Hercules
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- This article is about the mythological hero. For other means, see Hercules (disambiguation).
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Hercules was the name in Roman mythology of the hero Heracles from Greek mythology, the son of Jupiter (or Jove, the Roman name for the Greek god Zeus) and the mortal Alcmene. 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.
Herecules founded an altar where the Forum Boarium, the cattle market, was later held.
The later Roman emperors often identified or compared themselves with Hercules, in particular Commodus and Maximinus.
Movie and television adaptations
The legend of Hercules has many movie and television adaptations.
- Steve Reeves starred in a number of 1950s movies as Hercules
- A syndicated TV series The Sons of Hercules, which repackaged Italian Maciste films
- Hercules appears as a character in the movie Jason & the Argonauts
- Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1969 film debut, Hercules in New York
- The Disney movie Hercules and its spin-off animated TV series
- The syndicated TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, which is only very loosely based on the classical hero
- Young Hercules, a television series based on the hero's youth
- The Mighty Hercules, an animated series that ran in the 1960s
- Hercules, a public domain character appearing in several comic books
Spoken-word myths - audio files
| Hercules myths as told by story tellers |
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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 |
Namesakes
As a name associated with legendary strength, "Hercules" has been used for a variety of things:
- Hercules, a 1907 built steam tug now preserved in San Francisco, California.
- Hercules, a bomb-detecting robot at Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport
- Hercules, a constellation
- Hercules, a small town in California named after the Hercules Powder Company
- Herculane, a spa town in Romania
- Hercules, an IBM mainframe emulator
- Hercules Graphics Card
- Hercules Motorcycles, built by aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss
- HMS Hercules, several ships of the Royal Navy
- The Bristol Hercules, an aircraft engine
- The C-130 Hercules, a transport aircraft
- USS Hercules, a hydrofoil formerly operated by the U.S. Navy.
- The lunar crater Hercules
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