and
armour, his exploits, and the scenes of his action, youth of Heracles, down to the time when he entered
are all essentially Greek. But the poets of the the service of Eurystheus, seem to be inventions
time of Herodotus and of the subsequent periods of a later age: at least in the Homeric poems and
introduced considerable alterations, which were in Hesiod we only find the general.remarlks that
probably derived from the east or Egypt, for every he grew strong in body and mind, that in the connation of antiquity as well as of modern times had fidence in his own power he defied even the immor*or has some traditions of heroes of superhuman tal gods, and wounded Hera and Ares, and that
strength and power, Now while in the earliest under the protection of Zeus and Athena he esGreek legends Heracles is a purely human hero, caped the dangers which Hera prepared for him.
as the conqueror of men and cities, he afterwards But according to Pindar (Nem. i. 49, &c.), and
appears as the subduer of monstrous animals, and other subsequent writers, Heracles was only a few
-is connected in a variety of ways with astronomical months old when Hera sent two serpents into the
phaenomena. According to Homer (i. xviii. 118), apartment where Heracles and his brother Iphicles.-Leracles was the son of Zeus by Alcmene of were sleeping, but the former killed the.serpents,T'Iebes in. Boeotia, and the favourite of his father. with his own hands. (Comp. Theocrit. xxiv. 1,
(11. xiv. 250, 323,.xix. 98, Od. xi. 266, 620, xxi. &c.; Apollod. ii. 4, ~ 8.) Heracles was brought