Joined May 2016
12,115 Posts | 4,890+
Portugal
Was Hercules real?
- Thread starter Christopher The Great
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Joined Jun 2014
8,371 Posts | 1,168+
New Delhi, India
No, it is not Indian, it is from Pontic Steppes. Indo-Aryans were just migrants to India (If that soothes your nerves
). Also do you know why ancient Romans had a ten-month year? December. Jan. and Feb. were inserted only in 700 BC. "In the oldest Roman calendar, which the Romans believed to have been instituted by their legendary founder Romulus, the first month was Martius ("Mars' month", March), and the calendar year had only ten months (304 days). Ianuarius and Februarius were supposed to have been added by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, originally at the end of the year." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ianuarius
Joined Jan 2015
4,856 Posts | 2,895+
MD, USA
No, it is not Indian, it is from Pontic Steppes. Indo-Aryans were just migrants to India (If that soothes your nerves
Fair enough! I was already frothing and couldn't slow down. BUT the question remains, couldn't the Greeks have invented any stories for themselves?
Matthew
Joined Aug 2014
10,465 Posts | 4,802+
Australia
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Herodotus reminds me of an old guy who comes back from holidays and wants to tell everyone about his trip. He'll exaggerate and get some things wrong and go off on silly tangents but it isn't intended to be malicious or deliberately deceptive. If you want to confirm something in particular that Herodotus said then you do the same thing as you would with any other source - you use other sources to corroborate it.
Joined Jun 2014
8,371 Posts | 1,168+
New Delhi, India
Sure, Greek also must have invented many stories, a well as must also have modified old IE myths. All people do that, we too did that. That is why the differences.
Joined Jul 2014
787 Posts | 34+
Messinia
We know for absolute certainty that the Greeks fully believed Hercules was real, right?
Joined Jan 2015
4,856 Posts | 2,895+
MD, USA
Nope. For starters, we know very few specific details with absolute certainty--I know, it sucks, but get used to "pretty sure" being good enough!
Beyond that, there were certainly Greeks who dismissed their own mythology as mythology. And others who were very devout and prayed and sacrificed to the gods and did all the proper rituals, but when asked if they REALLY thought Zeus came down to earth in various forms to chase ....., would sheepishly admit, "Well, maybe not..." If they thought about it more, they might come up with the very same possibilities we have here, that the original Herakles might have been a superlative man whose stories were exaggerated into legend, that sort of thing.
Matthew
Joined Jul 2014
787 Posts | 34+
Messinia
Note that Pharaoh Osorkon (either the III or the IV) is said to have been known by the Greeks as 'Heracles' in Manetho's king list. It seems to be taken for granted that he wasn't the Heracles of the Greek myths, due to the pervasive idea that the stories of Heracles and the Trojan War and all that are set around the 1200s B.C.E. But there's a lot of evidence that the Trojan War actually happened closer to c. 700 B.C.E. If that's the case, then Osorkon III, who lived in the early-eighth century, could well have been the Heracles of the Greek myths. He was said to have fought Busiris of Egypt, and Busiris was supposed to have been the brother of 'Pygmalion of Cyprus'. There was a historical king of Tyre in the late-ninth, early-eighth century B.C.E. who had a degree of power over Cyprus. So he could have been the Pygmalion of the legend.
Joined Feb 2017
1,811 Posts | 1,715+
Minneapolis
Thales, the great pre-socratic philosopher of the 6th century BC, essentially was an atheist. Xenophanes was a poet who flourished at about the same time and was famous for making fun of Homer and thinking the gods were just human projections ...
I think belief in the gods or various heroes would have varied highly in terms of how literally real people thought they were. Clearly, at least among the literate classes, many would have thought them to be essentially make believe. Some, like Xenophanes would have made fun of them. Others probably were pragmatic about it and followed the rituals as a matter of custom.
IMO, it's a mistake to think there was some credulous era where all people in a society wholly believed in the literal truth of their mythologies. Jennifer Michael Hecht makes this case wonderfully in her book, "Doubt: A History."
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Which Hercules?
There was Hercules the Dactyl and three other Hercules that lived after him.
At the time of Kronos the Idaean Dactyls lived around Mt Ida in Crete. One of the Dactyls was named Herakles and he may have been referred to on the Phaistos Disc which was found at Phaistos in Crete near Mt Ida and dates to about 1700 BC. According to the decipherment and translation by J. Faucounau's the Phaistos Disc refers to the funeral of a Greek king called Arion and was written in proto-Ionic dialect. The name Arion is Arik in Hebrew which is the same as the name Arioch in the Old Testament, which in Elamite was written Eri-Aku giving the name Her-ak-les.
