Nemea was separated from the Argive temple of Here, the most ancient one in the country, by a chain of mountains and a long rocky ravine. It cannot be denied that the moon was often invoked in this worship, although it would not be safe to consider Here as the goddess of the moon. Now Nemea is called the daughter of the moon,(1816) from which deity the Nemean lion is also said to have sprung; the antiquity of which fable may be inferred from the circumstance that Anaxagoras availed himself of it, as being generally received, to account for the physical hypothesis of the Antichthon.(1817) Connected with this is Hesiod’s tradition that the goddess Here had herself brought up the lion, which she is by that poet represented as having done out of enmity to Hercules. Hence we detect the symbolical character of the fable, which resembles that of Perseus and Gorgo, &c.; although we can scarcely attempt to explain the whole legend in a similar manner. The combat with the Lernæan hydra may also be thus explained. Hercules is represented as employing in this contest the same sickle with which Perseus beheaded Medusa.(1818) Whatever meaning we may attach to these combats, whether we consider them as symbolical, or as memorials of a remote antiquity, in which it was the hero’s principal occupation to free Greece from monsters and wild beasts, it is nevertheless evident that they are as little adapted to the time assigned to them (shortly previous to the Pelopidæ) as to the character of the other parts of the fable. A mere consideration of Hercules’ costume will sufficiently convince us of this fact. It is certain that the Hercules of the early poets was either a hero armed with a spear and buckler, as in the poem attributed to Hesiod,(1819) or with a bow and sword, as in the Odyssey.(1820) The latter description occurs particularly in the battle of the giants; the former is founded on all the traditions which represent Hercules as the first of warriors and conquerors. Pisander and Stesichorus were the first who introduced him as a half-naked savage, with the lion’s skin round his loins, the jaws covering his head instead of a helmet, and merely a club in his hand.(1821) There were extant so late as the time of Strabo some ancient wooden statues of Hercules very different from this description. Pisander, too, was (as far as we know) the first who represented in detail the combats of Hercules with wild beasts, collected from scattered accounts in the Theogony, and who composed the “Labours of Hercules;” for which he perhaps availed himself of different local traditions.