The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2Müller, Karl Otfried
History
The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2
Müller, Karl Otfried
Dorians -- History; Greece -- Antiquities, Dorian; Greece -- History -- Dorian Invasions, approximately 1125-1025 B.C.
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)
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