Good morning and welcome to LLT121 Classical Mythology in which we take up, again, the career of Heracles. That is his Greek name. The Romans called him Hercules, the Panhellenic hero. He’s called the Panhellenic hero, not because he hit every single frat and sorority house on Greek row every Friday night. Although I, myself, think the Hercules that I know, the Hercules that I am familiar with, the Hercules that shows up in my classes certainly would have hit fraternity and sorority row every night that they were having a party. He is the son of Zeus and Alcmena. He had a tough time winning acceptance. He had to perform all sorts of labors because he killed his first wife and his kids. He loves them and leaves them and stuff like that. Today we’re going to make him into a philosophical hero among other things.
First of all, let’s resume with the Twelfth Labor. The Twelfth Labor was Cerberus, the three-headed hound of hell. What is Cerberus’s job in Greek mythology? That is not a very promising start. It looks like a snake wearing dog-ears, kind of. While he was down there he talks to this fellow—the guy’s name is not important. For what it’s worth it was either Meleagar or something else—who told him, “You know, Herc, if you are looking for another wife once you get back up to the real world, you ought to check out my sister, Deianira.” Did you meet Deianira yet? Okay. Very good. You may have seen Deianira on Hercules, the New Adventures. How many of you are studying ancient Greek? What is this world coming to? The name, Deianira, means, in ancient Greek, “man destroyer.” Gentleman, those of you who are still single and eligible and all of that, you ever meet a woman or somebody says, “I want to fix you up with this gorgeous woman whose name is ‘man destroyer,’” just say no.
Hercules got married to Deianira. They hit it off quite nicely. As they were going off on their honeymoon, they came to a river. Now, have I told you about centaurs? A centaur is the ancient Greek equivalent of a biker. Strictly speaking, it is a creature that has the lower extremities of a horse and the upper torso of a human being. They are very much the ancient equivalent of bikers. These are people who get around. They party real hearty. Like bikers, you do not mess with them. That is what a centaur is. Actually a centaur is a survival, if you will, of almost the very beginning of recorded time, a point in time so far back in which people originally learned to ride horse. Think about this, here we all are pounding corn to bits with rocks and wondering where the baby came from and stuff like that, because there was a time in human existence when humans did that. All of a sudden people come riding up on horses. You haven’t even managed to tame the horse. Your civilization hasn’t even managed to make the horse stand still long enough for you to try to hop on. Here these people are riding horses. You start telling stories about them. They were combinations of people and horses. Pretty soon the stories will get so good that you’ve got the original, the prototype of the biker.
Well, at any rate this particular centaur’s name is Nessus. Hercules is standing at the river with Deianira and the centaur says, “Hey, Hercules I’ll carry your wife across for you.” Gentleman think about this. If you have just gotten married to, let’s say, Wynona Rider or Alicia Silverstone, and you’re off on your honeymoon. You run up to a river and a biker says, “Hey, I could take your wife across the river.” What do you do? You run away in the other direction. It is not as if Hercules isn’t strong enough to carry her. Well, at any rate he says, “Okay, go ahead.” So the centaur Nessus takes the new Mrs. Hercules, carries her halfway across the river and then starts to paw at her and stuff like that. Hercules catches a clue. He draws his bow and arrow and shoots Nessus. Nessus is dying but with his last dying breath he says, “Hercules has kind of got a reputation for loving and leaving. He’s going to love and leave you, too. When he does, take a little bit of the blood that I’m dripping out. Put it in a little vile and take it out and rub it on his clothes. It will heat up your love life.” She does. She doesn’t know any better. She puts some of the blood in a little bottle and saves it.
Now this is a bad career move because, as you all know, Heracles dipped his arrows in the blood of the dead hydra in order to make them poisonous. If you got shot with one of these arrows, your blood is going to be poisonous, but she didn’t know that. No, I don’t know how she got across the river, either. I don’t care. Could be. Why didn’t she swim in the first place, Mark? It felt really good to be able to ask you that question. I like that. From now on in this class all smart bleeped questions will be directed to Mark for his inability to answer them. They go on. They get married. They stay married for a while. They have a couple kids. You know the drill. One day Heracles wakes up and he’s married and has a couple of kids. He can’t go off to the far end of the world, meet exciting animals, and kill them anymore because his wife is saying, “Hercules, mow the lawn. Hercules, wash the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Hercules, Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman is on. It is time to watch Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman.” He’s Hercules darn it.
Setting up the following story, Hercules goes off on just one little labor. “I need to go off on one adventure.” Okay. He goes off on one adventure. There is going to be an archery competition at the city of Trachis. I’m not going to require that you know Trachis. I don’t care about it myself. The king, however, of Trachis is having an archery competition. He’s got this lovely daughter named Iole. Whoever wins the archery competition can have Iole as either wife or concubine. If you’re not married, marry her. If you are married, hey, she’ll be your mistress. What a great guy, huh? Well, being Hercules you know who’s going to win the archery competition. Who wins? Hercules wins. Then the guy says, “No, I’m not going to give her to you.” We’ve already seen this theme already haven’t we? When King Augeas had the Augean stables cleaned out, he stiffed Heracles on the contract cleaners fee.
Hercules kills Iole’s brother for some reason. By now you should know that Iole’s brother did probably nothing wrong. He was also probably just a meaningless character who was just created for one purpose in this story, to get killed. Why did Hercules have to kill Iole’s brother? Anybody? Are you making this up Mitch? Don’t apologize. Here it is raining, Monday, cold and somebody actually read Classical Mythology over the weekend. You have nothing to apologize for, Mitch. No, the reason is very simple. Hercules has to incur miasma again. Miasma, your average ancient Greek hero wouldn’t leave home without it. Yeah it is a form of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth justice. Yes, with the invention of purification you can go off and get purified for it. Or you can get into a feud for it or what have you. But in heroic legend, miasma is, more than anything else, a plot device to get our hero out of town where he can go off to a far off land, meet interesting people and kill them again. That, Mitch, is the right answer. Only this one is very silly.
