This study will present a biography of Herakles (Hercules) based on the two volumes of Pausanias's Guide to Greece. The approach of the study will be to show how Herakles is a complex and even contradictory character whose great accomplishments are in part the result of that complexity and those contradictions.
Herakles is the most popular hero in both Greek and Roman legends, famous for the incredible feats of courage and strength which are covered in Pausanias's books. Herakles is the son of the god Zeus and a mortal mother, Alkmene (Pausanias 1, 54), and as such he is hated by Zeus's wife Hera, who tries several times to kill him. Herakles avoids those murderous efforts through his own heroism and through the protection of other gods. Much of the conflict and contradiction of the character of Herakles---and perhaps also the rage which marks so many of his experiences---is certainly in part the result of his mixed godly and mortal origins.
In terms of his courage and strength, Herakles certainly behaves heroically in every encounter of his life, but at the same time, as Pausanias points out in a number of instances, Herakles is not in every case a good and moral hero. He can be compared to modern heroes in that he is a very complicated character who is prone to fits of temper and even madness which drive him to bizarre behavior. In fact, it is an act of madness forced upon him by Hera which leads him to kill his wife and children and to seek purification through following the demands of a Delphic oracle.
In that case, Herakles is told to go and be of unquestioning service to Eurystheus for twelve years. Eurystheus demands of him the twelve monumental (Herculean) tasks for which Herakles gains his great fame and his reputation as a hero and as a god.
Herakles's existence is "bigger than life" from beginning to end, from his birth from a god and a mortal to his being granted immortality for accomplishing the twelve tasks...