At last
Hercules
appeared and fought with the monster.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
.
.
.
.
.
225
Nessus and the Death of Hercules . . . . . . 287
Galanthis 264
Dryope . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Iolaus 272
Byblis 278
Iphis and Ianthe 294
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
AcHELOUS AND HERCULES
Answering a question of Theseus, the river god Acheloiis began to
tell about the loss of his horn, first tying up with reeds his unadorned
locks of hair. The tale was concerned with Hercules and introduced
Ovid's longest discussion of that famous hero.
The Greek tradition of Hercules probably originated with an actual
hero of the Argive people, who became a remarkable hunter and fighter.
He seems to have been a native of Tiryns, a village located a few miles
north of Argos ; for Diodorus gave Tiryns as the birthplace of Hercules,
and Vergil and Ovid still referred to him as Tirynthian. But, after a
prehistoric conquest of Argos by the inhabitants of Boeotia, Hercules
appears to have been identified with some Boeotian hero, and he usually
was said to have been born and reared at Thebes.
His mother was said to have been Alcmena, a princess of Tiryns,
who was living in exile. His father was Jupiter. This account of his
origin appeared as early as the Iliad, and Ovid had alluded to it in his
tale of Arachne (Bk. 6). Nevertheless Hercules often was called a son
of Alcmena's husband, Amphitryon. The poet of the Iliad referred to
him indifferently first as son of Jupiter and then as child of Amphitryon.
And this became the usual practice. Other Greek authors frequently
called him Alcides, indicating that he was descended from Alcaeus, the
father of Amphitryon. Ovid, following the custom, called him Alcides in
the tale of Acheloiis and a son of Amphitryon in the tale which followed.
Among early peoples it was a rather common practice to credit a hero
both with a divine and a human father. Greek tradition made Theseus
the son both of Neptune and of Aegeus, an idea to which Ovid alluded in
the opening line of the story (cf. Origin of Aconite, Bk. 7). *
As the centuries passed, Hercules appears to have been identified
with other local heroes of the Greeks, and he was given adventures
throughout the known world. Any natural marvel or any event in myth-
ology was apt to be associated with the work of Hercules. Greek tradi-
tion seems to have been affected also by accounts of the Phoenician god
Melcart. Hercules was said to have become a god after his death, an
idea recorded first in the Odyssey. Ovid showed Acheloiis noting in the
*In a similar manner the Gospel according to Matthew told how Jesus was the
son of God and yet traced his ancestry on the father's side from Abraham down to
Joseph, husband of Mary.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
early part of his story that Hercules was not yet a god at the time of the
events in question.
For Greek authors and artists the career of Hercules always was a
favorite theme. Among Roman authors and artists the subject was
almost equally popular. Hercules was described as remarkably strong,
brave, and resourceful, but also as a somewhat comic figure, like the
Hebrew Samson.
In the traditional career of Hercules the most important phase was
the hero's enforced service of Eurystheus, king of Argos. The Iliad gave
its cause as follows. When the time came for Alcmena to bear her child,
Jupiter informed the gods that before night there should be born a
prince of Jupiter's race, who should rule over all the neighboring tribes,
meaning apparently over all the Argives. Juno, realising that he alluded
to Hercules, devised a way to frustrate his plan. After persuading him
to promise under oath that the prince should be born that day, she re-
tarded the birth of Hercules and hastened the birth of Eurystheus, who
as a descendant of Perseus was also of Jupiter's race. Therefore Eurys-
theus had authority over his kinsman Hercules and was allowed to im-
pose on him grievous labors. But Jupiter was able to lighten them some-
what by having Athena give him aid.
The motive for assigning labors to Hercules was jealousy. In the
mind of Juno he was the son of her husband's paramour Alcmena. For
Eurystheus he was a rival prince of greater merit. Feeling unable to
attack him openly, they adopted the policy of sending him against dan-
gerous enemies in the hope that he would be killed. According to the
Iliad, Proetus, king of Lycia, tried a similar method for destroying
Bellerophon and sent him on three perilous quests, from all of which he
returned successful. Later accounts of Hercules made their purpose
clear.
Although Greek authors and artists continually showed interest in
the labors, for a long time they left both their number and their nature
indefinite. The Iliad spoke as if there were several, but neither the Iliad
nor the Odyssey told of any except the capture of Cerberus (cf. Origin
of Aconite, Bk. 7). The Theogony mentioned three--killing the Nemean
lion, destroying the hydra, and seizing by force the cattle of the monster
Geryon. Pisander, about the middle of the seventh century B. C. , made
Hercules the subject of a long narrative poem. He recorded at least
two labors, those with the Nemean lion and the hydra. Probably he told
also the adventures with Geryon and with Cerberus, and he may have
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
added still others; but we do not know, for his work is lost. Panyasis,
towards the middle of the fifth century B. C. , made Hercules the theme
of another long narrative poem. Concerning his account of the labors
we know only that he recorded at least those with the Nemean lion and
the hydra.
Six labors were sculptured at about the same time on the Athenian
treasury at Delphi. Sophocles enumerated six in his Trachinian Women.
He noted the killing of the Nemean lion, the destruction of the hydra, a
defeat of the centaurs, capture of the Erymanthian boar, a quest for
apples of the Hesperides, and the capture of Cerberus. But he spoke of
there being still others. Ten labors were carved on the Theseum at
Athens and on the Heracleum at Thebes.
In the latter half of the fifth century B. C. the total number was
affected by Asiatic tradition. The Babylonians attributed to the sun
god twelve adventures, corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac,
an idea which appeared in their epic of Gilgamesh. This tradition be-
came known to the Greeks and was associated with Hercules. Euripides
in his Hercules Furens made the number of labors twelve. Greek sculp-
tors represented the same number on the temple of Jupiter at Olympia.
