Term 2 - Lec 9 (Heracles)

Question 1

What kind of hero is heracles?

Answer 1

a panhellenic hero

= different city states all laid some claim to relationship with the hero (i.e. came through the city etc.)

Question 2

What hero is Heracles descended from?

Answer 2

Perseus

Question 3

Genealogy of Perseus

Answer 3

Perseus + Andromeda –> 3 sons:

• Alcaeus –> Amphitryon
• Electryon –> Alkmene
• Sthenelus

Alkmene –>
Heracles (Zeus) and Iphikles (Amphitryon)

Question 4

How is Heracles conceived?

Answer 4

• Zeus comes to Alkmene in disguise as her husband Amphitryon who’s away at battle and sleeps with her
• Amphitryon also sleeps with Alkmene later that night
• therefore, Alkmene gives birth to twins: Heracles (Zeus) and Iphikles (Amphitryon)

Question 5

What kind of inheritance does Heracles have?

Answer 5

both divine and political (because a son of Zeus but also technically a son of Amphitryon)

Question 6

What is Zeus’ oath? How does Hera interfere?

Answer 6

The child who’s born on that day will inherit the crown

Hera delays the labour of Alkmene and pushes forward the labour of Sthenelus, therefore Eurystheus is born first and fulfills Zeus’ oath and becomes king

Question 7

How does Hera try to kill the newborn twins?

Answer 7

sets 2 snakes into the twin’s nursery when they’re born

Heracles stranger two snakes in each hand while his brother screams in terror (therefore early demonstration of his super powers)

Question 8

What does Zeus try to do to reconcile Heracles with Hera?

What etiological explanation does this lead to?

Answer 8

• he puts Heracles against sleeping Hera’s breast so he can nurse at the breast of a goddess
• Hera realizes and pushes Heracles away, and milk spurts out

–> Milky Way etiology

Question 9

What are the two ways that Hera interferes in the early life of Heracles (out of jealousy)?

Answer 9

1. delaying labour with Heracles

2. trying to kill the twins with snakes

Question 10

How was Heracles educated? What struggles were faced during his education?

Answer 10

1. By his music teacher LINUS
   - but he accidentally kills him and is therefore sent away by his parents to…
2. By centaur CHIRON
   - educated in the wilderness
   - chiron = only centaur who’s wise; he’s also taught other heroes music/med/warfare etc
   - Heracles learns to be a skilled archer

Question 11

Examples of his heroic appetites

Answer 11

SEXUAL APPETITE

• slept with 50 daughters of Thespius (in one night or over 50 days) –> they all have sons of Heracles
• just like his father

Huge capacity to EAT and DRINK

Question 12

Heracle’s first tragic marriage?
How does he atone for this?

Which story is this described in?

Answer 12

• first wife = Megara
• driven mad by Hera, he thinks he’s defending his family against invaders and kills his wife/kids
• he comes to senses and wants to commit suicide
• Amphitryon tells him instead to go to Oracle and find out how to atone
• atones via serving his cousin, King Eurystheus (12 labours)
• described in Euripides’ Herakles

Question 13

How does he atone for his crime of domestic violence?

What does he gain through this atonement?

Answer 13

• by serving his cousin King Eurystheus
• performs 12 labours = each is an impossible task
• first 6 are local, then he goes further and further until databases
• results in confrontations with death and taming of nature
• makes the world safer through this + gains kleos (technically all this glory is due to Hera –> hera-kleos)

Question 14

List the 12 labours

Answer 14

1. Killing Nemean Lion
2. Killing Hydra
3. Capturing Golden/Cerynitian Hind
4. Capturing Erymanthian boar
5. Cleaning Augean Stables
6. Removing Stymphalian birds
7. Capturing Cretan Bull
8. Capturing Thracian horses
9. Bringing back Girdle (belt) of Hippolyte
10. Bringing back Cattle of Geryon
11. Bringing back Gold Apples of the Hesperides
12. Capturing Cereberus

Question 15

How does Heracles slay the Nemean lion?

What weapon and trademark does he gain through this labour?

