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The recent dating of the Cerne Abbas Giant came as a surprise. This huge, naked figure was cut into a Dorset hillside not, as many have supposed, in prehistory, nor in the early modern period, but in the early Middle Ages. This means that for the first time it is possible to place the Cerne Giant within a cultural context. In this article, we propose an explanation for when and why he was originally cut as an image of Hercules. We also argue that, contrary to conventional views, he is referred to in an early medieval source and that this, in turn, helps to demonstrate that by the eleventh century he was being reinterpreted in a surprising way, as Saint Eadwold. This is only one example of many such reimaginings, among which one of the most enduring is that he is neither classical hero nor saint but instead an image of the pagan god Helith. We end by showing how that idea came into being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the argumentative function of the Greek divine hero Hercules in Pandolfo Collenuccio's Philotimo (1497), a satiric dialogue making criticism about honor and nobility at court society, and Gutierre de Cetina's Spanish translation (1538-1554). The aim is to compare the reasons why the divine hero is able to solve as a judge the dispute taking place between an ignorant head and her cap: both in the original and in the translation, the authority given to Hercules derives from the virtue and effort characterizing the Greek hero; at the same time, whilst in the original text this authority is also due to Collenuccio's intention of honoring his patron, Ercole I d'Este, by means of a rhetorical play based on homonym; in the translation any laudatory function is omitted instead, thus displaying just the moral ideas of the dialogue and its universal message. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The palimpsest of Romanisation of Greek Drama was a constant and imperfect negotiation between the playwrights and largely Attic Greek texts often transmitted through the intermediary of non-Attic Greek communities in Italy and quite possibly through new performance of the plays. The playwright faced the task of making the material immediate and understandable to an audience in Rome with its own expectations and within the special circumstances in which the Latin version was commissioned and performed. There are, as well, degrees of Romanisation. The fabula palliata would have had a visual, declared connection to Greek culture, while the fabula togata would have put on a Greek play in Roman dress, centering the reception more on contemporary Rome. The fabula praetexta, drawing on Roman history, had its own set of special circumstances. Imperial drama, for which Seneca is the fullest witness, melded a both Latin and Greek versions of plays to which the poet added his own interpretation of the material. This is no more apparent than in the Octavia and Hercules on Oeta where the debts are as much to Seneca as to Greek models and traditions. For the greatest utility, this paper organizes material by the broad categories of subject matter, as this should make clear which inheritances of the Greek past most interested Roman audience and the patrons who paid for productions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Epic characters often reflect attributes of the gods, and in Statius' Achilleid, Achilles is no different. At various moments in the poem, he is similar to Jupiter, Apollo and Bacchus. This paper develops the connections between Achilles and Bacchus by arguing for the importance of the dramatic representation of Bacchus--and that of his brother Hercules--to understanding the larger plot of Statius' poem. Achilles' behavior recalls in particular the comic presentations of Bacchus and Hercules as figures who can transgress normal bounds without compromising their elevated status. Moreover, the comic Bacchus and Hercules afford models for the coexistence of seemingly paradoxical or even contradictory attributes within a character. While Achilles' literary heritage is undoubtedly part of the Homeric tradition, Statius also draws upon other genres and artistic strategies for his treatment of the hero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the story line of the play 'Death of a Salesman.' Link between the mythical character, Hercules, and the play; Parallelism between Hercules and Biff Loman, one of the characters in the play; Elements of the Hercules myths.

The article presents the description of three images. Topics include image of Narcissus by the Florentine painter Alessandro Allori extending an arm upward in a gesture of despair as Echo being rejected by Narcissus; baby Cupid hovering above aiming his dart at Narcissus arousing boy's desire focusing on the backside of the human body; and Hercules arriving with the bride Deianira at the shore of the river Evenus where she being abducted by Nessus.

Copyright of Mouseion is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Cicero's praise of Caesar in the Pro Marcello of September 46 b.c.e. has been much discussed for its sincerity or otherwise. Here I would like to point out some unobserved literary colour which may make some contribution to the argument, namely Cicero's subtle evocation of Hercules in describing the achievements of the victorious Caesar. Such an analogy is not unlikely in the context of Roman military image-making: Sulla in 78 b.c.e. and Crassus and Pompey in 70 b.c.e. had earlier encouraged connections with Hercules in analogous victorious contexts, and similar comparisons are later made between the foreign conquests of Augustus and those of Hercules in both Virgil (Aen. 6.801) and Horace (Carm. 3.14.1–4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the character of Anthony in the play "Anthony and Cleopatra," by William Shakespeare. Emphasis is given to the literary source of Plutarch and the relationship between Anthony and the Roman gods Bacchus and Hercules. Other topics include consumption of wine, metonymy, and urination.

