Open Collections

Evans, Hampton

University of British Columbia

The hero-god Herakles was worshipped across the Mediterranean by the Greeks, from Spain in the west to Bactria in the east. The goal of this paper is to examine one specific facet and use of this figure, how he was utilized in order to justify appropriation of land and territory by the Greeks and legitimize their rule over non-Greek peoples. First, the wildly different versions of Herakles seen in several early sources, including Homer and Hesiod, are examined and discussed. Next, three case studies are examined in order to see how different groups of Greeks utilized and rewrote the story of Herakles to make irridentist claims to territory. The case studies are Sicily, focusing on the sites of Akragas and Agyrium, as well as the account of Diodoros of Sicily; Macedon, focusing first on how the Macedonian kings prior to Alexander used Herakles to claim Greek identity and justify their growing power, before turning to how Alexander himself utilized Herakles to justify his epoch-defining conquest of the Persian Empire and his rule over non-Greeks; and Bactria, focusing especially on the king Demetrios I and how he invoked Herakles and Alexander to justify his rule, building on centuries of narratives to secure their power at this far edge of the Greek world. Finally, the conclusions drawn from these case studies are summarized and tied together to see how Herakles was used to legitimize these claims and the relevance of this study for understanding both the ancient world and its utility for the modern one.

Text

2022-05-02

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/81442

Ancient Culture, Religion and Ethnicity

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/