The most famous Greek hero, son of Zeus, celebrated for superhuman strength and the Twelve Labors he performed in atonement for killing his own children in a fit of madness sent by Hera.
Heracles was born to the mortal woman Alcmene after Zeus visited her disguised as her own husband, making Heracles Zeus's son and a permanent target of Hera's jealousy. Hera's persecution shapes his whole story, from the serpents she sent to kill him in his cradle (which he strangled as an infant) to the madness she later inflicted on him.
The Twelve Labors
Accounts differ on the order of the catastrophe involving Megara and their children. In Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca (2.4.12–2.5.1), Hera's madness follows the Minyan war; after the killings, Heracles goes to Delphi and is ordered into Eurystheus's service, making the Labors an expiation. Euripides' Heracles instead places the madness after Heracles has completed Eurystheus's commands and returned from Hades with Cerberus (610–615, 830–865). The Labors themselves include killing the Nemean Lion and the Lernaean Hydra, capturing the Erymanthian Boar and the Ceryneian Hind, cleaning the Augean stables in a day, driving off the Stymphalian Birds, capturing the Cretan Bull and the Mares of Diomedes, taking the girdle of the Amazon queen Hippolyta, herding the cattle of Geryon, stealing the apples of the Hesperides, and finally dragging the three-headed hound Cerberus up from the underworld.
Death and Apotheosis
Heracles later married Deianira, who was tricked by the dying centaur Nessus into keeping a robe soaked in poisoned blood as a supposed love-charm. When she used it, the robe burned Heracles's flesh so badly that he built his own funeral pyre on Mount Oeta and had it lit. As his mortal body burned away, Zeus took him up to Olympus, where he became a god and finally reconciled with Hera.
Zeus visited Alcmene in the guise of her husband Amphitryon.
Key Deeds
•Strangled two serpents sent by Hera while still an infant
•Completed the Twelve Labors set by King Eurystheus
•Dragged the hound Cerberus up from the underworld
•Freed Prometheus from his chains on the Caucasus
•Died and was raised to godhood on Olympus
Fate
Died in agony wearing a robe poisoned with the blood of the centaur Nessus; he built his own funeral pyre, and Zeus took him up to Olympus as a god upon his death.
Both are divinely fathered heroes who complete a long series of near-impossible trials as penance or duty.
Primary Sources
Historical texts and references
“Heracles performed the Labors set by Eurystheus in twelve years, for so long a time was he in servitude on account of the madness Hera had sent upon him.”
“When the pyre was lit, Zeus caught him up to heaven in a cloud, and there he obtained immortality and was reconciled with Hera.”
