Hercules in ancient Rome

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Hercules was venerated as a divinized hero and incorporated into the legends of Rome's founding. The Romans adapted Greek myths and the iconography of Heracles into their own literature and art, but the hero developed distinctly Roman characteristics. Some Greek sources as early as the 6th and 5th century BC gave Heracles Roman connections during his famous labors.^[1]

For an overview of the hero in classical mythology, see Hercules.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus places Hercules among divine figures honored at Rome "whose souls after they had left their mortal bodies are said to have ascended to Heaven and to have obtained the same honors as the gods".^[2] His apotheosis thus served as one model during the Empire for the concept of the deified emperor.^[3]

Hercules Augustus or Hercules Augusti, Hercules "in his capacity as protector of the ruling emperor."

[14]

Hercules Invictus ("the Unconquered"), at the Ara Maxima; women were excluded from this cult. Also Hercules Victor ("the Victorious").^[16]

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Hercules Magnus ("the Great"), honored with games () that may have been first officially established by Sulla.^[17]

ludi

Hercules Musarum ("the Muses' Hercules", Greek Herakles Musagetes), created when Fulvius Nobilior dedicated statues of the Muses to a temple of Hercules.

[18]

Hercules Olivarius ("the Olive Merchant"), in reference to a statue of Hercules dedicated by the guild of olive merchants.

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Hercules Triumphalis ("Triumphal"), represented by a statue in the Forum Boarium, was dressed in the regalia of a triumphator when a was held. It is mentioned by Pliny, who attributes it to the legendary Evander.^[20]

triumph

In Stoicism[edit]

Heracles or Hercules was a figure especially favored by the Stoics, who attempted to incorporate traditional polytheism into their philosophy.^[26] In Stoicism, not only was the primitive substance God, the one supreme being, but divinity could be ascribed to the manifestations—to the heavenly bodies, to the forces of nature, even to deified persons.^[26]

Cornutus saw his Twelve Labours as metaphors for human struggles, seeing the Erymanthian boar, the Nemean lion and the Cretan bull as symbols of passion, the Cerynean deer as cowardice, the cleaning of the Augean stables as purification from extravagance, the driving away of the Stymphalian birds as banishing empty hopes, the kill of the Lernaean Hydra as the rejection of endless pleasures, and the chaining of Cerberus as the philosophy being brought from the darkness.^[27]

(1892), The Stoics: Epicureans and Sceptics, Longmans, Green, and Company, ISBN 0521779855

Zeller, Eduard

Several Roman clans (gentes) lay claim to descent from various divine figures. The Fabii traced their genealogy to a daughter of Evander who lay with Hercules in his "dug-out" (fovea) and conceived the first Fabius.^[28]

The cult of Hercules at the Ara Maxima was in the keeping of the gens Potitia and the gens Pinaria until 312 BC, when maintenance was transferred to the state^[29] and thereafter administered by public slaves.^[30]

Media related to Hercules in ancient Roman art at Wikimedia Commons