Hercules Omnibus

[herculesomnibus]

The Hercules Omnibus

Hello, and welcome to my first post! This will be the official Tumblr for my new project, The Hercules Omnibus, a compilation of sources about the great hero. I plan to gather public domain English translations of all Greek and Roman works about or mentioning Hercules into a single Google doc/PDF. But instead of forcing the reader to devise their own chronology of his life, the material will be broken up into his lineage, conception, childhood, early adventures, major and minor labors, later adventures, death, apotheosis, etc. On top of this, I will include info about his Etruscan and Germanic versions.

(Before continuing, I must point out that I know Heracles/Herakles (Ηρακλής) is the hero's original Greek name. But I've chosen to use his Roman name in the title because it is far more widely known around the world. But within the omnibus, I will refer to him as "Heracles" with Greek sources, "Hercules" with Roman and Germanic sources, and "Hercle" with Etruscan sources. I've noticed that a lot of older English translations refer to him as Hercules even when dealing with Greek works, so I'm openly stating now that I will slighting alter translations to use the correct name for the correct source.)

And I will supplement all of this by noting the agreements and differences between the various works. For example, "Author-A says this happened, but Author-B says something else happened." Notes about consensus or discrepancies will include reference numbers so readers can confidently navigate between sources.

Once finished, I will release the fully-cited book for others to access and read freely online.

Who is this for?

This project is first and foremost for me, an independent sinologist known in one small corner of the internet for researching the characters and events of the Chinese classic Journey to the West (Xiyou ji, 西遊記, 1592 CE; "JTTW" hereafter). (You may know me better as @journeytothewestresearch.). I am purposely stepping out of my comfort zone in order to learn as much as I can about Hercules. This is because the Son of Zeus is a culturally and historically significant mythic figure known the world over. Also, strangely enough, I believe he will help me better understand Sun Wukong (孫悟空), the immortal monkey hero of JTTW, by viewing him through the lens of a hero from a different time and place.

However, I hope the finished product will be a good starting point for those who know little about Hercules. After all, they won't have to waste time tracking down the disparate sources since I've already done that for them. I also hope that it will serve as a resource for researchers, both hobbyist and professional alike.

How it started

On June 20th, 2022, the YouTube channel DEATH BATTLE! posted an episode pitting the demi-god against Sun Wukong. I responded with an analysis article discussing what I liked and didn't like about the segment. One section included a list of interesting parallels (later moved here), the most obvious of which can be summed up below:

Hercules-Sun Wukong buddy cop movie idea: One is a divine hero who is super strong, wears a big cat skin, and fights monsters with a blunt weapon. The other is a divine hero who is super strong, wears a big cat skin, and fights monsters with a blunt weapon. Both are extremely pissed off and ready to clean up the streets.

Preparation for this section obviously involved lots of reading, but I honestly wasn't learning anything at the time. Allegorically speaking, I was just mechanically scanning and transcribing what I saw.

I didn't reach a point where I truly wanted to absorb information about Hercules until the summer of 2025. This is when I started rereading previously consulted books in preparation for a second response article (see below). I must admit that I was overwhelmed in the beginning because the sheer number of ancient sources discussed by one particular edited volume made it seemingly impossible for a beginner like me to decipher the basics of the demi-god's life. But, thankfully, I found a book geared more towards the general public, Hercules: The First Superhero (An Unauthorized Biography) (2015) by Dr. Philip Matyszak. It contained the overview I was looking for and gave me a better appreciation for the subject. Most importantly, it inspired me to start this project. I'm going to create the book I wish I had had in the beginning.

Anyways, you can read the finished article here. It draws upon elements from JTTW, Greek myth, Greco-Buddhist art, and Buddhist literature to propose a more natural reason for the two heroes to come to blows. The confrontation contains details that lovers of Greek myth and JTTW are sure to appreciate.

What will this Tumblr be?

I plan to use this Tumblr blog to post interesting information I come across, as well as to archive books, papers, and art on the subject. And once I become knowledgeable enough, I might even post an occasional article.

Pictured: Hercules subduing Cerberus, by Antonín Pavel Wagner (1834-1895)

[herculesomnibus]

The Theogony and the Development of Heracles' Image

The Theogony is essentially about the glorification of Zeus, and Herakles' frequent mention is called for because he lives up to the Greek ideal that the father's deeds and fame should live on in his descendants. Like Zeus, Herakles is a beneficent, regulatory force that fights against the disorderly and abnormal forces of a nature which is in the process of being formed. In the Theogony, we catch the first glimpse of Herakles as an ethical ideal and culture hero (Galinsky, 1972, 16-17).

Galinsky, Karl. The Herakles Theme: The Adaptations of the Hero in Literature from Homer to the Twentieth Century. New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1972.

(Free PDF link above. More available on my nonmonetized blog.)

[herculesomnibus]

The Atlas-Heracles Strongman Figures of Greco-Buddhist Art

My new article discusses how Chinese temple decorations of strongmen supporting the roof on their shoulders are connected to Greco-Buddhist sculptures conflating Atlas and Heracles from Greek myth.

