Bull of Marathon; the death of Lygis, who disputed the passage of
the Alps with him; that of the giant Alcyaneus, who hurled at him a
stone so vast that it crushed twenty-four men to death; that of
Eryx, king of Sicily, whom he killed with a blow of the cestus, for
refusing to deliver to him the oxen which he had stolen; the combat
with Cycnus, which was terminated by a peal of thunder, which
separated the combatants; another combat against the Giants in Gaul,
during which, as it was said, Jupiter rained down vast quantities of
stones; all these are also attributed to Hercules, besides many more
stories, which, if diligently collected, would swell to a large
volume.

The foregoing remarks on the history of Hercules, give us an insight
into the ideas which, based upon the explanations given by the
authors of antiquity, the Abbe Banier, one of the most accomplished
scholars of his age, entertained on this subject. We will conclude
with some very able and instructive remarks on this mythus, which we
extract from Mr. Keightley's Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy.
He says--

"Various theories have been formed respecting the mythus of
Hercules. It is evidently one of very remote antiquity, long
perhaps, anterior to the times of Homer. We confess that we cannot
see any very valid reason for supposing no such real personage to
have existed; for it will, perhaps, be found that mythology not
unfrequently prefers to absolute fiction, the assuming of some real
historic character, and making it the object of the marvels devised
by lively and exuberant imagination, in order thereby to obtain more
ready credence for the strange events which it creates. Such, then,
may the real Hercules have been,--a Dorian, a Theban, or an Argive
hero, whose feats of strength lived in the traditions of the people,
and whom national vanity raised to the rank of a son of Zeus
[Jupiter], and poetic fancy, as geographic knowledge extended, sent
on journies throughout the known world, and accumulated in his
person the fabled exploits of similar heroes of other regions.

"We may perceive, by the twelve tasks, that the astronomical theory
was applied to the mythus of the hero, and that he was regarded as a
personification of the Sun, which passes through the twelve signs of
the Zodiac. This, probably, took place during the Alexandrian
period. Some resemblance between his attrib