Good day, dear Take in Mind readers! That’s right, we in Take in Mind can’t live without heroes! Recently, together with our readers, we have studied very thoroughly the heroic adventures of the legendary king Uruk Gilgamesh. Now we want to offer to get acquainted with the most famous and great hero of ancient Greece, Heracles.
For that, we will use the ancient sources (for example, Euripides’ Alkestis) and modern works (Kuhn’s Legends and myths of Ancient Greece and The complete idiot’s guide to classical mythology by K. Osborne and D.L. Burgess). The story is long and will spread over multiple posts. So, without further ado, let’s start our journey!
Similar to most great heroes of ancient Greece, Heracles was half-blood: half-god, half-human. His father was Zeus the Thunderer himself, and his mother was a mortal Alcmene, daughter of Electryon, a king of Tiryns and Mycenae or Medea in Argolis. Alcmene was married to her cousin Amphitryon. Before the wedding, Amphitryon accidentally killed his father and was exiled from his country. Alcmene followed her husband, and the young family settled in Thebes. However, their life was not so simple: Alcmene refused to fulfill marital duties until her husband took revenge against the Taphians and Teleboans, who killed her brothers.
Pushed by such powerful motivation, Amphitryon actively got down to business and successfully completed the task. A few days before his return from the expedition, Zeus took the form of Amphitryon and appeared to Alcmene. Pseudo-Amphitryon described the heroic stories of her spouse to Alcmene and then demanded the promised reward. At the same time, Zeus ordered Helios, the God of the Sun, not to go out on his daily raid for three days in order to fully enjoy the love of Alcmene… Soon Amphitryon returned to Thebes.
He was very surprised by the almost complete indifference of his wife when he eagerly talked about his exploits (as we know, she already heard about them from pseudo-Amphitryon, and what woman would like to hear such non-romantic details for a second time?). Being completely confused, Amphitryon went to the blind prophet Tiresias, who revealed the truth. Finally, deciding not to argue with the gods (and even more so, with Zeus), Amphitryon decided to make peace with his wife.
In addition, the valiant hero showed himself as a complete coward: due to fear of the possible jealousy of Zeus, Amphitryon never slept with his lawful wife again. Well, in the meanwhile, a half-god-half-man was born and was named Heracles.
By the way, the name “Heracles” means Hera’s “pride” or “glory”. Although Heracles was an eternal reminder of her husband’s betrayal and a stain on her own reputation for the lawful wife of Zeus; eventually, Heracles’ future exploits had glorified Hera. But there’s still time for that, let’s continue in order!
Despite numerous flaws, Zeus was a caring father, at least in relation to Heracles. Zeus decided to trick Hera to feed the baby Heracles and turned to Athena with a request to help him. Athena brought a supposedly accidentally found baby, whom Alcmene abandoned out of fear before Hera. Athena asked Hera to feel mercy for the sweet child and Hera decided to Breastfeed the baby, but Heracles had already such strength that it was incredibly hard to tear him off the breast.
Drops of Hera’s milk, scattered across the sky, formed the Milky Way. But with divine milk, Heracles had acquired supernatural powers. Athena brought the infant back to his mother, and he was subsequently raised by his parents. Despite her compassionate deed, Hera, still jealous of Alcmene, decided to kill Heracles. The goddess sent the baby a deadly gift – two poisonous snakes, but the hero grabbed them with his little hands and strangled them without difficulty.
When Heracles grew up a little, Zeus attracted the best specialists in the world for his training and education. Amphitryon, the husband of Alcmene, taught Heracles to ride and control a chariot. The famous robber Autolycus taught him the art of wrestling. The famous horseman Castor taught the military sciences and the art of swordsmanship. The wisest centaur Chiron taught Heracles polite manners and etiquette. Eumolpus taught the young hero to sing and play the cithara. Linus taught literature to Heracles.
By the way, Linus learned from his own sad experience that it is not worth replacing other teachers. Once he gave Heracles a lesson to play the cithara instead of Eumolpus. Since the teachers had different teaching methods, Heracles refused to follow the requirements of the deputy. The discussion turned into a loud argument, and in the end, Lin hit his student. The enraged Heracles, in response, hit Linus with a Lyra on the head and killed the teacher. At the trial, Heracles proved that he simply fought back, and was acquitted.
Having such brilliant theoretical and practical training, Heracles was almost ready to fulfill his heroic mission. Only the weapons were lacking, and his father and other Olympians got down to business. Together they equipped Heracles according to the best heroic fashion: Zeus presented an impenetrable shield, Athena gave helmet and military clothes, Apollo provided a bow and arrows, Hermes gave sword, Hephaestus presented a copper breastplate and leg guards, and Poseidon supplied the young nephew a beautiful herd of horses.
Such a perfectly trained and armed Heracles simply had to become the greatest hero of the Ancient World. But the road to immortality turned to be long and thorny. Therefore, we will continue the story in our next posts.
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