Hercules at Thebes is not to be considered as a Cadmean; and has no connexion with the ancient gods, and traditions of the Cadmeans; but his mythology was introduced into Bœotia partly by the Doric Heraclidæ, and partly from Delphi, together with the worship of Apollo.
To prove that Hercules has no connexion with the Cadmean gods, temples, and princes, it is only necessary to refer to a genealogical table of the Theban mythology, and a plan of Thebes sketched after Pausanias. From the former we perceive that Hercules (whose father is represented as having arrived as a fugitive from Mycenæ) is not made the relation either by blood or marriage of the Cadmeans, Creon (κρέων, the ruler), his supposed father-in-law, being only a fictitious personage, invented to fill up a chasm in the pedigree;(1777) from the latter, that the temples of Hercules were not only not in the citadel (like those of Cadmus, Harmonia, and Semele), or within the walls of the city, but were all without the gates. This fact is of great importance as to the antiquity of any worship in a city. The ancient and original deities, which enjoyed the honours of founders, possessed the citadel as their birthright; while all gods afterwards introduced enjoyed a less honourable abode in the suburbs of the town. Now it is known that the house of Amphitryon and the Gymnasium of Hercules stood in front of the gate of Electra, opposite the Ismenium;(1778) and to this we may add the account of Pherecydes(1779) respecting a village near that same gate, which the Heraclidæ had founded before their invasion of Peloponnesus, and where there was a statue of Hercules in the market-place. What can be clearer than that these Heraclidæ established the worship of their hero at Thebes? Near this place (it should be observed) was the Ismenian sanctuary of Apollo. Opposite to this temple Hercules was said to have been educated; and at a festival of Apollo to have carried the laurel before the chorus of virgins; and afterwards to have consecrated a tripod in the temple, as was the general custom in later times. This tripod is represented on the famous relief of the Argive apotheosis of Hercules, with the inscription Ἀμφιτρύων ὑπὲρ Ἀλκαίου τριπόδ Ἀπόλλωνι.(1780)