The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics) (37 page)

at archery
: Eurytos was Heracles’ own teacher in the art, p. 71. Eurytos died when he challenged Apollo himself to an archery contest,
Od
. 8. 226 ff.; the bow that Odysseus used to kill the suitors originally belonged to him,
Od
. 21. 13 ff.

cattle were stolen
: in all other sources, mares, cf.
Od
. 21. 22 ff.

in a fresh fit of madness
: other accounts are less favourable to Heracles. In the
Odyssey
, ibid., he treacherously killed Iphitos after entertaining him as his guest, and then took the mares; in Pherecydes (sc.
Od
. 21. 22) he killed Iphitos in anger at having been denied Iole; in DS 4. 31. 2 f., Heracles himself stole the mares for revenge, and when Iphitos came to Tiryns to seek for them, Heracles took him to the battlements and asked him if he could see them—and when he could not, Heracles claimed to have been falsely accused, and hurled him down.

Neleus rejected him
: this is the reason for his later attack on Pylos, p. 87.

refused ... a response
: because he was denied by the murder, see further P. 10. 13. 4.

the Cercopes
: two brothers who robbed passers-by; for details we have to rely on late sources. According to Zenobius 5. 10, they had been warned by their mother to beware of the ‘Black-Bottomed One’
(Melampygos)
. When they tried to rob Heracles, he hung them by their feet from either end of a pole, and they saw too late that his bottom, where it was not covered by the lion’s skin, was black because of the thickness of the hair. They laughed, and when Heracles asked why and he learned the reason, he was amused and released them.

in his vineyard
: added for clarity, cf. DS 4. 31. 7; he killed Syleus with his own mattock.

the body of Icaros
: see pp. 140 f.

the voyage to Colchis
: the voyage of the Argonauts; for the tradition on Heracles’ involvement, see p. 51 and note.

the hunt. . . from Troezen
: since Meleager was killed after the hunt, p. 41, this is irreconcilable with the tradition that Heracles met him in Hades during his final labour, p. 84; and likewise, if Heracles brought Theseus up from Hades, Theseus could hardly have performed his earliest feat (of clearing the Isthmus of malefactors, see pp. 138 f.) at this later period.

he sailed against Ilion
: known to Homer,
Il
. 5. 640 ff. (where he remarks on the small size of the expedition, with only six ships; although it is three times larger here, it is still far smaller than the later expedition, cf. p. 148). For the reason for Heracles’ attack, see p. 79.

to Heracles the Noble Victor
:
Kallinikos
, thus explaining a cultic title of Heracles as a hero who could overcome and avert evil.

Priam
: according to this etymology, the name of the king of Troy during the great Trojan War was derived from
priamai
, to buy.

Hera sent violent storms
: see
Il
. 14. 249 ff. and 15. 24 ff.

suspended her from Olympos
: with two anvils hanging from her feet, and her hands tied with a golden band,
Il
. 15. 18–20. See also p. 31 and note.

mar against the Giants
: see pp. 34 f.

against Augeias
: who had refused to pay the agreed fee when Heracles cleared his stables, p. 76. Heracles now embarks on a series of campaigns in the Peloponnese, before his final campaigns in northern Greece.

Eurytos and Cteatos
: at
Il
. 2. 621, Homer gives their names, and calls them the Actoriones after their father, but at 11. 709, the two Moliones, apparently after their mother. At
Il
. 23. 641 they are said to be twins, but there is no indication that they are joined together. See also Pind.
ol
. 10. 26 ff. (where they are separate). Their depiction as ‘Siamese’ twins may have its origin in Hes.
Cat
. (see fr. 18).

set an ambush
: a highly dubious action because they were protected by a religious truce at such a time (cf. P. 5. 2. If, where we are told that the Eleans demanded satisfaction, and when none was offered, boycotted the Isthmian Games ever afterwards).

recalled Phyleus
: the son of Augeias who had been exiled for supporting Heracles, p. 76.

an altar of Pelops
: this seems inappropriate, because Pelops was a hero rather than a god; in P. 5. 13. 1 ff., the sanctuary of Pelops is said to have contained not an altar but a pit, into which annual sacrifices of a black ram were made, in the rite befitting the heroized dead.

marched against Pylos
: on sandy Pylos and Periclymenos, see p. 45 and notes; for the cause of the war, p. 85 and note. The story explains why Nestor alone represented the sons of Neleus at Troy, cf.
Il
. 11. 690 ff.

