The Cult of Hercules in Rome - How did the Romans worship Hercules?

The lesson starts with an embedded TEDed video recounting the 12 Labours of Hercules so the students are reminded of why he was so famous in the ancient world. This is followed by discussion on why Hercules ‘ended up’ as part of Roman religion (Hercules’ journey through Italy and Aeneas’ subsequent discovery of the cult after escaping from Troy is given as the backdrop for this).

Students are then introduced to the reasons why the Temple of Hercules Victor is located where it is in Rome, and passages from Virgil and Livy are included (as hidden slides for printing to be handed out) where students are encouraged to pick out various aspects of the Cult of Hercules and describe its key features for themselves.

The lesson ends by looking at how the Cult of Hercules established itself over time in Ancient Rome and students discuss what Rome’s obsession with Hercules says about themselves and their own identity.

This lesson was designed for my students who are studying the OCR GCSE Classical Civilisation Myth and Religion Unit. All the knowledge pupils need for their exam is contained within the lesson, which itself is fully dual-coded which we have found really helps to reduce cognitive load, allowing students to focus on what they need to, aiding knowledge retention.

There is also a coloured overlay on each slide to help students with Dyslexia / Irlen’s (which can easily be deleted if you don’t need it).

Thanks for taking a look :)