Hercle, the divine hero

Hercle is the Italic form of the Greek hero Herakles, taken into Oscan-Sabellic cult at an early date and among the most popular divine figures of the region, judging from the abundance of small bronze votive statuettes that depict him with club and lion-skin. In Oscan his name is known only from the oblique cases, the dative hereklúí and genitive herekleís. He was especially a god of the herdsmen and the transhumance routes that threaded the Apennines, protecting flocks and travellers, and he was also drawn into agrarian cult: the Agnone Tablet lists him as Hereklúí Kerríiúí, 'Hercules of Ceres', holding an altar in the sacred grove of the grain goddess alongside the other powers of growth and fertility.

Domains

• strength and protection
• herding and transhumance

Powers

• to guard flocks, herdsmen and travellers on the droveways

Relations

• ally: Kerres, the grain goddessOn the Agnone Tablet he appears as Hereklúí Kerríiúí, 'Hercules of Ceres', sharing an altar within the grain goddess's sacred grove.Emmanuel Dupraz, 'Religion, Italic', in Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, online edition). (secondary)

Sources

• Hercle is the Oscan-Sabellic form of Herakles, a widely worshipped divine hero protecting flocks and travellers, attested in bronze votives and on the Agnone Tablet as 'Hercules of Ceres'.: Guy Bradley, 'The cult of Hercules in central Italy', in H. Bowden & L. Rawlings (eds), Herakles and Hercules: Exploring a Graeco-Roman Divinity (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2005), 129-151. (secondary); Tesse D. Stek, Cult Places and Cultural Change in Republican Italy (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009). (secondary)