abandoned poetry to Garrett, and after several essays in that direction
he definitely introduced the historical novel into Portugal in 1844 by a
book written in imitation of Walter Scott. _Eurico_ treats of the fall
of the Visigothic monarchy and the beginnings of resistance in the
Asturias which gave birth to the Christian kingdoms of the Peninsula,
while the _Monge de Cister_, published in 1848, describes the time of
King John I., when the middle class and the municipalities first
asserted their power and elected a king in opposition to the nobility.
From an artistic standpoint, these stories are rather laboured
productions, besides being ultra-romantic in tone; but it must be
remembered that they were written mainly with an educational object,
and, moreover, they deserve high praise for their style. Herculano had
greater book learning than Scott, but lacked descriptive talent and
skill in dialogue. His touch is heavy, and these novels show no dramatic
power, which accounts for his failure as a playwright, but their
influence was as great as their followers were many, and they still find
readers. These and editions of two old chronicles, the _Chronica de D.
Sebastiao_ (1839) and the _Annaes del rei D. Joao III_ (1844), prepared
Herculano for his life's work, and the year 1846 saw the first volume of
his _History of Portugal from the Beginning of the Monarchy to the end
of the Reign of Affonso III._, a book written on critical lines and
based on documents. The difficulties he encountered in producing it were
very great, for the foundations had been ill-prepared by his
predecessors, and he was obliged to be artisan and architect at the same
time. He had to collect MSS. from all parts of Portugal, decipher,
classify and weigh them before he could begin work, and then he found it
necessary to break with precedents and destroy traditions. Serious
students in Portugal and abroad welcomed the book as an historical work
of the first rank, for its evidence of careful research, its able
marshalling of facts, its learning and its painful accuracy, while the
sculptural simplicity of the style and the correctness of the diction
have made it a Portuguese classic. The first volume, however, gave rise
to a celebrated controversy, because Herculano had reduced the famous
battle of Ourique, which was supposed to have seen the birth of the
Portuguese monarchy, to the dimensions of a mere skirmish, and denied
the apparition of Christ to King Affonso, a fable first circulated in
the 15th century. Herculano was denounced from the pulpit and the press
for his lack of patriotism and piety, and after bearing the attack for
some time his pride drove him to reply. In a letter to the cardinal
patriarch of Lisbon entitled _Eu e o Clero_ (1850), he denounced the
fanaticism and ignorance of the clergy in plain terms, and this provoked
a fierce pamphlet war marked by much personal abuse. The professor of
Arabic in Lisbon intervened to sustain the accepted view of the battle,
and charged Herculano and his supporter Gayangos with ignorance of the
Arab historians and of their language. The conduct of the controversy,
which lasted some years, did credit to none of the contending parties,
but Herculano's statement of the facts is now universally accepted as
correct. The second volume of his history appeared in 1847, the third in
1849 and the fourth in 1853. In his youth, the excesses of absolutism
had made Herculano a Liberal, and the attacks on his history turned this
man, full of sentiment and deep religious conviction, into an
anti-clerical who began to distinguish between political Catholicism and
Christianity. His _History of the Origin and Establishment of the
Inquisition_ (1854-1855), relating the thirty years' struggle between
King John III. and the Jews--he to establish the tribunal and they to
prevent him--was compiled, as the preface showed, to stem the
Ultramontane reaction, but none the less carried weight because it was a
recital of events with little or no comment or evidence of passion in
its author. Next to these two books his study, _Do Estado das classes
servas na Peninsula desde o VII. ate o XII. seculo_, is Herculano's most
valuable contribution to history. In 1856 he began editing a series of
_Portugalliae monumenta historica_, but personal differences between him
and the keeper of the Archive office, which he was forced to frequent,
caused him to interrupt his historical studies, and on the death of his
friend King Pedro V. he left the Ajuda and retired to a country house
near Santarem.
Disillusioned with men and despairing of the future of his country, he
spent the rest of his life devoted to agricultural pursuits, and rarely
emerged from his retirement; when he did so, it was to fight political
and religious reaction. Once he had defended the monastic orders,
advocating their reform and not their suppression, supported the rural
clergy and idealized the village priest in his _Parocho da Aldeia_,
after the manner of Goldsmith in the _Vicar of Wakefield_.
