Alcmena being delivered (out of fear of Juno’s jealousy) exposed the child in a place which is now, from him, called Hercules’s Field. About which time Minerva, together with Juno, walking abroad, found the infant, and, much admiring his beauty, Minerva persuaded Juno to give it suck: the child drawing the breast with more violence than at his age was usual, Juno, not able to endure the pain, cast away the infant, whom Minerva took up, and brought home to his mother, to be nursed by her. The accident here seems very strange and remarkable: for the mother, who owed a natural affection to her own child, exposed him to destruction; but she who hated him, as a step-mother, (unknowingly) preserved her natural enemy.

Afterwards Juno sent two serpents to devour the child: but he took them with both his hands by their throats, and strangled them. Upon which account the Argives (coming to understand what was done) called him Hercules2, because Juno was the occasion of his glory and fame, for he was before called Alcides. Others are named by their parents, but he gained his name by his valour.

In after times it happened that Amphitryon, being banished from Tyrinthe, settled himself in Thebes; here Hercules was educated, here he was instructed and greatly improved in all laudable exercises, insomuch that he excelled all others in strength of body, and also in the excellent endowments of his mind.

Being now grown up to man’s estate, he first freed Thebes from tyrannical slavery, and thereby made a grateful return to the country where he was bred. The Thebans at that time were under the tyranny of Erginus, king of the Minyans3, who every year exacted tribute from them, not without scorn and contempt. Hercules, therefore, not at all discouraged with the greatness of the bondage they laboured under, attempted a glorious piece of service. For when those who were sent from the Minyae to collect the tribute carried it insolently towards the people, he cut off their ears, and cast them out of the city; whereupon Erginus demanded the delivery up of the malefactor, and Creon, the prince of Thebes, (dreading the potency of Erginus) resolved to deliver him up; but Hercules stirred up the young men of the city to arm themselves, in order to recover the liberty of their country, and to that end took away all the arms that were in the temples, formerly dedicated to the gods by their ancestors, of the spoils of their enemies: for none of the citizens had any arms of their own, by reason the Minyans had disarmed the city; so that the Thebans had not the least thought of a revolt.