To atone for the miasma incurred by the death of Iole’s brother, Hercules has to put himself up for auction. We have on this thing campus a very cute custom called a slave auction. You ever hear of that? Where it’s usually college women who are bidding on studly college guys and stuff like that. Or a bachelor bid thing. All these various people have to sit around and bid on Heracles’s services for a year. The winner, the highest bid, belongs to the luscious, buxom, hot, sexy queen by the name of Omphale. Omphale is also the ancient Greek word for bellybutton. Ponder on the Freudian significance of that, kids. Did I tell you she’s hot, lusty, zesty, always wearing low-cut, tight clothes and stuff like that? What kind of plans do you think she’s got for old Hercules?
Here’s the funny thing, she dressed Heracles up in maid clothing and makes him clean house for a year. That’s it. You can see Hercules in his little French maid outfit dusting things and stuff like that. He has to do that for a whole year. Hercules thinks it’s pretty funny. I do, too. That helps sum up what Heracles is all about. You know, when he is not serving as an action hero, when he is not serving as a bridge between the human and the divine, when he is not being the blue collar son of Zeus hero, he looks mighty good in drag. He doesn’t mind camping it up a little bit. Never mind. We go on.
Wait a second. There was an Arnold Schwartzeneggar movie in which Arnold got pregnant and gave birth to somebody right? Possibly a baby. It’s nothing new. Hercules used to do little drag bits every once in a while, himself. Finally, he does his year with Queen Omphale. He’s very pleased to get done with it. He decides that he wants Iole. He decides to besiege the city of Trachis. His army is storming the walls and it’s cold. It’s wintertime. Deianira, back tending the home fires, hears that Hercules is all besieging some woman. She feels like, “Where has our love gone? Don’t you want me baby?” So she decides to set up his favorite cloak. Before she sends the favorite cloak of Hercules to keep him warm, she decides to restore the fire to their love life by pouring the diseased blood of centaur Nessus onto the cloak. Then she bundles it up and sends it to him. The scene switches to Trachis, where Hercules opens it up. “Oh, it’s from Deianira.” Does he feel a seconds remorse, Elizabeth? No, why? Because he is Hercules darn it. He opens it up and it’s a cloak. “I thought this might keep you warm, beloved husband. Love, Man Destroyer.”
He puts it on. Lord almighty, he feels his temperature rising. He’s burning; he’s dying. Only he is half immortal, so he can’t die. He’s really in a sad predicament. Here’s what he does. He says, “Build a funeral pyre for me.” Okay, they do that. “Put me, the soon to be dead Hercules, on top.” Okay, they do that. “Now, would one of you guys be so good as to light it?” Scott, would you light the funeral pyre of Hercules? Please? You would, huh? Why shouldn’t he? Because he is still alive. Yes. Develop that profound thought a little farther. What happens, Scott, if he says, “I changed my mind?” You’re no fun. I asked the wrong guy. I wouldn’t do it. I’d say, “No. Scott will do it.” Well, in return for setting the fire, this guy by the name of Peoas—and he’s a present from me to you today—Peoas does light the fire. The smoke wafts up to heaven. The mortal part of Heracles dies and goes to the underworld. The immortal part of Hercules is brought up to Mount Olympus, where he becomes a god. He even gets to marry Hebe, the goddess of youth, who is the daughter of Zeus—well, hell, who isn’t?—and Hera. That is to say that, once he’s been burned on the funeral pyre, his immortal part goes up to Mount Olympus. No I don’t have any technical details. But he is, at long last, accepted by Hera because he has suffered enough. Therefore, he is married off to Hebe, the goddess of youth. Not a bad gig. All of the goddesses are gorgeous, but this is the goddess who is in charge of youthful beauty. It is not a bad gig.
I pause for your questions. Odysseus meets it in Book 9 of the Odyssey. Ha! I’ve got an answer for this one. Odysseus is down there and the souls are wandering around and it’s griping. It’s like, “Great. I’m the other half. It’s like your older brother. who mom and dad always liked more than you, is up there on Mount Olympus and I’m just stuck here.” Odysseus just goes, “Oh, there is no making this guy happy,” and just goes on. Phil. No, but his son, Philoctetes. Well, Peoas gets the bow of Hercules as his reward. Peoas passes it on to his son Philoctetes. Philoctetes, that is quite a story that we’ll will get into later on, is going to use this bow to bring an end to the Trojan War. It’s going to turn out that the Trojan War can only be ended by the use of the bow of Heracles.
Other questions? That was pretty sharp, Phil. Other questions? Yeah, I guess she kills herself for shame or something. Apparently that whining, sniffling turd, King Eurystheus took this opportunity to persecute Heracles’s mother and children and stuff like that. Finally, he gets killed. There’s more to this story than that. You can read it in your book. But I will confess to you folks that at this point it doesn’t interest me horribly. What does interest me is that as early as the fifth century BC, one of the neat things about Heracles is that he can symbolize so many different things to so many different people. It is a popular thing, for example, for political candidates who are behind in a race to claim they are the next Harry Truman. In 1948, Harry Truman was down in the polls until election day. Several newspapers published headlines saying, basically, “Harry Truman bites it. Tom Dewey is our next president.” Imagine the egg on their face when it turned out the next morning that Harry Truman had won. It’s amusing because it doesn’t matter whether you’re a democrat like Harry Truman or a Republican. You can still say “I’m the next Harry Truman.” George Bush said he was the next Harry Truman. Bob Dole says he’s the next Harry Truman. It’s the same thing. Harry Truman can stand for whatever you want him to stand for. He doesn’t care because he’s dead.
