HERCULES is mentioned by this name only in 2Ma 4:19-20 , where Jason, the head of the Hellenizing party in Jerus. (b.c. 174), sent 300 silver drachmas (about £12, 10s.) to Tyre as an offering in honour of Hercules, the tutelary deity of that city. Hercules was worshipped at Tyre from very early times, and his temple in that place was, according to Herod, ii. 44, as old as the city itself, 2300 years before his own time. As a personification of the sun he afforded an example of the nature-worship so common among the Phœn., Egyp., and other nations of antiquity.