History
According to Gavin White, the Greek constellation of Hercules is a distorted version of the Babylonian constellation known as the "Standing Gods" (MUL.DINGIR.GUB.BA.MESH). White argues that this figure was, like the similarly named "Sitting Gods", depicted as a man with a serpent's body instead of legs (the serpent element now being represented on the Greek star map by the figure of Draco that Hercules crushes beneath his feet). He further argues that the original name of Hercules - the 'Kneeler' (see below) - is a conflation of the two Babylonian constellations of the Sitting and Standing Gods.
The earliest Greek references to the constellation do not refer to it as Hercules. Aratus describes it as follows:
Right there in its orbit wheels a Phantom form, like to a man that strives at a task. That sign no man knows how to read clearly, nor what task he is bent, but men simply call him On His Knees .
Now that Phantom, that toils on his knees, seems to sit on bended knee, and from both his shoulders his hands are upraised and stretch, one this way, one that, a fathom's length. Over the middle of the head of the crooked Dragon, he has the tip of his right foot. Here too that Crown, which glorious Dionysus set to be memorial of the dead Ariadne, wheels beneath the back of the toil-spent Phantom. To the Phantom’s back the Crown is near, but by his head mark near at hand the head of Ophiuchus Yonder, too, is the tiny Tortoise, which, while still beside his cradle, Hermes pierced for stings and bade it be called the Lyre : and he brought it into heaven and set it in front of the unknown Phantom. That Croucher on his Knees comes near the Lyre with his left knee, but the top of the Bird’s head wheels on the other side, and between the Bird’s head and the Phantom’s knee is enstarred the Lyre.
The story connecting Hercules with the constellation is recounted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus:
On his way back to Mycenae from Iberia having obtained the Cattle of Geryon as his tenth labour Heracles came to Liguria in North-Western Italy where he engaged in battle with two giants, Albion and Bergion or Dercynus. The opponents were strong; Hercules was in a difficult position so he prayed to his father Zeus for help. With the aegis of Zeus, Heracles won the battle. It was this kneeling position of Heracles when prayed to his father Zeus that gave the name "the Kneeler". and Hyginus
Hercules is also sometimes associated with Gilgamesh, a Sumerian mythological hero.
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