In his essay on Seneca, T.S. Eliot used the Hercules Furens (= HF) as his example to illustrate ‘this curious freak of non-theatrical drama’. Even though Senecan scholarship has by and large moved away from his indictment, the sense that the attention seems to be directed away from the stage points to the play's unique dramaturgy. The surest indicator of this reverse orientation is the conspicuous absence of Hercules himself for much of the play. Hercules is (or wishes to be) permanently ‘elsewhere’. His entrance is delayed for a long time; once home, he rushes offstage after a few lines to kill Lycus. He returns onstage only to be attacked by madness, and is drawn inside the palace again to kill his wife and sons. When his madness abates, he falls asleep onstage; on waking, he longs for a place beyond the known world (and underworld) and finally exits into exile. This article proposes a closer examination of the semiotics of space, especially the symbolic value of the offstage. Seneca is constantly drawing attention to the pull towards the stage perimeter and the unseen offstage, characterizing the cosmic nature of Hercules’ conflict with Juno and questioning the hero's place in the world as the son of an immortal father. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author discusses Ancient Roman mythology Hercules' associations with the Roman triumph predating the Augustan period by more than two centuries that are visibly reified in the many Republican victory temples dedicated to Hercules in Rome. He cites the allusion operating in two complementary ways, each answering the questions of how and where Vergil situates Augustus and his victory monument in the narrative of the triumphal history of Rome.

The article explores the reality of milk. It offers a definition of the dairy product focusing on characteristics and uses, its significance in the literary works of natural philosopher Edward Hussey Delaval and author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and its comparison to the galaxy narrating the story of the Goddess Hera and Hercules. The authors also mention its contribution to photography mentioning the initiatives of Professor Harold Eugene Edgerton.

A literary criticism of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize winning play "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller is presented. It examines the Greek mythological icons that evoke in the character of traveling salesman Willy Loman, who believes that her two sons are destined for success in their endeavors because of their good looks and charisma. It also looks at Loman's comparison of her two sons with Greek incons Adonis and Hercules, who were only famed for their good looks and big muscles.

