- Feb 27, 2007
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Was Heracles black
By Andre Austin
What did Homer say about Heracles
“And I caught sight of mighty Heracles
(that is to say, his shade…)
Like birds that scatter everywhere in terror;
And he (Heracles) , like dark night, gripping his bare bow
And with an arrow on his bowstring”-Odyssey 11:605
From Allen Mandelbaum translation
Other translations say:
“He came on, like dark night”-Richard Lattimore translation
I do not know where Hercules was born in the Illiad Homer states:
“I loved Semele and Alkmene in Thebes,
When Alkmene bore me a son, Herakles the strong-hearted” Illiad 14:320
Two cities were called Thebes one in Greece and the original one in Egypt. Additional evidence say that Hercules grandmother Andromeda was daughter of a King of Ethiopia says ancient writer Apollodorus. So Hercules was part Ethiopian and Egyptian. The Roman poet Ovid called Andromeda black.
The grandfather of History is Herodotus and he calls Hercules from Egypt to be the original and oldest of all. Egyptologist think Hercules was a composite figure of Egyptian Kings like Sesotris who was called mighty and had ancestors from Ethiopia and may have been the Biblical Nimrod.
It seems to me that when Hollywood makes a movie for kids they do little research to be anywhere near the truth.
In all probability, I think he was African, meaning of a very dark to black complexion. This is how Europeans explain the migtation of culture and civilization to Greece and later Rome, through Hecules.
Interstingly enough, I was recently reading up on Alexander the Great. When he invaded Africa, he used his descant from Hercules whom was believed to be from Africa, as justification. And, the Egyptians tended to view him as their lost son, more or less. So, Egypt did very little in terms of fighting to resist him. And, Alexandria is named in honor of Alexander of Macedonia, called the Great.