Inside the Book
As a baby, Hercules strangled two snakes sent to kill him in his crib. As a teenager, he killed his music teacher with a lyre. Later, driven mad by the goddess Hera, he killed his own wife and children, and he spent the rest of his life trying to make up for it through the Twelve Labors.
This book looks at the real Heracles of the Greek myths rather than the cartoon version: the son Zeus fathered by disguising himself as another man, the exile who served as a slave more than once, and the flawed strongman who became a god almost by accident. Along the way it sorts what the ancient sources actually say from what movies and the internet made up.
5 Facts From the Book
The Man Who Measured the Stadium
Pindar credits Hercules with founding the Olympic Games after his victory over King Augeas. According to tradition, he paced out the original stadium at Olympia using his own feet, setting its length at six hundred of them. The Roman writer Aulus Gellius reports that the philosopher Pythagoras used that measurement to calculate the height of Hercules. Since other Greek stadiums also measured six hundred feet but were shorter overall, Pythagoras reasoned that the feet of Hercules, and therefore his whole body, must have been proportionally larger than an ordinary man's. Pindar adds that Hercules brought the wild olive to Olympia, whose leaves crowned the winners. The ultimate athlete built his own arena.
Hera's Crab Joins the Fight
Right in the middle of the Hydra battle, Hera sent reinforcements: a giant crab. The creature, called Karkinos, scuttled out of the swamp and pinched the foot of Hercules while he was busy with the heads. It barely slowed him down. He crushed it underfoot without much thought, the way a person swats a mosquito during a house fire. Hera, apparently touched by the crab's loyalty, placed it among the stars as the constellation Cancer. That makes Cancer one of the stranger honors in the night sky, a permanent tribute to a crab whose entire career consisted of one bite and one defeat. At least the crab showed up for work.
The Name That Honored His Enemy
His birth name was not Heracles at all, according to Apollodorus. The boy was first called Alcides, after his grandfather Alcaeus, and only later received the name Heracles, reportedly from the Oracle of Delphi. The new name translates roughly to Glory of Hera, a bitter joke considering the goddess spent his entire life trying to destroy him. Some traditions suggest it was a hopeful attempt to soften her anger. It never worked. When his myths crossed into Italy, the Romans Latinized the name to Hercules, and that version eventually conquered the world. It is like a boy being renamed after the schoolyard bully who hunts him every single day.
The Emperor Who Fought as Hercules
Commodus, the Roman emperor who ruled in the late second century, believed he was Hercules reborn. He began appearing in public wearing a lion skin and carrying a club, called himself Hercules Romanus, and commissioned statues showing himself in the hero's costume. One of them, now in Rome's Capitoline Museums, shows him holding the golden apples. He also fought in the arena as a gladiator, facing animals and opponents stacked heavily in his favor while senators were forced to watch and cheer. Commodus was strangled in 192 AD by a wrestler named Narcissus, a grim irony for a man who modeled himself on mythology's greatest wrestler.
Hercules Guarding the Buddha
Buddhist art in ancient Gandhara, in what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, contains a surprising figure. After Alexander the Great's conquests brought Greek culture into the region, local sculptors began depicting Vajrapani, the protector of the Buddha, with the muscular body, beard, and sometimes the lion skin of Hercules. In some carvings, Vajrapani even carries an object resembling a club. The blend shows how far images could travel. A Greek hero born in myths about monsters and madness ended up standing guard beside the Buddha, a spiritual bodyguard thousands of miles from home. Few mythological figures ever crossed that many cultural borders and stayed recognizable.
That's 5 of the 100. The other 95 are waiting in the book.
📖 Read the Rest on Kindle UnlimitedWhat is Hercules most famous for?
His Twelve Labors, a series of seemingly impossible tasks he performed to atone for a terrible crime and achieve immortality.
Why did Hercules perform the Twelve Labors?
He performed them as penance for killing his wife Megara and their children in a fit of madness induced by the goddess Hera.
Who was Hercules's father?
His father was Zeus, the king of the gods, making him a demigod. His mortal mother was Alcmene.
How did Hercules die?
He died from a poisoned shirt given to him by his wife Deianira, who was tricked by the centaur Nessus. The poison burned him alive.
What was Hercules's Roman name?
His Roman name was Hercules, while in Greek mythology he is primarily known as Heracles.
Where did Hercules complete his first labor?
He completed his first labor in Nemea, where he slew the Nemean Lion, whose impenetrable hide he then wore as armor.
Can Hercules be considered a god?
Yes, after his death, he was apotheosized and ascended to Mount Olympus, becoming an immortal god associated with strength and heroes.
Why was Hera an enemy of Hercules?
Hera, Zeus's wife, hated Hercules because he was a product of Zeus's infidelity. She tormented him throughout his life.
What weapon was Hercules known for using?
He was famously known for wielding a mighty club, often made from an olive tree, and a bow and arrows dipped in Hydra's venom.
How many heads did the Lernaean Hydra have?
The Lernaean Hydra had nine heads. When one was cut off, two more grew in its place, making it a formidable opponent.
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