Unfortunately, however, the brilliant epoch of the alliance of
Liberalism and Catholicism, represented on its literary side by
Chateaubriand and by Lamartine, to whose poetic school Herculano had
belonged, was past, and fanatical attacks and the progress of events
drove this former champion of the Church into conflict with the
ecclesiastical authorities. His protest against the Concordat of the
21st of February 1857 between Portugal and the Holy See, regulating the
Portuguese Padroado in the East, his successful opposition to the entry
of foreign religious orders, and his advocacy of civil marriage, were
the chief landmarks in his battle with Ultra-montanism, and his _Estudos
sobre o Casamento Civil_ were put on the Index. Finally in 1871 he
attacked the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and papal
infallibility, and fell into line with the Old Catholics. In the domain
of letters he remained until his death a veritable pontiff, and an
article or book of his was an event celebrated from one end of Portugal
to the other. The nation continued to look up to him for mental
leadership, but, in his later years, lacking hope himself, he could not
stimulate others or use to advantage the powers conferred upon him. In
politics he remained a constitutional Liberal of the old type, and for
him the people were the middle classes in opposition to the lower, which
he saw to have been the supporters of tyranny in all ages, while he
considered Radicalism to mean a return via anarchy to absolutism.
However, though he conducted a political propaganda in the newspaper
press in his early days, Herculano never exercised much influence in
politics. Grave as most of his writings are, they include a short
description of a crossing from Jersey to Granville, in which he
satirizes English character and customs, and reveals an unexpected sense
of humour. A rare capacity for tedious work, a dour Catonian rectitude,
a passion for truth, pride, irritability at criticism and independence
of character, are the marks of Herculano as a man. He could be broken
but never bent, and his rude frankness accorded with his hard, sombre
face, and alienated men's sympathies though it did not lose him their
respect. His lyrism is vigorous, feeling, austere and almost entirely
subjective and personal, while his pamphlets are distinguished by energy
of conviction, strength of affirmation, and contempt for weaker and more
ignorant opponents. His _History of Portugal_ is a great but incomplete
monument. A lack of imagination and of the philosophic spirit prevented
him from penetrating or drawing characters, but his analytical gift,
joined to persevering toil and honesty of purpose enabled him to present
a faithful account of ascertained facts and a satisfactory and lucid
explanation of political and economic events. His remains lie in a
majestic tomb in the Jeronymos at Belem, near Lisbon, which was raised
by public subscription to the greatest modern historian of Portugal and
of the Peninsula. His more important works have gone through many
editions and his name is still one to conjure with.
AUTHORITIES.--Antonio de Serpa Pimentel, _Alexandre Herculano e o seu
tempo_ (Lisbon, 1881); A. Romero Ortiz, _La Litteratura Portuguesa en
el siglo XIX._ (Madrid, 1869); Moniz Barreto, _Revista de Portugal_
(July 1889). (E. Pr.)
HERCULES (O. Lat. _Hercoles_, _Hercles_), the latinized form of the
mythical Heracles, the chief national hero of Hellas. The name [Greek:
Herakles] ([Greek: Hera], and [Greek: kleos] = glory) is explained as
"renowned through Hera" (i.e. in consequence of her persecution) or "the
glory of Hera" i.e. of Argos. The thoroughly national character of
Heracles is shown by his being the mythical ancestor of the Dorian
dynastic tribe, while revered by Ionian Athens, Lelegian Opus and
Aeolo-Phoenician Thebes, and closely associated with the Achaean heroes
Peleus and Telamon. The Perseid Alcmena, wife of Amphitryon of Tiryns,
was Hercules' mother, Zeus his father. After his father he is often
called Amphitryoniades, and also Alcides, after the Perseid Alcaeus,
father of Amphitryon. His mother and her husband lived at Thebes in
exile as guests of King Creon. By the craft of Hera, his foe through
life, his birth was delayed, and that of Eurystheus, son of Sthenelus of
Argos, hastened, Zeus having in effect sworn that the elder of the two
should rule the realm of Perseus. Hera sent two serpents to destroy the
new-born Hercules, but he strangled them. He was trained in all manly
accomplishments by heroes of the highest renown in each, until in a
transport of anger at a reprimand he slew Linus, his instructor in
music, with the lyre. Thereupon he was sent to tend Amphitryon's oxen,
and at this period slew the lion of Mount Cithaeron. By freeing Thebes
from paying tribute to the Minyans of Orchomenus he won Creon's
daughter, Megara, to wife. Her children by him he killed in a frenzy
induced by Hera. After purification he was sent by the Pythia to serve
Eurystheus. Thus began the cycle of the twelve labours.
