Heracles
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Heracles, born Alcaeus or Alcides, was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon. He was a descendant of Perseus, another son of Zeus.
One of the most famous depictions of Heracles, Farnese Hercules, Roman marble statue on the basis of an original by Lysippos, 216 CE. National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy
Heracles carrying his son Hyllus looks at the centaur Nessus, who is about to carry Deianira across the river on his back. Antique fresco from Pompeii.
Greek mythology influenced the Etruscans. This vase at Caere shows King Eurytus of Oechalia and Heracles in a symposium. Krater of corinthian columns called 'Krater of Eurytion', c. 600 BCE
Heracles strangling snakes (detail from an Attic red-figured stamnos, c. 480–470 BCE)
Hercules
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Hercules is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging
Heracles
…clans known as Heracleidae (Ἡρακλεῖδαι), and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves. Details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well…
Hercules battles Achelous, metamorphed into a serpent, 1824, by François Joseph Bosio. Louvre LL 325.
Baby Hercules strangling a snake sent to kill him in his cradle (Roman marble, 2nd century CE, in the Capitoline Museums of Rome, Italy).
A fresco from Herculaneum depicting Heracles and Achelous from Greco-Roman mythology, 1st century CE.
Hercules and the Nemean lion in the 15th-century Histoires de Troyes