[herculesomnibus]

Good point about the club of Heracles

[I]ts use requires skill, power, braveness, because it brings its employer close to his opponent (but at the same time maintains the crucial "safety distance" from the latter).

A. D. Grollios, “The Myths of Herakles as a Fighter, Master’s thesis (University of Glasgow, 1984), 45.

(More PDFs are available on my nonmonetized blog.)

[herculesomnibus]

The Myths of Herakles as a Fighter - PDF

Here is a Master's thesis:

A. D. Grollios, “The Myths of Herakles as a Fighter,” Master’s thesis (University of Glasgow, 1984).

(More PDFs are available on my nonmonetized blog.)

Summary

The present work examines the myths of Herakles as fighter, which are the myths where the hero appeared to confront a single opponent other than an animal or a monster. Those opponents are distinguished into Deities and Humans and the stories which narrate the fights of Herakles against them are classified accordingly into separate chapters in alphabetical order. A further distinction is made as regards the way the fights of Herakles were conducted: some of them involved the use of weapons but others were unarmed contests, almost exclusively wrestling matches. There is also a third chapter, which includes certain stories in which Herakles appeared to kill someone without a confrontation; those are called Killings and examined here because they still present the hero attacking a single individual. The stories under examination are reviewed as they appear in the sources; whenever the latter provide more than one versions [sic], those are all cited, irrespectively of their estimated validity. There follows an examination of various elements which are considered important in the stories, such as the way the contest between Herakles and his opponent was fought, the weapons which were possibly used, the result of the fight and its nature (whether a contest for a prize or a mere robbery, for example). The examination of all those myths where Herakles appears to fight a single individual leads to the conclusion that a significant number of Herakles’s opponents were either water-deities or descendants of Poseidon, the water-deity par excellence. That is taken to signify that Herakles should be ultimately considered a figure who is fundamentally opposed to water, a hero mostly suited to a non sea-faring people.

[herculesomnibus]

Heracles Art Book

Jaimee Pugliese Uhlenbrock, ed., Herakles: Passage of the Hero Through 1000 Years of Classical Art (New Rochelle, New York: Aristide D. Caratzas Publisher, 1986).

(Free PDF link above)

[herculesomnibus]

Heracles Contradictions

[G. S.] Kirk provides a useful summary list of some important contradictions: humane bestial serious burlesque sane mad salutary destructive free slave human divine (to which Nicole Loraux adds virile feminine) *

* Pamela Jane Lawson, "The Iconography of Herakles and the 'Other' in Archaic Greek Vase Painting," PhD diss., (Harvard University, 1993), 116-117.

(Free PDF link above)

[herculesomnibus]

Ancient Greco-Roman Art Resource

I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae ("Iconographic Lexicon of Classical Mythology"; 1981-2009). It's a multi-volume encyclopedia of ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art showing historical examples for each deity. The books cover gods alphabetically, starting with "Atherion-Eros" and ending with "Thespiades-Zodiacus."

The tomes appear to be presented in a series of matched volumes, the first comprising articles describing the art and the second with pictures.

Black and White PDFs of the full series are available on Internet Archive.

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae

Here is a screenshot of a couple of pages (of many) focusing on Heracles.

I would LOVE to get physical copies, but they are very expensive. Thankfully, there is a digital version.

Admittedly, though, flipping through pages would be a lot more appealing to me.

[herculesomnibus]

Etrusco-Italic Herclé - PDF

Victor Manuel Martinez, “Etrusco-Italic Herclé: A Study in the Formation of Image, Cult, and Regional Identity,” PhD diss., (University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign, 2009).

(Free PDF link above)

Abstract

My dissertation traces the Italic roots for the iconographies and roles of Herakles in central and northern Italy (i.e., Etrusco-Italic Herclé) prior to Roman hegemony (ca. 1000-300 BCE). The thesis begins with the premise that this hero-god, commonly known as Herclé, after his Greek namesake, may have had an indigenous ancestry in central and northern Italy. I argue that, although one cannot trace a direct teleological evolution for Herclé that goes back to the beginning of anthropomorphization, earlier and more anonymous Italic hero-figures embody indigenous and deeply rooted cultural meanings that are evident in subsequent representations of Herclé. In shaping my theorization of the indigenous, Italic roots of Herclé, I draw especially on the work of Richard White and Mary Helms. White’s concept of the “middle ground,” which refers to both a geographic location (literally a space of interaction) and a cultural stance (the overlap or place between two differing cultures) is a compelling lens through which to understand the interaction between Greeks and Italic populations. Helms outlines a theory of how distance affects the formation of ideology among ruling elites, such that spatial and temporal distances become linked and equivalent on a cosmological scale. In applying these ideas to the study of objects, I used quantitative elements such as iconography and materiality to get at underlying socio-cultural structure and meaning at both local and regional levels.

[herculesomnibus]

The Herakles Theme - PDF

G. Karl Galinsky, The Herakles Theme: The Adaptations of the Hero in Literature from Homer to the Twentieth Century (New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1972)

(Free PDF link above)

Blurb

Professor Galinsky's "Herakles Theme" provides a survey both descriptive and analytical, of the most significant adaptations of Herakles in western literature, from Homer to present day, with particular emphasis upon the more original and creative portraits of the hero.

