The Story of Hercules

Herakles, or Hercules from the Roman period, was a Greek demi-god who is depicted in a variety of works, many of which tell stories from his life as embodied in Greek mythology. Several depictions of Herakles are found in the collection of the Getty Museum, among them the statue known as the Landsdowne Herakles, and the painted vase known as the Perseus Vase.

Herakles, or Hercules, was a mortal and a bastard son of Zeus. In the temple of Apollo, there is a frieze that runs all round the chamber and that depicts the fight of Herakles with the Amazons and a battle against the Centaurs with a new leading motif, that of Apollo and Artemis as they appear driving a team of stags and bringing help while the bride flees to the old-fashioned statue of the god. An Amphora from about 485 B.C. shows Herakles and Athena pouring a libation, with Herakles characteristically holding a club and carrying his kill over his shoulder.

The story of Hercules is told by a number of Roman writers, including Ovid. However, Ovid gives only a brief account of the life of Hercules, which is unlike his more common and extremely detailed method of presentation: "He never cares to dwell on heroic exploits; he loves best a pathetic story" (Hamilton, 1942, 159). Hamilton says it might seem odd that Ovid skips over the story of Hercules' slaying of his wife and children, but that story had been told well by Euripides so that Ovid may have skipped it for that reason:

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burn away the heads of the Hydra. Another labor was the cleaning of the Augean stables. The next was a more delicate labor, acquiring the girdle of the queen of the Amazons. Hercules accomplished each of the twelve tasks. One of the more important of the tasks was getting the golden apples of the Hesperides, and the problem was that Hercules did not know where to find them. These were the apples that Juno had received at her wedding from the goddess of the earth. Hercules eventually arrived at Mount Atlas in Africa. Atlas was the father of the Hesperides, and Hercules decided to send Atlas to find the apples for him. He took over Atlas's task of holding up the world while Atlas went and retrieved the apples. This story has been told in many forms by different poets: The poets, led by the analogy of the lovely appearance of the western sky at sunset, viewed the west as a region of brightness and glory. Hence they placed in it the Isles of the Blest, the ruddy Isle Erytheia, on which the bright oxen of Geryon were pastured, and the Isle of the Hesperides. The apples are supposed by some to be the oranges of Spain, of which the Greeks had heard some obscure accounts (Bulfinch, 1961, 137). The Landsdowne Herakles is a

Category: Philosophy - T