Heracles

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Heracles

• The Universal Hero

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Heracles The Universal Hero
Heracles is the most popular figure of Greek
mythology, appearing in countless local and
national stories, involved in too many quests,
wars and conflicts for any one lifetime. Although
he is a hero, his name has been found in Linear B
tablets, indicating that he is as old as the
Greek gods. His nature was constantly
reinterpreted over time, and even different
contemporary stories show him in very different
lights.
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Master of Animals
Heracles is, basically, not a heroic figure in
the Homeric sense he is not a warrior fighting
warriors, he is mainly concerned with animals,
just as he is a savage clad in a skin and his
main job is to tame and bring back the animlas
which are eaten by man. Walter Burkert
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Heracles Birth
Heracles mother, Alcmene, had just married a
young warrior, Amphitryon, who had to go to war
before he could consumate the marriage. While he
was away, Zeus took his form and spent the night
with Alcmene. When the real Amphitryon came
home, he was surprised to hear that someone had
deflowered his wife the night before.
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Heracles Birth
According to some versions, Amphitryon tried to
punish his adulterous wife by burning her alive,
but Zeus protected her. Amphitryon had to accept
the will of the gods. Heracles was a twin he was
born to Zeus, while his brother Iphicles was born
to Amphitryon.
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Heracles and Eurystheus
Hera hated Alcmene and her unborn son becaue of
Zeuss infidelity. When Heracles was about to be
born, Zeus vowed that the child born that day
from his bloodline would be king. Hera delayed
Heracles birth, while speeding up the birth of
his cousin Eurystheus, also a descendent of Zeus.
So Eurystheus became king and Heracles was
denied.
So, unlike the Trojan war heroes and many others,
Heracles was not primarily a king. He was a
wanderer and outcast, due to Heras interference.
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Heracles Birth
Alcmene, the mortal mother, comforts the mortal
baby, while Athena shows her favor toward
Heracles.
Hera still hated Heracles, and when he was born,
sent two snakes to kill him in his cradle. But
Heracles strangled the snakes, while his twin
brother cried. Thus Heracles showed superhuman
strength even as a baby often a trait of gods
(as in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes).
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Heracles Early Life
There are several versions of a myth that show
Heracles suckling Heras milk when he was a baby,
which consequently makes him immortal. And there
are other connections which show Hera and
Heracles as close, even allies. Heracles means
Strength of/from Hera. Go figure.
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Heracles Twelve Labors
Heracles deeds are too vast to fit in any one
lifetime, but twelve of them eventually became
cannonized as the Labors, duties undertaken in
service of King Eurystheus. In most versions,
Heracles had to undertake the Labors to expiate
his guilt for killing his wife and children. He
had married Megara and had three children by her.
But Hera drove him mad, and he killed his
family, thinking they were enemies. Heracles is
known for irrational violence in other stories as
well even though he is not to blame for the
murders, they are the result of his
larger-than-life, almost god-like nature, which
brings about both great benefit and great harm.
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The Nemean Lion
Heracles has to kill the (sometimes invulnerable)
lion ravaging Nemea. He strangles it and/or
kills it with a club. The lionskin and club
then become his chief attributes in art, he is
almost always shown wearing the lionskin and
carrying the club.
