GREEK MYTHOLOGY: THE TALE OF HERACLES (HERCULES)

It all began when the god of the sky and ruler of Olympus Zeus disguised himself as amphitryon, he pretended to have returned home early from war and slept with his wife alcmene(the grand daughter of the great hero Perseus) amphitryon later returned that night and also slept his

wife, she conceived and bore twins Heracles the son of Zeus and iphicles the son of amphitryon. Just before the birth of the twins Hera the wife of Zeus who felt scorned by her husband and having to deal with yet again another proof of his infidelity, set out to destroy Heracles

she first of all made Zeus promise that the next child born in the house of Perseus would become the high king, and the one after; his servant. Zeus didn’t really need much convincing because he knew that his son Heracles was to be born next. As soon as he agreed, Hera ordered

eileithyia( the goddess of childbirth) to delay the birth of the twins and cause the premature birth of Eurystheus(another great grandson of Perseus). After Eurystheus was born, Heracles came into the world soon after and thus his fate was sealed. When Heracles was a baby, Hera

Sent two giant snakes to the twins’ chamber, iphicles started crying as he saw the snakes but Heracles grabbed and strangled them, their nanny came to their cradle and saw him playing with the snakes as if they were toys. By the time Heracles was nineteen as a true son of his

Zeus, he had fathered over fifty children. His adventures began when he slayed the lion of cithaeron, which had been preying on the flock of amphitryon and Thespius, the king of thespiae. He hunted the beast for fifty days and after he killed he used its skin as a cloak and its

Head as a helmet, both of which he wore with pride. Amazed by Heracles’ power, king thespius desired that he would have descendants from his lineage and thus sent his fifty daughters to seduce and sleep with him. Heracles thinking it was the same person every time, Slept with all

Of them, having at least one child with each. On his way back from slaying the lion he encountered the heralds of erginus sent by the minyan king to collect a tribute of a hundred cows from the people of Thebes. Angered after learning what the Had come for, Heracles cut off their

Ears, noses and hands and tied it to their backs and told them to take that as a tribute to erginus and the minyans. Furious, erginus gathered the minyan army and decided to attack Thebes But was killed by Heracles who then ordered the minyans to pay double of the tribute to the

Thebans. Thankful, Creon, the Theban king, gave in marriage his eldest daughter Megara to Heracles and they had at least three children. But then Heracles was struck with madness by the jealous Hera and He killed both his wife and children. In order to cleanse himself of his

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Terrible sin, he was instructed by the Delphic oracle to serve Eurystheus his cousin and king of Tiryns, for the next twelve years of his life and carry out all of the tasks he would be charged with. These tasks would later be famously known as the twelve labors of Heracles