Eracle ad Ambracia e dintorni

While the legends about deeds of Heracles in Epirus are relatively ancient (their earliest witness is Hecataeus, FGrHist 1 F 26), two texts expressly associated the hero with a pre-Corinthian origin of Ambracia and asserted his lordship on this polis: Speusippus' letter to Philip II (Socr. Ep. 28, 7), that through the Heraclid descent of the king meant to justify his designs on Ambracia, and the late mythographer Antoninus Liberalis (Met. 4, 6-7), whose ultimate source is reported by the headings of his one manuscript to be the local historian Athanadas (who wrote most probably at the beginning of the 3th century BC). The connection between these two pieces of evidence shows that this tradition is not merely the invention of a Greek mid-4th century pro-Macedonian faction or a nice aition aimed at explaining the popularity of the hero's cult at Ambracia, but a local, deep-seated one, that may preserve a core of historical memories about a pre-Cypselid Corinthian presence in this region.