Thursday, September 17, 2009

An altar to Heracles.


An altar to the Invincible Heracles from the Roman city Ostia.
(Most temples, altars and other religious buildings, items and artifacts were dedicated to an aspect of a god or goddess. Compare the Invincible Heracles to Jupiter Stator (halter of retreats) and others.)

I am almost out of material (as I only use photos that I have taken myself) but there are a few more points to take up before it’s time for the next theme.

One of these are that Heracles is of course not only about the myths and legends, there was also a very real aspect which is easy to forget about. As hinted in some of the labours (as in the first one), we find that the hero was considered divine and received sacrifices. These cults were spread all over the Greco Roman world as here is one of the many remains of it: an altar to the invincible Heracles.

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