Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

HERCULES AND HERCULUS. 339
the father. In the lowing of the imprisoned cattle, as in CHAP,
the dark speech of the Sphinx, we have the rambling of the
thunder before the rain bursts from its confinement in the
clouds. The hurling down of the rock by Hercules is the
shattering of the castle of Vritra by the spear of Indra. No
sooner is the blow struck than the horrible abyss of his
dwelling is lighted up by the flames which burst from the
monster's mouth, in other words, the darkness of the storm-
cloud is pierced by the lightning. Then follows the death
of the monster, to whose carcase the poet applies an epithet
which links this myth with the legend of the Chimaira slain
by Bellerophon and thus connects it again with that of
Yritra. 1
But we have here to meet the difficulty noticed by Me- Sancus or
buhr. Whatever is to be said of the name Cacus, it is clear
that the name Hercules cannot have been contained in the
original Latin story. There was indeed a Latin god Hercu-
lus, but, like the Lares worshipped by the Arval Brotherhood,
he was strictly a god of the country and the guardian of fences
and land-marks. He is known as the Rustic, Domestic, or
Genial Hercules, a name which points to an old verb hercere,
herciscere, akin to arcere, and the Greek sipysiv ; but this
very fact precludes the idea that the Latin Hercules, of
which the old form Herclus, Herculus, survives in the exclamation
Mehercule, Mehercle, is identical with the Greek
Herakles. 2 But the god who overcame Cacus must have
1
' Villosa setis Pectora semiferi.' the Greek sense of the word. ' L'esprit
Mn. viii. 267. a la fois net et abstrait du Pomain ne
2 In this case the name, as M. Bival lui a pas permis de creer des etres
remarks, should begin with s, as in the interraediaires entre les dieux et les
change of the aspirated Greek numeral homines. Sans doute, il cormait, des
into the Latin sex, septem, of eiro/xai genies d'un ordre plus ou moins reh ve
into sequor, &c. Hercule et Cacus, 52.
M. Breal further remarks (and great
stress must be laid upon his words)
qui president aux actions humaines et interviennent
dans la vie; il sacrifie aux
Manes de ses anceta s qui apres k-ur
that Herakles, like Perseus, Theseus,
Achilleus, and the rest, is in the Greek
mythology strictly not a god. Though
tlir son of Zeus himself, he is doomed to
toil, weariness, and death ; and the only
mort ont pris place parmi les dieux
mais des demi-dieux comme Tin
Persee, Heracles, tenant a la fois du
ciel et de la terre, on n'en voit pas dans
la mythologie Latine. La transforma-
offset to his short career on earth is the tion de Romulus en dieu Quirinus est
assurance that when his journey here is une tentative tardive et mal reussie, que
done he shall enter the halls of Olympos, Pome ue renouvela pas. jusqu'au ti mps
there to live in everlasting youth. But ou elle fit de Cesar mort un demiit
is most doubtful whether the Latin dieu.'—P. 51.
mythology knew anything of heroes in
z 2
X '
E ^aranus.