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Terrible weapons indeed they-were, with heavy pieces of iron and lead sewn into them underneath the oxhide. At the mere sight of them Dares shrank back appalled, and refused to fight with such implements. "These," said Entellus, "were the gauntlets with which my master Eryx encountered Hercules; and these, after his death, I myself was accustomed to use.
Why, they are now both post-captains, commanding fine frigates: so you see, going on board of a man-of-war, which they conceived as their ruin, was the means of their rising to rank and riches, for they have been very lucky in the service. I heard Captain Archibald tell the story himself one day as I helped at dinner in the cabin when I was coxswain with Sir Hercules."
Perhaps his resolution was strengthened by an oracle of that Delphi so peculiarly venerated by the Dorian race, and which foretold either the fall of Sparta, or the sacrifice of a Spartan king of the blood of Hercules. To men whose whole happiness was renown, life had no temptation equal to such a death! X. Leonidas and his countrymen determined to keep the field.
We also learn that there seems to have been a strange fatality attached to the little statuette of the "Dying Hercules," for, although he packed it carefully and sent it to Liverpool on June 18, 1813, to be forwarded to his parents, it never reached them until over two years later. The superstitious will say that the date of sending may have had something to do with this.
The same number were ordered to clamber upon Hercules, some with spades to dig his eyes out, and others with bundles of hay, and all manner of rubbish with which they intended to plug up his mouth and nostrils, so that he might perish for lack of breath.
To him his brother Centaurs had fled for protection. But Hercules still continued shooting, and sent an arrow through the arm of an old Centaur, which unhappily went quite through and fell on Chiron's knee, piercing the flesh.
And the French memoir-writers, Marmont, Bourrienne, Pasquier, and Bausset, have expressed their surprise that so able a chief as Napoleon should have neglected this potent ally. Their criticisms seem to be prompted by later reflections rather than based on an accurate statement of facts. In truth, the nineteenth-century Hercules was still in his cradle.
Here is a partial list of those whose names we do not find: Minerva, Diana, Venus, Fortuna, Hercules, Castor, Pollux, Apollo, Mercury, Dis, Proserpina, Aesculapius, the Magna Mater. And yet their absence is not surprising when we realise that almost all of the gods in this list represent phases of life with which Rome in this early period was absolutely unacquainted.
Its object was to fetch the golden fleece, which was hung up in a grove sacred to Mars, in the kingdom of Colchis, at the eastern extremity of the Euxine sea. He enlisted in this enterprise all the most gallant spirits existing in the country, and among the rest Hercules, Theseus, Orpheus and Amphion.
Outside the Pillars of Hercules the Phoenicians had only savage nations to deal with, and with these they seem to have traded mainly for the purpose of obtaining certain natural products, either peculiarly valuable or scarcely procurable elsewhere. Their trade with the Scilly Islands and the coast of Cornwall was especially for the procuring of tin.
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