Hades, who came to the aid of the Pylians
: but see
Il
. 5. 395–7, Heracles struck him ‘amongst the dead’; he was thus collecting the dead, cf. Pind.
ol
. 9. 33 ff., rather than fighting in the battle. Ap.’s account reflects a later misunderstanding. Heracles is said to have wounded Hera also (
Il
. 5. 392; and Ares in Hes.
Shield
357 ff).

the son of Licymnios
: Oionos (P. 3. 15. 4f.), said to have been the first Olympic victor in the foot-race (Pind.
ol
. 10. 64 ff).
Licymnios, who went into exile with Amphitryon, p. 69, was the half-brother of Heracles’ mother, so Heracles was bound to avenge the murder of his son. This campaign is important dynastically because it caused Tyndareus to be restored to the Spartan throne. According to Pausanias, Heracles attacked at once in a fury, but was wounded and withdrew (3. 15. 5), and returned later with an army after he had been cured by Asclepios (3. 19. 7).

raped Auge . . . the daughter o/Aleos
: Aleos was king of Tegea, and founder of the temple of Athene Alea (P. 8. 4. 8). The tradition is complex and contradictory; Ap. follows the Tegean temple legend, in which Heracles raped Auge by a fountain north of the temple, P. 8. 47. 4, as against the tradition in which he fathered the child in Asia Minor on the way to Troy (e.g. Hes.
Cat
. fr. 165). In another version of the Tegean story, the birth of Telephos resulted from a love affair (P. 8. 4. 8 f., after Hecataeus) rather than a rape.

by a plague
: because of Auge’s sacrilegious use of the sacred precinct. When Ap. refers to this episode again on p. 116, he says that the sacrilege caused the land to become barren; Wagner’s suggestion that the original reading here was
limoi
, by a famine, rather than
loimoi
, by a plague, is quite plausible.

Telephos
: the name is explained as a combination of
thele
(teat) and
elaphos
(deer).

Deianeira, the daughter of Oineus
: see also p. 40; she was the sister of Meleager, who is said to have suggested the marriage to Heracles when they met in Hades (Bacch. 5. 165 ff., cf. sc.
Il
. 21. 194).

wrestled with Acheloos
: strictly a river (the largest in Greece, flowing along the Acarnanian frontier of Aetolia for part of its course, and thus no great distance from Calydon), but river gods were thought to manifest themselves in the form of a bull. See also p. 113 and note.

that of Amaltheia
: the cornucopia. Here Amaltheia is the nymph who fed the infant Zeus on milk from her goat (as against the goat itself on p. 28, cf. Hyg.
PA
13 for both versions). According to Zenobius, 2. 48, Zeus turned the goat into a constellation in gratitude, but gave one of its horns to the nymphs who had cared for him, endowing it with the power to produce whatever they wished; in that case, Amaltheia’s horn would not be a bull’s horn as stated here. DS 4. 35. 4 offers a rationalized account identifying it with the horn broken from Acheloos.

Ephyra
: in Epirus, on the mainland in the north-west, not the Ephyra identified with Corinth.

Tlepolemos
: see p. 93. For this episode, cf. DS 4. 36. 1,

of his sons
: by the fifty daughters of Thespios, see p. 71; he made Iolaos the leader of the forty who colonized Sardinia (see further DS 4. 29. 3 ff. with P. 7. 2. 2 and 9. 23. 1).

killed Eunomos
: he hit him harder than he had intended, cf. DS 4. 36. 2; according to P. 2. 13. 8, he was angry because the boy, there named Cyathos, had used water from the foot-bath.

Nessos had settled there
: for how he came to be there, see p. 75.

if she wanted a love-potion
: in reality it would be a dangerous poison because the blood from his wound was tainted by the hydra’s poison from Heracles’ arrows, see p. 90.

Theiodamas
: compare the story on p. 82. In the present case, Theiodamas is not a simple herdsman (as might be inferred), but the king of the Dryopes (cf. AR 1. 1213 ff. with the sc. on 1212, reporting Pherecydes). AR remarks that Heracles took the ox to provoke a war with the Dryopes; and according to Pherecydes, he returned to his city after Heracles took his ox, and mounted an expedition against him, but he was eventually killed by Heracles, who captured his son Hylas (see p. 51) and transferred the Dryopes from the north to the frontiers of Phocis. See also DS 4. 37. 1 f., where the king is named Phylas.

