Thus, gradually, the profession and system of robbery spread itself throughout Greece, until the evil became insufferable--until the public opinion of all the states and tribes, in which society had established laws, was enlisted against the freebooter--until it grew an object of ambition to rid the neighbourhood of a scourge--and the success of the attempt made the glory of the adventurer.

Then naturally arose the race of heroes--men who volunteered to seek the robber in his hold--and, by the gratitude of a later age, the courage of the knight-errant was rewarded with the sanctity of the demigod.
At that time, too, internal circumstances in the different states-- whether from the predominance of, or the resistance to, the warlike Hellenes, had gradually conspired to raise a military and fierce aristocracy above the rest of the population; and as arms became the instruments of renown and power, so the wildest feats would lead to the most extended fame.
II.

The woods and mountains of Greece were not then cleared of the first rude aboriginals of nature--wild beasts lurked within its caverns;--wolves abounded everywhere--herds of wild bulls, the large horns of which Herodotus names with admiration, were common; and even the lion himself, so late as the invasion of Xerxes, was found in wide districts from the Thracian Abdera to the Acarnanian Achelous.

Thus, the feats of the early heroes appear to have been mainly directed against the freebooter or the wild beast; and among the triumphs of Hercules are recorded the extermination of the Lydian robbers, the death of Cacus, and the conquest of the lion of Nemea and the boar of Erymanthus.
Hercules himself shines conspicuously forth the great model of these useful adventurers.

There is no doubt that a prince [86], so named, actually existed in Greece; and under the title of the Theban Hercules, is to be carefully distinguished, both from the god of Egypt and the peaceful Hercules of Phoenicia [87], whose worship was not unknown to the Greeks previous to the labours of his namesake.