Heracles

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Heracles

• The Universal Hero

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Heracles The Universal Hero

• Most popular hero in Greek myth
• More exploits than a (logical) lifetime can hold
• Geographically diverse
• Found in Linear B tablets, (indicating that he is
  as old as the Greek gods)
• Constantly reinterpreted over time
• 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

• Alcmene, had just married a young warrior,
  Amphitryon, who had to go to war before he could
  consumate the marriage.
• Zeus took his form and spent the night with
  Alcmene.
• Confusion when the real Amphitryon came home!

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Heracles Birth

• Punishment vs. Salvation Amphitryon tried to
  punish his adulterous wife Zeus protected her.
• Twinship Heracles was a twin he was born to
  Zeus, while his brother Iphicles was born to
  Amphitryon.

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Heracles and Eurystheus

• Kingship prophecy the child born that day would
  be king.
• Hatred of Hera she delayed Heracles birth, sped
  up the birth of his cousin Eurystheus.
• Eurystheus became king and Heracles was denied.

Wanderer and outcast Heracles was deprived of
his birthright due to Heras interference.
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Heracles Birth
Hera sends serpents to strangle Heracles he
strangles them instead.
Alcmene, the mortal mother, comforts the mortal
baby, while Athena shows her favor toward
Heracles.
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Heracles Early Life
Her a suckles Heracles did this make him
immortal? Heracles means Strength of/from
Hera. Other connections which show Hera and
Heracles as close, even allies.
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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
He strangles it and/or kills it with a club.
The lionskin and club then become his chief
attributes.
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The Lernaean Hydra
Heracles had the help of his nephew Iolaus. 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
The golden-horned deer is sacred to Artemis . . .
Heracles appears 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 cleans the vast stables by diverting a
river. Augeus refused to pay him later
Heracles kills 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.
Now some non-animal related labors . . .
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The Cattle of Geryon
Heracles must steal the cattle of the
three-bodied monster, Geryon. He sails to the
ends of the earth in a golden cup lent by Helios
. . .
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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
Heracles crosses the ocean in a golden bowl ...
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The Apples of the Hesperides
In other versions, Heracles kills the serpent and
gets the apples himself . . . 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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Hades and Persephone cooperate ...
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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)
Another conquest of death... His friend Admetus
is in mourning for Admetus wife,
Alcestis. Heracles wrestled death and brought
Alcestis up from the Underworld, where she was
reunited with her family. Comic elements
Hearcles partying nature . . .
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The Cercopes
beware the black-bottomed man. Heracles
subdues (then releases) these mischeivous
creatures
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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. 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
Though 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 committing crimes against his host and
attacking the Pythia, 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 criticizing 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 brought 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 treatments 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