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The History of Ancient Greece

047 Herakles: From Zero to Hero

The History of Ancient Greece

Ryan Stitt

History, Society & Culture

4.41.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2017

⏱️ 63 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, we discuss the iconography of the hero Herakles (also known as Hercules); his early myths, his infamous twelve labors, and his later life; his heroic persona, how he was worshipped as a pan-Hellenic divine hero, and some of his cults, including those in initiatory and pederastic contexts, as a guardian of the city, and as a military and wrestling champion; and his role as a founder of many Greek cities and as an apostle of Hellenism in the western Mediterranean

Show Notes: http://www.thehistoryofancientgreece.com/2017/06/047-herakles-from-zero-to-hero.html

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're going to be. So, The Hello and welcome back to the history of ancient Greece episode 47 Heracles from

0:50.0

zero to Hero.

0:58.0

Out of all of the Greek heroes, it was a grandson of Perseus, named Heracles, who receives the most attention,

1:01.0

both from the ancients and modern scholars.

1:05.0

Because of this, he constitutes what is considered to be the most representative image of a Greek hero,

1:12.0

who constantly struggles for the benefit of mankind.

1:15.0

He's believed to have developed as a local Doric hero early on,

1:19.0

and much of his core story is familiar to Homer. But throughout the centuries, his corporate... his corpus of

1:25.0

of works would place him beyond the frame of a local hero

1:28.0

and he would become a pan-Hellenic hero,

1:31.0

meaning that his deeds benefited all of Greece rather than just one particular region or city.

1:37.0

This was because all Greeks were eager to lay claim to him as their benefactor and indeed

1:42.0

his exploits take place over an enormous geographical area.

1:46.5

Also he would eventually become a pan-European hero, and was adopted in many of the early Phoenician,

1:52.4

Lydian, Etruscan, and Roman myths.

1:55.6

The spread of Heracles attests to his overwhelming popularity.

2:00.1

In Rome, Heracles was honored as Hercules.

2:03.6

They adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged, but added anecdotal

2:09.1

details of their own in order to link the hero with the geography of the Central Mediterranean and his

2:15.0

cult was brought to Rome too. Herodotus also connected Heracles to the Phoenician

2:20.0

God Melkart and he was worshipped in a big way by both Greeks and Phoenicians on the island of Sicily.

2:26.6

Furthermore, as time passed on, the myth surrounding Heracles transformed him into an

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