1. Wrestling with the Nemean lion.
2. Destruction of the Lernean hydra.
3. Capture of the Arcadian hind (a _stag_ in art).
4. Capture of the boar of Erymanthus, while chasing which he fought
the Centaurs and killed his friends Chiron and Pholus, this homicide
leading to Demeter's institution of _mysteries_.
5. Cleansing of the stables of Augeas.
6. Shooting the Stymphalian birds.
7. Capture of the Cretan bull subsequently slain by Theseus at
Marathon.
8. Capture of the man-eating mares of the Thracian Diomedes.
9. Seizure of the girdle of Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons.
10. Bringing the oxen of Geryones from Erythia in the far west, which
errand involved many adventures in the coast lands of the
Mediterranean, and the setting up of the "Pillars of Hercules" at the
Straits of Gibraltar.
11. Bringing the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides.
12. Carrying Cerberus from Hades to the upper world.
Most of the labours lead to various adventures called [Greek: parerga].
On Hercules' return to Thebes he gave his wife Megara to his friend and
charioteer Iolaus, son of Iphicles, and by beating Eurytus of Oechalia
and his sons in a shooting match won a claim to the hand of his daughter
Iole, whose family, however, except her brother Iphitus, withheld their
consent to the union. Iphitus persuaded Hercules to search for Eurytus'
lost oxen, but was killed by him at Tiryns in a frenzy. He consulted the
Pythia about a cure for the consequent madness, but she declined to
answer him. Whereupon he seized the oracular tripod, and so entered upon
a contest with Apollo, which Zeus stopped by sending a flash of
lightning between the combatants. The Pythia then sent him to serve the
Lydian queen Omphale. He then, with Telamon, Peleus and Theseus, took
Troy. He next helped the gods in the great battle against the giants. He
destroyed sundry sea-monsters, set free the bound Prometheus, took part
in the Argonautic voyage and the Calydonian boar hunt, made war against
Augeas, and against Nestor and the Pylians, and restored Tyndareus to
the sovereignty of Lacedaemon. He sustained many single combats, one
very famous struggle being the wrestling with the Libyan Antaeus, son of
Poseidon and Ge (Earth), who had to be held in the air, as he grew
stronger every time he touched his mother, Earth. Hercules withstood
Ares, Poseidon and Hera, as well as Apollo. The close of his career is
assigned to Aetolia and Trachis. He wrestles with Achelous for Deianeira
("destructive to husband"), daughter of Oeneus, king of Calydon,
vanquishes the river god, and breaks off one of his horns, which as a
horn of plenty is found as an attribute of Hercules in art. Driven from
Calydon for homicide, he goes with Deianeira to Trachis. On the way he
slays the centaur Nessus, who persuades Deianeira that his blood is a
love-charm. From Trachis he wages successful war against the Dryopes and
Lapithae as ally of Aegimius, king of the Dorians, who promised him a
third of his realm, and after his death adopted Hyllus, his son by
Deianeira. Finally Hercules attacks Eurytus, takes Oechalia and carries
off Iola. Thereupon Deianeira, prompted by love and jealousy, sends him
a tunic dipped in the blood of Nessus, and the unsuspecting hero puts it
on just before sacrificing at the headland of Cenaeum in Euboea. (So far
the dithyramb of Bacchylides xv. [xvi.], agrees with Sophocles'
_Trachiniae_ as to the hero's end.) Mad with pain, he seizes Lichas, the
messenger who had brought the fatal garment, and hurls him on the rocks;
and then he wanders in agony to Mount Oeta, where he mounts a pyre,
which, however, no one will kindle. At last Poeas, father of
Philoctetes, takes pity on him, and is rewarded with the gift of his bow
and arrows. The immortal part of Hercules passes to Olympus, where he is
reconciled to Hera and weds her daughter Hebe. This account of the
hero's principal labours, exploits and crimes is derived from the
mythologists Apollodorus and Diodorus, who probably followed the
_Heracleia_ by Peisander of Rhodes as to the twelve labours or that of
Panyasis of Halicarnassus, but sundry variations of order and incident
are found in classical literature.
