Star Lore Of All Ages/Hercules

by William Tyler Olcott

Hercules

The Kneeler

Hercules

Hercules
The Kneeler

An Image none knows certainly to name
Nor what he labours for.
Aratos. 

If a variety of titles are indicative of the antiquity of a constellation, and its importance in the minds of the ancients, the constellation Hercules may well be considered one of the oldest and most prominent of the early star groups.

The origin of this constellation is shrouded in mystery. It was not known to Greek astronomers by the name "Hercules," but as "Engonasi" or "Engonasin," meaning the "Kneeling One." They also knew it as "the Phantom," and "the Man upon his Knees." Aratos refers to the figure as "the inexplicable Image." Manilius also alludes to the mystery attached to the title of this star group. Creech thus translates the passage:

Conscious of his shame
A constellation kneels without a name.

As Hercules is usually represented,

... his right foot
Is planted on the twisting serpent's [Draco's] head.

In his right hand he brandishes a club, and in his left he holds a branch, in which serpents are entangled. Over his shoulders is thrown a lion's skin.

Allen tells us that some modern students of Euphratean mythology associate Hercules and Draco with the Sun-god Nimrod, and the dragon Tiamat slain by him. This

Photo by Brogi
Farnese Hercules
National Museum, Naples

tradition probably served as the foundation of the classical myth concerning Hercules and the Lernæan Hydra.

Burritt tells us that this constellation was intended to immortalise the name of Hercules the Theban, the son of Jupiter and Alcmena. By the poets Hercules was often referred to as "Alcides," possibly derived from Alcæus, the name of his grandfather.

Even in his infancy, Hercules displayed great courage and strength, for it is related that he rose in his cradle and strangled the serpents sent by Juno to destroy him. He was educated by the centaur Chiron, and when eighteen years of age commenced a career that was destined to immortalise him. Hercules was subjected to the will of Eurystheus, and at his behest performed the wonderful feats of strength and agility that have been universally known as "the twelve labours of Hercules." In addition to the performance of these arduous duties he found time to accompany the Argonauts to Colchis, assisted the gods in their war against the giants, conquered Laomedon, and pillaged Troy. Unfortunately the hero was subject to fits of insanity, and when these seized him performed many rash deeds. One of these was his attempt to carry off the sacred tripod from Apollo's temple at Delphi. As a punishment for his misdeeds he was sold as a slave to Queen Omphale of Lydia, and it is said was often observed spinning with the Queen's maidens in the women's hall subsequently he married the Queen.

He re-established his friend Tyndarus on the throne of Sparta, and for his second wife married Dejanira, a sister of Meleager, and took up his abode in the court of Ceyx, King of Trachina. As Hercules was setting out on some journey his wife unwittingly presented him with a cloak which she had received from the centaur Nessus, whom Hercules had slain for insulting Dejanira. This garment proved to be poisoned. Hercules was infected, and feeling his end approaching, resolved to die a death worthy of a famous hero. He erected a great funeral pyre on Mt. Œta. Photo by Brogi
The Infant Hercules Strangling the Serpents at Pompeii Calmly taking his place upon it, the torch was applied, and he suffered the death by fire resignedly. After his body was consumed, the ancient poets say, he was carried up to heaven in a chariot drawn by four horses:

...'Almighty Jove
In his swift car his honour'd offspring drove;
High o'er the hollow clouds the coursers fly,
And lodge the hero in the starry sky.
Ovid. 

The admiring gods gave him Hebe, the cup-bearer of the immortals, as his wife.

Hercules, because of his great physical prowess and his success in accomplishing well-nigh impossible feats, was one of the most popular of the figures of mythology. The Fabian gens of Rome, a race of men superior in physical and intellectual attainments, claimed that they were descended from this paragon of fearlessness.

The twelve labours of Hercules are supposed to have an astronomical significance, and to refer to the sun's passage through the zodiacal signs. "Beginning with the summer solstice a series of coincidences will be noted which makes impressive this ancient belief. For example the first sign through which the sun passes is Leo, and Hercules' first labour was the slaying of the Nemean lion. In the second month," says Anthon, "the sun enters the sign Virgo, when the constellation of the Hydra sets, and in his second labour Hercules destroyed the Lernæan Hydra. In the third month the sun enters the sign Libra, when the constellation of the Centaur rises, and in his third labour Hercules encountered and slew the centaur. These comparisons are traceable throughout the year and add distinct testimony to the ingenuity of the ancients." For a more detailed account of this matter the reader is referred to Anthon's Classical Dictionary.

There is certainly a significance in the location of this figure of a giant trampling on a serpent, for he is placed head to head with the giant Ophiuchus, who is represented as holding a writhing serpent in his grasp. Hercules has been thought to represent the first Adam, beguiled by the serpent, and condemned to a life of toil, while Ophiuchus is supposed to be the second Adam, triumphant over the serpent.

The relations of mankind and serpentkind dwelt on in the Bible, and figuring so prominently in the sky figures, seems to indicate the antiquity of these constellations, and shows clearly that there was a deliberate plan carried out in designing them. The constellation Hercules is without doubt linked with the earliest records of the history of man.

In Phœnicia, the constellation Hercules is said to have represented the god Melkarth, and was an object of worship, Melkarth being regarded as a Saviour by the Phœnicians. It has also been identified with Ixion, Prometheus Bound, and Theseus.

Brown holds that the constellation is Euphratean in origin, and was known originally as "Lugal," or "Sarru," the King.

