The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics) (17 page)

¹
After his labours, Heracles returned to Thebes. He gave

6

Megara to Iolaos,
*
and wanting to remarry, he made enquiries and learned that Eurytos, king of Oichalia, had offered the hand of his daughter Iole as a prize to the man who could defeat himself and his sons at archery.
*
So he went to Oichalia and proved himself superior to them at archery, but even so, he failed to get his bride; for although Iphitos, the eldest of the sons, said that Iole should be given to Heracles, Eurytos and the others refused, saying that they were afraid that if he had
children, he would kill his offspring once again.
²
Not long afterwards, some cattle were stolen
*
from Euboea by Autolycos, and Eurytos thought that Heracles was responsible. Iphitos, however, did not believe it, and went to see Heracles. Meeting him as he was returning from Pherae after he had saved the dead Alcestis for Admetos, Iphitos asked him to help in the search for the cattle. Heracles promised to do so and entertained him as a guest; but then, in a fresh fit of madness,
*
he hurled him from the walls of Tiryns. Wanting to be purified of the murder he visited Neleus, who was king of the Pylians. When Neleus rejected him
*
because of his friendship with Eurytos, he then went to Amyclai and was purified by Deiphobos, son of Hippolytos.

He was struck by a terrible disease as the result of his murder of Iphitos, and went to Delphi to ask how he could be delivered from it. When the Pythia refused to grant him a response,
*
he wanted to plunder the temple and tried to carry off the tripod to found an oracle of his own. But Apollo joined battle with him, until Zeus hurled a thunderbolt between them. After they had been separated in this way, Heracles received a response from the oracle, which told him that he would be delivered from his illness if he was sold into slavery, served for three years, and gave the price paid for him to Eurytos as compensation for the murder.
³
Following the delivery of this oracle, Hermes put him up for sale, and he was purchased by Omphale, daughter of Iardanos, queen of Lydia, who had been left the kingdom by her husband, Tmolos, after his death. As for the money paid for him, Eurytos refused to accept it when it was brought to him.

While serving Omphale as a slave, Heracles captured and bound the Cercopes
*
at Ephesus, and at Aulis he killed Syleus —who compelled strangers to dig [in his vineyard
*
]—and also his daughter, Xenodoce, and burned his vines to their roots. Calling in at the island of Douche, he saw the body of Icaros
*
cast ashore there, and buried it, calling the island Icaria instead of Doliche. In return, Daidalos made a statue at Pisa in the likeness of Heracles (who failed to recognize it one night, and threw a stone at it, taking it for a living person). It was during the time of his servitude to Omphale that the voyage
to Colchis
*
is said to have taken place, and the hunt for the Calydonian boar, and that Theseus is said to have cleared the Isthmus as he travelled from Troezen.
*

⁴
After the completion of his servitude, when he was rid of his disease, he sailed against Ilion
*
with eighteen fifty-oared ships, and an army that he had assembled beforehand from heroes who had volunteered for the expedition. On his arrival at Ilion, he left Oicles behind to guard the ships while he and the other heroes set off to attack the city. Laomedon for his part marched against the ships with the greater part of his force and killed Oicles in the fighting, but he was driven back by the troops of Heracles and put under siege. After the siege was engaged, Telamon was the first to break through the wall and make his way into the city, with Heracles behind him. When Heracles saw that Telamon had entered first, he drew his sword and rushed to attack him, anxious that nobody should be thought a better man than himself. Seeing the situation, Telamon began to heap together some stones that lay at hand; and when Heracles asked him what he was doing, he said that he was building an altar to Heracles the Noble Victor.
*
Heracles praised him for this, and when he had taken the city and shot down Laomedon and all his sons except for Podarces, he gave Laomedon’s daughter Hesione to Telamon as a prize, allowing her to take with her any person she wished from the captives. When she chose her brother Podarces, Heracles said that he must first become a slave, and that she should then offer something in payment for him so as to acquire him. So when he was sold, she removed the veil from her head and gave it in payment for him; and that was how Podarces came to be called
Priam
*

