by Stephen Fry
‘After what you did to Megara and your own children?’ said Eurytus. ‘My beloved daughter Iole married to a wife-murderer? An infanticide? Never.’
Eurytus’s son IPHITUS admired Heracles and pleaded with his father on his behalf, but the king would have none of it. Heracles stormed off, promising to wreak a terrible revenge. He may, or may not, have taken some of Eurytus’s prize cattle with him. Certainly twelve of the herd went missing around that time. Iphitus came to Tiryns to stay with Heracles and negotiate for their return, but under the influence of another of his horrible fits, Heracles hurled the young man to his death from the city walls.fn52
The gods punished this crime against xenia, or ‘guest friendship’, by infecting Heracles with a disease.fn53 Once again in search of purification and atonement, Heracles visited king NELEUS of Pylos and asked him to perform the necessary rites, as anointed kings had the power to do.fn54 But Neleus was an old friend of Eurytus. Iphitus had been like a second son to him, and he pointblank refused to cleanse Heracles of the murder. Our hero left Pylos vowing revenge on Neleus, too.
Heracles had marked up two new grudges. They were added to his old beef (literally) with Augeas, who had refused the promised payment of cattle for sluicing out his filthy stables; nor had Heracles forgotten how Laomedon of Troy had failed to stump up when he had rescued his daughter Hesione from the sea monster sent by Poseidon.
‘Eurytus, Neleus, Augeas and Laomedon,’ he muttered to himself as he made his way to Delphi. ‘They will all pay.’
He knelt before the oracle. ‘I need to be cleansed. Tell me what I must do.’
‘You are impure,’ said the priestess, whose name was XENOCLEA.fn55 ‘You murdered a guest. We can say nothing to you until you are purified.’
‘That’s why I’ve come to you. To tell me how I can be purified.’
Not a word more would Xenoclea say.
At this point Heracles lost his famous temper and snatched the sacred tripod from her hands.
‘Damn you,’ he yelled. ‘I’ll go and set up my own oracle.’
Apollo came down from Olympus to restore order to his shrine. But before long Heracles was snarling at the god and spoiling for a fight. Only Heracles would have dared.
Zeus split the pair apart with a thunderbolt. Reluctantly the half-brothers shook hands. Heracles returned the tripod and Xenoclea, at Apollo’s command, gave Heracles the advice he sought.
‘The only way you may be cleansed of Iphitus’s murder is by entering into slavery,’ she said. ‘For three years you must serve another without question. The wages you would have earned will go to Eurytus in compensation for the loss of his son.’
Would this never end? Twelve years he had been in bondage to Eurystheus and now he was sentenced to another three? One might say Heracles brought it all upon himself by killing Megara and his children and hurling the harmless Iphitus over a wall. Equally one might reply, in his defence, that he acted under the influence of delusions sent to him by the spiteful Hera. Or one might suggest that he was a man born with an illness of some kind that made him susceptible to fits and hallucinations. One could add that his remorse always drove him to seek honourable expiation. But however disposed one might be to forgive Heracles, one also has to accept that, fits or no fits, delusions or no delusions, remorse or no remorse, he was still capable of nursing the most implacable grudges. This new punishment only strengthened his vengeful resolve. Eurytus, Neleus, Augeas and Laomedon would all pay.
But first Heracles had to submit to this fresh period of subjugation. Xenoclea’s arrangement was that he would become the property of Queen OMPHALE of Lydia,fn56 who had ruled her kingdom alone since the death of her husband, the mountain king TMOLUS.fn57 She seemed to take a perverse delight in humiliating her new slave. Above all, she enjoyed sporting both the great club and the pelt and head of the Nemean Lion that had long been Heracles’ signature costume. What’s more, she commanded that Heracles was to dress himself only in female attire while in her service. Despite this humiliation or – who knows? because of it – Heracles fell in love with Omphale, obediently wore women’s clothes, protected the kingdom of Lydia from such brigands and monsters as threatened its peace and even fathered a son by her.fn58
When the three years were up Omphale took the wages Heracles would otherwise have earned for his services and offered them, as instructed by Xenoclea, to Eurytus. He refused them with scorn. ‘I have lost a son and twelve cattle and you offer me three year’s wages?’
