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12a. Heracles

heracles

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29 views11 pages

12a. Heracles

heracles

Uploaded by

Saksham Sharma
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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12a

Heracles

Overview
Heracles—known also by his Latin name, Hercules—is one of the greatest
of Greek heroes. Myths about his exploits are panhellenic yet strongly
connected to Argos and Thebes.

Geography: Argos
Argos is a city in the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece. It is known to be
one of the oldest cities in Europe.
Argos
Argos 212 00, Greece Directions

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pb=!1m14!1m8!1m3!1d679818.938169808!2d22.662299091896436!3d37.67293558337187!3m2!
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Heracles is a remarkable hero, not least because he is one of the few
mortals in Greco-Roman mythology to be divinized (made fully divine and
one of the immortals). Heracles, sporting his trademark lion skin and club,
was a popular subject in both Greek and Roman literature and art of
antiquity. His legend has remained popular and in modern times he has
often been portrayed as the consummate strongman.

Watch: Trailers for Hercules in New


York, and Disney's Hercules.

Watch the trailers of Hercules in New York (1970)


and Disney’s Hercules (1997).

First, watch the trailer of the comedy film


Hercules in New York
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=pvWySqI9uN4) , which features a young
Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hercules, who
disobeys Zeus to visit New York City.
Now, watch the trailer of Disney's Hercules
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=ZvtspevZxpg) , an animated film that retells

Hercules’ twelve labours.Also note that Heracles


also appeared in comic roles in antiquity, as in
Aristophanes’ comedies Birds and Frogs, where
Heracles appears as a glutton.

You might be interested to read Disney's Hercules in Context:


Mouse-Morality for Mini-Heroes (/sites/courses/CLAS-
104/media/documents/module-12/Disney-Hercules-in-
Context%20Mouse-morality-for-Mini-heroes.pdf) , by Lisa
Maurice.

Birth and Life of Heracles


Heracles is semi-divine at his birth, the son of Zeus and the mortal woman
Alcmena. The mortal husband of Alcmena, Amphitryon, is sometimes
referred to as the father of Heracles, but it is Zeus who impregnates
Alcmena in her husband’s absence. Zeus, ever an insatiable lover, comes to
Alcmena disguised as her husband, thereby tricking her into sleeping with
him. Alcmena gives birth to twins: Heracles and Iphicles. From his very
birth, Heracles is a precocious child, able to undertake feats that are
uncharacteristic (even impossible) for a baby.

Reflect

Who does the baby Heracles remind you of?

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In fact, Heracles is such a powerful young man that from his birth he
promises to be a great ruler among men. Zeus boasts of Heracles among
the gods:
Today Eileithyia, helper in
childbirth, will bring to the

light a man who shall rule

over all that dwell around

him; he shall be of the race


that is of my blood.

(Iliad 19.103–5, in Morford, Lenardon,


and Sham 2018, 555)

According to Homer (Iliad 19.100ff.), Hera is jealous because her husband


has slept with another woman (a recurring motif in Greco-Roman
mythology) and causes the birth of Heracles to be delayed. At the same
time, she speeds up the birth of the wife of the mortal Sthenelus
(Alcmena’s uncle). Thus, by Zeus’ statement, which functions as a
prophecy, Sthenelus’ son Eurystheus becomes the one who rules all that
dwell around him. Heracles thus has to serve Eurystheus, and it is for him
later in life that he must complete his twelve labours.
Another version of Hera’s anger has the goddess send a pair of snakes to
kill Heracles just after he is born. Heracles, however, is up to this challenge,
even as an infant, and strangles the snakes as they attack him.
As told by Pindar:

Willingly do I take hold of


Heracles upon the high peaks
of Virtue as I retell an
ancient tale. When the son of
Zeus had escaped from the
birth pangs with his twin and
had come into the bright
light, he was wrapped in the
yellow swaddling bands, and
Hera of the golden throne
saw him. Straightaway in
hasty anger, the queen of the
gods sent snakes, which
passed through the open
doors into the farthest part of
the wide room, eager to coil
their quick jaws around the
children. But Heracles lifted
up his head and for the first
time made trial of battle;
with his two hands, from
which there was no escape,
he seized by their necks the
two serpents, and his grip
squeezed the lift out of the
huge monsters, strangling
them.

(Nemean Ode 1.33–47, in Morford,


Lenardon, and Sham 2018, 556)

Yet another story has Hera make Heracles go mad later in his life. In a rage,
Heracles kills his first wife, Megara (daughter of Creon, king of Thebes), and
their children. Once sane, he is purified by Thespius and advised by the
priestess of Apollo at Delphi to go to Tiryns and serve Eurystheus there for
twelve years, completing any labours Eurystheus should propose. The
chronology of events is different in other mythological versions of Heracles’
life. The great fifth-century tragedian Euripides, in his play Heracles, places
the murder of Megara and of his children after his completion of the
labours. As with most ancient myths there are many different versions, yet
Heracles’s labours for Eurystheus feature strongly in all of them.
Detail from a fifth-century BCE vessel painting depicting young Heracles with the serpents.

Berlin Painter, Stamnos: Young Herakles with Serpents: Det., ca. 500–475 BCE, Musée du Louvre,
Paris, https://library.artstor.org/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822003050034.
References

Lisa Maurice, 2020, "Disney's Hercules in Context: Mouse-Morality for Mini-Heroes,"


in The Modern Hercules: Images of the Hero from the Nineteenth to the Early
Twenty-First Century, edited by Alastair J.L. Blanshard and Emma Stafford
(Leiden: Brill), 468–87.

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