This article explores the phrase Cadmea proles, a Latin hapax, in Seneca's Hercules Furens 268. Through attention to philological intertexts and the dramaturgy of the passage, I pursue two separate but related lines of inquiry: the first is to argue that Cadmea proles alludes to, among other things, the myth of Oedipus, specifically in its dramatic staging by Sophocles and by Seneca himself. The second is to suggest that the Oedipal intertext, hardly surprising in a Theban play, introduces, on a microscopic level, some of the broader themes of the Hercules Furens, especially its concern with legitimacy, identity, and referential instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sebastian Brant (1457-1521), Humanist, best-selling author (The Ship of Fools, Basel 1494), on whom his native city of Strasbourg (in 1502) bestowed its top office (city clerk, chancellor), wrote and directed the first (lost) version (in German verses) of his Morality, according to three letter statements of his Basel student friend Jacob Wimpfeling, in 1512. As does the expanded Morality Hans-Gert Roloff published in 1968 (after discovering it in 1966), it featured young Hercules who chooses the narrow, rocky and thorny path leading to Lady Virtue over the broad and smooth road of Lady Lust. In the expanded Morality (2,566 spoken verses) both Ladies present no fewer than ten internal plays meant to exemplify their different ways of life. Johann Winckel, a fervent Lutheran, in 1554 gave the printer not a manuscript (Roloff) of Brant's play, but a printed edition that had (probably) already introduced Protestant equivalents for Brant's 'Mass' (he died a Catholic) and modernized his Low Alemannic. Verses the Herald recites, Greek names (for even minor characters), Emperor Maximilian I (who identified with Hercules) making what turned out to be his last 'crusading' plans against the Turks and records from Strasbourg allow us to date the lengthiest German non-religious play written before the Reformation to April 1518 and permit us to speculate that Brant engaged students of the Minster school and members of the Passion Play Confraternity to stage his Morality. Stage directions specifying gestures and other forms of body language found throughout indicate that Brant wrote his 1518 Morality with performance in mind. It was to take place on a spacious platform stage (gerüst) with houses, probably outside-Brant had to engage some sixty actors-on one of the many of Strasbourg's public squares. Sebastian Brant first became prominent as professor of law at the University of Basel. Between 1502 and his death in 1521, he served his native city of Strasbourg as its city clerk and chancellor, thus holding the most powerful office in this 'Free Imperial City'. He authored and edited many works, both in Latin and German, most of which he had printed. We therefore know more about Brant's life than we do about other playwrights of the time. In what follows, I briefly summarize the most up-to-date information scholars have unearthed about Brant. I then turn to examine the remarkable Morality play Brant wrote and directed, most likely in 1518. It deals with the ancient story of young Hercules 'at the parting of the ways' (Hercules in bivio) where the young hero has to choose between the broad and easy road personified by Lady Lust and the thorny and narrow path leading to Lady Virtue. With both ladies illustrating the attractions of their way of life by presenting no fewer than ten internal plays, that is plays within the play, Brant's 1518 Play of Lady Virtue appears to be an expanded version of a school Morality he first wrote and directed in 1512. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the most prominent areas of the House of Octavius Quartio, the owner exhibited his interests in Greek and Roman literature and deployed poetic themes according to generic distinctions. The walls of the triclinium are decorated with a double frieze, depicting the life of Hercules and scenes from the Iliad. This choice of serious epic themes is consistent with other Pompeian homes. More uniquely, the garden on which this room opens displays scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses: Pyramus and Thisbe, Narcissus, and Actaeon. The House of Octavius Quartio therefore appears to have been home to a true fan of Ovid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay tracks the first and second Hercules plays in Thomas Heywood's plays "The Silver Age" and "The Brazen Age" based on "Henslowe's Diary." Topics discussed are the value of seeing heroic figures enacted on the stage as described in "An Apology for Actors," hints of omitted Hercules scenes in the Heywood plays, features of the Hercules scenes that suggest Heywood wrote them in 1595 rather than in 1610, and the influence of erotic neo-Ovidianism in the plays.