Free at last to pursue his vendettas, Heracles gathered an army and sailed off to exact his vengeance on the enemy who was nearest at hand: King Laomedon of Troy. He was accompanied by his old friends the brothers TELAMON and PELEUS, who had been present when Laomedon had refused to honour his debt to Heracles. They sacked the city and slaughtered the king and all the royal household save Hesione, who was given to Telamon as a bride.fn59 Heracles also spared the youngest of Laomedon’s sons, Prince PRIAM, who was left in charge of the smouldering ruins of a once fine city.fn60
Heracles now sailed back to Greece and gathered more allies for the invasion of Augeas’s kingdom of Elis. Augeas got wind of this and mustered his own force under the command of the conjoined twins, EURYTUS fn61 and CTEATUS.fn62. Fused together at the hip they might have been, but their combined strength and divine paternity made them a formidable enemy. They killed Heracles’ own brother Iphicles, the beloved twin with whom he had shared the cot to which Hera sent the snakes when they were newborns. This fully roused Heracles into one of the raging furies that turned him into a cyclone of unrelenting savagery. He split Eurytus and Cteatus apart with his sword and stamped on their dying bodies. Next he killed Augeas and all his children save one, the son Phyleus who had spoken up for Heracles when he had claimed payment for cleansing the stables and who had paid for his filial disobedience with banishment on the island of Dulichium. Heracles summoned him back from his exile to rule in his dead father’s place.
It was here, in Elis, that Heracles now established athletic competitions to be held every four years, in honour of his father Zeus. He called them, after the name of his father’s mountaintop abode, the Olympic Games.
Heracles next turned his attentions to Neleus of Pylos, who had refused to conduct his propitiation for the murder of Iphitus. He attacked the kingdomfn63 and once again he found and slaughtered all the members of an entire royal house. Except one. As in the case of Augeas, there was a single surviving son to take over the throne. Young Prince NESTOR had had the good fortune to be away at the time of Heracles’ onslaught. He returned to a devastated Pylos that, in time, he built into a peaceful and prosperous kingdom,fn64 earning himself a reputation as one of the wisest kings in the history of the Greek world. Nestor was famed not only for his sound judgement but also, in his later years, for his distinguished service during the quest for the Golden Fleece and as the valued counsellor and brave ally of AGAMEMNON in the Trojan War.
Nestor’s father Neleus had been aided in his defence of Pylos by his ally HIPPOCOÖN, the King of Sparta. The unrelenting Heracles now attacked this king, too. Although such an assault may seem nothing more than a mean-spirited and vindictive temper tantrum, the attack on Sparta was to have consequences that would sound down through history.
Heracles killed the king and his sons, installing on the throne his older brother TYNDAREUS, the rightful King of Sparta, whom Hippocoön had ousted years earlier. This detail is worth mentioning since Tyndareus and his wife Leda were to have such a vital part to play in the story of the Trojan War. Without Heracles placing Tyndareus on the throne of Sparta, it is doubtful there ever would have been a Trojan War.
It may seem that all Heracles did was go about the place slaying and deposing, but in truth – as I have noted before – he was instrumental not only in clearing the natural world of ancient and savage threats but also in establishing new regimes and dynasties in the political sphere that were to be play crucial roles in Hellenic history. If Cadmus was the founder
hero of Thebes and Theseus the founder hero of Athens, Heracles has a claim to be considered the founder hero of Greece.
THE GIANTS: A PROPHECY FULFILLED
It began, like many Greek stories, with some cattle rustling.fn65 The sun god Helios was jealous of his fine herd of cattle.fn66 Their theft by the giant ALCYONEUS proved the final provocation, the spark that lit the fuse in what the Greeks were to call the Gigantomachy – the War of the Giants.
The giants, you might recall, sprang out of the earth in the earliest times from the blood that poured from the severed genitals of the primordial sky god Ouranos.fn67 This made them the generation of Gaia, the ‘Gaia-gen’, which over time became GIGANTES and, in our language, ‘giants’.fn68
Gaia had heard of Hera’s dream, the prophetic vision which forecast the rise of her gigantic children against the Olympian gods and their defeat at the hands of a mortal man. She tirelessly watched the exploits of the human heroes for a sign that the fatal individual had been born and the moment of the prophecy was nigh.
