He was a son of Zeus, or according to others, of Kephalos and Prokris. ATYMNIOS (Atymnius) A lord of the island of Krete (Greek Aegean). He was a son of Zeus and Kassiopeia. DARDANOS (Dardanus) The first king of the Troad (Asia Minor). He was a son of Zeus and Elektra, born on the island of Samothrake. Relevant Facts of His Life To Know Who Hercules Is The name Hercules is derived from the Etruscan name Hercules. It means ‘Glory of Hera’, which is ironic because Hera. Hercules had two stepfathers. The first was Host and the second was Radamanthes, another of Zeus’ sons. Hercules is depicted as a. Zeus (known in Roman as Jupiter) is the king of the Olympian Gods and is father to many of the gods and brother to Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter and Hestia. He is also the father of the legendary hero Hercules. He tells his son Hercules that to join the gods, he must become a hero, which he defines as something more than being famous. Watch the 1964 Italian movie Son of Hercules in the Land of Darkness aka Hercules the Invincible directed by Alvaro Mancori and Lewis Mann. The muscular hero.
- Hercules The Son Of Zeus Film
- Hercules - The Son Of Zeus Scene
- Disney Hercules Zeus Wiki
- Hercules The Son Of Zeus
In the myths, Hercules was the sonof Jupiter (Zeus Pater = Jupiter), the supreme god of Olympus, and of Alcmene,a mortal married woman. Juno (Hera, to the Greeks) the wife of Jupiter,hated Hercules because he was the most famous and successful of Jupiter'snumerous illegitimate progeny. Being a goddess, she could, of course, seethe future, so she delayed his birth and then, when he was finally born,sent two large snakes to kill him as he lay in his crib. But, even as achild, Hercules had such strength that he strangled the snakes, one ineach hand. That image of the infant Hercules strangling the snakes wasextremely popular in early ancient Rome, because Rome saw itself as a precociousinfant state conquering dangerous local enemies. The fact that in someway this might be done in spite of the will of the gods added an interestingfrisson, which Rome's jaded upper classes might appreciate.
Despite Juno's early efforts, Herculeslived to become the famous hero that he still is today. She eventuallydid cause him a lot of grief: she drove him mad, and in one of his manicfits, he murdered his wife and children, thinking he was slaying his cousinand rival, Eurystheus, and his family -- which would, of course, have beenexemplary heroic behavior in the moral structure of his day. (Because ofthis incident and others, Hercules' would nowadays probably be diagnosedas having 'bipolar disorder', formerly called manic-depression. The closerelationship of 'heroism', in the ancient sense, to madness was clearlyone of the lessons the ancient mythographers were trying to convey.) Find an online casino.
To expiate his crime of familiacide,Hercules submitted himself to his Eurystheus, his enemy and the King ofMycenae. Eurystheus required him to perform a series of nearly impossibletasks known in classical mythology as the 'Twelve Labors of Hercules'.To re-acquire mental balance, Hercules had to:
1. Kill the Nemean Lion
2. Destroy the Lernean Hydra
3. Capture the Cerynean Hind (astag with golden horns)
4. Capture the wild boar of Erymanthus
5. Clean the Augean stables in asingle day
Hercules The Son Of Zeus Film
6. Drive away the Stymphalian birds
7. Capture the Cretan bull
8. Capture the man-eating horsesof Diomedes, King of Thrace
9. Bring back the girdle of Hippolyta,Queen of the Amazons
10. Capture the cattle of Geryon,a monster who had three
bodies joined at the waist
11. Bring back the Golden Applesof the Hesperides
12. Capture Cerberus, the three-headeddog of Hades
It was in the aftermath of labornumber ten that Hercules showed up in Rome. Exhausted from slaying Geryon,Hercules drives the captured cattle across the Tiber River and settlesdown for a nap. While he's asleep, the local bad guy, Cacus, a fire-breathingson of Vulcan, steals four bulls and four cows from Hercules' newly liberatedherd, and drags them by their tails into his cave. This backwardness ispurposeful: knowing that Herc has more brawn than brains, Cacus fools Herculesby leaving a backward trail. Initially, the ruse works, but one of thebulls outside bellows for his missing truelove and she moos a responsefrom inside the cave. Hercules slowly figures out the truth and then goesin after Cacus and the rustled cattle. After a struggle, in which Herculesis 'half singed, half stifled' by Cacus' flames and fumes, Hercules throttleshim, ties his arms and legs in knots and plucks out his eyes. And thatwas the end of Cacus.