Hercules can stand before the human being with the odds against him who strives with might and mane against the cruel fate that the gods throw at them and somehow triumphs over it. He can stand for that, if that’s what you need. He can also be a swashbuckling adventure hero who just kills people and things and sleeps with all the women, if you need him to be that. Or he can be this beefy, burly, studly kind of guy who just walks through the jungle flexing, if you need that. If you’re kind of mad at the gods and goddesses, Hercules shot Hera in the left breast with a three-barbed arrow. Yes. He’s polyvalent. He’s got all these different values in these different societies. When the philosophers get a hold of him, it’s even worse. I, myself, would have a little bit of a problem recommending as a role model somebody who killed his wife and two children. But in the following story, which can be dated back as early as the fifth century BC in ancient Greek philosopher, Proticus. Hercules is wandering down the road of life. Did you know that life is a road? Like a road, sometimes life is hard or soft. Sometimes there are hills and valleys and unexpected twists and turns. Sometimes there’s road construction and sometimes there’s road kill. Sometimes you don’t even know where you’re headed, but you keep proceeding anyway in the blind hope that your destination is somewhere good. This metaphor has been beaten. I mean it had the tar beaten out of it 4000 years ago to be honest. Sometimes there are two paths you can go by. You know that one, too, right? That’s the road of life. But in the long run there’s still time to change the road you’re on. If you ever listen to the song, Stairway to Heaven, by Dead Zeppelin, I mean you’re getting the life as a road metaphor even though you’re going, “Whoa, cool.”
Heracles is presented with the same predicament. He says there are two paths that he can go by. There is no long run. There is no time to change the road he’s on. One road is virtue and one road is vice. Each has its own guardian, each road. Virtue is guarded by the ever-lovely Roseanne Barr. Whereas, vice is guarded by Wynona Rider. Each says, “Follow my path, and I will personally reward you.” Now the Hercules that you guys have been meeting for the last three class periods, obviously, that’s a no brainer. “See ya, Wynona.” But Heracles chooses virtue. Heracles chooses the rough path. And you can almost see that. He’s the blue collar hero who nobody ever gave anything to, who has to struggle long and hard to obtain godhood. That is what the philosophers did to him. He turns out to be, oddly enough, a darn role model. I pause for your questions at this point. Yes I thought that was brilliant, too.
Our next hero is sort of like the Wal-Mart version of Hercules. Not to diss Wal-Mart. Maybe he’s a Sam’s Club or the Dollar Store version of Heracles. He’s the hero of Athens and Attica. I speak of course about Theseus. Attica is right here on your map of ancient Greece. Athens is right here. It is the city-state of Athens. It did have substantial amount of physical, political power at several times during the classical Greek period. It so happens that about 80-85 percent of classical quote/unquote ancient Greek literature was either written at Athens, or by somebody who was visiting Athens, or by somebody who was from Athens who got kicked out or left for some reason. You begin to think that Athens gets a lot of good press—does that make sense?—in ancient Greek literature because that’s where a lot of the literature is coming from. Interestingly—I think we’ve done this little trick before—Boeotia, with the main city of Thebes, is a city that gets a bum wrap in all of Greek mythology for the main and simple reason that it is located next to Athens. Imagine, if you will, a history of Arkansas written strictly by people from Missouri or vice versa. You have an idea of how the people of Athens just slag on the Boeotians. That’s neither here nor there. What is here or there is that the Athenian hero, Theseus, could not begin to measure up to Hercules.
You can say with strict confidence and with utter plausibility: “I knew Heracles. Heracles and I spent a week together in Classical Mythology, and you, sir, are no Heracles.” However, Theseus is the hero of Athens, so he gets included in all sorts of stories. He gets made to look good in all sorts of stories except for Euripides’s Hippolytus. He kind of looks like a jerk there. That’s okay. So much so to the point where the Athenians have a saying, “Not without Theseus,” which basically means, “I’m in chapter four of my new, exciting adventure novel. I haven’t mentioned Theseus yet, haven’t pumped up the homeboy yet,” so Theseus makes an appearance. Even the Athenians joked about Theseus’s way of showing up in just about everything an Athenian ever wrote.
Let’s go back, though, to the foundation of the city of Athens. Let’s have a couple really gross, disgusting kind of stories. In ancient Greece it was considered very prestigious, as it is here, today, in the United States and many other countries around the world, to say, “My ancestors go back all the way blah, blah, blah, blah blah. My ancestors go back all the way to the Mayflower.” Actually, they didn’t, but, if you can make that claim in certain circles, you are considered better than other people. I am reasonably sure that all of my ancestors came over here in the late 1850s from various places around Europe because they were either poor, or being run out by the government, or both, as were many of yours. The indigenous people here, the native Americans, the so-called Indians have been here for centuries. But, for what it’s worth, the ancient Greeks liked to be able to say, “My family, the Hughes family, has been here in Springfield since the first house was built in Springfield.”