Image from this listing.

[herculesomnibus]

Heracles as a centaur counterpart

At least Herakles himself, with his skins, his hairiness, his club, his poisoned arrows, his treachery and lust and nobility, his association with healing and oracles, makes the ideal heroic counterpart to the centaurs - exemplifies in one person their duality of role as a species. *

* G. S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures (England: University of Cambridge Press; Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970), 162.

(Free PDF link above)

Hercules and the Centaurs, from "The Labors of Hercules" (1608) by Antonio Tempesta

[herculesomnibus]

Heracles as an outside figure

Lion-skin and club are not marks of civilisation, but of the outside: the lion-skin matches the deer-skins of Dionysos’ savage Maenads, and the club (and even bow) contrasts with the spear, sword and shield of the Greek hoplite that the polis sent into battle – in groups, not as Herculean individuals. *

* Ken Dowden, The Uses of Greek Mythology (United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 2002), 97.

(Free PDF link above)

(Example of a Greek Hoplite)

[herculesomnibus]

I (on my alternate) commissioned @jacobpking on Twitter to draw a picture of Heracles fighting Sun Wukong for my article on the subject. I like how it turned out.

[herculesomnibus]

Heracles and Vase Art - PDF

Pamela Jane Lawson, "The Iconography of Herakles and the 'Other' in Archaic Greek Vase Painting," PhD diss., (Harvard University, 1993).

(Free PDF link above)

Abstract

The iconography of Herakles' mythical biography on the surface of vases in the sixth century served as the medium through which Greek artists explored and made comprehensible the opposing forces of civilized and savage, or nature and culture. A close examination of the way in which the artists chose to illustrate Herakles’ deeds, helps the viewer today to understand the true nature of Greek anxieties and hopes about the forces operating in their world. Such forces and oppositions represented visually in the archaic period are eventually subsumed by the Greek/barbarian antithesis developed in the fifth century. Herakles represents the antithesis of the Greek vs. barbarian internalized. Herakles can behave in ways that will be considered ’barbaric' in the next century. However, negative qualities most associated with the barbarian later, are externalized in many of Herakles' deeds, confusing and confining the antithesis. The 'monster' or beast may have been a 'proto-barbarian', and particular deeds bring Herakles into contact with anthropomorphic foes who practice 'barbaric' behavior. In fifth century literature, Greek attitudes about the barbarian have transformed and expanded. The necessity for a more clarified image of the Greek/ barbarian antithesis is motivated by philosophical developments and historical events. The idea of the barbarian is externalized and defined by authors such as Herodotus. In Greek Tragedy, the barbarian is now often the foil for the civilized Greek. Because undesirable qualities are transferred to the non-Greek, attempts are made in literature to justify Herakles behavior and to make him a citizen of the polis. Representations of Herakles in fifth century art illustrate a similar transformation, despite the general decline in the appearance of scenes featuring Herakles in attic vase painting of the period. This decline may be related to the transfer of most negative qualities expressed in the sixth century images of Herakles to the barbarian of the fifth century. The advent of tragedy and the juxtaposition of the Greek and the barbarian provided a new way to illustrate the varied nature of humanity while additionally celebrating the Greek, making the sixth century iconography of Herakles obsolete.

[herculesomnibus]

Good Heracles Description

The range of the Son of Zeus is impressive ...

Herakles transcends all the conceptual boundaries in Greek thought, for he is at once king and slave; beast, man, and god; lawless transgressor and vanquisher of the uncivilized. Even his hypermasculinity is offset by two minor episodes of crossdressing. *

Jennifer Larson, "The Singularity of Herakles," in Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece, ed. Sabine Albersmeier (The Walters Art Museum, 2009), 32.

(Free PDF link above)

Herc and Omphale switch clothing.

"Bartholomeus Spranger (1546–1611), Hercules and Omphale (c 1585), oil on copper, 24 × 19 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Wikimedia Commons."

[herculesomnibus]

Heracles is a hefty guy!

Heracles is apparently super heavy for his size. In Book 1 of his Bibliotheca/Library (1st or 2nd c. CE), Pseudo-Apollodorus writes:

[1.9.19] There they left Heracles and Polyphemus. For Hylas, son of Thiodamas [king of the Dryopes], a minion of Heracles, had been sent to draw water and was ravished away by nymphs on account of his beauty. But Polyphemus heard him cry out, and drawing his sword gave chase in the belief that he was being carried off by robbers. Falling in with Heracles, he told him; and while the two were seeking for Hylas, the ship put to sea. So Polyphemus founded a city Cius in Mysia and reigned as king; but Heracles returned to Argos. However Herodorus says that Heracles did not sail at all at that time, but served as a slave at the court of Omphale. But Pherecydes says that he was left behind at Aphetae in Thessaly, the Argo having declared with human voice that she could not bear his weight (emphasis added). *

* Apollodorus, Apollodorus: The Library, With an English Translation By Sir James George Frazer, 2 Vols (London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1921), 99, 101, 103

(Free PDF above)

"Chubby Herc" (1st c. BCE to 1st c. CE)