Hercules at the crossroads

It concerns the young Heracles (also known to the Romans as Hercules) who is offered a choice between Vice (Kakia) and Virtue (Arete)—a life of pleasure or one of hardship and honour.

The parable stems from the Classical era of ancient Greece and is reported by Xenophon in Memorabilia 2.1.21–34.

In Xenophon's text, Socrates tells how the young Heracles, as the hero contemplates his future, is visited by two allegorical figures, female personifications of Vice and Virtue (Ancient Greek: Κακία and Ἀρετή; Kakía and Areté).

In book 15 of the epic poem Punica by Silius Italicus, the military commander Scipio Africanus appears in a situation modeled on the choice of Heracles.

Four decades after Petrarch's adaptation, Coluccio Salutati reintroduced the original moral choice between Virtus and Voluptas, using Cicero's Latin words.