¹
As Heracles was sailing back from Troy, Hera sent violent

7

storms
*
against him, which so angered Zeus that he suspended her from Olympos.
*
Heracles wanted to sail in to Cos, but the Coans, taking him for the leader of a band of pirates, tried to prevent his approach by hurling stones. He turned to force and seized the island by night, killing its king, Eurypylos,
son of Astypalaia and Poseidon. In the course of the fighting, Heracles was wounded by Chalcodon, but Zeus snatched him away and he suffered no further harm. After ravaging Cos, he went to Phlegra at Athene’s behest, and helped the gods to victory in their war against the Giants.
*

²
Not long afterwards, he mounted an expedition against Augeias,
*
gathering together an Arcadian army and raising volunteers from the foremost men of Greece. When Augeias heard that Heracles was preparing to make war on him, he appointed as generals of the Eleans Eurytos and Cteatos,
*
who were two men joined into one, and were superior in strength to all others of their time. They were sons of Molione and Actor (who was a brother of Augeias), although their real father was said to be Poseidon. Now it happened that in the course of the expedition Heracles fell ill, and for that reason he arranged a truce with the Molionides; but later, when they came to learn of his illness, they attacked his army and killed many of his men. So at the time Heracles retreated; but afterwards, when the Isthmian Games were being celebrated for the third time and the Eleans sent the Molionides to take part in the sacrifices, Heracles set an ambush
*
for them at Cleonai and killed them. Then he marched against Elis and captured the city. After he had killed Augeias and his sons, he recalled Phyleus
*
and granted him the throne. He also established the Olympic Games, founded an altar of Pelops,
*
and raised six altars to the twelve gods.

³
After the capture of Elis, he marched against Pylos.
*
He took the city and killed Periclymenos, the bravest of Neleus’ sons, who used to change shape as he fought. He killed Neleus too, and all his sons, except for Nestor, who was still a boy and was being brought up amongst the Gerenians. During the battle, he also wounded Hades, who came to the aid of the Pylians.
*

After he had captured Pylos, he mounted an expedition against Lacedaimon, wanting to punish the sons of Hippocoon. He was angry with them because they had fought as allies of Neleus, and was even angrier when they killed the son of
Licymnios:
*
for while he was looking at the palace of Hippocoon, a Molossian hound ran out and dashed towards him, and when he threw a stone and struck the dog, the sons of Hippocoon rushed out and beat him to death with their cudgels. It was to avenge his death that Heracles assembled an army to attack the Lacedaimonians. Arriving in Arcadia, he asked Cepheus to join him as his ally, along with his sons, of whom he had twenty. Cepheus, fearing that the Argives would attack Tegea if he left it, refused to take part in the expedition; but Heracles, who had acquired from Athene a lock of the Gorgon’s hair in a bronze jar, gave it to Cepheus’ daughter, Sterope, saying that if an army attacked, she should hold up the lock three times from the ramparts without looking at it herself and the enemy would turn and flee. As a result, Cepheus joined the expedition with his sons, and in the course of the fighting, he and his sons were killed, together with Iphicles, the brother of Heracles. After he had killed Hippocoon and his sons and taken control of the city, Heracles recalled Tyndareus and entrusted the kingdom to him.

⁴
As he was passing by Tegea, Heracles raped Auge, without realizing that she was the daughter of Aleos.
*
She gave birth in secret and hid her baby in the sanctuary of Athene; but when the country was ravaged by a plague,
*
Aleos entered the sanctuary, conducted a search, and discovered his daughter’s child. So he had the baby exposed on Mount Parthenion, but it was saved by an act of divine providence: for a
doe
that had just given birth offered her
teat
to it, and some shepherds took up the child and named it
Telephos
*
As for Auge, her father handed her over to Nauplios, son of Poseidon, to sell in foreign parts, and Nauplios gave her to Teuthras, king of Teuthrania, who made her his wife.

⁵
Arriving in Calydon, Heracles sought to win Deianeira, the daughter of Oineus,
*
as his wife. To gain her hand, he wrestled with Acheloos,
*
and when Acheloos assumed the form of a bull, Heracles broke off one of its horns. So Heracles married Deianeira, and Acheloos recovered his horn by offering
that of Amaltheia
*
in exchange. (Amaltheia was the daughter of Haimonios and she owned a bull’s horn, which, according to Pherecydes, had the power to furnish as much meat or drink as one could wish for, in limitless supply.)

