After he regained his senses, he begged the god Apollo, another of Zeus’s sons, to punish him for his deed. At one point, she rendered him insane and he killed his beloved wife and children. When Zeus’s wife found out Zeus was not faithful, she did everything she could to punish Hercules. While Zeus was his father, his mother was Alcmene, the granddaughter of the hero Perseus. He then knelt down to thank his father Zeus for the victory, which invoked the image of the Kneeler. They were powerful opponents that he eventually defeated. The myth has Hercules fighting the two giants, Albion and Bergion, in northwestern Italy. This constellation was originally named “The Kneeler,” a ghostly figure on bended knee with both hands stretched to heaven. This Greek influence would have had this constellation named Heracles, but the Roman dominance gave it the name Hercules. He was either a Greek or an Egyptian strongly influenced by Greek culture.
Ptolemy lived in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in the second century when it was under Roman control. He has been in the sky since ancient times, with this constellation appearing in Claudius Ptolemy’s astronomical treatise, the Almagest. A little east of overhead is a star of television and movies.
