Heraclids

[Caburus]

The Heraclids were descendants of Heracles. But how many rhistorical oyal families claimed descent from him?
I know the Kings of Sparta did, and the Kings of Corinth, the Kings of Macedonia and the Ptolomaic Pharoahs., and the Kings of Scythia and the ancient Kings of Lydia. Anywhere else?

 

[Alejandro]

The kings of Doris were supposed to be descended from the sons of the Dorian king Aigimios as well as from Hyllos son of Herakles and Deianeira.

The Gauls were supposedly descended from Keltos, son of Herakles and Keltine, the latter of whose people called her Galateia and her son Galates. From Galates the Gauls were apparently originally called the Galatai. Keltos-Galates founded a Heraclid dynasty of Keltic kings and is supposed to be the ancestor of the earliest kings of Britain, though it does not seem that any historical royals on those islands has ever specifically claimed this. (I do know that William the Conqueror was traced directly to the most ancient frost-giants in Northern European mythology, though.)

The kings of Numidia, specifically Juba II (who lived in the 1st century BC and 1st century AD), traced themselves to the Sophakoi, the descendants of Sophax, son of Herakles and Tinge. Sophax became king of Libya and Mauritania, and his son Diodoros supposedly founded the most ancient dynasty of Mauritanian kings. Sophax's mother Tinge had been a wife of the giant Antaios, and the city of Tangiers in Morocco was anciently named after her Tingis. In Roman mythology Hercules' son Afer was the eponymous ancestor of Africans.

A pre-Macedonian dynasty of kings in India was supposed to be descended from Herakles, through the sons whom he sired upon by his own daughter Pandaia. Certain writers, however, claim that this was a different Herakles from ours, arguing either that the Theban Herakles never went to India or that he would never have consorted with his own daughter

 

[Caburus]

Cheers, Alejandro. I was hoping you'd come up with a few more.
I hadn't heard that Galates was ancestor to the British Kings. I wonder if there is a link between the names Galates and Goidel Glas/Gaythelos, eponymous ancestor to the Irish and Scots. All the Saxon kings traced their ancestors back to Woden, who they claimed descended from Geat or Geta who was called a god. Another variation on the name Gaythelos?

 

[Alejandro]

Hmmm... I wouldn't have thought to make that link between Galates and Goídel Glas. And I'm tempted to think that Gaythelos (or Gathelus, or Gadelus) is just as close as one writing about Goídel Glas could get to a Latin form of his name, which would have been a necessity, e.g., for John of Fordun, one of the writers who thus wrote. (Cf. Saxo Grammaticus' Latinisation of the old Norse names in his Gesta Danorum.) Much more readily comparable is the Welsh word for "Irishman," which is Gwyddel. Your mention of Geta reminds me of Greek mythology, where we have a Geta as the wife of King Ammon of Libya, son of Zeus and Akakallis. But there seems to be no connection between this Geta and your Geta/Geat. Another character to whom both Herakles and British royalty are more famously linked, however, would be much closer to this. Alebion, whose name is also spelled Ialebion, Albion and Alban, was a giant prince of Liguria and son of Poseidon who was killed, together with his brother Derkynos, in Provence, France by their cousin Herakles. Alebion's descendants, same as those of the Heraclid Keltos, are said to have founded the kingdom of Britain, but Alebion also had a son Geatas, the ancestor of a Pictish tribe from whom the Geats were thought to be descended.

 

[Caburus]

Geta was wife of the King of Libya? Gaythelos, in some versions, was married to (or was son of) Scota, daughter of the Egyptian Pharaoh. The Irish origin myths seem to be a mix of native, Hebrew and Greek myths. I've always imagined, (with admittedly no research on my part), that the Irish early conversion to Christianity exposed them to these Romanisations, although odd they never tried to link themselves to Troy (as the British, French and Scandinavians did). Hang on, maybe they did! Got some recollection of a King Agnoman (=Agamemnon?) Need to find those books.

 

[Myrddin]

Hmmm... I wouldn't have thought to make that link between Galates and Goídel Glas. And I'm tempted to think that Gaythelos (or Gathelus, or Gadelus) is just as close as one writing about Goídel Glas could get to a Latin form of his name, which would have been a necessity, e.g., for John of Fordun, one of the writers who thus wrote. (Cf. Saxo Grammaticus' Latinisation of the old Norse names in his Gesta Danorum.) Much more readily comparable is the Welsh word for "Irishman," which is Gwyddel. Your mention of Geta reminds me of Greek mythology, where we have a Geta as the wife of King Ammon of Libya, son of Zeus and Akakallis. But there seems to be no connection between this Geta and your Geta/Geat. Another character to whom both Herakles and British royalty are more famously linked, however, would be much closer to this. Alebion, whose name is also spelled Ialebion, Albion and Alban, was a giant prince of Liguria and son of Poseidon who was killed, together with his brother Derkynos, in Provence, France by their cousin Herakles. Alebion's descendants, same as those of the Heraclid Keltos, are said to have founded the kingdom of Britain, but Alebion also had a son Geatas, the ancestor of a Pictish tribe from whom the Geats were thought to be descended.

A lot of interesting stuff I didn't know before. Wow!

 

[Alejandro]

Yes, Geta and her husband Ammon are among the many characters said to have harboured the infant Dionysos from Hera's wrath, so it would seem that Dionysos' travel itinerary was broad enough for him to have already been as far afield as NW Africa when he was still just a wee lad. Ammon's wife is otherwise called Amaltheia (yep, like as in the goat who nursed Zeus, though in this case she's supposed to be some sort of nymph).

The Lebor Gabála Érenn undoubtedly borrows heavily from the Bible. Interesting: the similarity between the names Agnoman and Agamemnon had never occurred to me, although the mythographers don't seem to make any connection between Agnoman and Troy. Agnoman was the father of Nemed, from whence came the Nemedians. Also, he was a Scythian, and the authors who tell us of him try to bolster this angle by tracing his ancestry to Magog son of Japheth, the supposed ancestor of several Eastern European peoples.