It is significant that we always find Hercules represented as kneeling, an incongruous position for a hero or god engaged in trampling on a great serpent. There appears no satisfactory explanation for this attitude. Blake says that there is a story related by Æschylus about the stones in the Champ des Cailloux, between Marseilles and the embouchure of the Rhone, to the effect that Hercules being amongst the Ligurians, found it necessary to fight with them, and looked about in vain for some missiles to hurl at his foes. Jupiter, touched by the danger of his son, sent a rain of round stones with which Hercules repulsed his enemies. The Engonasis is thus considered by some to represent the giant bending down to pick up the missiles.

In the modern representations of the figure, Hercules swings a club in one hand, and holds fast a branch, or the three-headed dog Cerberus, in the other, so that there does not seem much reason or opportunity for him to pick up Photo by Neurdein
Dejanira and Nessus
Painting by Lagrenée. Museum of the Louvre, Paris stones. Posidonius sagely remarks that it was a pity Jupiter did not rain the stones on the Ligurians in the first place, and save Hercules the trouble of picking them up.

Bayer represents Hercules as holding in addition to his club an apple branch, possibly to indicate his connection with the myth of the Golden Apples of the Garden of Hesperides. For his eleventh labour he was ordered to procure them.

Those who claim that Hercules represents Adam certainly have much to substantiate their theory, for associated with the figure we find a serpent, a garden, and the apple.

"In latitude 40° north, 4667 b.c.," says Plunket, "Hercules culminated gloriously on the northern meridian at midnight of the spring equinox. Never since that date has he held so commanding a position in the sky." At the present time and in our latitude Hercules will ever rise reversed, and through the summer and autumn months his kneeling figure is always to be seen hanging downwards in the sky in anything but a dignified or commanding attitude. We may readily suppose that those who beheld this grand and conquering figure considered that it typified the ever increasing triumph at that season of the year of the power of light over darkness.

The Greek name "Herakles," for which there appears no Aryan derivation, is a rendering of the Phœnician "Harekhal" (the traveller), the Latin Hercules. Herakles was represented on coins of Cyzicus, about 500–450 b.c. It is perhaps the most familiar coin type throughout Hellas.

According to Maunder, the first suggestion that this kneeler was the great national Hellenic deity seems to have been due to Panyasis, the uncle of the great historian Herodotus. In a poem on the subject of the great national hero, in order to do him the greater honour, he sought to identify him with the unnamed wrestler of the constellation. The fact that, despite this effort, the identification had entirely failed of adoption two hundred years later, is as near positive proof as we can get, not merely that it was not known whom the constellation represented, but that it was known that it did not represent Hercules.

The faint stars in this region of the sky, according to the ancients, represented a meadow, where a shepherd pastured his flock, and the long rows of stars in Hercules and Serpens are fences protecting the sheep from the hyenas and jackals that are supposed to be prowling about. The other side of the meadow is protected by the shepherd's two dogs, the stars α Herculis and α Ophiuchi representing the dogs. To the early Christians Hercules represented the Three Wise Men of the East, and more appropriately Samson.

α Herculis, or Ras Algethi, the Arab name, meaning the head of the kneeler, is a beautiful double star, with a fine contrast of colours in its orange red and bluish green stars. Its variability was discovered by Sir Wm. Herschel in 1795. It is one of the most noted of Secchi's third type with banded spectra. The Chinese called it "the Emperor's Throne."

λ Herculis is noteworthy as marking the approximate objective point, according to Sir Wm. Herschel, of our solar system, the so-called Apex of the Sun's Way, whither we are speeding at the rate of from 7½ to 11½ miles a second. More recent observations show that the goal of our system is situated in the vicinity of the star Vega in the constellation Lyra.

Hercules is remarkable for containing a wonderful star cluster, situated between the stars ξ and η. Halley discovered it in 1714, and thought it a nebula, and "Halley's nebula" was its early title. It can only be resolved in large telescopes. Harvard observers have counted as many as 724 stars outside of the nucleus in this wonderful cluster. It is visible to the naked eye on a clear night, and is considered the finest cluster in the northern heavens, although in a small telescope it does not compare in beauty with the beautiful clusters in Perseus, Gemini, and Sagittarius.^[1]

Herschel estimated that it contained 14,000 stars. In a recent photograph of this cluster 50,000 stars are shown in an area of the sky which would be entirely covered by the full moon.

Photographs of this swarm of suns fail to do it justice because of its density. In order to give some idea of the wonderful structure of such a cluster a photograph of the globular cluster ω Centauri in the Southern Hemisphere is here shown. It is estimated that this cluster contains in the neighborhood of ten thousand stars, and within its confines Professor Bailey discovered 128 variable stars. This remarkable photograph was taken at the Southern Station of the Harvard College Observatory at Arequipa, Peru, and the writer is indebted to Prof. E. C. Pickering, Director of the Harvard College Observatory for the print here reproduced.

The stars π, σ, ξ, η Herculis form a figure not unlike a keystone, which serves many as a means of identifying the constellation.

Photo by Anderson
Hercules and Hesperides
Villa Albani, Rome

1. Concerning this wonderful object Serviss writes: "You must go to the southern hemisphere to find its match anywhere in the sky. It is a ball of suns. Now you need a telescope. You must have one. You must either buy or borrow it, or you must pay a visit to an observatory, for this is a thing that no intelligent human being in these days can afford not to see. Can it be possible that any man can know that fifteen thousand suns are to be seen, burning in a compact globular cluster, and not long to regard them with his own eyes?"