The image of the kneeling slave, designed for the seal of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, then widely distributed as a cameo manufactured and distributed by Josiah Wedgwood became a powerful abolitionist icon. The image has been seen as both one of victimization and one that acknowledges the agency of the slave. While the former interpretation is understandable given the re-configurations of the image within the polemics of the Abolitionist campaign of the nineteenth century, the original image needs to be examined within the context of its construction. For this, it is necessary to explore the classical nature of the figure, particularly the representations and mythic significance of Hercules. These associations are combined with references to supplication as depicted in earlier token books, religious iconography, contemporary treatises on acting, eighteenth century treatises on gesture and rhetoric, and eighteenth century treatises on phrenology, physiognomy and ethnology. It is the complexity derived from such blending that became simplified and limited in later re-presentations where the image is used in conjunction with sentimental appeals to the benevolence of the viewer. As the classical resonances gave way to sentimental imperatives, the changing array of discourses changed not only the context which gave the image meaning, but reshaped the very image of the kneeling slave in subtle, but significant ways. The result provides us with a complex study of the dynamics of visual rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1994, five made for television movies - Hercules and the Amazon Women by Bill L. Norton, Hercules and the Lost Kingdom by Harley Cokeliss, Hercules and the Circle of Fire by Doug Lefler, Hercules in the Underworld by Bill L. Norton and Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur by Josh Becker - became the forerunners of two popular, even cult, series screened from the mid-1990s: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (Various, 1995-1999) and its spin-off Xena: Warrior Princess (Various, 1995-2001). Despite being set in a mythical Ancient Greece, the movies and the subsequent programmes were filmed on location in New Zealand. Indeed, New Zealand has become a frequent site for fantasy cinema and television production, perhaps most notably through the work of Peter Jackson, and Film New Zealand have actively promoted the country's potential to be 'many worlds'. The varied and dramatic topography has played a significant role in encouraging filmmakers to base their productions in the country, but New Zealand's own mythology as a land of Edenic, untouched beauty and its relative 'youth' are also integral to understanding its appeal. This article, which primarily focuses on the five Hercules films, will explore the unique relationship and the dynamic interaction between the classical/fantasy narrative and New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that in Seneca's Agamemnon Ode IV is not an interlude but is thematically associated with its wider context. The glorified Hercules is implicitly presented as the opposite of Aegisthus: the hero is a fearless man, as opposed to Agamemnon's effeminate cousin (Aegisthus has a hand in murdering the mighty king, but even then he is surpassed by a woman). Furthermore, the prolongation of night during Hercules' conception can be compared to the eclipse of the sun at the time Aegisthus is conceived; actually, the myth surrounding Hercules' conception is the only bright incident in a tragedy abundant with negative time irregularities. Another problem raised by Ode IV concerns the identity of the chorus that sings it. The paper argues in favor of the view that the ode is sung by the chorus of Mycenaean maidens rather than the second chorus in the play, the Trojan captive women; in this case, it is probable that the two choruses do not exchange costumes and masks, but that the Mycenaeans enter to sing Ode IV immediately after the Trojan captives exit along with Agamemnon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article continues the analyses in Medical History 52 (2008), 73-90, 365-86 of William Harvey's self-understanding as the philosopher and discoverer of the blood's circulation. Harvey brilliantly and subversively assumed the persona of the mythological Hercules to embody his own anatomical labour in De motu cordis et sanguinis (1628). He reprised the role in self-defence against accusations in the College of Physicians, London, of his breach of faith with medical tradition. Harvey sought to usurp the medical epithet 'a second Hercules' by reforming humanist dependence on ancient texts as authoritative medicine. A knowledge of the theory and practice of Renaissance humanism discloses his identification with the Herculean labour of cleansing the Augean stable. He employed anatomical demonstration against Galen's porous cardiac septum, which admitted blood across the ventricles. Harvey's oath mehercule swore against Galen's Dia to assert the necessity of opening an alternate route for the blood flow. His Herculean labour was to dam the cardiac septum and divert the blood flow into a continuous channel through the arteries and veins. His circulation of the blood also imitated Hercules' successful dependence on the force of the water flow to flush the Augean stable. Harvey's copia did not denote a quantitative amount but a powerful supply. Harvey aspired to be, like Hercules, immortal, a term which the College belatedly acknowledged. This cultural analysis exposes Harvey's professional issues and personal ambitions, so to promote a fuller understanding of his historic role in medical discovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on heroism and wisdom, examining the book "Liber De Sapiente," or "Book on the Wise," by Charles de Bovelles. It analyzes the Roman hero Hercules in relation to reason and wisdom. The author comments on depictions of the Greek hero Actaeon in the book "De gl’Eroici Furori," or "The Heroic Frenzies," by Giordano Bruno. She reflects on Bovelles' representations of Greek deity Prometheus and the figures Lady Wisdom, or Dame Sapientia, and Lady Fortuna, or Dame Fortuna.

The mythical contents of the Roman de Renart, when compared with Aristophanes' works, reveal common traits with his play The Frogs (405 B.C). In one of the scenes, a lady with a spinningwheel wakes from a nightmare and realises that her cockerel has disappeared. She despairs and calls for help from her handmaidens and certain gods. The spinstress' dream can be usefully compared to the episode from branche II in the Roman de Renart which recounts the dreams of Chantecler and his capture thanks to the fox. A passage from the Odyssey seems to confirm the existence of an ancient tradition linked to this: it is Penelope's dream, in which her geese are killed by an eagle during an oneiric vision, followed by two interpretations of the dream (XV. 143-178). The famous episode of the fox and the wolf in the well, narrated by Rabbi Rachi (1040-1105) among others, which can be found in branche IV of the Roman de Renart, can also be compared to another scene in The Frogs in which Hercules and Dionysus in hell are the protagonists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a Roman bronze plaque located at the Princeton University Art Museum which depicts the mythological character Hercules cleaning Augean stables. The author remarks on the unusual premise for the plaque and the general neglect of this scene of the classical myth in ancient art and literature. A description of the plaque is presented, including information on the portrayal of the proportions of Hercules' body, the pose held by Hercules, and the plaque's depiction of human muscles. The piece is then analyzed in light of the literary and cultural history of the Hercules myth. Topics include ancient Greek perspectives on labor, similarities between the plaque and other ancient bronze sculptures, and the significance of the plaque in the Herculean visual tradition.

