45 Facts About Heracles

1.

Heracles was a great-grandson and half-brother of Perseus, and similarly a half-brother of Dionysus.

2.

Heracles was the greatest of the Greek heroes, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae, and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters.

3.

Heracles was the greatest of Hellenic chthonic heroes, but unlike other Greek heroes, no tomb was identified as his.

4.

Heracles was both hero and god, as Pindar says heros theos; at the same festival sacrifice was made to him, first as a hero, with a chthonic libation, and then as a god, upon an altar: thus he embodies the closest Greek approach to a "demi-god".

5.

The core of the story of Heracles has been identified by Walter Burkert as originating in Neolithic hunter culture and traditions of shamanistic crossings into the netherworld.

6.

Some sources explained that the cult of Heracles persisted because of the hero's ascent to heaven and his suffering, which became the basis for festivals, ritual, rites, and the organization of mysteries.

7.

Heracles was constantly invoked as a patron for men, especially the young ones.

8.

Oitaeans worshiped Heracles and called him Cornopion because he helped them get rid of locusts, while the citizens of Erythrae at Mima called him Ipoctonus because he destroyed the vine-eating ips, a kind of cynips wasp, there.

9.

Heracles used his wits on several occasions when his strength did not suffice, such as when laboring for the king Augeas of Elis, wrestling the giant Antaeus, or tricking Atlas into taking the sky back onto his shoulders.

10.

Heracles was an extremely passionate and emotional individual, capable of doing both great deeds for his friends and being a terrible enemy who would wreak horrible vengeance on those who crossed him, as Augeas, Neleus, and Laomedon all found out to their cost.

11.

Heracles threatened his marriage with his desire to bring two women under the same roof; one of them was his wife Deianeira.

12.

Heracles was the son of the affair Zeus had with the mortal woman Alcmene.

13.

Hera did this knowing that while Heracles was to be born a descendant of Perseus, so too was Eurystheus.

14.

Heracles would have permanently delayed Heracles' birth had she not been fooled by Galanthis, Alcmene's servant, who lied to Ilithyia, saying that Alcmene had already delivered the baby.

15.

Hera did not recognize Heracles and nursed him out of pity.

16.

Heracles suckled so strongly that he caused Hera pain, and she pushed him away.

17.

Heracles's milk sprayed across the heavens and there formed the Milky Way.

18.

Heracles was found by his nurse playing with them on his cot as if they were toys.

19.

Heracles was directed to serve King Eurystheus for ten years and perform any task Eurystheus required of him.

20.

Heracles' advances were spurned by the king and his sons, except for one: Iole's brother Iphitus.

21.

Heracles was forced to do women's work and to wear women's clothes, while she wore the skin of the Nemean Lion and carried his olive-wood club.

22.

Heracles punished them by tying them to a stick with their faces pointing downward.

23.

Heracles, searched for a long time but Hylas had fallen in love with the nymphs and never showed up again.

24.

Hesiod's Theogony and Aeschylus' Prometheus Unbound both tell that Heracles shot and killed the eagle that tortured Prometheus.

25.

Heracles freed the Titan from his chains and his torments.

26.

On his way back to Mycenae from Iberia, having obtained the Cattle of Geryon as his tenth labour, Heracles came to Liguria in North-Western Italy where he engaged in battle with two giants, Albion and Bergion or Dercynus, sons of Poseidon.

27.

The opponents were strong; Heracles was in a difficult position so he prayed to his father Zeus for help.

28.

Heracles happened to arrive and agreed to kill the monster if Laomedon would give him the horses received from Zeus as compensation for Zeus' kidnapping Ganymede.

29.

Heracles killed the monster, but Laomedon went back on his word.

30.

However, Nessus is true to the archetype of the mischievous centaur and tries to steal Deianira away while Heracles is still in the water.

31.

Heracles then uproots several trees and builds a funeral pyre on Mount Oeta, which Poeas, father of Philoctetes, lights.

32.

When Typhon attacked Olympus, all gods transformed into animals and ran terrified to Egypt; Heracles became a fawn.

33.

Heracles appears to Philoctetes, stranded and abandoned by the other Greeks on Lemnos island, and through his deus ex machina intervention, Philoctetes is convinced to join the other Greeks at Troy, where he kills Paris with Heracles's arrows.

34.

In Christian circles, a Euhemerist reading of the widespread Heracles cult was attributed to a historical figure who had been offered cult status after his death.

35.

Heracles complied and they all became pregnant and all bore sons.

36.

Heracles then found the dracaena of Scythia in a cave.

37.

Heracles accepted the request, and became by her the father of Agathyrsus, Gelonus, and Scythes.

38.

The last of them became king of the Scythians, according to his father's arrangement, because he was the only one among the three brothers that was able to manage the bow which Heracles had left behind and to use his father's girdle.

39.

Heracles founded the city of Abdera in Thrace in his memory, where he was honored with athletic games.

40.

Diomus is mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium as the eponym of the deme Diomeia of the Attic phyle Aegeis: Heracles is said to have fallen in love with Diomus when he was received as guest by Diomus' father Collytus.

41.

In Rome, Heracles was honored as Hercules, and had a number of distinctively Roman myths and practices associated with him under that name.

42.

Heracles was an ancient ram-god whose cult was centered in Herakleopolis Magna.

43.

Sallust mentions in his work on the Jugurthine War that the Africans believe Heracles to have died in Spain where, his multicultural army being left without a leader, the Medes, Persians, and Armenians who were once under his command split off and populated the Mediterranean coast of Africa.

44.

Temples dedicated to Heracles abounded all along the Mediterranean coastal countries.

45.

In various languages, variants of Heracles' name are used as a male given name, such as Hercule in French, Hercules in Spanish, Iraklis in Modern Greek and Irakli in Georgian.