After this time it was usual to enumerate twelve in any list which pur-
ported to be complete.
The nature of these labors remained indefinite still longer. Sophocles
and Euripides were in agreement about three which afterwards appeared
in almost every list. The first labor, they said, was killing the Nemean
lion, the second was destroying the hydra, and one of the last was the
capture of Cerberus. Not until Alexandrian times did men arrive at
something like agreement about the other nine. The orthodox arrange-
ment then became as follows: 1. killing the Nemean lion, 2. destroying
the hydra, 3. capturing the Erymanthian boar, 4. overcoming the Cery-
nitian hind, 5. destroying the Stymphalian birds, 6. cleansing the Augean
stables, 7. capturing the Cretan bull, 8. winning Hippolyta's girdle, 9.
overcoming the bloodthirsty horses of Diomed, 10. seizing the oxen of
Geryon, 11. obtaining apples of the Hesperides, and 12. capturing the
monster Cerberus. This arrangement appeared in the Manual and still
was followed many centuries afterwards by Quintus Smyrnaeus.
Other achievements of Hercules, which were incidental to one of
these, were distinguished as supplementary labors (Parerga). Among
the latter was the defeat of the Centaurs, which both Sophocles and
Euripides had included in their lists. Still other achievements, which
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
were independent of the labors, were distinguished as deeds (Praxeis).
Among them was the hero's part in the voyage of the Argo (cf. Bk. 7).
By giving priority of birth to Eurystheus, Juno prepared the way
for the servitude of Hercules. But the Greeks usually imagined-that his
enforced labor did not begin until many years afterwards, and they re-
lated it to a number of intervening circumstances. Hercules, they said,
grew up at Thebes, married the Theban Princess Megara, and became
the father of several children. Juno then caused him to go temporarily
mad and to kill his children. According to Euripides in the Hercules
Furens, he killed Megara also, but the Manual noted that he spared her
and afterwards gave her to his nephew Iolaiis. * In order to atone for
the murder of his children, Hercules consulted the oracle at Delphi and
learned that he must serve Eurystheus. This tradition may have been
associated with Hercules even before the time of the Iliad. It was re-
corded in the Manual. Ovid probably assumed that his readers would
think of it as providing some of the events that led up to his tale of
Acheloiis and Hercules.
Ovid was concerned with the circumstances under which the hero
courted Deianira, a daughter of King Oeneus of Aetolia and a sister of
the unfortunate Meleager. The Catalogues had spoken of Hercules as
marrying her. Bacchylides recorded a number of details. While in quest
of Cerberus, Hercules met the shade of Meleager and was impressed so
favorably by his tragic story that he inquired whether Meleager had
left any sister eligible for marriage. Meleager then suggested Deianira.
Bacchylides implied that Hercules married her at some time later
than the Calydonian Boar Hunt. Pindar may have followed the same
tradition, for in a poem that now is lost he, too, observed that Meleager
encouraged Hercules to marry his sister. But most accounts did not
associate the marriage with Meleager and were indefinite about its rela-
tion to the hunt. Ovid assumed that the marriage occurred not only be-
fore the time of the Calydonian Boar Hunt but so many years before
that Acheloiis was in doubt whether Theseus had heard of Deianira.
Acheloiis told the events as a story of the remote past and implied that,
when Theseus visited him, Hercules already had finished his career on
earth and had become a god.
Bacchylides had implied that, before Hercules courted Deianira, he
performed all his labors. The Manual stated this idea clearly, and Ovid
*The idea that a primitive warrior might give away wives whom he did not wish
to keep longer, appeared in a recent photodrama treating the life of Mala, the
Eskimo.
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
in his tale of Achelous and Hercules did the same. But Sophocles in the
Trachmian Women had declared that Hercules first married Deianira
and then performed the labors. And in the subsequent tale Ovid incon-
sistently followed his example.
From early times the Greeks had imagined that Achelous was a
suitor of Deianira and that Hercules vanquished him. The idea seems
to have originated in a widespread tradition that a virgin princess must
be offered to the neighboring water spirit, but might be saved by a
valiant hero (cf. Perseus and Andromeda, Bk. 4). More than one Greek
author indicated that the courtship of Achelous inspired fear and abhor-
rence. According to Pindar, Meleager had urged Hercules to protect
his sister from the god. According to Sophocles, Deianira herself would
have preferred death to such a marriage. It was supposed that Hercules
vanquished his opponent in physical combat. Archilochus, recording the
event, declared that Achelous fought in the shape of a bull.
Sophocles gave a number of details. King Oeneus and his family
were living in the village of Pleuron. Achelous courted the princess, ap-
pearing successively in the three shapes of a snake with glittering coils,
of a bull, and of a man with a bull's head and with water pouring from
his shaggy beard. He asked the king to give him his daughter in mar-
riage. Sharing the reluctance of Deianira, Oeneus contrived to delay
the answer and looked for means to escape from his embarrassing posi-
tion.
At last Hercules appeared and fought with the monster. Sophocles
did not attempt to give a clear description of the battle. He indicated
that Hercules sometimes shot arrows and at other times used his fists or
grappled at close quarters and that Achelous butted savagely with his
horns. Deianira sat at a distance, weeping and afraid even to look in the
direction of the furious melee.
Greek painters often represented the combat. They showed Ache-
lous with a horned human head. Usually they pictured him as having two
horns, but sometimes as having only a single horn in the middle of his
forehead. Almost always they showed his body as that of a bull, but at
least one painter gave it the shape of a long, slender fish. Greek sculp-
tors of the fifth century treated the combat in relief, first on the throne
of Apollo's temple at Amyclae and then in a group which formed part of
the Megarian treasury at Delphi.
Alexandrian authors added new circumstances. Callimachus in his
Origins declared that Hercules broke off the two horns of Achelous. This
idea Ovid repeated in his Amores and his Epistle of Paris. In his Epistle
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
of Deianira he stated also that Achelous, weeping, gathered up his horns
and concealed his mutilated brow in the yellow waters of the river.