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The Lernaean Hydra
The hydra, a huge multi-headed snake, had nine
heads, but each time Heracles cut one off, two
more grew it its place. Heracles had the help of
his nephew Iolaus, who cauterized each head as
Heracles cut it off, to make sure more did not
grow. Sometimes Iolaus is shown in art, sometimes
not. To add insult to injury, Hera sent a crab to
bite Heracles foot as he fought the Hydra. It
was catasterized as Cancer.
Heracles saved the hydras venom and used it as
poison on his arrows this would later come back
to haunt him.
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The Cerynean Hind
Bottom line Heracles catches a deer sacred to
Artemis. But versions vary in one, the
golden-horned deer lives in Arcadia (in the
Peloponnesus), Heracles captures it, then returns
it to the goddess. In another, Heracles hunts it
in the far north. Both versions show Heracles as
a master of animals.
The Erymanthian Boar
Heracles caught the rampaging boar with nets,
then took it to Eurystheus, who jumped into a jar
to hide from it.
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The Augean Stables
Heracles was told to clean out the vast stables
of Augeus, a son of Helios and king of Elis. He
did so by diverting a river. But when he had
done his job, Augeus refused the payment he had
promised. Heracles came back after hes finished
the other labors and killed Augeus. Afterwards,
he founded the Olympic games, pacing out the
stadium himself.
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The Stymphalian Birds
Nasty creatures. He startled them up with
castanets, then shot them (with arrows or a
slingshot).
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The Cretan Bull
The bull Minos refused to sacrifice (more later).
Heracles caught it, showed it to Eurystheus,
then released it.
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The Mares of Diomedes
Trained by their master to eat human flesh.
Heracles fed Diomedes to his own mares, then
brought them back to Eurystheus.
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The Girdle of Hippolyta
Heracles is sent to get the girdle (belt) of
Hippolyta, the Amazon queen, which has magical
powers. Accounts vary some say she gave it to
him willingly, but then Hera caused strife to
break out and he killed the queen. Heracles is
often shown fighting Amazons.
So far, Heracles adventures have all concerned
animals, showing his Master of Animals nature.
Other Labors send him farther afield . . .
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The Cattle of Geryon
More cattle this time the cattle of the
three-bodied monster, Geryon. Heracles borrows a
golden cup from Helios, in which he sails to the
far-Western island where Geryon lives. He kills
the
monster and brings the cattle home. This
adventure, and the next one, put Heracles in the
far-away border lands that represent the timeless
powers, where human life is insignificant.
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The Apples of the Hesperides
Heracles must go to the Island of the Hesperides,
daughters of night, and get the golden apples
from their tree, which is guarded by the
unsleeping serpent, Ladon. First he has to
wrestle Nereus to get the old Man of the Sea to
tell him where the island is. In some versions,
he gets Atlas, the Titan who holds up the world,
to get the apples for him, by temporarily taking
on the burden himself.
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The Apples of the Hesperides
Athena helps out a little . . . Heracles has to
trick Atlas into taking the burden back, showing
his faint but still present trickster element.
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The Apples of the Hesperides
In other versions, Heracles kills the serpent and
gets the apples himself . . . perhaps weilding
his charm a little? The apples of the Hesperides
are parallel to magical apples in many
traditions the Tree of Knowledge in Eden, the
Norse apples of immortality . . .
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Cerberus