In 1945, Herbert Bloch published an inscription from Ostia recording the restoration of a cellam Herc[ulis] in the late fourth century and suggested that it heralded the last pagan revival in the western Roman empire. Social historians now largely dispute this thesis, yet the details of the Ostian evidence remain unchallenged. This article demonstrates that the Hercules inscription, which Bloch attributed to the so-called Temple of Hercules (1.15.5) at Ostia, more probably records the restoration of a bath complex once decorated with the labors of Hercules. Given the persistence of traditional religious practices now known to have characterized the Late Antique city, neither the restoration of the baths nor the temple need bear the weight of religious revivalism. Evidence suggests that the urban image of fourth-century Ostia remained inconspicuously traditional, even as Christianity gained a more visible presence in the town. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not only does Alfonso X's La Estoria de Espanna make a very explicit point of identifying Hercules as the great mythical conqueror of Spain following the death of the tyrant Geryon, and as the founder of a new Hispanic monarchy that he would put in the hands of his heir Espan, it also states with great clarity that the Greek hero built two great towers at its westernmost outposts (in Cadiz and La Coruña) and that the latter, under the name \"Crunna\", was the first city he founded on the Iberian Peninsula. Knowledge of Hercules in medieval Spain, which is founded upon well known ancient sources, perhaps also helps to identify the controversial figure of the bearded man taming lions at the base of the trumeau of the Portico de la Gloria. This is probably a representation of the hero associated with pagan Spain, which would succumb to the Christian faith introduced into the country by the apostle St James the Greater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Antiquity, the labyrinth was not always regarded as a symbol of inextricable error. In fact, ancient culture contains labyrinths of failure and labyrinths of success: on the one hand, tragedy, and on the other hand, the epic. In the myths of Oedipus, Hercules, and Minos, the motif of the crossroads (a metonym of the labyrinth) is an emblematic example of choice and illustrates the philosophical fortune of this symbol. The image of the labyrinth does not underlie only one ethical reflection on the use of knowledge and power, on freedom and justice; it also includes an epistemological dimension related to the methodology of invention and the process which governs progress. The labyrinth ultimately appears a specular archetype of creative thought. It reflects the dynamic polarity of logos and mythos, revealing their patterns of renewal inside Western culture. More recently, under the influence of rationalism and classicism, the labyrinth was perceived as an exclusively negative image of error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mythology surrounding Hercules has been a part of human culture for over 2,500 years. In ancient Greek mythology, Eurystheus assigns various labors to Hercules, who has to perform them in order to cleanse his soul. This article treats one of the more famous labors, the fifth labor: The Augean Stables. The labor is provided verbatim from Apollodorus and then I describe three tasks needed to accomplish the labor, followed by their solutions. The solutions are in a separate section, in case the reader wishes to solve them before reading the solutions I provide. Each of the three tasks may be used as problems in the classroom to enhance learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares the interpretation of Greek god Hercules' choice between the path of virtue and the path of pleasure in the works of poets William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and John Milton. In Hamlet of Shakespeare, Laertes warned his sister Ophelia that she will lose her honor and chastity if she takes the pleasant path to love. The article also provides an overview of the masque "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue" of Jonson. Milton rejected temptation by free choice in "Areopagitica."

Hercules was an exemplar of moral and civic virtue when represented in Italian Renaissance art. How he embodied masculinity, however, has not been explored. A popular but complicated figure, he visualized the burdens and tensions of idealized masculinity. By examining his battle against desire, as represented in his struggle with Antaeus, this article points to multivalence and varying receptions, from moralizing allegory to erotic fantasy. It concentrates on imagery from the ‘Florentine Picture Chronicle’, Pollaiuolo, Mantegna and his circle, and Michelangelo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For years, scientists have developed several new techniques to read texts of Herculaneum scrolls without destroying them. Recently, the use of a custom built high-resolution CT scanner was proposed to scan and then virtually unroll the scrolls for reading. Identification of any unique chemical signatures in the ancient ink would allow better calibration of the CT scanner to improve the chances of resolving the ink from the burned papyrus background. To support this effort, we carried out one pilot study to see whether the composition of the ink can be obtained from an ancient scroll sample using PIXE technique. PIXE data were collected and analyzed in two different regions of the ancient scroll sample (ink and blank regions). This preliminary work shows that elemental distributions from the ink used in this scroll mainly contained Al, Fe and Ti as well as minor trace amounts of Cr, Cu and Zn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the book "Propertius I," by D. R. Shackleton Bailey is presented. It explores the specific interpretation of the modifier magnus with which it was applied to amor in a pentameter asserting that loves survives beyond the grave. It outlines and critically examines the symbolic meaning and interpretation of the word magnus. Moreover, it considers the characteristic and personality of Hercules as it relates the parallelism between the word amor and a flesh-and-blood hero.

