The Ways of Hercules

“The Labours of Hercules” is a proverbial expression. But Hercules (as the Romans call him) or Heracles (according to the Greek version) is a far more complex figure than the comic-book strongman to whom he is so often reduced. In his earliest appearances in the most ancient sources, he is in fact the personification of a force which “though superhuman, sometimes seems to have downright sacrilegious connotations”; but over time he evolves, until “every characteristic trait of the hero is brought together and sublimated in him, from his invincible valour in battle to his healing and prophetic powers, from his relationship with death to the initiatory dimension, which even makes him the symbolic figure of the self-realised man amongst the great Magna Graecian figures”. So dissimilar are the forms in which Hercules/Heracles appears that Herodotus already hypothesised that two different figures were concealed in Egypt under the same name, and Cicero went so far as to attribute six distinct identities to the hero. At the root of this complexity lies the identification and intermingling, dating back to ancient times, between the Greek Heracles and a figure from Phoenician mythology, Melquart: “Two figures that are similar yet different: one a god, Melquart, who dies in fire and is reborn the following spring, protector of rulers and guarantor of dynastic continuity; the other a hero, who too experiences fire, to consume his human nature and thus ascend to Olympus”.

Brizzi’s book on Heracles/Melquart traces his wanderings around the Mediterranean and beyond. First to Cyprus, where the fusion of the two takes place, then to Carthage, where he becomes the protector of the city and its foundations, reaching as far as the coast of Morocco and the mouth of the Mediterranean, where he leaves his mark for ever – the eponymous columns – and settles in particular in the temple of Cádiz. From there he travelled up through Spain, crossed the Alps, reached Rome (where he was long kept on the outskirts of the city, before entering its founding myths as the progenitor of Latinus), stopped in Calabria, from where he would embark on the journey that would take him as far as India. And two of antiquity’s greatest historical figures would follow in his footsteps: Alexander the Great, who would proclaim himself a descendant of Hercules and powerfully foster his cult; and Hannibal, who, on his journey to Italy, would explicitly draw upon his mythical predecessor. Brizzi also sketches brief historical and archaeological portraits of the places traversed by his characters, so that the book also serves as a concise and erudite travel guide for anyone wishing to retrace Hercules’ footsteps.

Giovanni Brizzi

il Mulino, 250 pp., 16 euros