Heracles
The Twelve-Labour Man
HAIR-uh-kleez
The strongest man alive, working off a crime he committed in a madness Hera sent, and the only hero who ends up a god.
The Story
Hera hated him from birth for whose son he was, and sent the madness in which he killed his own wife and children. The twelve labours are the penance: the lion, the Hydra, the boar, the stables, the belt, the cattle, the apples, and finally Cerberus, hauled up from the underworld and brought back.
He is the least subtle hero and the most enduring, solving problems by being stronger than them, and losing every domestic situation he is ever in. The end comes from a shirt soaked in the Hydra's venom, given to his wife by a dying centaur as a false love-charm. Burning on the pyre, the mortal part goes and the rest is taken up to Olympus, the only mortal in this atlas who crosses over.
Did You Know?
- His name means glory of Hera, named for the goddess who spent his whole life trying to kill him. Ancient writers found this as strange as we do.
- The Pillars of Heracles are the rocks flanking the Strait of Gibraltar, set up by him to mark the edge of the known world.
- He is the most commonly depicted figure in all Greek art. If a vase has a man in a lion skin on it, no further identification was thought necessary.