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Hercules is the Roman name for the mythical Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus, the Roman Jupiter, and the mortal Alcmena. Early Roman sources suggest that the imported Greek hero supplanted a mythic Italic shepherd called "Recaranus" or "Garanus", famous for his strength, who dedicated the Ara Maxima that became associated with the earliest Roman cult of Hercules.
Etymology • Hercules's Latin name is not directly borrowed from Greek Heracles but is a modification of the Etruscan name Hercle, which derives from the Greek name via syncope, Heracles translates to "The Glory of Hera". An oath invoking Hercules (Hercle! or Mehercle!) was a common Interjection in Classical Latin.
Myths of Hercules • The Romans adopted the myths of Heracles including his twelve labors, essentially unchanged, but added anecdotal detail of their own, some of it linking Hercules with the geography of the Western Mediterranean. • In Roman mythology, Acca Larentia was Hercules's mistress. She was married to Tarutius, a wealthy merchant. When he died, she gave his money to charity. In another version, she was the wife of Faustulus. • In Aeneid 8.195ff., Vergilius relates a myth about Hercules' defeating the monstrous Cacus, who lived in a cave under the Palatine Hill (one of the eventual Seven Hills of Rome).
Roman cult • In their popular culture the Romans adopted the Etruscan Hercle, a hero-figure that had already been influenced by Greek culture — especially in the conventions of his representation — but who had experienced an autonomous development. Etruscan Hercle appears in the elaborate illustrative engraved designs on the backs of Etruscan bronze mirrors made during the fourth century BC, which were favoured grave goods. Their specific literary references have been lost, with the loss of all Etruscan literature, but the image of the mature, bearded Hercules suckling at Uni/Juno's breast, engraved on a mirror back from Volterra, is distinctively Etruscan. This Hercle/Hercules — the Hercle of the interjection "Mehercle!" — remained a popular cult figure in the Roman legions.
Death of Hercules • Hercules was married to Deianeira. Long after their marriage, one day the centaur Nessus offered to ferry them across a wide river that they had to cross. Nessus set off with Deianeira first, but tried to abduct her. When Hercules realized the centaur's real intention, Hercules chased after him and shot him with a poisoned arrow. Before he died Nessus told Deianeira to take some of his blood and treasure it: if she ever thought Hercules was being unfaithful, the centaur told her, the blood would restore his love. Deianeira kept the phial of blood. Many years later after that incident she heard rumours that Hercules has fallen in love with another woman. She smeared some of the blood on his shirt and sent it to Hercules. When he put on the shirt, the blood still poisoned from the same arrow used by Hercules, burnt into his flesh and eventually he died in pain.
