Note 830 — ANTIENT HEROES.

He was also reported, according to [830]Megasthenes and others, to have made an expedition into [831]India, and to have left many memorials of his transactions in those parts. He travelled likewise into the region called afterwards Scythia; the natives of which country were his [832]descendants. He also visited the Hyperboreans. In all these peregrinations he is generally described as proceeding alone: at least we have no intimation of any army to assist in the performance of these great enterprises. He is indeed supposed to have sailed with six ships to [833]Phrygia: but how he came by them is not said; nor whence he raised the men, who went with him. At other times he is represented with a club in his hand, and the skin of an animal upon his shoulders. When he passed over the ocean, he is said to have been wafted in a golden [834]bowl. In Phrygia he freed Hesione from a Cetus, or sea monster, just as Perseus delivered Andromeda. He is mentioned as founding many cities in parts very remote: the sea-coast of Bœtica, and Cantabria, was, according to some writers, peopled by [835]him. By Syncellus he is said to have resided in Italy, and to have reigned in [836]Latium. The Grecians supposed that he was burnt upon Mount Œta: but the people of Gades shewed his Taphos in their [837]city, just as the Egyptians shewed the Taphos of Osiris at Memphis, and elsewhere. Hence it was imagined by many, that Hercules was buried at Gades. The philosopher Megaclides could not be brought to give the least assent to the histories of this [838]hero: and Strabo seems to have thought a great part of them to have been a [839]fable. In short, the whole account of this personage is very inconsistent: and though writers have tried to compromise matters by supposing more persons than one of this name, yet the whole is still incredible, and can never be so adjusted as to merit the least belief. How they multiplied the same Deity, in order to remedy their faulty mythology, may be seen in the following extract from Cicero. [840]Quanquam, quem potissimum Herculem colamus, scire velim: plures enim nobis tradunt ii, qui interiores scrutantur et reconditas literas. Antiquissimum Jove natum, sed item Jove antiquissimo: nam Joves quoque plures in priscis Græcorum literis invenimus. Ex eo igitur et Lysito est is Hercules, quem concertâsse cum Apolline de tripode accepimus. Alter traditur Nilo natus, Ægyptius; quem aiunt Phrygias literas conscripsisse. Tertius est ex Idæis Dactylis, cui inferias afferunt. Quartus Jovis est, et Asteriæ, Latonæ sororis, quem Tyrii maxime colunt; cujus Carthaginem filium ferunt. Quintus in [841]Indiâ, qui Belus dicitur. Sextus hic, ex Alcumenâ quem Jupiter genuit; sed tertius Jupiter: quoniam, ut docebo, plures Joves accepimus.