Sometimes these stories got a little ridiculous. Sometimes families claimed their ancestor popped right out of the ground. It doesn’t get worse than that. Well, here’s what happens. The first king of Athens was supposedly a guy by the name of Erichthonius. We can call him Erik. Supposedly, when Athena was born—how was Athena born? She popped out of Zeus’s head. Who was the midwife? Hephaestus. Very good. How did he serve as the midwife? Yeah, he whacked him on top of the head with a great big ax, right? Athena pops out dressed in her full armor and stuff, right? According to this legend, Hephaestus’s midwife fee—this is grotty—was, shall we say, the first crack, if you will, at his newborn infant sister. This is how the story goes. On the other hand, Athena was destined to be a virgin, and always was a virgin. As the story goes Hephaestus was running after Athena to claim his prize, but, remember, he is club footed so he does not get around very well. Shall we say, he casts his seed upon the ground? He onanizes, he commits self abuse, if you know what I mean. From that incredibly fertile patch of ground pops up this creature with a body of a snake and the head of a human.
Well, ladies and gentleman, I present to you the first king of Athens, Erichthonius, the sort of hero we can all be really proud of, right? But, for what it’s worth, you can just see how this legend came about. There was a family, the royal family probably of Athens at some point, lost in the dark of history, wanted to justify their claim to kingship by saying, “Our family has been around here literally as long as the dirt.” Okay? “Our family is so old, we’ve been the kings of this joint since Athena was a little baby.” Then some wise guy, it’s usually Mark, says, “Well, how did you guys get here?” The usual answer is, “We popped out of the ground.” The Greek term for this is autochthony. We’re going to see it again. It’s a great conversation stopper, in most instances. “We’ve been around so long our ancestor, Erik, popped out of the ground.” Then some wise character—It’s usually Mark—says, “Well, how did he just pop out of the ground? Why don’t I see all sorts of people just popping out of the ground now?” I say, “It was very special ground. It was very fertile ground.” Then somebody with a warped, perverted mind asks me, “Well, how did it get special?” You guys see where we get this story. Why not? A snake is symbolic of many things, creative of power, for example. It could be a great big long slithering phallic symbol, if you want to interpret it that way. It hatches out of an egg. A snake can devour its own tail, supposedly, sometimes. What happens when the snake eats its own tail? No, he would be the first to tell you. “Say it now, say it loud. I am half snake, but I am all proud.”
We don’t really have time to get into the importance of Theseus, but let me tell you a couple of little stories. A couple of little stories about the royal house of Athens. I can’t wait to look at the syllabus and find out how far behind we are, but ,as long as we have fun getting there, that’s cool. Story number one is the story of Cephelus and Procris. Cephelus’s name in ancient Greek means head. Cephelus or head assisted Hercules’s dad Amphitryon in one or another of his labors. It so happens that he decided he was going to find out whether his wife was faithful to him. He had this habit of dressing up in disguise and trying to pick up his own wife. This is weird. He puts on his sharp looking clothes and his chest hair wax. He puts on the necklace with the name like Bob or not Cephelus because then she’d know and tried to hit on her. Finally he hits on her and he hits on her and she says, “Okay we can do whatever, but just stop bloody hounding me.” Then, of course, he rips aside his disguise. “It is I , your husband, Cephelus, and you are just a worthless, two bit, tramp.” What a jerk. This is talk show fodder. I can just imagine Jennie Jones or Geraldo soaking their fangs into this. Well, Procris, not unreasonably, decides, “I’ve had it with being a married woman. I’m going to go traipse around in the woods with the priestesses of Artemis. A womanly bunch of women, who go off and do whatever they want without any men around to make them feel guilty or inferior.” Procris becomes such a favorite with Artemis that Artemis gives Procris a dog who will always catch what he chases and a spear, which will always hit what you throw it at. Then, for some reason I can’t explain, she decides, “I’m going to go back to Cephelus, my husband, the head.”
Well, the dog doesn’t stick around for very long. The dog chases a fox who is destined never to be caught. Ovid tells the story. It’s really hilarious. The dog and the fox chase each other until they get turned into a rock or something else. Cephelus gets Procris to lend him the spear. Honey, give me the spear. I want to go out hunting. The spear hits anything I want. It’s great you can’t miss. Watch this. After a few hours of shooting everything in the forest he gets tired and lays down in the shade of a tree. This story is told to us by Ovid. It only works in Latin. He’s lying under the tree and he’s saying to the breeze, “come, breeze, and cool me.” The Latin word for breeze is, aura. It ends in the letter A, which in Latin is very common. That’s what women’s name end in, is A. He says—because Ovid is telling us this story in Latin—“come aura. Spread yourself all over me like a cheap suit. Come aura.” It’s really sensual. But tiny does he realize that Procris is hiding in the bushes, because she’s become jealous of him. She’s going, “Who is this Laura that he’s yelling for? Oh, I can’t take it anymore.” She rustles the bushes. It’s just a little rustle from the bushes. Lying flat on his back ,over his shoulder, he hears it, tosses the spear up and drills Procris right in the heart. As she’s dying, she says, “Please don’t leave me for that tramp, Laura.” The end. You’ve been a very good class. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Supplemental: Herakles at the Movies
Now that you’ve had an opportunity to examine the myths and legends concerning the Greek hero, Heracles, otherwise know as Hercules, you’ve had the opportunity to see him in his Twelve Labors. You’ve had the opportunity to see him as a role model for aspiring Roman Stoic philosophers. You’ve had the opportunity to meet Roman emperors who believed they were, in fact, Heracles. We’ve seen a number of different—we’ve seen the action hero, Heracles; we’ve seen the lady’s man, Heracles. You’re probably in a little bit better position to understand why it is that there’s never really been a satisfactory Heracles novel. No entirely satisfactory Heracles movie. I would venture to say that making this sort of a movie would be impossible, that Heracles, in his various incarnations over the 3000 years that his stories have been told—4000 years, more closely—has taken on so many different roles, so many different attitudes, been involved in so many different things, come into contact with so many peculiar weltanshauungen (that’s the plural of weltanschauung) that it would be impossible to freeze him in any one particular piece of time.