Ceux
: a son of one of Amphitryon’s brothers, and thus a relative of Heracles (sc. Soph.
Track
. 40; not the son of Heosphoros on p. 38, etc.); he later sheltered the sons of Heracles, p. 92. Heracles appeared in the
Marriage of Ceux
, a lost epic that the ancients attributed to Hesiod.

as an ally of Aigimios, king of the Dorians
: during Heracles’ lifetime, the Dorians were still in their early home north of the Corinthian Gulf (see p. 37 and note), but the Heraclids (his sons and descendants) would maintain this alliance with the Dorians, and lead them in an invasion of the Peloponnese, to displace the last Pelopid and become rulers in the main centres (pp. 92 ff.). As Perseids they had a legitimate claim to Argos (and possibly to Laconia and Messenia also, as Heracles had settled the succession there during his campaigns). It was in fact the case that the Dorian inhabitants of the Peloponnese had entered it from the north at a relatively late period; and it was believed that their supposed involvement with the Heraclids gave legitimacy to their occupation of
the land. For the present war with the Lapiths, another Thessalian people, see also DS 4. 37. 3.

Cycnos
: see the battle with Cycnos, son of Ares, on p. 82, and note. Although different names are given for Cycnos’ mother, it can be assumed that both accounts refer to the same event.

killed Amyntor
: in DS 4. 37. 4 Heracles attacks and kills the king (there called Ormenios) because he refuses to surrender his daughter, Astydameia (and afterwards fathers Ctesippos by her, who is mentioned as his son by the daughter of Amyntor on p. 92).

vengeance on Eurytos
: for refusing to give him Iole after he had won the contest for her hand, p. 84. This episode was treated in an early epic, the
Sack of Oichalia
. There was disagreement on the location of Oichalia (cf. P. 4. 2. 3), but Euboea was the most favoured locality, which is consistent with the indications here (notably the remark on p. 85 that Eurytos’ cattle were stolen from Euboea).

how matters stood with regard to Iole
: DS 4. 38. 1 states explicitly that she learned from Lichas that Heracles loved Iole; we are probably meant to assume that here. For the tunic, see p. 89.

into the Euhoean Sea
: following Ov.
Met
. 9. 218 (cf.
Ibis
492, and VM 1. 58 and 2. 165), to replace ‘from Boeotia’ in the manuscripts, which is evidently corrupt because he was at Cenaion, the northwestern promontory of Euboea.

Poias
: the Argonaut, p. 50, and father of Philoctetes, p. 121. Although it was more commonly said that Philoctetes lit the pyre and was given Heracles’ bow in return (e.g. Soph.
Philoctetes
801 ff., DS 4. 38. 4), this may well be the earlier tradition.

raised him up to heaven
: the apotheosis of Heracles is a relatively late element in the tradition. He is clearly regarded as mortal in
Il
. 18. 117 ff; in the
Odyssey
, Odysseus meets Heracles in Hades, 11. 601–27 (although there is an awkward interpolation after the first line, stating that the Heracles in Hades was only a phantom,
eidolon
, and the real Heracles was in heaven with Hebe, 602–4; a similar passage in
Theog
., 950 ff, that refers to his marriage in Olympos is also regarded as a later interpolation). The evidence from the visual arts suggests that the story of his apotheosis originated at the end of the seventh century. Before this promotion he was worshipped solely as a hero.

married. . . Hebe
: there is no myth associated with Heracles as a god beyond this marriage to Hebe, the personification of youth (cf. Pind.
Nem
. 1. 69 ff. and 10. 17 f.,
Isth
. 4. 55 ff.). The names for their children, otherwise unattested, are derived from Heracles’
cultic titles as
Alexikakos
(Averter of Evil) and
Kallinikos
(the Noble Victor, see p. 86).

the daughters of Thespios
: see p. 91.

the altar of Pity
: or Mercy, in the marketplace, see P. 1. 17. 1; an unusual cult in Greece.

the Athenians. . . in a war with Eurystheus
: under Theseus (P. 1. 32. 5) or Demophon, son of Theseus (AL 33, following Pherecydes, cf. Eur.
Heraclidae
111 ff.).

Hyllos. . . killed him
: or Iolaos did, Pind.
Pyth
. 9. 79 ff, P. 1. 44. 14.

their return
: a return,
kathodos
, because the Heraclids were Perseids from Argos, and were claiming their legitimate rights. After the death of Eurystheus, it was the will of the gods that the Pelopids should rule the main Peloponnesian centres, in Mycenae (see p. 145 and note) and Sparta (see pp. 122 and 146 and note), and that they should not be displaced until after the Trojan War (fifty years after, it was usually said, when Tisamenos was killed, see p. 94 with p. 164 and note; this was regarded as the last episode in mythological history).