Heracles ( ), born Alcaeus () or AlcidesBibliotheca ii. 4. § 12 (), was the greatest of the Greek heroes. He was considered the son of ZeusApollodorus, 1.9.16 and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive descent through Amphitryon, Heracles receives the epithet Alcides, as "of the line of Alcaeus", father of Amphitryon. Amphitryon's own, mortal son was Iphicles. He was thought to be both a hero and a god, possessing superhuman strength. No tomb was ever identified as his, and at some festivals sacrifice was offered to him first as a hero and then as a god. He was widely worshipped as a patron of young men and gymnasia.
Heracles appears in numerous myths, which often involve the enmity of Hera, the wife of Zeus. Driven mad by Hera, Heracles killed his wife Megara and their children. Heracles performed a series of labours, conventionally numbered twelve, on the orders of his cousin Eurystheus, the king of Argos. These tasks included the killing of the Nemean lion and the Lernaean Hydra, the theft of the golden apples of the Hesperides, and the capture of Cerberus. Episodes outside the cycle of labours have him sailing with the Argonauts, sacking Troy in the generation before the Trojan War, freeing Prometheus, and serving a further term of slavery to Omphale, queen of Lydia.
Heracles married multiple times and fathered a large number of children; his descendants are called the Heracleidae. Ancient tradition also records several male lovers, including Iolaus and Hylas. According to the story of Heracles's apotheosis, his wife Deianira (who had been deceived by the dying centaur Nessus) gave him a garment smeared with poisoned blood. Unable to remove it, he immolated himself atop Mount Oeta, burning away his mortal part. He ascended to Olympus as a god, and married the goddess Hebe.
His Roman form is called Hercules; Roman emperors, such as Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves with him. Heracles remains a frequent subject of Western art and popular culture.
Origin Many popular stories were told of his life, the most famous being the twelve Labours of Hercules; Alexandrian poets of the Hellenistic age drew his mythology into a high poetic and tragic atmosphere.Burkert 1985, pp. 208–09 His figure, which initially drew on Near Eastern motifs such as the lion-fight, was widely known.
Heracles was the greatest of Hellenic chthonic heroes, but unlike other Greek heroes, no tomb was identified as his. Heracles was both hero and god, as Pindar says heros theos; at the same festival sacrifice was made to him, first as a hero, with a chthonic libation, and then as a god, upon an altar: thus he embodies the closest Greek approach to a "demi-god".
The core of the story of Heracles has been identified by Walter Burkert as originating in Neolithic hunter culture and traditions of shamanistic crossings into the netherworld.Burkert 1985, pp. 208–12. It is possible that the myths surrounding Heracles were based on the life of a real person or several people whose accomplishments became exaggerated with time.Loewen, Nancy: Hercules, p. 15
Hero or god Heracles's role as a culture hero, whose death could be a subject of mythic telling (see below), was accepted into the Olympian Pantheon during Classical times. This created an awkwardness in the encounter with Odysseus in the episode of Odyssey XI, called the Nekuia, where Odysseus encounters Heracles in Hades:
Ancient critics were aware of the problem of the aside that interrupts the vivid and complete description, in which Heracles recognizes Odysseus and hails him, and some modern critics deny that the verse's beginning, in Fagles's translation His ghost I mean ..., was part of the original composition: "once people knew of Heracles's admission to Olympus, they would not tolerate his presence in the underworld", remarks Friedrich Solmsen, noting that the interpolated verses represent a compromise between conflicting representations of Heracles.
Cult The ancient Greeks celebrated the festival of the Heracleia, which commemorated the death of Heracles, on the second day of the month of Metageitnion (which would fall in late July or early August). What is believed to be an Egyptian Temple of Heracles in the Bahariya Oasis dates to 21 BCE. A reassessment of Ptolemy's descriptions of the island of Malta attempted to link the site at Ras ir-Raħeb with a temple to Heracles,Ptol. iv. 3. § 37 but the arguments are not conclusive. Several ancient cities were named Heraclea in his honor. A very small island close to the island of Lemnos was called Neai (Νέαι), from νέω, which means "I dive/swim", because Heracles swam there.Suda, nu,103 According to the Greek legends, the Herculaneum in Italy was founded by him.Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), Herculaneum
Several poleis provided two separate sanctuaries for Heracles, one recognizing him as a god, the other only as a hero. Sacrifice was made to him as a hero and as a god within the same festival.Burkert 1985, p. 208. This ambiguity helped create the Heracles cult especially when historians (e.g. Herodotus) and artists encouraged worship such as the painters during the time of the Peisistratos, who often presented Heracles entering Olympus in their works.
Some sources explained that the Greek hero cult of Heracles persisted because of the hero's ascent to heaven and his suffering, which became the basis for festivals, ritual, rites, and the organization of mysteries. There is the observation, for example, that sufferings (pathea) gave rise to the rituals of grief and mourning, which came before the joy in the mysteries in the sequence of cult rituals. Also, like the case of Apollo, the cult of Heracles had been sustained through the years by absorbing local cult figures such as those who share the same nature. He was also constantly invoked as a patron for men, especially the young ones. For example, he was considered the ideal in warfare so he presided over gymnasiums and the ephebes or those men undergoing military training.