I’m aware of a number of old movies in which the famous actor, Steve Reeves, unleashes his thespian talents to enact the glory of Hercules. Steve Reeves, I believe, was a big muscular fellow who traipsed about in a loin cloth, strangling things. That’s great. That’s the sort of Heracles that the Greeks liked to hear about back in Homer’s day. The immortal Lou Ferrigno, he of the immortal Hulk fame, also gave the myths of Heracles a shot and, although I myself have not been blessed with the opportunity to see it, Matt tells me that it’s really pretty bad. But, there again, nobody ever expected fine acting, riveting character delineation, and sensitive plot from Heracles. A recent movie by a very large film entertainment concern presents Heracles as an animated, musical, adventure hero.
To people who know me, know what I do for a living—I’m a professor of classics—they expect me to be horrified by somebody turning Heracles into this animated fellow. You can, you know, see Heracles figurines at McDonald’s or Burger King or go over to the mall and see little Heracles displays. I say, “great!” More than anything else, the philosophical profundities aside, the weltanschauung aside, the cache, the aura of the blue collar hero that Heracles exudes, the dead Roman emperors, Ovid and his Metamorphosis aside, Heracles and his legends have survived to this day, first and foremost, because they were entertaining, because Heracles was basically—first and foremost—the sort of hero who went off to far-off lands, met interesting monsters, and killed them.
To me, putting Heracles in a McDonald’s—that is, little Heracles figurines—and the voice of Danny Devito singing some gorpy song doesn’t offend me in the least. I think that, if there ever was a real Heracles—a basic Heracles who lived and killed monsters and stuff like that—that this Heracles would be unbelievably amused and delighted to know that he had his own animated musical. I’ve not seen it yet. I imagine I will. You may well have seen it by the time this airs. Enjoy. It’s part of the fun of Heracles. Part of the fun of Heracles is seeing what other generations did with him. That is basically what the classics is all about, too. Thank you.
Lecture 24
Okay we’re going to review from Wednesday. Here’s what you should have down. You should have parentage and just a little bit on ancestrage for Heracles, but especially parentage and the little mix-up that he gets to be born from a mortal woman. Yet he has a father who is mortal. Then where should we go from there? We should go from where Hera intervenes. So we have Hera’s influence. What is the first thing she does to influence things? No, snakes are the second thing. Eurystheus, because he’s born before Heracles, he becomes king at big old Mycenae, an important city. What does the snake thing show? Two things it shows. It shows first of all Heracles’s on-going associations with animals. He is sometimes called a beast master. It also identifies him as a demigod. Do you know what a demigod is? Demi means half, half god. Who else do you know that is a demigod? In the Christian tradition, Jesus is a demigod. Mortal mother, immortal father. Demigod. What happens next that is important?
Okay, we have homicidal tendencies exhibited, the music teacher, Linus killed. Homicidal. What does that say to you? It should say to you that this type of person is what’s called—I don’t know how to degenderize this—everyperson. Everyman is the usual term. That is he is to represent us. So if he has homicidal tendencies. Guess what? We have homicidal tendencies. We have to deal with those. Another way to put it is he’s animalistic. This is how animals function. There aren’t laws in the animal kingdom. If you want to kill someone and can kill something, you go ahead and do it. Okay next. Yes it is the pattern that occurs after he does things wrong. So atonement is a good word for it. It takes the form of what? He kills a lion, but what’s the effect. It benefits humankind, as well as himself. Then, stuck in here right about this time, he shows another human characteristic. The 50 daughters of Thespius, which shows his sexual nature if you like. Guess what? He’s got it. We’ve got it. In one form or another, whatever gender you are, it comes out, somehow. What would be next, do you think? He also, in here, does something to benefit the city of Thebes and is married. The next thing of real note is he kills his family.
He kills his wife and children. It is Hera, again, exerting her influence. He goes into the pattern, again. You do something wrong, atone. What is he going to do to atone for this one? Yeah this is where the Twelve Labors come in. How come there are twelve? Yeah, it seems to be an arbitrary. That is, he’s done many more than twelve things that are notable, but, at one point, someone…actually the first that we know that it becomes twelve instead of 14 or 28 is there’s a temple that has twelve spaces called medipedes for sculptor. The particular designer of the temple put the labors up there. So now we have Twelve Labors. Yes. Symbolic of? That is the meaning of Heracles. In general it is the conquering of the beast in us. Civilization prevails over the animal. That is what he is all about basically. So Twelve Labors are imposed. At that point we begin talking about the labors. We got through five. So let’s, quickly, go through the rest of them. Then I’m going to show you slides on all of this stuff that we’ve talked about, most of it, if not all of it. One through five we have done.
Six is Stymphalian birds. Sometimes they are said to be man-eaters. Sometimes they are just a nuisance, noisy and dirty. The first six occur in that lower part of Greece called the Peloponnesus. The Peloponnesus is right here. You’ll see this in the slides as a nice map. They are all in what you would call Greece today, the first six, and all of them, directly or indirectly, involve what? Yes, animals. So here is the beast master doing his thing. Even the stable was somewhat involve animals. Seven, eight, and nine are similar. Ten, eleven, and twelve have something in common. These occur outside of Greece. Yet they are places you could get to, anybody can get to. So we have for seven, eight, and nine.
First is the Cretan bull. This bull comes from Crete and is the father of the minotaur. Do you know this story? Minos’s wife conceives a passion for a bull. The court crafts person fixes it up so that she can have intercourse with the bull. The minotaur is born. I think you will do Minos in here. You will hear more about this one. Now the bull is let loose and it’s terrorizing. Little Hercules comes to the rescue, again.