⁶
Heracles marched with the Calydonians against the Thesprotians, and after capturing the city of Ephyra,
*
which was ruled by Phylas, he had intercourse with the king’s daughter, Astyoche, and became the father of Tlepolemos.
*
During his stay with them, he sent a message to Thespios telling him to retain seven of his sons,
*
but dispatch three of them to Thebes and send the remaining forty to the island of Sardinia to found a colony. Subsequently, as he was feasting with Oineus, he killed Eunomos,
*
son of Architeles, with a blow of his fist while the boy (who was a relative of Oineus) was pouring water over his hands. Because this had come about unintentionally, the father of the boy forgave Heracles, but he wanted to suffer exile in accordance with the law, and decided to depart to Ceux at Trachis.

Taking Deianeira with him, he arrived at the River Evenos. The Centaur Nessos had settled there,
*
and used to ferry travellers across the river for a fee, claiming that he had been granted the post of ferryman by the gods because of his honesty. Heracles for his own part crossed the river without assistance, but he entrusted Deianeira to Nessos and paid him the demanded fee to carry her across. But while Nessos was carrying her over, he tried to rape her; and Heracles heard her cries, and shot Nessos in the heart as he emerged from the water. On the point of death, Nessos called Deianeira to his side and said that if she wanted a love-potion
*
to use on Heracles, she should mix the semen that he had shed on the ground with the blood that had flowed from the wound made by the arrowhead. She did so, and kept the potion at hand.

⁷
While he was passing through the land of the Dryopes, Heracles was short of food, and when he came across Theiodamas
*
driving a pair of bullocks, he unyoked one of the bullocks, slaughtered it, and feasted on its flesh. When he reached Ceux
*
in Trachis, he was entertained by him, and then defeated the Dryopes in war.

Later he set out from Trachis to fight as an ally of Aigimios,
king of the Dorians;
*
for the Lapiths, under the command of Coronos, had gone to war with Aigimios over the boundaries of the land, and finding himself besieged, he had summoned Heracles to his aid, offering a share of the land in exchange. So Heracles came to his assistance, killed Coronos and others too, and delivered the whole country to Aigimios without accepting any reward. He also killed Laogoras, king of the Dryopes, along with his children, as he was feasting in a sanctuary of Apollo; for Laogoras was a man of violence and an ally of the Lapiths. As he was passing Itonos, he was challenged to single combat by Cycnos,
*
son of Ares and Pelopia; so Heracles joined battle with him, and killed him too. When he arrived at Ormenion, its king, Amyntor, appearing under arms, would not allow him to pass through; so, prevented from passing on his way, Heracles killed Amyntor
*
also.

On his arrival at Trachis, he assembled an army to attack Oichalia, desiring vengeance on Eurytos.
*
With Arcadians, Melians from Trachis, and Epicnemidian Locrians as his allies, he killed Eurytos and his sons, and captured the city. After burying those of his comrades who had fallen, namely, Hippasos, son of Ceux, and Argeios and Melas, the sons of Licymnios, he plundered the city and took Iole captive. Bringing his ship to anchor at Cenaion, a headland of Euboea, he erected an altar to Cenaian Zeus; and proposing to offer a sacrifice, he sent [Lichas] the herald to Trachis to fetch fine clothing. But Deianeira, learning from Lichas how matters stood with regard to Iole,
*
was afraid that Heracles might be more in love with Iole than with herself, and thinking that the blood that had flowed from Nessos really was a love-potion, she rubbed it into the tunic. So Heracles put it on, and proceeded with the sacrifice. But as soon as the tunic grew warm, the poison from the hydra began to bite into his skin. In response, he lifted Lichas by the feet and hurled him [into the Euboean Sea
*
], and tried to tear off the tunic, which had become attached to his body; but his flesh was torn off along with the clothing. In this sorry plight, he was carried back to Trachis
by ship; and when Deianeira learned what had happened, she hanged herself. After instructing Hyllos, his eldest son by Deianeira, to marry Iole when he came of age, Heracles made his way to Mount Oeta (which lies on Trachinian territory), and built a pyre there and climbed on to it, ordering that it should be set alight. When nobody was willing to do so, Poias,
*
who was passing by in search of his flocks, set it alight; and Heracles presented his bow and arrows to him. As the pyre blazed, a cloud is said to have passed beneath Heracles and raised him up to heaven
*
to the accompaniment of thunder. There he obtained immortality, and becoming reconciled with Hera, he married her daughter Hebe,
*
who bore him two sons, Alexiares and Anicetos.