Book contents
- Frontmatter
- THE TRANSLATORS' PREFACE
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- BOOK I HISTORY OF THE DORIC RACE, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE END OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
- BOOK II RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE DORIANS
- CHAP. I
- CHAP. II
- CHAP. III
- CHAP. IV
- CHAP. V
- CHAP. VI
- CHAP. VII
- CHAP. VIII
- CHAP. IX
- CHAP. X
- CHAP. XI
- CHAP. XII
- APPENDIX
- ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
- Plate section
CHAP. XII
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2011
- Frontmatter
- THE TRANSLATORS' PREFACE
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- BOOK I HISTORY OF THE DORIC RACE, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE END OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
- BOOK II RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE DORIANS
- CHAP. I
- CHAP. II
- CHAP. III
- CHAP. IV
- CHAP. V
- CHAP. VI
- CHAP. VII
- CHAP. VIII
- CHAP. IX
- CHAP. X
- CHAP. XI
- CHAP. XII
- APPENDIX
- ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
- Plate section
Summary
On the mixture of the Peloponnesian and Thessalian legends of the adventures of Hercules, and the confusion of Hercules with foreign heroes. On the general character of the heroic mythology.
1. We must now entreat the indulgence of our readers when we enter upon an obscure and difficult part of our subject, and one lying beyond the limits of historical record. We allude to the Peloponnesian fable of Hercules; a collection of legends doubtless for the most part invented subsequently to the Doric invasion, and intended by that nation in great measure to justify their conquest of the Peninsula, and to make their expedition appear, not as an act of wrongful aggression, but as a reassertion of ancient right. Some hero (perhaps even of the same name) must have existed in the Argive traditions in the time of the Persidæ, and the resemblance may have been sufficiently striking to identify him with the father of the Doric Hyllus. We shall therefore consider the destroyer of the Nemean lion as a native Argive hero; but the delay experienced at his birth, and his consequent exposure to want and toil, evidently belong to the Doric tradition, as well as the enmity of Juno; fables which were partly borrowed from the worship of Apollo, and may partly have been intended to indicate the contrast between the ancient worship of Argos and that of the invading race.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- History and Antiquities of the Doric Race , pp. 448 - 464Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1830