Okay the next one is the Horses of Diomedes. These are flesh-eating horses. Heracles kills Diomedes and feeds Diomedes's corpse to the horses. That changes their ways after that. They become regular horses, or they eat regular things.
Then he goes after the Girdle of Hippolyta. This is not a girdle as in Playtex. This is as—you ever see any of the belts that heavyweight fighters wear as titles, to indicate that they are the title winners? Big, wide things. That’s the kind of thing that he is getting. To take that off is to say that you are undressing for intercourse. For this person to do that is quite remarkable. Why is that? Who is Hippolyta? She’s queen of the Amazon. The Amazons are female warriors. That’s unusual in itself. They are also either kill or sell their male children into slavery. They just keep the females. So for him to do that is, indeed, remarkable. He gets the girdle from her. He gets if from her peacefully at first. Then Hera intervenes and causes strife. Then Heracles kills her. But he doesn’t have to kill her to get it at first. It is Hera that causes that problem.
Okay now we’re going to leave the real world all together. All of these labors involve a katabasis. Has Prof. Hughes run that term past you? In a katabasis you are going to the underworld, literally. But the main thing is you’re facing or overcoming death. He’s been doing that all along because every deed—almost every deed anyhow—involves some kind of life threatening force, except for the Augean Stables, which is sort of the odd labor. So number ten takes him to the far west. If you want to talk about the underworld in ancient Greek times you could locate it either down, like we do with hell, or in the far west, where the sun sets. Death. You can’t get to either place unless you die. To go there before hand means that you, indeed, are going on a katabasis. So he goes to the far west. Then he has to go through a few things to get there. He has to get the help of the sun god, for example. He accomplishes that.
The next one is the Apples of Hesperides. Again it is in the far west. You can’t get there from here. He takes the apples from what is called the Tree of Life. To do that he must kill the dragon that’s guarding the tree. Ladon, I think, is the dragon’s name. The apples themselves represent immortality. So he’s able to pull that one off and signify again that he’s going to conquer death. The last one and the hardest one, so he says, is Cerberus. Cerberus is the three-headed dog. He guards the gates of the underworld. He’ll let you in easily enough, but try getting back out.
Okay, will you be able to take notes when I’m showing slides, I wonder? It is probably going to be quite dark. We’re going to try that because, as we go through I’m going to talk about; you’re going to see slides on these major labors. There are also side deeds that are called parerga. Think, like, paralegal. Not quite, but close. Things that he’s doing along the way while he’s doing the major things, the things that become the canonical labors.
Well, we’ll give it a shot and see what happens. We’ll see how this goes. Could someone get the lights please? So we’ll start off with the family tree. So we are starting with Zeus, and yet we have Zeus again. So he is both Heracles’s father and what? He is his great-grandfather, too. Here is mother and where is Amphitryon? Here he is. So these two become the parent and foster parent of Heracles. Heracles’s brother is Iphicles. Iphicles’s son, Iolaüs, is the person who becomes Heracles’s helper or squire. If you have seen the TV version of this, you will see Iolaüs is an English actor who is in there often times and helps him. Here is the person who becomes the king of Mycenae, the wimpy cousin that Heracles has to serve.
This is the site of Thebes, which is where Heracles family has to go. They were originally down here in this area, but you remember when Amphitryon kills Electryon, they have to go over to Thebes into exile.
Who do you think this one is? There is nothing to distinguishing about it. This is Heracles’s mother. So in the Christian tradition this would be the Virgin Mary, an important character in the tradition. She is supposed to be showing her puzzlement, or the fact that she’s become the mother of Heracles. Zeus has tricked her. Can I ask a question? Sure. Her hand is gone. Do they have any idea what it was holding? Yes, what they do is they look at other statues and they sometimes reconstruct and they’ll give her a certain posture. Other than that—or if there’s somehow a rendering of it when it was still intact. If not, you are on your own. I guess that slide is in there twice.
Anyhow, here we’re going to jump to the, which incidence is this? This is a Roman wall painting, a fresco. So where is the other one? Where is Iphicles? Sometimes they will have the other child in there, in contrast, doing what a normal child would do, crying or cringing. Here is Hercules doing his first remarkable deed.
Okay, the next remarkable thing is Hercules doing what? He is about to kill Linus. He has the musical instruments. He’s about to plant it on his head. So Heracles is about to kill Linus, showing homicidal tendencies.
Here he is full grown. I think this statue is oversized. It is probably between 8 and 10 foot tall, I think. So you see, of course, how powerful he is. Here is the lion’s skin. Here’s his club. Normally he wears the lion’s skin. You will see that before too long. Does size still command respect today. You bet it does. Physical size still gets lots of respect.
Here he is shooting. He has the bow that doesn’t miss. I told you about that. Whatever it is aimed at it hits. Here he’s got the lion skin on. You can see it. The lion’s upper jaw is on top of his head.
This is intended to show you that he’s not an unfeeling brute. You can see? Supposedly this shows compassion. This is the head of Hercules. He’s characterized by having friends and taking time out for that side of life. He just doesn’t go around destroying things. Does that do it for you? Do you see that in this face? After all, it is an interpretation. Thoughtful, well even that is something, wouldn’t you say, for an Arnold Schwartzeneggar type guy? To even show that much is unusual. Originally, Heracles starts out as the big brute. He’s remarkable because he is so big and strong. But eventually he takes on other qualities such as intelligence. He starts to use his head, instead of just his body. He does show himself to be humane many times in his life.
I think he’s drunk here. That is what the artist is trying to portray. You are given this sort of shot from above that makes it that much more effective. So he’s given to doing remarkable things. He works hard, but he also plays hard. So when he does indulge, he indulges to excess. Bigger than life.