All of this happened, of course,before Aeneas and his kin arrive in Latium in about 1200 BC. Eurystheus,who was Hercules' taskmaster, was a semi-mythological Mycenaen king, andthe Mycenaen bronze age culture was already pretty well spent by the timeof Aeneas' voyage. When Aeneas finally reaches Italy, he finds a pre-existingcoastal temple celebrating the local exploits of Hercules. Evander, a Greekcolonial king who lived in the area and who had entertained Hercules, hadraised another altar and a statue of Hercules. According to some versionsof the myths, Evander was still alive when Aeneas arrived and was eventuallyan ally of Aeneas.
The early presence of Hercules'in Rome was thus a staple of local mythology from Rome's earliest days,and Evander's early temple in his honor was in the Forum Boarium -- anobvious association of the cattle legend with Rome's cattle market, whichis what 'Forum Boarium' means. Although literary descriptions of the locationof the earliest small altar in the market are extremely precise, no remainshave ever been found, and, similarly, no remains of Evander's statue ofHercules have been found: both were reportedly destroyed in Nero's fireand the 'urban renewal' that followed. Also in the Forum Boarium, thereare remains under the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin (where the 'Mouthof Truth' stands) of a later temple dubiously identified as dedicated toHercules. Across the street is the round temple, long mis-identified asbelonging to Vesta, which, although often modified and rebuilt and perhapseven moved, is now thought to be a temple of Hercules Victor. The new glasswindows and doors installed in 2000 to protect interior paintings finallymake a reality of the myth that dogs and flies wouldn't enter the templebecause Hercules left his famous club leaning against the doorframe.
Strange parallels: One of the mostcommon titles of Hercules was 'Son of God', by virtue of his having Jupiteras father and an earthly mother. He was viewed as a savior of the oppressed,but his people, the Heracleidae, were persecuted after his death. Legendheld that he had raised two people from the dead. He suffered an excruciatingdeath, descended into Hades for three days, and returned after his deathto show his closest friends that he was still alive and using his woundsto prove his identity, before ascending bodily into heaven. Hercules wasdeeply admired among the people, a fact not ignored by early Christianleaders and writers. Some historians argue that the image of Hercules stillexists (although much softened) in the familiar face of Jesus portrayedas a white European with straight hair. Helenistic Christians replacedthe original image of Jesus with the darker complexion and tightly curledhair common among 1st century Palestinian Jews. But the similarities werenot restricted to Hercules and Jesus: virgin births, re-animations of thedead, sacrificial deaths, mystical journeys, resurrections, etc., werealso among the grab-bag characteristics of Romulus, Mithras, Zoroaster,Isis, and other Mediterranean 'founders'
Delusions: The iconography of Herculesfeatures the lion skin (the hide of his first-labor adversary) and theoaken club, which was Hercules' weapon of choice. If you see a statue inRome that has both of these 'attributes' you are looking at Hercules --or maybe at Commodus or at Mussolini or at any one of a number of historicaldelusional Hercules pretenders. They just keep popping up, even after allthese centuries.
Internet Links:
Hercules - The Son Of Zeus Scene
The Labors of Hercules -- About.com:http://ancienthistory.about.com/homework/ancienthistory/library/weekly/aa032701a.htm
Disney Hercules Zeus Wiki
Herakles in Rome: http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/me/rome.html
Hercules and Cacus, from Vergil'sAeneid: http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.8.viii.html
Hercules The Son Of Zeus
The Herakles Project from UPenn'sForvmAntiqvvm: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~ekondrat/heraklesmain.html
Heracles/Hercule from Le Grenierde Clio: http://www.chez.com/clio/mytho/heracles.htm