ABSTRACT
Hercules was famed by the ancients because he freed from Antaeus, Busiris, Diomedes and like tyrants the lands which, as Seneca say, the bestower of the greatest benefits upon men through his punishment of the unjust. In another passage Diodorus said: 'He traversed the world chastising the unjust'. Of the same hero Dio of Prusa said: 'He punished wicked men and overthrew the power of the haughty or transferred it to others'. The contrary view is held by Victoria, Vazquez, Azor, Molina, and others, who in justification of war seem to demand that he who undertakes it should have suffered injury either in his person or his state, or that he should have jurisdiction over him who is attacked. For they claim that the power of punishing is the proper effect of civil jurisdiction, while one hold that it also is derived from the law of nature.