The Manual recorded a different version of the story. It declared
that Hercules broke off only one horn, and it added a very different
sequel. Apparently Hercules kept the horn for some time. But Achelous
found means to recover it. When Jupiter was an infant, the nymph
Amalthea had fed him milk from a certain goat. One of the animal's
horns broke off, and Jupiter gave this horn the magic power of supply-
ing Amalthea abundantly with food and drink of any kind that she de-
sired. It became the Cornucopia or Horn of Plenty. This horn Amalthea
gave to Achelous. He in turn gave it to Hercules in exchange for his
own. Diodorus, trying to rationalize the story, suggested that Hercules
conquered the river Achelous by digging a canal, which diverted the
water and made the neighboring country fertile.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid told the story of Achelous and Her-
cules at considerable length. He took suggestions from Sophocles and
the Manual but introduced much new material. He showed Achelous
observing at the outset that bitterness of defeat was compensated in
large measure by the greatness of the victor. A similar idea Ovid after-
wards used in his account of Ajax and Ulysses (Bk. 13). After men-
tioning the beauty of Deianira, he introduced the new circumstance that
she had many suitors. All of them assembled at one time in the palace of
Oeneus, he continued, with the purpose of asking the king for his daugh-
ter. But, when Achelous and Hercules made their request, the others
withdrew. Ovid said nothing about the reluctance of Deianira -- he did
not say even that she was present. But he seems to have remembered that
King Oeneus was averse to Achelous yet afraid to refuse him. He implied
that Oeneus paused, uncertain how to answer the request. The two rivals
then began to present their claims.
Hercules, speaking first, mentioned his divine parentage, his labors,
and his other achievements performed at the command of Juno. Ovid
merely summarized the claim, because he intended later to give these
events a more lengthy treatment. Ovid implied that it was a dignified,
powerful plea. Achelous felt that he must not only present his own claim
but must endeavor to discredit that of his rival. He replied that he him-
self had the advantages of being a god, a native of Aetolia, and one who
was on good terms with Juno. Then, addressing Hercules, he insisted on
the idea that a claim of divine parentage was either false or discreditable
to all concerned. Oeneus failed to reprove this breach of decorum and
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
apparently lost all control of the affair. Hercules answered that he
would waive further argument and decide the matter by combat. He was
better, he said, in deeds than in words, an idea which Ovid afterwards
repeated under very different circumstances in his tale of Ajax and
Ulysses. Hercules then moved fiercely towards his rival. Acheloiis,
ashamed to yield, stood his ground, and the fight began. Ovid forgot
that he had introduced the idea of an audience in the palace. Recalling
the familiar tradition, he suddenly described the combattants as stand-
ing on open ground near the river.
Ovid gave a clear account of the struggle, and he differed in many
particulars from Sophocles. He rejected the idea that Hercules used
arrows. He imagined that Acheloiis tried successively each of the three
forms that Sophocles had mentioned in the story of the courtship. Ache-
loiis began in his usual shape of a man with two bull horns.
The battle commenced as a match in wrestling. Even in prehistoric
times the Greeks had cultivated this form of athletics. The Iliad re-
corded in some detail a wrestling match between Ajax and Ulysses, which
occurred during the funeral games for Patroclus. In prehistoric times
there seem to have been no rules governing the costume and preparation
of the contestants. But with the Olympian Games of the year 704 B. C. ,
it became the regular practice for contestants to enter naked, or nearly
so, and then to be anointed with oil and sprinkled with fine sand. Ovid
imagined this to have been the procedure of Acheloiis and Hercules,
although he did not indicate how they could have been anointed with oil.
Acheloiis removed his green robe and took the accepted position for com-
bat. Hercules sprinkled both Acheloiis and himself with yellow sand. The
Iliad had pictured a contest in upright wrestling, where the winner
needed only to throw his opponent to the ground three times out of five.
But the Greeks cultivated also ground wrestling, where the winner must
continue the struggle until his fallen opponent admitted defeat. This
kind of wrestling Ovid imagined for his battle of Acheloiis and Hercules.
Assuming the aggressive, Hercules repeatedly tried to throw his
rival. The latter, taking advantage of his weight, continually withstood
him. While picturing the struggle, Ovid remembered other accounts of
conflict. Vergil, describing how Latinus resisted the clamor for war
and how Mezentius held his ground against the attack of enemies, likened
each of them to a cliff unmoved by the fierce onslaughts of wind and
sea. Ovid repeated the comparison, but in tamer phrasing. The rivals
separated a moment, then grappled at close quarters. Again Ovid re-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
membered the account of earlier poets. Vergil, echoing a phrase of Euri-
pides and Ennius, had spoken of the clashing ranks of Troy and Latium
as contending foot against foot, man pressed against man. Ovid carried
the idea further. Acheloiis grappled foot against foot, finger with finger,
brow against brow.
Sophocles had noted that after the combat Deianira was torn from
her home, like a newly weaned heifer from its mother. To Ovid the idea
suggested a further comparison, and while making it he recalled two
striking passages of Vergil. In the Georgics, Vergil spoke of bulls con-
tending for a beautiful heifer; in the Aeneid he compared Aeneas and
Turnus to bulls rushing at each other, while the herd and herdsmen look
on wondering which is to have dominion. Ovid likened Acheloiis and Her-
cules to bulls rushing together, when they contend for the sleekest heifer
of the pasture and the herd stands wondering which will obtain so great
a dominion. For the ancients, epic custom, beginning with the Iliad, had
sanctified comparison of human beings to animals and had prepared
Ovid's readers to think chiefly of the resemblances which were favorable
to Deianira and her contending lovers -- of the beauty, power, and im-
portance of the cattle. For a modern reader the comparison might seem
far from complimentary, suggesting rather their likeness to stupid, sen-
sual, and furious beasts.
