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Why was it the custom for many of the wealthy
to give a tithe of their property to Hercules?1
Is it because he also sacrificed a tithe of Geryon's
cattle in Rome? Or because he freed the Romans
from paying a tithe to the Etruscans?
Or have these tales no historical foundation worthy
of credence, but the Romans were wont to sacrifice
lavishly and abundantly to Hercules as to an insatiable eater and a good trencher-man?
Or was it rather in curtailing their excessive wealth,
since it was odious to their fellow-citizens, and in
doing away with some of it, as from a lusty bodily
vigour that had reached its culmination,2 did they
think that thus Hercules would be especially honoured
and pleased by such a way of using up and reducing
overabundance, since in his own life he was frugal,
self-sufficient, and free from extravagance?
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936. 4.
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