Hercules aka Heracles

Who Was Hercules?

There were many heroes who could claim Zeus, the king of the gods, as their father, but few were immortal. Hercules (also called Heracles) and his half-brother Dionysus (Bacchus) claimed immortality as an accident at birth. Dionysus was immortal because, although conceived by the mortal Semele, he was actually born from the thigh of Zeus. Hercules was born in a more normal manner, from a human woman. His final dose of immortality sprang from the Queen of the gods, Hera, whose milk he drank at birth.

Hera and Hercules

Hera didn't know whose child she suckled -- just that its mother had abandoned her baby, but when the newborn sucked too hard, Hera threw him from her breast with a cosmic spurt of milk that created the Milky Way. From nurturer she became enemy. When she learned his identity, she sent snakes to strangle the infant Hercules and his hapless brother, Iphicles. But Hercules only chortled as he strangled the snakes in his chubby baby fists.

Hera drove Hercules mad. In penance for the unforgivable acts he committed while out of his mind, he performed the 12 labors, which Hera, again, instigated. But she wasn't his only or deadliest enemy. Hercules killed Nessus, who was a centaur, that mythological half-human half-horse breed, but very different from the kindly centaur Chiron, who trained most of the heroes in Greek mythology. With his dying blood, Nessus produced the weapon of Hercules' destruction. Immortals don't usually die. Burning alive from Nessus' posioned blood, Hercules begged his father to let him die and so end the pain.

Mercifully, Zeus intervened.

Ironically, once Hercules was dead and resurrected, he and his step-mother were reconciled. Hera made Hercules her son-in-law by bestowing her daughter Hebe in marriage.

• More You Should Know About Hercules!
• People in the Life of Hercules

Sources on Hercules

At least that's one version. Sifting through the conflicting information on Hercules is almost a herculean task in itself. Most of what we know about the mythic hero comes from The Library of (Pseudo-)Apollodorus*, but Pausanias, Tacitus, and Plutarch also wrote about him, and Herodotus wrote especially about a Hercules worshiped in Egypt. There are also artifacts, the philosophical writing of Plato, Aristotle, and Lucretius, and the literary works of of Vergil, Pindar, and Homer, as well as several plays, both comedy and tragedy that refer to Hercules.

Herculean

Hercules is portrayed as larger than life in most areas -- especially his physical prowess, his sexual appetites, and his relationship with death, which is why we have the word "herculean". In just one paragraph of Apollodorus, Hercules impregnates 50 sisters; diverting a river to wash out the Augean stables was the act of a day. But he wasn't all noble. At times he seems simply foolish. He ravished virgins, violated the rules of hospitality, and murdered his own children. It's small wonder that with all his variety he continues to fuel the imagination of dramatists.

Hercules Movies

The following is a list of movies about him from The Internet Movie Database, Ltd., up to, but not including, the 1997 Disney film:
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995)
Hercules II (1985).
Conquest (1983)
Ercole al centro della terra (1961)
Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide (1961)
Ercole contro Roma (1964)
Ercole e la regina di Lidia (1959)
Fatiche di Ercole, Le (1957)
Forbidden Zone (1980)
Hercules (1997)
Hercules and the Amazon Women (1994) (TV)
Hercules and the Circle of Fire (1994) (TV)
Hercules in New York (1970)
Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur (1994) (TV)
Hercules Returns (1983)
Hercules (1983)
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Unholy Three, The (1925)

Online Greek Drama about Hercules
The Trachiniae, by Sophocles
c. 430 B.C., translated by R.C. Jebb.
Philoctetes, by Sophocles
c. 409 B.C., translated by Thomas Francklin.
The Frogs, by Aristophanes
c. 405 B.C.; Anonymous translator.
Alcestis, by Euripides
c. 438 B.C., translated by Richard Aldington.

• Hercules Resources
• People in the Life of Hercules
• Women in Hercules' Life
• Twelve Labors of Hercules
• Hercules and the Olympic Games
• Euripides' Alcestis
• Ancient Sources for the Labors of Hercules

*Apollodorus, a 2nd Century B.C. Greek scholar, wrote a Chronicles and On the Gods. It is thought that the Bibliotheca 'Library' was written by someone a few centuries later, but the work is still referred to as the Library of Apollodorus or Pseudo-Apollodorus.

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