In one aspect Hercules is clearly a sun-god, being identified,
especially in Cyprus and in Thasos (as Makar), with the Tyrian Melkarth.
The third and twelfth labours may be solar, the horned hind representing
the moon, and the carrying of Cerberus to the upper world an eclipse,
while the last episode of the hero's tragedy is possibly a complete
solar myth developed at Trachis. The winter sun is seen rising over the
Cenaean promontory to toil across to Mount Oeta and disappear over it in
a bank of fiery cloud. But more important and less speculative is the
hero's aspect as a national type or an amalgamation of tribal types of
physical force, of dauntless effort and endurance, of militant
civilization, and of Hellenic enterprise, "stronger than everything
except his own passions," and "at once above and below the noblest type
of man" (Jebb). The fifth labour seems to symbolize some great
improvement in the drainage of Elis. Strenuous devotion to the
deliverance of mankind from dangers and pests is the "virtue" which, in
Prodicus' famous apologue on the _Choice of Hercules_, the hero
preferred to an easy and happy life. Ethically, Hercules symbolizes the
attainment of glory and immortality by toil and suffering.
The Old-Dorian Hercules is represented in three cycles of myth, the
Argive, the Boeotian and the Thessalian; the legends of Arcadia,
Aetolia, Lydia, &c., and Italy are either local or symbolical and
comparatively late. The fatality by which Hercules kills so many friends
as well as foes recalls the destroying Apollo; while his career
frequently illustrates the Delphic views on blood-guiltiness and
expiation. As Apollo's champion Hercules is Daphnephoros, and fights
Cycnus and Amyntor to keep open the sacred way from Tempe to Delphi. As
the Dorian tutelar he aids Tyndareus and Aegimius. As patron of maritime
adventure ([Greek: hegemonios]) he struggles with Nereus and Triton,
slays Eryx and Busiris, and perhaps captures the wild horses and oxen,
which may stand for pirates. As a god of athletes he is often a wrestler
([Greek: palaimon]), and founds the Olympian games. In comedy and
occasionally in myths he is depicted as voracious ([Greek: bouphagos]).
He is also represented as the companion of Dionysus, especially in Asia
Minor. The "Resting" ([Greek: anapauomenos]) Hercules is, as at
Thermopylae and near Himera, the natural tutelar of hot springs in
conjunction with his protectress Athena, who is usually depicted
attending him on ancient vases. The glorified Hercules was worshipped
both as a god and a hero. In the Attic deme Melita he was invoked as
[Greek: alexikakos] ("Helper in ills"), at Olympia as [Greek:
kallinikos] ("Nobly-victorious"), in the rustic worship of the Oetaeans
as [Greek: kornopion] ([Greek: kornopes], "locusts"), by the Erythraeans
of Ionia as [Greek: ipoktonos] ("Canker-worm-slayer"). He was [Greek:
soter] ("Saviour"), i.e. a protector of voyagers, at Thasos and Smyrna.
Games in his honour were held at Thebes and Marathon and annual
festivals in every deme of Attica, in Sicyon and Agyrium (Sicily). His
guardian goddess was Athena (Homer, _Il._ viii. 638; Bacchylides v. 91
f.). In early poetry, as often in art, he is an archer, afterwards a
club-wielder and fully-armed warrior. In early art the adult Hercules is
bearded, but not long-haired. Later he is sometimes youthful and
beardless, always with short curly hair and thick neck, the lower part
of the brow prominent. A lion's skin is generally worn or carried.
Lysippus worked out the finest type of sculptured Hercules, of which the
Farnese by Glycon is a grand specimen. The infantine struggle with
serpents was a favourite subject.
Quite distinct was the Idaean Hercules, a Cretan Dactyl connected with
the cult of Rhea or Cybele. The Greeks recognized Hercules in an
Egyptian deity _Chons_ and an Indian _Dorsanes_, not to mention
personages of other mythologies.
Hercules is supposed to have visited Italy on his return from Erythia,
when he slew Cacus, son of Vulcan, the giant of the Aventine mount of
Rome, who had stolen his oxen. To this victory was assigned the founding
of the _Ara maxima_ by Evander. His worship, introduced from the Greek
colonies in Etruria and in the south of Italy, seems to have been
established in Rome from the earliest times, as two old Patrician
_gentes_ were associated with his cult and the Fabii claimed him as
their ancestor. The tithes vowed to him by Romans and men of Sora and
Reate, for safety on journeys and voyages, furnished sacrifices and (in
Rome) public entertainment (_polluctum_). Tibur was a special seat of
his cult. In Rome he was patron of gladiators, as of athletes in Greece.