Answer 15

• no weapon can penetrate his skin
• Heracles wrestles and strangles the lion with his bare hands
• uses lion’s claws to skin it
• wears the skin of the lion as a cloak
  (way of manifesting his animal nature)
• makes his famous club at this point

Question 16

How does he kill the Hydra?

What weapon does he gain through this labour?

Answer 16

• hydra = remale, reptilian creature
• as Heracles cuts off a head, he gets a friend to cauterize it so another head can’t grow in
• uses a sickle not knife to cut body part of a child of earth-mother
• he takes arrows and dips them into blood of Hydra (lethal)

Question 17

How does Heracles capture the Cerynitian Hind?

Answer 17

= a golden horn deer sacred to Artemis and Heracles must break a horn off of it
- because sacred to Artemis, has to reconcile himself with Artemis and win her favour (not easy)

–> Therefore demonstrate ability to find favour with difficult goddess

Question 18

How does Heracles remove the Stymphalian birds?

Answer 18

• feathers fall off like arrows –> death and destruction
• Heracles uses a sling shot
• rouses the birds with little percussion instruments associated with mother goddess of the East
  (he was initiated into her cult - therefore once again, gained favour of female goddess for a quest)

Question 19

How does Heracles bring back the girdle of Hippolyte?

Answer 19

• Hippolyte = Amazon queen
• getting her girdle from her means that he’s killed her or slept with her (therefore proves mastery of her)
• she gives it to him willingly (but ends up being killed by Heracles later due to Hera’s interference)

Question 20

How does Heracles retrieve the cattle of Geryon?

Answer 20

• Geryon = monster with 3x as many of things: i.e. 3 heads, 3 shields etc.
• herdsman of the dead
• Heracles goes into the underworld to battle for this –> “travels to the land where the sun sets”
• KATABASIS

Question 21

How does Heracles capture Cerberus?

Answer 21

• cerberus = multiple-headed hound of Hades, guards the gates of Hell
• KATABASIS

Question 22

During which two quests does Heracles go through databases?

Answer 22

1. bringing back cattle of Geryon

2. capturing Cerberus

Question 23

What is the cause for Heracle’s second atonement?

How did he atone?

Answer 23

• the treacherous murder of a rival
• enslavement to Omphale (a foreign queen) –> this is very embarrassing
• she is seen wearing the lions skin and club, which is representative of Heracles = “ownership”

Question 24

Heracles second marriage?
How was it tragic?

Who wrote about this?

Answer 24

• to Deianeira = “man-destroyer”
• they’re crossing a river, pays a centaur Nessus to ferry Deianeira across the river
• in the middle of the river, Nessus assaults her, and Heracles turns around and shoots Nessus after hearing her scream
• Nessus’ trick: he apologizes and in return tells her to take a vial of his blood as a ‘love potion’ if she ever needs to win back Heracle’s love
• Deianeira + Heracles live happily for many years
• years later, heracles destroys city Oichalia for the love of princess Iole for her hand in marriage, but Iole’s father/sons disagree —> therefore Heracles takes her captive instead
• Deianeira learns this and makes a robe with her own hands and rubs the love potion onto it
• Heracles puts the robe on, and it melts/burns his skin when sun touches it (because blood of Nessus was mixed with potion from lethal Hydra arrow)
• Deianeira commits suicide via sword after (because it was unintentional murder)
• -> HERACLES PAST COMING BACK/REPEATING AT HIM
• -> END OF HIS LIFE ON EARTH
• Sophocles wrote about this in Women of Trachis

Question 25

What is Apotheosis? How did Heracles achieve this?

Answer 25

= becoming a god - in agony while dying, Heracles asks his son to burn him on a funeral pyre - his son refuses - Heracles finds another man (Philoktetes) to do this in return for Heracle's bow/arrow - burned alive on the pyre, he ascends to olympus

Question 26

What is Heracles fate on Olympus?

Answer 26

- reconciled with Hera | - given Hebe (Youth) as his bride --> therefore gets immortality and eternal youth

Question 27

Who are Heracles' three wives?

Answer 27

1. Megara 2. Deianeira ('man-destroyer') 3. Hebe (Youth)