The Aedes Herculis Musarum (AHM), embodying musical harmony, was a symbolic focal point for political concordia at Rome. The treatment of its cult honorands in high poetry also embraces Juno Regina, whose contemporary temple was adjacent to the AHM. Juno (as Moneta) and the Muses are further associated in the function of "memory," and Juno, when offended, is susceptible to musical propitiation. The AHM is prominently identified with concord and Junonian reconciliation at the end of the Fasti, and in the Aeneid,Vergil evokes his Muse's Roman cult identity in exploring Juno's hostility towards the "Herculean" Aeneas, as also when he foreshadows her assent to the existence of Rome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a new reading of an understudied poem from Les Contemplations (1856), 'Le Rouet d'Omphale.' By analysing the poem's rich web of intra- and intertextual allusions, from Ovid and Catullus to Hugo's 'La Pente de la rêverie' (1831), William Shakespeare (1864) and Le Rhin (1845), it becomes clear that Hugo's fascination with the legend of Hercules and Omphale, a legend in which Hercules is humiliated and emasculated, is linked to his own terrors of non-existence that are intimately bound up with his insecurities about the act of creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Images of the virtuous hero Hercules and the crowned King Atlas offered considerable potential for legitimising the new astronomy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The accomplishments of Hercules, a seeker after virtue, with his exceptional learning, his role as disseminator of knowledge, his significance as an example of ideal manhood and, in addition to all, his achievement of immortality, invited comparison with the endeavours of astronomers. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Hercules and Atlas appear as the spiritual authorities of the discipline, and each was called into use to symbolise both the old and the new astronomy. Both figures embodied qualities that were decisive in struggles for patronage: they were politicised, especially Hercules, and used to legitimise claims to power. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Up till now scholarship has assumed that the return of Hercules from the underworld at the end of the second act of Hercules Furens is prefigured in some kind of epiphany (Her. F. 520-3). In the course of the drama, however, it is expressly stated on two occasions that Hercules has already left the underworld at an earlier point. This apparent contradiction can be resolved if one supposes that Amphitryon, who is the sole witness of the epiphany, is the victim of an illusion. It is possible to explain the phenomena which he interprets wrongly (the groaning of the earth and the swaying of the temple) by taking into account the simultaneous action on stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the intervention of Apollo at Valerius Flaccus 4.58ff. to ensure that Hercules after leaving the Argonauts' expedition goes to free Prometheus from punishment rather than heading off to Troy to secure the reward promised by king Laomedon for the rescue of his daughter from the sea-beast. It establishes that Apollo as an amusingly smooth operator puts on a well orchestrated set of rapidly successive appeals, and acts not so much on behalf of Prometheus but rather to save Troy from being conquered and Laomedon from being killed when he refuses to give Hercules the promised reward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the literary and iconographic evidence of Herakles the Navigator. It illustrates that, as a part of his broader function as a bearer of civilization, Herakles was an inventor, patron, and protector of ships and navigation. It also perceives Herakles as a protector of mariners, and for this reason, a number of harbors of refuge in the western Mediterranean were named after him.

This article centers on two images from the life of Hercules and a border painting modeled after Albrecht Dürer's engraving Das Meerwunder (ca. 1498) in a Kyriale produced ca. 1500 for a Dominican convent in Toledo, Spain. It discusses the cultural significance of Hercules in Spain, and Toledo in particular, then presents a contextually sensitive reading of the image derived form Dürer's enigmatic engraving, whose subject has yet to be identified. The image in the Kyriale appears to represent Hercules' once-famous rescue of the Trojan princess Hesione from a sea monster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Characterizes the literary and rhetorical form of "Silu. 4.6," an occasional poem that describes a statuette of Greek hero Hercules carved by Greek sculptor Lysippus. Validity of the use of the term ekphrastic epigram to describe a poetic type; Need for understanding the poem inscribed on a statue in explaining the deportment of the statue; Basis of the literary history of the poem.

Interprets the role of women at the Ara Maxima cult in the fourth century A.D. citing the earliest myths of pre-Romulean Roman history. Ritual exclusion of women in the worship of Hercules at the Ara Maxima; Roman culture and history; Elegaic aetiology of the cult's practices.