With respect to the Roman relations of the hero, it is manifest that the
native myths of Recaranus, or Sancus, or Dius Fidius, were transferred
to the Hellenic Hercules. (C. A. M. F.)
See L. Preller, _Griechische Mythologie_ (4th ed., Berlin, 1900); W.
H. Roscher, _Ausfuhrliches Lexikon der griechischen und romischen
Mythologie_ (1884); Sir R. C. Jebb, _Trachiniae_ of Sophocles
(Introd.), (1892); Ch. Daremberg and E. Saglio, _Dictionnaire des
antiquites grecques et romaines_; Breal, _Hercule et Cacus_, 1863; J.
G. Winter, _Myth of Hercules at Rome_ (New York, 1910).
In the article GREEK ART, fig. 16 represents Heracles wrestling with
the river-god Achelous; fig. 20 (from a small pediment, possibly of a
shrine of the hero) the slaying of the Hydra; fig. 35 Heracles holding
up the sky on a cushion.
Hercules was a favourite figure in French medieval literature. In the
romance of Alexander the tent of the hero is decorated with incidents
from his adventures. In the prose romance _Les Prouesses et vaillances
du preux Hercule_ (Paris, 1500), the hero's labours are represented as
having been performed in honour of a Boeotian princess; Pluto is a
king dwelling in a dismal castle; the Fates are duennas watching
Proserpine; the entrance to Pluto's castle is watched by the giant
Cerberus. Hercules conquers Spain and takes Merida from Geryon. The
book is translated into English as _Hercules of Greece_ (n. d.).
Fragments of a French poem on the subject will be found in the
_Bulletin de la soc. des anciens textes francais_ (1877). Don Enrique
de Villena took from _Les Prouesses_ his prose _Los Doze Trabajos de
Hercules_ (Zamora, 1483 and 1499), and Fernandez de Heredia wrote
_Trabajos y afanes de Hercules_ (Madrid, 1682), which belies its
title, being a collection of adages and allegories. _Le Fatiche
d'Ercole_ (1475) is a romance in poetic prose by Pietro Bassi, and the
_Dodeci Travagli di Ercole_ (1544) a poem by J. Perillos.
HERCULES, in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere,
mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.)
and catalogued by Ptolemy (29 stars) and Tycho Brahe (28 stars).
Represented by a man kneeling, this constellation was first known as
"the man on his knees," and was afterwards called Cetheus, Theseus and
Hercules by the ancient Greeks. Interesting objects in this
constellation are: [alpha] _Herculis_, a fine coloured double star,
composed of an orange star of magnitude 2(1/2), and a blue star of
magnitude 6; [zeta] _Herculis_, a binary star, discovered by Sir William
Herschel in 1782; one component is a yellow star of the third magnitude,
the other a bluish, which appears to vary from red to blue, of magnitude
6; g and u _Herculis_, irregularly variable stars; and the cluster _M.
13 Herculis_, the finest globular cluster in the northern hemisphere,
containing at least 5000 stars and of the 1000 determined only 2 are
variable.
HERD (a word common to Teutonic languages; the O. Eng. form was _heord_;
cf. Ger. _Herde_, Swed. and Dan. _hjord_; the Sans. _ca'rdhas_, which
shows the pre-Teutonic form, means a troop), a number of animals of one
kind driven or fed together, usually applied to cattle as "flock" is to
sheep, but used also of whales, porpoises, &c., and of birds, as swans,
cranes and curlews. A "herd-book" is a book containing the pedigree and
other information of any breed of cattle or pigs, like the "flock-book"
for sheep or "stud-book" for horses. Formerly the word "herdwick" was
applied to the pasture ground under the care of a shepherd, and it is
now used of a special hardy breed of sheep in Cumberland and
Westmorland. The word "herd" is also applied in a disparaging sense to a
company of people, a mob or rabble, as "the vulgar herd." As the name
for a keeper of a herd or flock of domestic animals, the herdsman, it is
usually qualified to denote the kind of animal under his protection, as
swine-herd, shepherd, &c., but in Ireland, Scotland and the north of
England, "herd" alone is commonly used.