Hercules in Hell

The Hercules of Hades is able to speak of his bravery. But he esteems it a small thing now that he has passed to a region more sacred and has arrived in the intelligible realm; he is now endowed with a strength more than Herculean for those battles which are the battles of the sages.

-Plotinus, The Enneads


virtus in astra tendit
praesens ab astris,
Alcides cano,
me iam decet subire
caelestem plagam;
inferna vici rursus
Alcides loca.

[valour fares starward;
in living presence
Hercules speaks.
'tis meet that I pass
to the realm above;
Hercules once again
has conquered hell.]

-Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus