The Greek Myths by Robin Waterfield & Kathryn Waterfield

Author:Robin Waterfield & Kathryn Waterfield [Waterfield, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2013-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

Heracles the King-Maker

Heracles’ trials had by no means finished with the end of the twelve labors and betrothal to Deianeira, his destined bride. No hero ever suffered as Heracles suffered. No body bore the scars that Heracles bore, or endured so much mental pain. For as he surpassed all others in excellence, so his life-path surpassed all others in difficulty.

One piece of unfinished business lay with Augeas. Heracles’ fifth labor had been to clean the stables of the Elean king, and Augeas had promised him, as a reward if he succeeded, a tenth of his cattle. He didn’t expect the hero to succeed, and when it came to it he refused to pay up. So when Heracles was free of his labors, and living in Argos, he returned to Elis to seek his revenge, and to install Augeas’s son, honest Phyleus, on the throne in his place.

Heracles arrived in Elis at the head of a considerable army. The battle was short but fierce. Heracles’ brother Iphicles died in the fighting, cut down by the Moliones, armored twins joined at the hip; but Heracles was close at hand and they did not long outlive their victim. The mission was a complete success: the city was taken and Augeas killed, and Phyleus assumed the throne instead. Iphicles’ funeral was suitably lavish.

This was not the only major military expedition Heracles organized in those days in the Peloponnese. He also launched an all-out attack on Sparta for the sake of a murdered kinsman. Once Oeonus, one of Heracles’ nephews, was passing the mansion of the king of Sparta, a man called Hippocoön. One of the king’s mastiffs set upon the traveler, who naturally picked up a stone and threw it at the dog to keep it at bay. But Hippocoön’s sons took this amiss. Angry words turned to fisticuffs, and then daggers were drawn. Before long Oeonus lay dead in the dust, and the mountains looked on impassively.

Once again Heracles summoned his friends and allies. At first Cepheus of Tegea was unwilling to leave his city undefended, but Heracles needed him and his twenty sons as allies. The son of Zeus called upon Athena for help and the great goddess gave him a lock of the hair of the Gorgon Medusa. One of the daughters of Cepheus was to raise this serpent lock high from the city walls three times in her hand, and this would serve as a sure shield for the city and protect it from all harm.

Then Cepheus agreed to join Heracles’ expedition, but so valiantly did his sons fight that almost all of them were killed, along with their father. Even Heracles was wounded in the hand, the sign of a rare lapse of self-confidence. But Sparta fell. Heracles killed the king and all twelve of his sons, and installed Tyndareos (descended from the Titan Atlas) on the throne in place of Hippocoön.

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