Realising that the theft of Helios’s cattle heralded war, Gaia began to search for a rare medicinal herbfn69 that would protect her giants from any harm this human hero might do them. Zeus, however, was ahead of her: he told Selene and Helios not to drive their chariots of the moon and sun by night or day, and while the world was plunged into darkness he gathered the entire store of the herb for himself.
The first manoeuvre over, Zeus summoned the twelve Olympians and Prometheus, with whom he had now been reconciled, for a council of war.
‘We must prepare ourselves for imminent attack,’ said Zeus. ‘Hera dreamt of this moment. Athena, go down and bring Heracles to us. We need him now.’
The violence started when the cattle thief Alcyoneus scaled Olympus, pushed the gods aside and forced himself on Hera. Heracles arrived in time to pull him off her and shoot him with one of his poisoned arrows. Alcyoneus fell, but raised himself up and rejoined the fray as if nothing had happened. No matter what Heracles did, Alcyoneus seemed always able to recover. Athena pulled Heracles aside.
‘Alcyoneus draws strength from his native soil. You can never kill him while he is in contact with it.’
‘Ah, I fought someone like that once before,’ said Heracles, remembering his encounter with the wrestler Antaeus. He hurled Alcyoneus one more time to the ground and dragged him from Greece to Italy. There, at last, the power drained from him and Heracles buried him under Vesuvius, where he lies grumbling to this day, waiting to burst back up and spew his hot rage over the world of men.
Now the other giants began to assail Olympus. How many fought isn’t agreed upon – from the large quantity of ceramics, sculptures, relief carvings and other representations it seems safe to suggest that there was a more or less equal number of gods and giants in the struggle. The earth all around the Mediterranean shook as Heracles, Prometheus and the gods fought long and hard to protect Olympus and especially Hera, whom the Giants forced themselves upon one after the other. After Alcyoneus, first EURYMEDON, the King of the Giants, tried to assault her, then PORPHYRION, the ‘purple one’. The giants seemed to believe that if they got her with child the offspring would be their great champion. Or perhaps they more brutishly hoped that her rape would so disgrace the gods that they would surrender in shame.
At all events Heracles saved Hera from wave after wave of attacks. Never for a moment did he think of all the pain and suffering she had visited on him throughout his life.
Zeus’s thunderbolts, as Hera had foretold, could not blast the giants, but they could at least stun them. As the battle raged, Zeus smote them one by one and Heracles took advantage of their dazed state to finish them off with his poisoned arrows.
When it was all over, the most powerful giant of all, ENCELADUS, still steaming and smoking with fury, was imprisoned by Athena under Etna. His brothers lay dead. The giants would never rise again.
Hera’s dream had seen it all. A mortal hero from the line of Perseus would arise to save the gods. Her hatred turned to grateful love and her enmity to amity. No more would she visit monstrous fits or delusions upon him. Heracles could live the rest of his life free from her curse.
THE SHIRT OF NESSUS
Exactly as he did at the end of his Labours, Heracles now turned his thoughts to marriage. This time he called to mind his encounter in the kingdom of Hades with the shade of Meleager and the promise he had made to wed his old friend’s sister Deianira.fn70
Accordingly, he made his way to Deianira’s home of Calydon to win her hand, only to discover that she was being wooed, against her will, by the river god ACHELOUS. He had presented himself to her in three different guises:fn71 a bull, a snake and a creature that was half bull and half man. Achelous might have thought this a seductive courting ritual and one guaranteed to win a girl’s heart, but it filled Deianira with dread and disgust.fn72 Next to this shape-shifting river monster Heracles seemed a sweet, normal and eligible candidate for marriage and she welcomed his suit with relief. But to win her Heracles had first to defeat his rival.
