Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
90.
_What is the cause, that when they sacrifice unto_ Hercules, _they name no other God but him, nor suffer a dog to be seene, within the purprise and precinct of the place where the sacrifice is celebrated, according as_ Varro _hath left in writing_? IS not this the reason of naming no god in their sacrifice, for that they esteeme him but a demigod; and some there be who hold, that whiles he lived heere upon the earth, _Evander_ erected an altar unto him, and offered sacrifice thereupon. Now of all other beasts he could worst abide a dog, and hated him most: for this creature put him to more trouble all his life time, than any other: witnesse hereof, the three headed dog _Cerberus_, and above all others, when _Oeonus_ the sonne of _Licymnius_ was slaine [146]by a dog, he was enforced by the Hippocoontides to give the battell, in which he lost many of his friends, and among the rest his owne brother _Iphicles_.
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