At last, Ovid continued, Hercules broke loose, turned Acheloiis
round, and seized him from behind. Ovid pictured graphically the
changes of the brief struggle and the manner in which Hercules forced
Acheloiis down to his knees, with his face against the ground. Convinced
that Hercules was the stronger, Acheloiis resorted to cunning and glided
away as a snake. Then he coiled and hissed, showing his forked tongue.
Hercules laughed at the device, observing that snakes had no terror for
him.
Here Ovid saw an occasion for mentioning other famous adventures
of Hercules. The first was the victory over a pair of huge snakes that
attacked Hercules during his infancy. Pindar had declared that in the
first night after the hero's birth Juno sent these creatures to destroy ,
both Hercules and his half brother Iphicles but that Hercules grasped
their necks -- one in either hand -- and strangled them. Euripides
alluded to this adventure in his Hercules Furens. Theocritus gave a more
detailed account. Jupiter aided his son by illuminating the palace as the
creatures drew near. Iphicles was panic stricken. Hercules boldly grap-
pled with the snakes and held on, undaunted, while they struggled and
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
coiled round his body. Both the Manual and Plautus repeated the story
briefly, with variations of detail, and Vergil alluded to it in his Aeneid.
Some authors were inclined to increase the age of Hercules. Theo-
critus made it ten months, the Manual eight. Pherecydes gave a different
cause for the adventure. Amphitryon brought the snakes into the palace,
he declared, in order to learn which infant was the child of Jove. Begin-
ning with the fifth century B. C, Greek artists often treated the victory
over the serpents. During the same period the event was represented
also on Theban coins. It appeared later in a Pompeiian fresco and a
bronze statue at Herculaneum. Ovid showed Hercules warning Acheloiis
that he had conquered snakes while still in his cradle.
Another adventure that Ovid mentioned was the destruction of the
hydra. Even if Acheloiis were to become the biggest snake in the world,
Hercules continued, he would not compare with that notorious monster.
The Theogony had referred to the hydra as a daughter of Typhoeus
and Echidna and had observed that Hercules, accompanied by his
nephew Iolaiis and aided by the counsel of Athena, put the creature to
death with the sword. Alluding probably to the first part of this ac-
count, Ovid spoke of the hydra as itself an echidna.
Pisander had told the story, to the following effect. The hydra was
a monster having many serpent heads, which took its name from the fact
that it lived ordinarily in water. It inhabited the swamp of Lerna, not
far from Argos, and used to prey on cattle pastured in the neighboring
fields. At the command of Eurystheus, Hercules went in search of the
monster. He approached Lerna in a chariot, the driver of which was
Iolaiis. Finding the hydra in a cave, he drove it with flaming arrows out
into the shallow water and then attacked it on foot. Armed with a
scimitar, he caught hold of the monster and began to cut off the serpent
heads. For every one that fell, two more sprouted on the same neck.
Meanwhile an enormous crab, gliding in from the Argolic Gulf, bit Her-
cules in the leg. The hero killed this enemy and resumed his unavailing
battle with the hydra. Then Athena, coming to his aid, burned each sev-
ered neck with a torch, so the heads could not sprout again and the hydra
perished. Hercules dipped his arrows in the hydra's gall, making them
poisonous. Panyasis, after repeating the story, added that Juno recom-
pensed the crab by giving it a place in the skies, as the constellation
Cancer.
Greek painters and sculptors often treated the conflict with the
hydra. Some of them followed the account given by Pisander. But
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
others gave a different version. They indicated that Athena had no part
in the adventure, and they gave more prominence to Iolaiis. It was he
who brought the torch and seared the sprouting necks. This idea in-
spired a metope of the Theseum at Athens. Euripides in his Ion de-
scribed the incident as carved on the temple at Delphi. After the fifth
century B. C. , it became the accepted version. The Manual, repeating
the story in this form, altered some details. Hercules, it said, attacked
the hydra with a club, smashing the heads; and Iolaiis burned a neigh-
boring grove of trees, in order to obtain hot brands. Several Alexan-
drian and Roman authors alluded to incidents of the famous adventure.
Regarding the form of the hydra, there was much difference of
opinion. Euripides in the Hercules Furens described the monster as a
myriad headed hound. Diodorus mentioned a hundred heads. Vergil in
one passage of the Aeneid spoke of a hundred and in another passage
spoke of fifty. The Manual stated that the hydra had nine heads, one
of which was immortal. After Hercules had destroyed the other eight,
he cut off the immortal head and buried it under a rock. With the ex-
ception of Euripides, all authors seem to have agreed in regarding the
hydra as a many headed snake. Greek artists of earlier times appear
to have been of the same opinion. They pictured a number of serpent
heads and necks darting from the upper edge of a flat, triangular body,
presumably the modified form of a snake. But Alexandrian and Roman
artists preferred to represent the hydra as partly human -- with ser-
pent heads and the body of a woman, or vice versa. Following the liter-
ary and the older artistic conception, Ovid spoke of the hydra as a
supernatural snake; following Vergil, he mentioned a hundred heads;
and, following the Manual, he referred to the monster's being overcome
and shut in a safe place.
After recalling to Achelous the chief circumstances of the tale,
Ovid continued, Hercules asked him what use it would be to counterfeit
the form of a snake. Then remembering the hero's early victory over
serpents, Ovid noted that Hercules caught Achelous by the throat and
began to strangle him. Defeated as a serpent, Achelous resorted to his
third shape.
He became a fierce bull. The change brought him only temporary
release. Hercules wrapped his arms round the neck of the bull, clung to
him as he ran, and threw him flat on the ground. Following the Manual,
Ovid spoke of Hercules as breaking off one of the bull's horns, and he
associated the incident with the Horn of Plenty. But he altered the
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
story.