There were ancient towns and cities that also adopted Heracles as a patron deity, contributing to the spread of his cult. There was the case of the royal house of Macedonia, which claimed lineal descent from the hero, primarily for purposes of divine protection and legitimator of actions.
The earliest evidence that shows the worship of Heracles in popular cult was in 6th century BCE (121–122 and 160–165) via an ancient inscription from Phaleron. After the 4th century BCE, Heracles became identified with the Phoenician God Melqart.
Oitaeans worshiped Heracles and called him Cornopion (Κορνοπίων) because he helped them get rid of locusts (which they called cornopes), while the citizens of Erythrae at Mima called him Ipoctonus (ἰποκτόνος) because he destroyed the vine-eating ips (ἀμπελοφάγων ἰπῶν), a kind of cynips wasp, there.
Near the town of Bura in Achaea, there was a statue of Heracles on the River Buraicus and an oracle in a cave. People who consulted this oracle first prayed before the statue, then threw four dice from a mound that was always kept ready onto a table. These dice were marked with certain characters, the significance of which was elucidated by an artwork shown in the cave. Because of this town Heracles had the epithet Buraicus (Βουραϊκός).A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, Buraicus
Pausanias wrote that at Thebes there was a statue of Heracles, called Nose-docker (Ῥινοκολούστης) because, according to the ancient Thebans, he cut off the noses of the heralds sent from Orchomenus to demand tribute, intending to insult them.Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9.25.4
Character Heracles used his wits on several occasions when his strength did not suffice, such as when laboring for the king Augeas of Elis, wrestling the giant Antaeus, or tricking Atlas into taking the sky back onto his shoulders. Together with Hermes he was the patron and protector of gymnasia and palaestrae.Pausanias, Guide to Greece, 4.32.1 His iconographic attributes are the lion skin and the club. These qualities did not prevent him from being regarded as a playful figure who used games to relax from his labors and played a great deal with children.Aelian, Varia Historia, 12.15 By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have "made the world safe for mankind" and to be its benefactor.Aelian, Varia Historia, 5.3 Heracles was an extremely passionate and emotional individual, capable of doing both great deeds for his friends (such as wrestling with Thanatos on behalf of Prince Admetus, who had regaled Heracles with his hospitality, or restoring his friend Tyndareus to the throne of Sparta after he was overthrown) and being a terrible enemy who would wreak horrible vengeance on those who crossed him, as Augeas, Neleus, and Laomedon all found out to their cost. There was also a coldness to his character, which was demonstrated by Sophocles's depiction of the hero in The Trachiniae. Heracles threatened his marriage with his desire to bring two women under the same roof; one of them was his wife Deianeira.
In the works of Euripides involving Heracles, his actions were partly driven by forces outside rational human control. By highlighting the divine causation of his madness, Euripides problematized Heracles's character and status within the civilized context. This aspect is also highlighted in Hercules Furens where Seneca linked the hero's madness to an illusion and a consequence of Heracles's refusal to live a simple life, as offered by Amphitryon. It was indicated that he preferred the extravagant violence of the heroic life and that its ghosts eventually manifested in his madness and that the hallucinatory visions defined Heracles's character.
Physical description According to the Greek philosopher Dicaearchus, Heracles was square-built, muscular, dark (μέλανα), hook-nosed, with brownish-amber eyes and long hair. Pseudo-Apollodorus adds that "his body measured four cubits, and he flashed a gleam of fire from his eyes",Apollodorus, Library, 2.4.9 while the poet Pindar describes him as "of stature short, but dauntless soul".Pindar, Isthmian Odes, 4 In art, he is usually shown with short, curly hair, a thick neck, a projecting lower forehead, broad shoulders, and strongly developed arms, chest, and legs, as in the Farnese Hercules.
Mythology
Birth and childhood
A major factor in the well-known tragedies surrounding Heracles is the hatred that the goddess Hera, wife of Zeus, had for him. Heracles was the son of the affair Zeus had with the mortal woman Alcmene. When Zeus desired Alcmene, he decided to make one night last three by ordering Helios, the god of the sun, not to rise for three days, so he would have more time with Alcmene.Pseudo-Apollodorus, Library 2.4.8; Seneca, Hercules Furens 24; Argonautica Orphica 113; Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods Hermes and Helios Zeus had sex with her after disguising himself as her husband, Amphitryon, home early from war (Amphitryon did return later the same night, and Alcmene became pregnant with his son at the same time, a case of heteropaternal superfecundation, where a woman carries twins sired by different fathers).Compare the two pairs of twins born to Leda and the "double" parentage of Theseus. Thus, Heracles's very existence proved at least one of Zeus's many illicit affairs, and Hera often conspired against Zeus's mortal offspring as revenge for her husband's infidelities. His twin mortal brother, son of Amphitryon, was Iphicles, father of Heracles's charioteer Iolaus.