• Heracles must go into the Underworld and bring up
  Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the
  gate.
• How does he do it? Versions differ
• Hades and Persephone give him permission
• He charms and tames the dog
• He wrestles it and defeats it.

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Cerberus
He emerges from the Underworld . . . The last two
Labors put him in the borders of the world this
one actually shows him descending into the
Underworld and coming back again. This is a
conquest of death and shows his extraordianry
power as a hero.
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Cerberus
When he shows Cerberus to Eurystheus, the
cowardly king leaps into a pot in terror . . .
Heracles has now completed his labors.
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Parerga (Alcestis)
In addition to the Labors, there were many
parerga or side-deeds. One of these was also a
conquest of death. As Euripides tells it,
Heracles visited his friend Admetus, partying
hearty before it struck him that the household
was in mourning for Admetus wife, Alcestis. When
Heracles realized this, he wrestled death and
brought Alcestis up from the Underworld, where
she was reunited with her family.
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The Cercopes
These mischeivous dwarfs had been told to beware
the black-bottomed man. When they annoyed
Heracles, he slung them over a pole, giving them
opportunity to see that his backside was
suntanned enough to qualify him as
black-bottomed. They amused Heracles, who turned
them loose.
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The Pythias Tripod
Irritated by an unpleasant oracular response,
Heracles chased the Pythia off her tripod and
tried to walk off with it. Apollo came down and
wrestled him for it. Zeus made them stop.
same story . . .
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Busiris
Heracles spent a lot of time making things better
for ordinary mortals. Many of these deeds
involved capturing rampaging animals. Others
involved getting rid of dangerous (or
untrustworthy) people. Busiris was an Egyptian
priest who performed human sacrifices Heracles
treated him to his own medicine.
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Antaeus
Antaeus, son of Gaia, challenged passersby to
wrestle. Every time he was thrown down onto the
ground, he got up stronger. Heracles defeated
him by holding him up in the air and strangling
him.
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Gigantomachy
Thought the chronology of this is hard to figure,
Heracles also fought on the side of the gods
against the giants in one version
killing the giants as the gods disabled them.
His nature is divine,though also different from
that of the other gods.
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Omphale
After commiting crimes against his host and
attacking the Pythis, Heracles had to serve as a
slave for two years. His mistress was
Omphale. In some accounts he performed ordinary
masculine slave tasks in others he switched
clothes and roles with the perverse queen.
Either way it makes a good story.
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Heracles Deianira
Heracles was bringing his chosen bride, Deianira,
back home, when the centaur Nessus tried to rape
her. Heracles fought Nessus, killing him with an
arrow. As he died, Nessus caught some blood from
the wound in a vial and gave it to Deianira,
saying it was a love potion.
Deianira kept it for years, thinking it might
come in handy. When Heracles was at war, she
heard that he had fallen in love with the maiden
Iole. To keep his interest, Deianira soaked a
shirt in the centaurs blood and give it to her
husband.
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Heracles Deianira
Heracles unsuspectingly put on the shirt, and the
poison began to eat away at him. In incredible
agony, he repudiated Deianira, who killed
herself. Unable to recover, but unable to die,
Heracles determined to burn himself alive on his
funeral pyre.
Of course, the blood was not a love potion, It
was poison, infected by the hydras blood on
Heracles arrow.
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The Death of Heracles
Heracles handed his famous bow to his friend
Philoctetes, then had the pyre lit. As it burned,
he underwent a transformation the human side
was burned away, leaving the divine. In some
versions, his shade went to Hades, while his
divine element went to Olympus.
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The Death of Heracles
Here Athena, always his protector, takes him to
Olympus.
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Heracles as a God
Heracles is often depicted banqueting at ease
with the gods his wife is Hebe (Youth),
daughter of Zeus and Hera.
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• Heracles accomplishments are remarkable
• defeated a huge number of rampaging animals
• overcame death (Alcestis)
• went into the Underworld and came back alive
  (maybe more than once)
• overcame many semi-human monsters
• established the Olympic games many other
  institutions
• made an impact all over the world

Heracles as Savior
Yet he was not a king, and in fact often appears
in positions of servitude (Eurystheus, Omphale).
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Heracles Violence

• kills his music tutor, Linus, for criticising him
• kills Iphitus, with whom he had (in some
  versions) a relationship of xenia
• Takes violent revenge for minor slights (e.g.
  overthrowing/killing Aegeus for non-payment)
• Attacks the Pythia
• makes war very freely

Heracles also perpetrates many violent, unlawful
acts, balancing his role as humanitys savior
with a role as a violent, chaotic force. How
does he get away with all this?
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Comic Heracles
Heracles is often portrayed in comedy as a
big-eating, big-drinking, sexually voracious
oaf. Despite his seeming lack of finesse, he does
manage to go out and get things done, though. The
larger-than-life comedy is also an integral part
of the hero.
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Philosophical Heracles
Heracles also underwent great suffering in his
lifetime, some brough on himself, some inflicted
by the gods, and some in between. He murdered
his own family though not of his own accord.
He endured slavery. He was deprived of his
birthright. He wandered for many years with no
secure home.
In some more philosophical treatements of
Heracles life, especially in the later Greek
Roman world, he was an exemplar virtutis, a model
of virtue/courage, laboring for the good of
mankind, showing how to engage suffering for the
common good.
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The Nature of Heracles
It is impossible to underestimate the importance
of this hero, who had shrines everywhere, visited
every city in the Greek world and figured in so
many local legends, was worshipped at more
shrines and sanctuaries than most of the gods,
was called savior and protector and invoked
almost unconsciously by Romans with mehercule!
Of Heracles I will sing, whom Alcmena bore in
Thebes . . . to be by far the greatest of men on
earth. He traversed long ago vast distances of
land and sea at the order of King Eurystheus
many were the bold deeds he did, many were the
things he endured. Now he dwells in joy in the
beautiful palace of snowy Olympus and has for
wife the slender-ankled Hebe. Hail, Lord, son of
Zeus. grant me both excellence and wealth.
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finis