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Susan B. Downey: The Excavations at Dura-Europos, Final Report III . Part i fasc. 1: The Heracles Sculpture. Pp. xvii+110; 24 plates, 1 map, 1 plan. New York: J. J. Augustin, 1969. Paper, $22.50.

HERACLES must have entered the Near East with Alexander's armies, and rapidly became popular. The author begins by discussing his appearances in official and unofficial art of the Hellenistic period at sites under Seleucid and Parthian overlordship. It is clear that he was syncretically assimilated to local deities, to Semitic gods and to Iranian Verethragna. The subsequent history of his image in the Parthian and Kushan areas is then traced. A catalogue follows of the 42 Heracles or Heracles-type sculptures found at DuraEuropos of the Parthian and Roman phases, arranged according to ten standing and reclining types, with various attributes. The figures are characterized by the god's frontal poses, and by crudity of workmanship. The meaning of Heracles at Dura is discussed next. Most of these sculptures are reliefs, intended to be set into the walls of houses or temples. Many are perhaps datable to the second or third century A.D. The various iconographical types represented in these reliefs can all be derived from common Western prototypes. The reliefs of the slaying of the Nemean lion all deviate from the Roman canonical position, however, and may represent a survival of the old Oriental concept and iconography of the hero slaying a lion. Much more puzzling are the reliefs in which Heracles holds a bull's head; likewise those in which he holds a cup: perhaps it retains some connotations of Dionysiac immortality, as the reclining Heracles may also do. Where he carries club and spear, he has probably been assimilated to some Semitic deity. The positioning of his reliefs particularly in private houses seems to indicate that he had an apotropaic function.