In ancient Greek the word Monoikos means: " the one who lives alone ". Of the few reports that have come down to us from ancient Greece and Rome, this word was the epithet of Herakles, son of Zeus and Alcmene, designed to come to the aid of men and gods.
If Roman mythology welcomed him into its pantheon under the name of Hercules Monoecus, it is from this name that Monaco derives its origin. In fact, the few testimonies of Antiquity which have come down to us attest to this, and in particular those of Pliny the Elder in the third book of his Natural History and of Tacitus in the third book his Histoires which quote the " Portum Herculis Monoecus ", Which has become our current Port Hercules, place, according to Servius, commentator of Virgil, where" Hercules had dismissed everyone and lived there alone ».
Among all the exploits that Greek mythology attributes to this hero, figure prominently the events named " The Twelve Labors of Hercules »Imposed on him by Eurystheus, king of Tiryns, Mycenae and Midaea in Argolida.
The second of his work consisted of slaying the Hydra of Lerna, a multi-headed monster one of which was immortal and the others multiplied when cut.
Thus, on the double observation that Monaco was indissolubly linked to Hercules and that doping is, like hydra, a difficult - but not impossible - evil to fight and to overcome, the Monegasque Anti-Doping Committee wished to make it its logo, in s' inspiring in particular for its design of a Roman mosaic from the XNUMXrd century and an anonymous bronze from the mid-XNUMXth century.
The logo was made from a project by Mickael mary