Nessus and the Death of Hercules . . . . . . 287
Galanthis 264
Dryope . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Iolaus 272
Byblis 278
Iphis and Ianthe 294
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
AcHELOUS AND HERCULES
Answering a question of Theseus, the river god Acheloiis began to
tell about the loss of his horn, first tying up with reeds his unadorned
locks of hair. The tale was concerned with Hercules and introduced
Ovid's longest discussion of that famous hero.
The Greek tradition of Hercules probably originated with an actual
hero of the Argive people, who became a remarkable hunter and fighter.
He seems to have been a native of Tiryns, a village located a few miles
north of Argos ; for Diodorus gave Tiryns as the birthplace of Hercules,
and Vergil and Ovid still referred to him as Tirynthian. But, after a
prehistoric conquest of Argos by the inhabitants of Boeotia, Hercules
appears to have been identified with some Boeotian hero, and he usually
was said to have been born and reared at Thebes.
His mother was said to have been Alcmena, a princess of Tiryns,
who was living in exile. His father was Jupiter. This account of his
origin appeared as early as the Iliad, and Ovid had alluded to it in his
tale of Arachne (Bk. 6). Nevertheless Hercules often was called a son
of Alcmena's husband, Amphitryon. The poet of the Iliad referred to
him indifferently first as son of Jupiter and then as child of Amphitryon.
And this became the usual practice. Other Greek authors frequently
called him Alcides, indicating that he was descended from Alcaeus, the
father of Amphitryon. Ovid, following the custom, called him Alcides in
the tale of Acheloiis and a son of Amphitryon in the tale which followed.
Among early peoples it was a rather common practice to credit a hero
both with a divine and a human father. Greek tradition made Theseus
the son both of Neptune and of Aegeus, an idea to which Ovid alluded in
the opening line of the story (cf. Origin of Aconite, Bk. 7). *
As the centuries passed, Hercules appears to have been identified
with other local heroes of the Greeks, and he was given adventures
throughout the known world. Any natural marvel or any event in myth-
ology was apt to be associated with the work of Hercules. Greek tradi-
tion seems to have been affected also by accounts of the Phoenician god
Melcart. Hercules was said to have become a god after his death, an
idea recorded first in the Odyssey. Ovid showed Acheloiis noting in the
*In a similar manner the Gospel according to Matthew told how Jesus was the
son of God and yet traced his ancestry on the father's side from Abraham down to
Joseph, husband of Mary.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
early part of his story that Hercules was not yet a god at the time of the
events in question.
For Greek authors and artists the career of Hercules always was a
favorite theme. Among Roman authors and artists the subject was
almost equally popular. Hercules was described as remarkably strong,
brave, and resourceful, but also as a somewhat comic figure, like the
Hebrew Samson.
In the traditional career of Hercules the most important phase was
the hero's enforced service of Eurystheus, king of Argos. The Iliad gave
its cause as follows. When the time came for Alcmena to bear her child,
Jupiter informed the gods that before night there should be born a
prince of Jupiter's race, who should rule over all the neighboring tribes,
meaning apparently over all the Argives. Juno, realising that he alluded
to Hercules, devised a way to frustrate his plan. After persuading him
to promise under oath that the prince should be born that day, she re-
tarded the birth of Hercules and hastened the birth of Eurystheus, who
as a descendant of Perseus was also of Jupiter's race. Therefore Eurys-
theus had authority over his kinsman Hercules and was allowed to im-
pose on him grievous labors. But Jupiter was able to lighten them some-
what by having Athena give him aid.
The motive for assigning labors to Hercules was jealousy. In the
mind of Juno he was the son of her husband's paramour Alcmena. For
Eurystheus he was a rival prince of greater merit. Feeling unable to
attack him openly, they adopted the policy of sending him against dan-
gerous enemies in the hope that he would be killed. According to the
Iliad, Proetus, king of Lycia, tried a similar method for destroying
Bellerophon and sent him on three perilous quests, from all of which he
returned successful. Later accounts of Hercules made their purpose
clear.
Although Greek authors and artists continually showed interest in
the labors, for a long time they left both their number and their nature
indefinite. The Iliad spoke as if there were several, but neither the Iliad
nor the Odyssey told of any except the capture of Cerberus (cf. Origin
of Aconite, Bk. 7). The Theogony mentioned three--killing the Nemean
lion, destroying the hydra, and seizing by force the cattle of the monster
Geryon. Pisander, about the middle of the seventh century B. C. , made
Hercules the subject of a long narrative poem. He recorded at least
two labors, those with the Nemean lion and the hydra. Probably he told
also the adventures with Geryon and with Cerberus, and he may have
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
added still others; but we do not know, for his work is lost. Panyasis,
towards the middle of the fifth century B. C. , made Hercules the theme
of another long narrative poem. Concerning his account of the labors
we know only that he recorded at least those with the Nemean lion and
the hydra.
Six labors were sculptured at about the same time on the Athenian
treasury at Delphi. Sophocles enumerated six in his Trachinian Women.
He noted the killing of the Nemean lion, the destruction of the hydra, a
defeat of the centaurs, capture of the Erymanthian boar, a quest for
apples of the Hesperides, and the capture of Cerberus. But he spoke of
there being still others. Ten labors were carved on the Theseum at
Athens and on the Heracleum at Thebes.
In the latter half of the fifth century B. C. the total number was
affected by Asiatic tradition. The Babylonians attributed to the sun
god twelve adventures, corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac,
an idea which appeared in their epic of Gilgamesh. This tradition be-
came known to the Greeks and was associated with Hercules. Euripides
in his Hercules Furens made the number of labors twelve. Greek sculp-
tors represented the same number on the temple of Jupiter at Olympia.
After this time it was usual to enumerate twelve in any list which pur-
ported to be complete.