Hercules who was a Greek king who also ruled over Pontus and Phoenicia. He was the biblical Arioch or Erichthonius the king of Troy and Pontus c.1400 BC. (The Hebrew word Arioch means Lion Like and the Lion was Herakles symbol.)
Arioch was a Greek king who ruled Pontus. The bible calls his domain Ellaser which is HELLAS. A Babylonian inscription bearing his name calls it Pontus.
Syria-Palestine was an Indo-European land for thousands of years before Ramses III repelled the sea peoples who were Greeks. Even the Hyksos were Greeks since their name derives from the same root as Ekwesh which is the Egyptian name for the Achaean Greeks.
Ekwesh (Egyptian) = Eyakiwash = Ayahiwash = Ayahaewah (Philistine = Hebrew sea god YHWH ) = Akhaiwoi (Homeric) = Ahhiyawa (Hittitite) = Aegialea (Herodotus) = Achaean-ous (Modern Greek) = Ochean-ous (Modern Greek) = Sea Peoples (Translation of the Egyptian term Ekwesh).
Aegialea was translated by Herodotus as meaning Land by the Sea and is the root of the name Aigaion or Aegean. Aigaion is the root of the Greek word Agion which is the root of the Phoneician name Yah or Yaw.
Hercules who was known as Alkaios the son of Perseus lived in c.1320 BC.
Hercules who was originally called Palamon was born on November 4 1286 BC and conceived during the total solar eclipse of February 10 in that year.
The Greek Gods were former Greek kings who date to between 1800 and 1600 BC with the exception of Dionysus who dates to 1400 BC.
Each Greek city state had its own kings and queens who were identified with the new Pantheon but the contemporary poets so over time and long before the Trojan War occured these kings and queens were merged with the original Gods.
By the time of Herakles birth on November 4 1286 BC Perseus was already being regarded as a son of Zeus and Herakels himself became a God in his own right somewhere between 1226 and 1150 BC in a manner much like the way Julius Caesar and Augustus were made into Gods.
The Gods were already being worshiped in 1250 BC and even the Greek God Herakles was being worshiped by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pilaser I in 1110 BC who spells his name the Greek way in his inscription.
MYCENAEAN DIVINITIES
The religion of Greeks was based on Ancestry worship. The Gods were Human Beings and former Kings of Greece, not supernatural beings, nor natural forces or an attempt to explain nature, nor a product of allegory, nor a relic of non-existentindo-European beliefs but they were real people and their temples were ware they were buried.
Ancient myths were based on factual historical records which were transformed into poetic works by generations of poets. As such myths are historically factual accounts.
Homer inserted the names of the Gods in place to the kings that fought at Troy. Homer is alluding to the Gods taking over the main players in the war for the purpose of poetic description. Everyone knew perfectly well that for example when Zeus appears in the form of Nestor to Agamemnon it is really Nestor who enter his tent.
Joined Jul 2014
787 Posts | 34+
Messinia
Which Hercules completed the 12 labors and wore the lions skin?
Joined Sep 2014
1,181 Posts | 201+
Texas
Heracles is Sucellos is Dagda is Thor is Donner is Arwan, and there are IndoAryan heroes who have some of this attributes. He's very ancient.
Joined Jul 2014
787 Posts | 34+
Messinia
The one that was born in 1286 BC.
According to Apollodorus when Herakles was conceived Zeus made on night into 3 and this suggest that a Total Solar Eclipse occurred over Greece at midday thereby creating 3 night in 25 hours.
According to NASA calculations a total solar eclipse occurred at 12:52 Greek time on February 10 1286 BC that was visible over Greece.
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEcat5/LE-1299--1200.html
Nine months (38 weeks from conception) later Herakles would have born on 3
November. http://onyx-ii.com/opc/
According to tradition Heracles birthday was always celebrated by the Ancient Greeks on the 4th of every month which means that November 4 is spot on as the date of Herakles birth.
Further more according to NASA calculations an annular solar eclipse occurred at 10:03 Greek time on January 12 1183 BC over Greece. According to Apollodorus since the time of Atreus the start of the reign of a Pelopid king was foretold by the arrival of a golden ram in the flocks which is an allusion to a solar eclipse according to Diodorus and since January 12 is more or less the same date as 13 Gamelion the dates prove that ancient Greek chronology is correct since Aegisthus took the throne of Mycenae on 13 Gamelion after Agamemnon's murder.
Joined Jul 2014
787 Posts | 34+
Messinia
Joined Jan 2015
4,856 Posts | 2,895+
MD, USA
They should alarm and frustrate you. They are almost perfect examples of how NOT to do history.
Matthew
Joined Jul 2014
787 Posts | 34+
Messinia
Matthew, I guess it's mostly because I want to believe that these mythical heros really existed.
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