Hercules Reposing

This is the first of six prints from the New Pantheon of Democratic Mythology portraying Whig statesmen as figures from popular mythology:—in this case, Charles James Fox as Hercules Reposing. For more about the series in general, see my commentary on the frontispiece to the New Pantheon of Democratic Mythology.

The theme of Hercules resting after his famous "Labours" was not a new one. It is the subject of a drawing by Carracci, a famous statue at the Farnese Palace, a print by Giorgio Ghisi, a painting by Rubens, and a small sculpture executed between 1700-1770 by Michael Rysbrack now in the Fitzwilliam Museum. In these works, Hercules is typically shown leaning against some object while surrounded by symbols alluding to his labours. In the Ghizi print, for instance, we see the skin of the Nemean lion from his first labour, the club he used against the Lernaen Hydra is his second labour, and the arrows he used in his sixth labour against the Stymphalian birds.

In Gillray's version, the Nemean lion skin has become of the skin of an ass, the bow string has been snapped, the arrow points blunted, the golden apples of the hesperides from Hercules' eleventh labour have become rotten, and the famed club that was almost universally seen in depictions of Hercules is shown not as an all-powerful weapon but simply an association whose membership was steadily declining in 1799.

What made the image particularly apropos, however, was Fox's decision, in May of 1797, after several particularly stinging defeats over motions to repeal the Alien and Sedition laws and to reform Parliamentary representation, to retire to his wife's estate at St. Anne's Hill thereby "seceding" from active participation in Parliamentary debate. In Gillray's image, Fox/Hercules has chosen to hang up the lyre of his oratory and is shown sleeping against a large folio of The Beauties of St. Anne's Hill. Meanwhile the statue of Fame, symbolizing Fox's reputation, is seen falling off her temple in the distance.

NEXT Member of the Pantheon

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on Hercules Reposing.
• Draper Hill, Mr. Gillray The Caricaturist, 1965 p. 81n.
• "Hercules," Wikipedia
• "Labours of Hercules," Wikipedia
• "Charles James Fox," Wikipedia
• Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray #231
• Thomas Wright and Joseph Grego, The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist; With the History of His Life and Times p. 259.

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