The nature of these labors remained indefinite still longer. Sophocles
and Euripides were in agreement about three which afterwards appeared
in almost every list. The first labor, they said, was killing the Nemean
lion, the second was destroying the hydra, and one of the last was the
capture of Cerberus. Not until Alexandrian times did men arrive at
something like agreement about the other nine. The orthodox arrange-
ment then became as follows: 1. killing the Nemean lion, 2. destroying
the hydra, 3. capturing the Erymanthian boar, 4. overcoming the Cery-
nitian hind, 5. destroying the Stymphalian birds, 6. cleansing the Augean
stables, 7. capturing the Cretan bull, 8. winning Hippolyta's girdle, 9.
overcoming the bloodthirsty horses of Diomed, 10. seizing the oxen of
Geryon, 11. obtaining apples of the Hesperides, and 12. capturing the
monster Cerberus. This arrangement appeared in the Manual and still
was followed many centuries afterwards by Quintus Smyrnaeus.
Other achievements of Hercules, which were incidental to one of
these, were distinguished as supplementary labors (Parerga). Among
the latter was the defeat of the Centaurs, which both Sophocles and
Euripides had included in their lists. Still other achievements, which
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
were independent of the labors, were distinguished as deeds (Praxeis).
Among them was the hero's part in the voyage of the Argo (cf. Bk. 7).
By giving priority of birth to Eurystheus, Juno prepared the way
for the servitude of Hercules. But the Greeks usually imagined-that his
enforced labor did not begin until many years afterwards, and they re-
lated it to a number of intervening circumstances. Hercules, they said,
grew up at Thebes, married the Theban Princess Megara, and became
the father of several children. Juno then caused him to go temporarily
mad and to kill his children. According to Euripides in the Hercules
Furens, he killed Megara also, but the Manual noted that he spared her
and afterwards gave her to his nephew Iolaiis. * In order to atone for
the murder of his children, Hercules consulted the oracle at Delphi and
learned that he must serve Eurystheus. This tradition may have been
associated with Hercules even before the time of the Iliad. It was re-
corded in the Manual. Ovid probably assumed that his readers would
think of it as providing some of the events that led up to his tale of
Acheloiis and Hercules.
Ovid was concerned with the circumstances under which the hero
courted Deianira, a daughter of King Oeneus of Aetolia and a sister of
the unfortunate Meleager. The Catalogues had spoken of Hercules as
marrying her. Bacchylides recorded a number of details. While in quest
of Cerberus, Hercules met the shade of Meleager and was impressed so
favorably by his tragic story that he inquired whether Meleager had
left any sister eligible for marriage. Meleager then suggested Deianira.
Bacchylides implied that Hercules married her at some time later
than the Calydonian Boar Hunt. Pindar may have followed the same
tradition, for in a poem that now is lost he, too, observed that Meleager
encouraged Hercules to marry his sister. But most accounts did not
associate the marriage with Meleager and were indefinite about its rela-
tion to the hunt. Ovid assumed that the marriage occurred not only be-
fore the time of the Calydonian Boar Hunt but so many years before
that Acheloiis was in doubt whether Theseus had heard of Deianira.
Acheloiis told the events as a story of the remote past and implied that,
when Theseus visited him, Hercules already had finished his career on
earth and had become a god.
Bacchylides had implied that, before Hercules courted Deianira, he
performed all his labors. The Manual stated this idea clearly, and Ovid
*The idea that a primitive warrior might give away wives whom he did not wish
to keep longer, appeared in a recent photodrama treating the life of Mala, the
Eskimo.
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
in his tale of Achelous and Hercules did the same. But Sophocles in the
Trachmian Women had declared that Hercules first married Deianira
and then performed the labors. And in the subsequent tale Ovid incon-
sistently followed his example.
From early times the Greeks had imagined that Achelous was a
suitor of Deianira and that Hercules vanquished him. The idea seems
to have originated in a widespread tradition that a virgin princess must
be offered to the neighboring water spirit, but might be saved by a
valiant hero (cf. Perseus and Andromeda, Bk. 4). More than one Greek
author indicated that the courtship of Achelous inspired fear and abhor-
rence. According to Pindar, Meleager had urged Hercules to protect
his sister from the god. According to Sophocles, Deianira herself would
have preferred death to such a marriage. It was supposed that Hercules
vanquished his opponent in physical combat. Archilochus, recording the
event, declared that Achelous fought in the shape of a bull.
Sophocles gave a number of details. King Oeneus and his family
were living in the village of Pleuron. Achelous courted the princess, ap-
pearing successively in the three shapes of a snake with glittering coils,
of a bull, and of a man with a bull's head and with water pouring from
his shaggy beard. He asked the king to give him his daughter in mar-
riage. Sharing the reluctance of Deianira, Oeneus contrived to delay
the answer and looked for means to escape from his embarrassing posi-
tion.
At last Hercules appeared and fought with the monster. Sophocles
did not attempt to give a clear description of the battle. He indicated
that Hercules sometimes shot arrows and at other times used his fists or
grappled at close quarters and that Achelous butted savagely with his
horns. Deianira sat at a distance, weeping and afraid even to look in the
direction of the furious melee.
Greek painters often represented the combat. They showed Ache-
lous with a horned human head. Usually they pictured him as having two
horns, but sometimes as having only a single horn in the middle of his
forehead. Almost always they showed his body as that of a bull, but at
least one painter gave it the shape of a long, slender fish. Greek sculp-
tors of the fifth century treated the combat in relief, first on the throne
of Apollo's temple at Amyclae and then in a group which formed part of
the Megarian treasury at Delphi.
Alexandrian authors added new circumstances. Callimachus in his
Origins declared that Hercules broke off the two horns of Achelous. This
idea Ovid repeated in his Amores and his Epistle of Paris. In his Epistle
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
of Deianira he stated also that Achelous, weeping, gathered up his horns
and concealed his mutilated brow in the yellow waters of the river.
