Up next on Acharya S' list of pagan copycat figures, derived from Kersey Graves, is a fellow called Alcides of Thebes. Never heard of him? You have, know it or not: Alcides is another name for Hercules, though strangely, Acharya doesn't seem to know this.

Unlike most of the listed "saviors" Acharya adds for Alcides, "divine redeemer born of a virgin around 1200 BCE." Sound like Herc to you? From this page we get the following:

Hercules's mother was Alcmene, the wife of King Amphitryon of Troezen. His father was the leader of the Olympians, Zeus. He disguised himself as Amphitryon and visited Alcmene on a night that lasted as long as three ordinary nights. Zeus's wife, Hera, was furious when she learned that Alcmene was pregnant with Zeus's child. She sent witches to Troezen to stop Alcmene from going into labor, but the witches failed and Alcmene gave birth to twins: Hercule's, Zeus's son, and Iphicles, Amphitryon's son.

Virgin born? Ha ha! We wonder if maybe Graves liked to pull this one on the fathers of the girls he dated. How about that "redeemer" part? Just like in the cartoons, Herc fought some battles; he liberated the folks of Thebes from their oppressors, but that's about as close as we get. What redeeming feat, we wonder, does Acharya have in mind? Perhaps if she can explain it a little further, we can give her some credence.

Mark Smith in Origins of Biblical Monotheism notes an older tradition of a "Herakles" -- not the same as the Greek Hercules, actually, but because of the name similarity, often confused -- who is said by Josephus, in a passage referring to Hiram of Tyre (from Solomon's time) to have had an "awakening", but scholars are divided on what this refers to, and Josephus gives no details. Thackery reads the passages as referring rather to the building of a temple to Herakles, and nothing is said of this being's death. There is a tradition from ancient Spain [!] suggesting a death of Herakles, but his "resurrection" is described in terms of apotheosis.

One of Herc's greatest feats, we are told, "was to clean the stables of Augeas, King of Elis, in one day. Augeas had 3,000 oxen, and his stables hadn't been cleaned in 30 years." Somehow reminds you of The Christ Conspiracy, doesn't it?