After the last of his labors, Heracles had finally atoned for the murder of his family It was by no means the end of his adventures, however. He mounted many expeditions against various enemies, including the Trojans (Heracles lived one generation before the Trojan War), Augeas, and the people of Pylos (in the Peloponnese) and Sparta. He came into contact with Priam and Nestor, who were in the twilight of their lives when the Trojan War began.
While in the underworld, Heracles had promised the Greek prince Meleager that, when he went back to the world above, Heracles would marry his sister, Deianeira of Calydon. When Heracles returned, he headed for Calydon, where he found Deianeira being wooed by the river god Achelous, who was able to turn himself into any creature. When Deianeira expressed the desire to marry Heracles instead of Achelous, the two suitors became locked in mortal combat. In the end Heracles defeated Achelous while the latter was in the form of a bull. Heracles ripped off one of his horns, at which point Achelous admitted defeat and conceded the hand of Deianeira to Heracles.
Later, Heracles won a girl named Iole in an archery contest. Because her father refused to hand her over to Heracles, the hero had to take her by force. According to some versions, he killed her father. Most versions agree that in a fit of madness he killed her brother, who may have been one of his supporters, and so had to pay for his sins again. The oracle at Delphi was so appalled by his repeated crime that she refused to tell him what to do. Heracles became enraged, took the tripod of the Pythian priestess, and threatened to set up his own oracle. Apollo arrived, and he and Heracles came to blows until Zeus unleashed a thunderbolt to separate them. The oracle then told Heracles that to purify himself he must become a slave of Omphale, queen of Lydia, for three years. This was a humiliation for Heracles, because Omphale dressed him in women’s clothes and took his lion skin and club for herself. Heracles even learned weaving from the queen.
Deianeira, meanwhile, had become jealous that Heracles might love lole more than her. One day, while Heracles and his wife were crossing a dangerous river, a centaur named Nessus appeared and offered Deianeira a lift on his back to the further bank. Once on land, Nessus assaulted Deianeira. Heracles, on seeing what was happening, shot one of his poisonous arrows into Nessus. Before Nessus died he told Deianeira to take some of his blood because it had special qualities: “If ever Heracles begins to lose affection for you,” he told her, “this blood can be used to restore his love.” It was a trick, since the blood had been tainted by the venomous arrows. When Deianeira finally decided to act, she rubbed some of the supposed love-potion on a shirt and sent it to Heracles to wear. When he put it on, the fiery acid burned his skin. When he could bear the agony no longer, Heracles built a funeral pyre for himself and climbed on top. He begged servants and passersby to set fire to the wood, but no one would until a certain Philoctetes wandered by and lit it. As a reward, Heracles gave him his unerring bow and arrows. In some mysterious way, the fire only purged Heracles of his mortal parts, so that with a clap of thunder and the descent of a cloud, Heracles was lifted up to heaven to live with the gods there. In some versions of the myth, the mortal side of Heracles dwelled with the other shades in the underworld. The now divine Heracles was reconciled once and for all with Hera, and married Hebe, the goddess of youthfulness.
Kirk Summers
Bibliography
Apohodorus, and Robin Hard, trans. The Library of Greek Mythology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfmch’s Mythology. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006.
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. New York: Penguin, 1993.
World History