This is called the choice of Heracles. Supposedly, when he reached 18 or there about, he was presented with a choice. He could make his choice because he was so big and powerful. He could do what he wanted to with his life. So the choice is between what? He could have either one type of life or the other. What are the two choices here? This is like the temptation of Christ in the desert sort of thing. Yeah, okay. So one woman is supposed to represent the sensual delights and vice in general. The other woman is supposed to represent the straight and narrow. Virtue. Do good throughout your life. Can you tell which is which? Which one do you think he has chosen? That should tell you. Yeah, it looks like he’s chosen the one who has any kind of clothes on at all. In my opinion, the artist did not do the best job here in rendering the two. You will see another version of this. This is supposed to be virtue here. This is the straight and narrow. She’s on the right side. He’s also got her by the hand, too. The other one is trying to make her claim.
Here it is again. Now you can tell the difference easily, right? Which one is pleasure and vice? Over here you can tell by the way she is clothed, if nothing else. Virtue, the virtuous way. Who is the guy down in the corner? I’m not sure. See, he looks like he’s holding a book, so he’s recording the event. This came late in the tradition. This is not classical. That is the whole choice of Heracles, was something that was added onto the story afterwards. I could possibly find out but I don’t now off hand.
Here is the location of the three places that are associated with Heracles. So here’s Argos and Mycenae down here. This is the Peloponnesus. Here is Thebes, where his family goes. This last place is where he dies, Trachis it is called.
Any ideas? Yes, he’s killing his family at this point. There’s a play that survived on this topic by Euripides. The description of what he does and how he does it is horrifying. How the children try to say, “Dad, father, it’s me. It’s me,” but they are not successful. No he’s dressed so weird, usually because of the animal skin, but he is dressed weird. I give you that. Weirder than he would be normally. I’ll see if I can tell what period this came from. It is probably the divinities looking on. He’s got a helmet on, but it’s a lot more ornate than it would normally be. This kind of looks eastern, so it could be where it came from. The artist has changed the style of the normal dress.
Here he is with his lion skin on and he’s going to get some wine. This person is his helper throughout his labors. You’ve had her already. Remember her? Who is the only female divinity that wears armor? Yeah, this is Athena. She’s got her owl. She’s got the aegis here with the snakes around it. She’s carrying a spear. She’s taking off her helmet. So she helps him with his labors. I see Heracles has a tail. If that doesn’t make the point that he’s bestial. Yeah, it’s the lion’s skin.
Okay, here is the location for the first six labors. They are all done in Peloponnesus. So the Nemean Lion, Hydra, Ceryneian Hind, the Eurymanthian Boar, the Stables and then the Birds. Here is the Nemean Lion. He can’t use his bow and arrow on it, so wrestling it.
Again, the Nemean lion. It could be Iolaüs beside him. Athena is on the right. You can just make her out. This is Heracles trying to hang the drapes. Or what’s going on here? This is the hydra. Now he is wearing the lion skin.
The hydra again, this, of course, is not ancient Greek.
And the hydra again. Iolaüs should be around here. No, he doesn’t die yet. He is killed later on, but not at this particular labor. These could be the hydra’s victims, because there are a few bodies down there. It just indicates how dangerous it is.
This is what happens to the crab that is accompanying the hydra. It’s made into a constellation, so that’s what this is pointing to.
This is what? This is the Ceryneian Hind, the stag.
Number four, this is the boar.
Here he is showing the boar to Eurystheus. Can you see Eurystheus? That is the king of Mycenae. It is pretty hard to base anything, historically, when you talk about Heracles. Athena is on the right and probably Iolaüs is on the left there.
Yeah, this is a vase painting so things turn out differently that you would expect them to in sculptor and painting. Things get stylized is what I’m trying to say.
Okay, this is a parerga, this is between labors. He stops off to have a drink with the centaurs. He has got strong associations with centaurs. Why would that be, do you think? Yeah. They’re half animal. It turns out that they pop open a cast of wine. The other centaurs smell it and come running and a fight ensues. Heracles’s host is killed. He is scratched by one of the arrows. This is probably Chiron, the one that gets killed. He’s a good centaur.
This is Heracles doing the deed on someone. Athena is helping, mentoring.
This is the sight of Olympia, that is where the Olympic games were originally founded. This is after he cleans the Aegean Stables. He’s supposed to be paid. Augeas refuses to pay him. So he comes back later. He kills the king and puts his sons in his place. To celebrate his victory, he established the Olympian games. The fact is, he was supposed to have built or laid out the stadium himself. So this is where the running kind of events that you can do inside a stadium like running and chariot racing. This is longer than it appears. It looks foreshortened. So the entryway into the stadium.
Heracles with the number six. He is supposed to get them out of the area. He does it by scaring them with a bronze rattle and then shooting them so that they leave the area. They are a nuisance, or as I said they eat human flesh, too. Thought? Oh, that’s the first time I’ve heard that one. Interesting. So if you shoot them when they first appear... An unthinking hero, okay.
Here they have been humanized a bit. These are the Stymphalian birds again. How do you like this Heracles? This looks, I was going to say German. Looks like something an eighteenth century German would do.
Okay, here are the rest of the labors. So seven is Cretan Bull. Then eight is the Horses of Diomedes. We’ll go through them here. So first is the Cretan Bull, which he captures and brings back to Eurystheus. Here he is driving it back.
These are the Mares of Diomedes. Can you find Diomedes there? He is underneath.
Again these are the Horses of Diomedes.
