I. Heraclea, a city of Magna Graecia, which lay between the rivers Aciris and Siris, not far from the shores of the Gulf of Tarentum, near the site of the modern village of Policoro. It appears to have been a joint colony of the Tarentine3 and the Thurians, and to have risen after the destruction of the neighbouring city of Siris. That it attained to no small prosperity and became the seat of the great politico-religious assembly of the Italian Greeks is nearly all that can be said of its earlier history. By Alexander of Epirus it was deprived of this privilege in favour of Thurii. Pyrrhus was victorious in its vicinity in the first battle he fought with the Romans, 280 b.c., and two years later the city formed an alliance on advantageous terms with the conquerors. In the time of Cicero it was still comparatively prosperous. The Tabulas Heracleenses, found at Luce near the ruins of the city in 1753, are two bronze tablets, or rather fragments of tablets, containing on one surface a Greek inscription relating to temple domains and on the other surface a copy of the famous Lex Julia Municipalis published by Julius Caesar in 45 b.c. They are preserved in the Museo Nazionale at Naples, and one of them is distinguished as the Aes Britannicum and the other as the Aes Neapolitanum, Both inscriptions are given in Mazzocchi, Commentaria in Regii Herculanensis Musei aeneas tabulas Heracleenses (Naples, 1754-55), and the Latin one will be found in Muratori, Inscriptiones (vol. ii.), and Haubold, Monumenta legalia. See also Savigny, Zeitschrift für geschieht. Rechtswiss. (vol. ix.) and Vermischte Schriften (vol. iii., Berlin, 1850).

II. Heraclea, a city of Sicily, at the mouth of the Halycus (the modern Platani), not far from the promontory now known as Capo Eianco. It was distinguished from the other Heracleas by the surname of Minoa, which was explained as referring to its foundation by Minos of Crete. Its name frequently occurs in connexion with the Carthaginian occupation of Sicily, and it was in the neighbouring sea that the Carthaginian fleet was routed by Regulus and Manlius in 256 b.c. The Romans introduced a colony.

III. Heraclea Pontica, a city on the coast of Phrygia in Asia Minor, easily identified with the modern Bender Eregli or Erekli, at the mouth of the Kilidj-su on the Black Sea. It was founded by a Megarian colony, which soon subjugated the native tribe of the Mariandynians, and extended its power over a considerable territory. The prosperity of the city, rudely shaken by the Galatians and the Bithynians, was utterly destroyed by Aurelius Cotta in the Mithridatic war. It was the birthplace of Heraclides Ponticu3, The modern town is best known for its coal mines, from which Constantinople receives a good part of its supply. See Polsberw, De Rebus Heracleoe, Brandenburg, 1833; and O. Kümmel, Heracleotica : Beiträge zur alten Gesch. der griech. Colonisation im nordl. Klein-Asien (Progr. des Gymn. zu Plauen, 1869).

IV. Heraclea Sintica, a town in Thracian Macedonia, to the south of the Strymon, the site of which is marked by the village of Zervôkhori, and identified by the frequent discovery of local coins.

V. Heraclea, a town on the borders of Caria and Ionia, near the foot of Mount Latmus, whence it is usually distinguished as the Latmian. In its neighbourhood was the burial cave of Endymion. See Rayet and Thomas, Milet et le Golfe Latmique, Paris, 1877.

For Heraclea Trachinia see Trachis, and for Heraclea Perinthus see Perinthus.

Heraclea was also the name of one of the Sporades, between Naxos and los, which is still called Raklia, and bears traces of a Greek township with temples to Tyche and Zeus Lophites. See Baumeister in Philologiis, vol. ix.