Achelous was immortal, of course, so Heracles couldn’t kill him, but he easily wrestled him into submission, breaking off one of the god’s horns in the process. To get it back, the defeated Achelous offered in exchange the fabled Horn of Plenty, which the Romans called the CORNUCOPIA. The young Zeus had accidentally snapped this off the head of his beloved AMALTHEA, the nanny-goat who suckled him during his infancy and childhood on Crete. fn73 To compensate, Zeus had magically filled it with food and drink. No matter how many times it was emptied, it always replenished itself. From then on Heracles carried it in his belt and never went hungry.
Marriage to Deianira suited him. He hadn’t been happier or calmer since his life with Megara all those years ago in Thebes. They lived together in Calydon and had four sons, HYLLUS, GLENUS, CTESIPPUSfn74 and ONITES, and a daughter, MACARIA. All would have been harmony and bliss had not Heracles once again lost his temper with fatal results. One night, at a feast, the cupbearer of his father-in-law OENEUS accidentally spilled wine all down Heracles and he lashed out at the unfortunate youth, knocking him dead to the ground with one blow of his fist.
Despairing at his own clumsiness Heracles decided to leave Calydon for a spell. Along with Deianira he headed for Trachis, which was ruled over by his friend CEYX and his wife ALCYONE.fn75
It was while they were on their way there that something happened which would, in the end, cause Heracles to die a terrible death.
To reach Trachis, Heracles and Deianira had to cross the fast-flowing waters of the River Euinos. As they approached, they saw a centaur in a bright purple shirt standing on the near bank who kindly offered to ferry Deianira across. Heracles did not recognise him, but he recognised Heracles. For the centaur was Nessus, one of the herd Heracles had attacked while staying in the cave of Pholus on his way to hunt the Erymanthian Boar.
Nessus and Deianira were halfway over when he attempted to molest her. Heracles heard her cries, saw what was happening and fired one of his arrows into the centaur’s back. It staggered through the water to the riverbank and deposited Deianira on the grass.
Nessus had evaded the lethal arrows before, but now their poison was spreading through him. Even in his mortal agony, the outlines of a diabolical plan of revenge came to him. He did not admit to Deianira that he knew Heracles. Tender-hearted and compassionate, she was horrified that her husband had reacted so violently. She knelt by Nessus’s side, stroking his flanks and begging forgiveness.
‘No, no …’ he panted. ‘It was all my fault … I was just so captivated by your beauty. Your husband was right to punish me … Now listen … if I were married to you I would never leave your side, but you know what men are like. Take my shirt from me; it is charmed. Keep it with you always. Should the day come when you feel your husband has started to grow weary of you, make him wear it … You will find that his love for you will come flooding back …’
‘Oh, you sweet thing!’ cried Deianira, fill
ed with sympathy and very touched by his compliments.
‘So … little … time … Quick, take the shirt …’
She tenderly removed it from Nessus’s back, sodden with blood as it was, folded it up and was just tucking it into her satchel when Heracles came splashing across the river to join her. He aimed a kick at the dying centaur.
‘Damned brute. Laying hands on you like that.’
Deianira and Heracles settled at the court of King Ceyx, but after a year or so Heracles marched out to Oechalia to settle his final grudge. Despite his happy marriage to Deianira he had still not forgiven his old archery tutor Eurytus for denying him the right to compete for the hand of his daughter Iole. An insult was an insult and had to be paid for. He laid waste to Oechalia, slaughtered Eurytus and all his family save Iole, whom he decided to keep as a slave. He dragged her off home in triumph to Trachis along with the rest of his booty. When Deianira caught sight of her she was overcome with fear and jealousy.
‘This is the girl he always wanted to wed. She is so much younger and more beautiful than me. What chance do I have?’
She thought of the enchanted shirt that Nessus had given her. That was the way to win back Heracles’ affection.
‘Welcome home, my darling,’ she cried embracing him fondly. ‘You won another great battle, I hear?’
‘Oh, you know. It was nothing really.’
‘I have a present for you. A reward for your famous victory.’
‘Really? What is it?’ Heracles loved presents.
‘Something for you to wear this evening. A shirt.’
‘A shirt? Oh. A shirt. Thank you.’ Heracles tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
‘I’ll send Lichas to your room with it. You promise to come down to dinner wearing it?’
‘If it pleases you,’ said Heracles, tickling her under the chin. Women were so funny. The smallest things upset them and the littlest things gave them pleasure.