The Manual recorded a different version of the story. It declared
that Hercules broke off only one horn, and it added a very different
sequel. Apparently Hercules kept the horn for some time. But Achelous
found means to recover it. When Jupiter was an infant, the nymph
Amalthea had fed him milk from a certain goat. One of the animal's
horns broke off, and Jupiter gave this horn the magic power of supply-
ing Amalthea abundantly with food and drink of any kind that she de-
sired. It became the Cornucopia or Horn of Plenty. This horn Amalthea
gave to Achelous. He in turn gave it to Hercules in exchange for his
own. Diodorus, trying to rationalize the story, suggested that Hercules
conquered the river Achelous by digging a canal, which diverted the
water and made the neighboring country fertile.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid told the story of Achelous and Her-
cules at considerable length. He took suggestions from Sophocles and
the Manual but introduced much new material. He showed Achelous
observing at the outset that bitterness of defeat was compensated in
large measure by the greatness of the victor. A similar idea Ovid after-
wards used in his account of Ajax and Ulysses (Bk. 13). After men-
tioning the beauty of Deianira, he introduced the new circumstance that
she had many suitors. All of them assembled at one time in the palace of
Oeneus, he continued, with the purpose of asking the king for his daugh-
ter. But, when Achelous and Hercules made their request, the others
withdrew. Ovid said nothing about the reluctance of Deianira -- he did
not say even that she was present. But he seems to have remembered that
King Oeneus was averse to Achelous yet afraid to refuse him. He implied
that Oeneus paused, uncertain how to answer the request. The two rivals
then began to present their claims.
Hercules, speaking first, mentioned his divine parentage, his labors,
and his other achievements performed at the command of Juno. Ovid
merely summarized the claim, because he intended later to give these
events a more lengthy treatment. Ovid implied that it was a dignified,
powerful plea. Achelous felt that he must not only present his own claim
but must endeavor to discredit that of his rival. He replied that he him-
self had the advantages of being a god, a native of Aetolia, and one who
was on good terms with Juno. Then, addressing Hercules, he insisted on
the idea that a claim of divine parentage was either false or discreditable
to all concerned. Oeneus failed to reprove this breach of decorum and
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
apparently lost all control of the affair. Hercules answered that he
would waive further argument and decide the matter by combat. He was
better, he said, in deeds than in words, an idea which Ovid afterwards
repeated under very different circumstances in his tale of Ajax and
Ulysses. Hercules then moved fiercely towards his rival. Acheloiis,
ashamed to yield, stood his ground, and the fight began. Ovid forgot
that he had introduced the idea of an audience in the palace. Recalling
the familiar tradition, he suddenly described the combattants as stand-
ing on open ground near the river.
Ovid gave a clear account of the struggle, and he differed in many
particulars from Sophocles. He rejected the idea that Hercules used
arrows. He imagined that Acheloiis tried successively each of the three
forms that Sophocles had mentioned in the story of the courtship. Ache-
loiis began in his usual shape of a man with two bull horns.
The battle commenced as a match in wrestling. Even in prehistoric
times the Greeks had cultivated this form of athletics. The Iliad re-
corded in some detail a wrestling match between Ajax and Ulysses, which
occurred during the funeral games for Patroclus. In prehistoric times
there seem to have been no rules governing the costume and preparation
of the contestants. But with the Olympian Games of the year 704 B. C. ,
it became the regular practice for contestants to enter naked, or nearly
so, and then to be anointed with oil and sprinkled with fine sand. Ovid
imagined this to have been the procedure of Acheloiis and Hercules,
although he did not indicate how they could have been anointed with oil.
Acheloiis removed his green robe and took the accepted position for com-
bat. Hercules sprinkled both Acheloiis and himself with yellow sand. The
Iliad had pictured a contest in upright wrestling, where the winner
needed only to throw his opponent to the ground three times out of five.
But the Greeks cultivated also ground wrestling, where the winner must
continue the struggle until his fallen opponent admitted defeat. This
kind of wrestling Ovid imagined for his battle of Acheloiis and Hercules.
Assuming the aggressive, Hercules repeatedly tried to throw his
rival. The latter, taking advantage of his weight, continually withstood
him. While picturing the struggle, Ovid remembered other accounts of
conflict. Vergil, describing how Latinus resisted the clamor for war
and how Mezentius held his ground against the attack of enemies, likened
each of them to a cliff unmoved by the fierce onslaughts of wind and
sea. Ovid repeated the comparison, but in tamer phrasing. The rivals
separated a moment, then grappled at close quarters. Again Ovid re-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
membered the account of earlier poets. Vergil, echoing a phrase of Euri-
pides and Ennius, had spoken of the clashing ranks of Troy and Latium
as contending foot against foot, man pressed against man. Ovid carried
the idea further. Acheloiis grappled foot against foot, finger with finger,
brow against brow.
Sophocles had noted that after the combat Deianira was torn from
her home, like a newly weaned heifer from its mother. To Ovid the idea
suggested a further comparison, and while making it he recalled two
striking passages of Vergil. In the Georgics, Vergil spoke of bulls con-
tending for a beautiful heifer; in the Aeneid he compared Aeneas and
Turnus to bulls rushing at each other, while the herd and herdsmen look
on wondering which is to have dominion. Ovid likened Acheloiis and Her-
cules to bulls rushing together, when they contend for the sleekest heifer
of the pasture and the herd stands wondering which will obtain so great
a dominion. For the ancients, epic custom, beginning with the Iliad, had
sanctified comparison of human beings to animals and had prepared
Ovid's readers to think chiefly of the resemblances which were favorable
to Deianira and her contending lovers -- of the beauty, power, and im-
portance of the cattle. For a modern reader the comparison might seem
far from complimentary, suggesting rather their likeness to stupid, sen-
sual, and furious beasts.
