Canon and „Canonization” in the Iconography of Hercules

Abstract As protector and patron of gymnasiums and the Olympic Games, Hercules benefited of exceptional popularity in Ancient Greece, which also provides an explanation for his permanent nude attire regardless of cultures or eras. For the warrior-athlete, practicing completely naked signifies the virtue of being assumed in the liminal stage between life and death, between the physical and the metaphysical, to be prepared for the glorious deeds that bring immortality. Therefore, its nudity must be read in the paradigm of eschatology. It seems that this is also the reason for its presence on the frescoes of the Paleo-Christian catacombs. Biblical characters such as Jonah and Daniel also appear here in the same gymnós state. In order to understand if these Paleo-Christian wall paintings maintain the canon of the classical and Hellenistic Greeks, measurements are carried out by the method of comparative anthropometry. It is noted that the frescoes in which Hercules appears sometimes haloed like the later canonized Christians, recurrently confirm the canon of Polykleitos.