§ 1. Legends respecting Hercules in the earliest settlements of the Dorians. § 2. Servitude of Hercules. § 3. Legends respecting Hercules in the second settlements of the Dorians. § 4. Legends respecting Tlepolemus, Antiphus, and Phidippus. § 5. Legend of Geryoneus. § 6. Legends respecting Hercules in the neighbourhood of Thermopylæ. § 7, 8, and 9. Bœotian legends respecting Hercules. § 10. Attic legends respecting Hercules.
1. In the following attempt to unravel the complicated mythology of Hercules, we will begin with those fables in which this hero appears evidently as the progenitor of the Doric Heraclidæ,(1722) as representative of the heroes of the Hyllean tribe, the highest order in the Doric nation.
We will first direct our attention to the locality described in the beginning of the first book, the ancient country of the Dorians in the most mountainous part of Thessaly, where this nation was continually at enmity with its immediate neighbours, the Lapithæ. In this war Hercules appears as the hero of the Hyllean tribe, according to the epic poem Ægimius, and gained for them a third part of the conquered territory. With this contest is, as it appears, also connected the celebrated conquest of Œchalia, the subject of an epic poem called Οἰχαλίας ἅλωσις, which was ascribed to Homer or Creophylus.(1723) In this poem it was related how Eurytus of Œchalia, the skilful archer, who was said to have surpassed Hercules himself in this mode of fighting, and who dared to engage with Apollo,(1724) promised his daughter Iole as a prize to the person who should excel himself and his sons in archery; but Hercules having accepted the challenge, Eurytus refused to perform his engagement: upon which Hercules collected an army, conquered Œchalia, killed Eurytus and his sons, carried away Iole prisoner, and gave her in marriage to his son Hyllus.(1725)
The situation of this “well-fortified”(1726) Œchalia is an ancient subject of controversy. There were three places of this name; one on the banks of the Peneus in Thessaly, in the ancient country of the Lapithæ, between Pelinna to the east and Tricca to the west, not far from Ithome:(1727) another in the island of Eubœa, in the district of Eretria.(1728) The third was a town in Messenia, which in latter times was called Carnasium, upon the boundary of Arcadia;(1729) in which region there was also a town named Ithome; and, as it is stated, another named Tricca; so that we must suppose that there was some early connexion between the inhabitants of this district and the tribes near the Peneus. Now it may be presumed that each of these Œchalias was considered by the respective inhabitants as the celebrated town of the great Eurytus; whence among the early poets there was a difference of statement on the subject. For the Messenian Œchalia is called the city of Eurytus in the Homeric catalogue,(1730) and in the Odyssey,(1731) which statement was followed by Pherecydes;(1732) the Eubœan city was selected by the writer of the poem called the Taking of Œchalia;(1733) as also probably in the Ægimius,(1734) and afterwards by Hecatæus of Miletus;(1735) the Thessalian, in another passage in the catalogue of the ships, apparently of considerable antiquity.(1736) Since, then, this question cannot be settled by authority, we can only infer (but with great probability) from the connexion of the traditions that the last-mentioned Œchalia was the city of the original fable. The contest for this city is evidently closely connected with the war with the Lapithæ; Eurytus, as well as the Lapithæ, was hated by Apollo. If Œchalia is placed on the banks of the Peneus, the conquest of it naturally falls in with the other tradition; if not, it stands isolated and unconnected. Again; Hercules, according to all traditions, conquers Iole for his son Hyllus; now Hyllus never occurs in mythology except in connexion with the Dorians; consequently the place of the battle must be looked for in the vicinity of the Doric territory.