At last, Ovid continued, Hercules broke loose, turned Acheloiis
round, and seized him from behind. Ovid pictured graphically the
changes of the brief struggle and the manner in which Hercules forced
Acheloiis down to his knees, with his face against the ground. Convinced
that Hercules was the stronger, Acheloiis resorted to cunning and glided
away as a snake. Then he coiled and hissed, showing his forked tongue.
Hercules laughed at the device, observing that snakes had no terror for
him.
Here Ovid saw an occasion for mentioning other famous adventures
of Hercules. The first was the victory over a pair of huge snakes that
attacked Hercules during his infancy. Pindar had declared that in the
first night after the hero's birth Juno sent these creatures to destroy ,
both Hercules and his half brother Iphicles but that Hercules grasped
their necks -- one in either hand -- and strangled them. Euripides
alluded to this adventure in his Hercules Furens. Theocritus gave a more
detailed account. Jupiter aided his son by illuminating the palace as the
creatures drew near. Iphicles was panic stricken. Hercules boldly grap-
pled with the snakes and held on, undaunted, while they struggled and
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
coiled round his body. Both the Manual and Plautus repeated the story
briefly, with variations of detail, and Vergil alluded to it in his Aeneid.
Some authors were inclined to increase the age of Hercules. Theo-
critus made it ten months, the Manual eight. Pherecydes gave a different
cause for the adventure. Amphitryon brought the snakes into the palace,
he declared, in order to learn which infant was the child of Jove. Begin-
ning with the fifth century B. C, Greek artists often treated the victory
over the serpents. During the same period the event was represented
also on Theban coins. It appeared later in a Pompeiian fresco and a
bronze statue at Herculaneum. Ovid showed Hercules warning Acheloiis
that he had conquered snakes while still in his cradle.
Another adventure that Ovid mentioned was the destruction of the
hydra. Even if Acheloiis were to become the biggest snake in the world,
Hercules continued, he would not compare with that notorious monster.
The Theogony had referred to the hydra as a daughter of Typhoeus
and Echidna and had observed that Hercules, accompanied by his
nephew Iolaiis and aided by the counsel of Athena, put the creature to
death with the sword. Alluding probably to the first part of this ac-
count, Ovid spoke of the hydra as itself an echidna.
Pisander had told the story, to the following effect. The hydra was
a monster having many serpent heads, which took its name from the fact
that it lived ordinarily in water. It inhabited the swamp of Lerna, not
far from Argos, and used to prey on cattle pastured in the neighboring
fields. At the command of Eurystheus, Hercules went in search of the
monster. He approached Lerna in a chariot, the driver of which was
Iolaiis. Finding the hydra in a cave, he drove it with flaming arrows out
into the shallow water and then attacked it on foot. Armed with a
scimitar, he caught hold of the monster and began to cut off the serpent
heads. For every one that fell, two more sprouted on the same neck.
Meanwhile an enormous crab, gliding in from the Argolic Gulf, bit Her-
cules in the leg. The hero killed this enemy and resumed his unavailing
battle with the hydra. Then Athena, coming to his aid, burned each sev-
ered neck with a torch, so the heads could not sprout again and the hydra
perished. Hercules dipped his arrows in the hydra's gall, making them
poisonous. Panyasis, after repeating the story, added that Juno recom-
pensed the crab by giving it a place in the skies, as the constellation
Cancer.
Greek painters and sculptors often treated the conflict with the
hydra. Some of them followed the account given by Pisander. But
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
others gave a different version. They indicated that Athena had no part
in the adventure, and they gave more prominence to Iolaiis. It was he
who brought the torch and seared the sprouting necks. This idea in-
spired a metope of the Theseum at Athens. Euripides in his Ion de-
scribed the incident as carved on the temple at Delphi. After the fifth
century B. C. , it became the accepted version. The Manual, repeating
the story in this form, altered some details. Hercules, it said, attacked
the hydra with a club, smashing the heads; and Iolaiis burned a neigh-
boring grove of trees, in order to obtain hot brands. Several Alexan-
drian and Roman authors alluded to incidents of the famous adventure.
Regarding the form of the hydra, there was much difference of
opinion. Euripides in the Hercules Furens described the monster as a
myriad headed hound. Diodorus mentioned a hundred heads. Vergil in
one passage of the Aeneid spoke of a hundred and in another passage
spoke of fifty. The Manual stated that the hydra had nine heads, one
of which was immortal. After Hercules had destroyed the other eight,
he cut off the immortal head and buried it under a rock. With the ex-
ception of Euripides, all authors seem to have agreed in regarding the
hydra as a many headed snake. Greek artists of earlier times appear
to have been of the same opinion. They pictured a number of serpent
heads and necks darting from the upper edge of a flat, triangular body,
presumably the modified form of a snake. But Alexandrian and Roman
artists preferred to represent the hydra as partly human -- with ser-
pent heads and the body of a woman, or vice versa. Following the liter-
ary and the older artistic conception, Ovid spoke of the hydra as a
supernatural snake; following Vergil, he mentioned a hundred heads;
and, following the Manual, he referred to the monster's being overcome
and shut in a safe place.
After recalling to Achelous the chief circumstances of the tale,
Ovid continued, Hercules asked him what use it would be to counterfeit
the form of a snake. Then remembering the hero's early victory over
serpents, Ovid noted that Hercules caught Achelous by the throat and
began to strangle him. Defeated as a serpent, Achelous resorted to his
third shape.
He became a fierce bull. The change brought him only temporary
release. Hercules wrapped his arms round the neck of the bull, clung to
him as he ran, and threw him flat on the ground. Following the Manual,
Ovid spoke of Hercules as breaking off one of the bull's horns, and he
associated the incident with the Horn of Plenty. But he altered the
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
story.
