The Greeks told stories about the mythic heroes Heracles and Pelops to explain why there was a great festival at the site both heroes were claimed as founding fathers who gave thanks for divine assistance.

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For the Greeks, the medical term for rabies (lyssa) also described an extreme sort of murderous hate, an insensate, animal rage that seizes Hector in "The Iliad" and, in Euripides' tragedy of Heracles, goads the hero to slay his own family.

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In order to establish their credentials within the Hellenic world the Carthaginians conflated the Greek hero, Heracles (better known as Hercules), with Melqart, his Tyrian counterpart.

ECONOMIST: Myth and the making of history