Hercules in ancient Rome

Hercules of the Forum Boarium
For an overview of the hero in classical mythology, see Hercules.
For the Greek divine hero from which the Roman Hercules developed, see Heracles.

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Hercules was venerated as a divinized hero and incorporated into the legends of Rome's founding. The Romans adapted Greek myths and the iconography of Heracles into their own literature and art, but the hero developed distinctly Roman characteristics. Some Greek sources as early as the 6th and 5th century BC gave Heracles Roman connections during his famous labors.[1]

Dionysius of Halicarnassus places Hercules among divine figures honored at Rome "whose souls after they had left their mortal bodies are said to have ascended to Heaven and to have obtained the same honors as the gods".[2] His apotheosis thus served as one model during the Empire for the concept of the deified emperor.[3]

  1. ^ T.P. Wiseman, Remus: A Roman Myth (Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 39, 41.
  2. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 7.72.13-14, describing the images of deities displayed in the ceremonial procession at Rome known as the pompa circensis, as cited by Jörg Rüpke, Religion in Republican Rome: Rationalization and Ritual Change (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012, p. 41.)
  3. ^ Peter Herz, "Emperors: Caring for the Empire and Their Successors," in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 315.