This is a parerga. On his way to the Horses of Diomedes, he stops off at a friend’s house. The friend’s name is Alcestis. Alcestis is destined to die young. He is befriended Apollo. So Apollo gets the fates drunk and convinces them to allow someone to die in Alcester’s place. He asks everybody. His wife is the only one that will do it for him. So she does. She goes into the underworld. Heracles finds out about it and he goes down into the underworld, wrestles with death and brings her back. Admetus is the male; Alcestis is the female. This is Admetus and this is Alcestis being brought back from the underworld. Here is death himself with snakes and fire. This is not an ancient Greek rendering. That is not how they conceived the underworld. So again he’s the type of guy that can overcome death.
Any ideas here? Yeah, it looks like he’s doing the thing on Hippolyta.
And again, I think. No, I think not. That’s not a female. Are there any ideas on this one?
Let’s see what is next. Maybe that will help. This is a parerga. You know about the Trojan War. The Greeks finally win that. Well, that’s the second time that the Greeks have defeated Troy. The first time, it was Heracles that did it. He stops off to help out the king of Troy, then. His name is Laomedon. Laomedon had the gods put up the walls of Troy. That is why they are invincible. He’s refused them payment, so Poseidon, who is one of the people that put up the walls sends this sea monster. Laomedon must sacrifice his daughter to it. Heracles appears in the nick of time. He rescues the daughter. In repayment, he’s supposed to be given her hand. Laomedon reneges. He doesn’t pay up. So Heracles, some years later, returns with an army and sacks Troy, kills Laomedon. Well, he marries her off to a relation of his. He doesn’t take her himself.
Here he is on his way to get the Cattle of Geryon. He’s got to use this cup the sun god uses to get from the west back to the east to get over the ocean. So he borrows the cup, a little boat type thing. Here he is fighting Geryon who is triple-bodied, three heads. Geryon has a shepherd and a dog. There is the dog. It has already been done in. On his way back he sets up the pillars of Heracles. They are thought to be the Straits of Gibraltar. This is to mark where he’s been. So he’s out here somewhere and comes back into the area through the straight.
Another parerga. He fights this is probably Cycnus, the son of Ares. He also wounds Ares himself. He is able to wound an Olympian god. This is on his way back.
Are there any ideas on this one? Yeah, this is the dragon he has to fight to get the Apples of Hesperides. So this is Ladon.
Again, the tree of life with the golden Apples and the Hesperides are the divinities who are responsible for tending it. In some versions he goes and in other versions he persuades or he has Atlas go get it for him. Again this is the tree of life, the Apples of Hesperides, and Heracles sitting on his lion skin this time.
This is the other version. This is Atlas. Heracles is supposed to let Atlas go get the apples. He has to hold up the sky while he is gone. Atlas comes back. He doesn’t want to take the sky back, but Heracles tricks him. He tells him, “All right, I’ll take the sky, but you take the apples all the way back to Eurystheus. But just let me adjust the pillow.” He uses his brains.
He has a wrestling match with a guy named Antaeus. If Antaeus hits the ground, since one of his parents was Gaia, he regains his strength. So Heracles eventually has to hold him up in the air and throttle him, which he is doing here, to kill him.
And, again, Heracles and Antaeus.
Let’s see. That looks like the location of the Mares of Diomedes, but I don’t know what it’s doing here. Let’s see what’s going on next.
Omphale? No this is something else going on here. We’ll go on a bit.
Okay, Cerberus here. Let’s see what this was. It must be a parerga. This is what I want you to see though. Here is Cerberus. You can see two heads, anyhow, or can you see three? This is one rendering of it. So Heracles is in the underworld.
Back on earth showing the guardian dog to Eurystheus, who is back in his storage jar. The dog is supposed to have snakes on it, too, as well as having three heads. No, the agreement is he’s permitted to, if he can wrestle it and overcome it, then he can take it out of the underworld, show it to Eurystheus, but he has to return it. That is the agreement with Hades that he has.
I want to get to his death because we’re getting close to being out of time here.
So this is another parerga, I think. Let me get beyond.
These are the Cercopes. Another parerga. Try to get to the death scene.
This is one of his lovers. This is Hylas, who on the way to the quest of the Golden Fleece, they stop off at an island, as Hylas is kidnapped by these nymphs. Heracles stays behind to try to find him. He does not go after the Golden Fleece.
Okay, here he is wrestling the river god. Achelous is his name. This is to get the hand of his second wife, Deianira, who is responsible, indirectly, for his death. So he first wrestles the river god. He does get Deianira as his wife. As he’s bringing her to their new home, they have to cross a river. This is Heracles. How do you like this one? Prof. Hughes would like this one. He allows this centaur whose name is Nessus to ferry his wife across the river. When the centaur gets her on the other side, he makes a pass at her. He tried to rape her. She starts screaming and Heracles shoots Nessus. Before he can get over to them, Nessus tells Deianira, “Take my blood. Keep it. It is a love potion. If ever you fear that you are losing Heracles’s love, use it on him and you’ll regain his love.” They have two children. Hylas is one of them and they have a daughter, Mecaria.
This is Deianira and Heracles. Deianira now has the centaur, Nessus’s blood as a love potion.
Okay again Heracles and Deianira are doing real well. This is Heracles and Apollo fighting. He’s done something bad again. He’s killed someone who has come to him as a guest. So he goes to the oracle again to ask, “What can I do to atone?” They are just sick and tired of Heracles coming and they refuse to answer him. So he’s going to take the tripod and set up his own oracle, because they won’t do it for him. Apollo comes down, a fight ensues, and dad has to break it up. Zeus throws the thunderbolt between the two. Okay, I believe I am out of time. We’re not going to get Heracles killed off. That is fitting because he gets immortalized, anyhow. Thank you. Will someone get the lights, please?
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