Heracles
Heracles, son of Zeus, is the penultimate hero in all of Greek mythic and epic tradition.
Table of Contents
The Man
His story is a tragic yet inspiring tale of persevering through hardship. Born of a mortal woman, Heracles was cursed and persecuted since his infancy by the goddess Hera, queen of the gods and wife of Zeus. Stricken with madness by her, Heracles butchered his first wife and children, mistaking them for beasts.
After consulting the Oracle of Delphi for absolution, Heracles embarked on a legendary journey of redemption, ridding Greece of monsters and protecting people from the dangers of the wilderness. This ritual act of penance was his famous 12 Labors.
Heracles was famous for his deeds even before their mentions by Hesiod and Homer in the 8th century epics cemented them as part of foundational Greek literature and lore.
An iconic idol, for all of his feats and failings, tragedies and triumphs, Heracles represented very real lessons about battling one’s personal monsters, and prevailing over life’s difficulties.
The Myth
Heracles’ death was also his apotheosis. As reward for his life of service, protecting the people of Greece from the ills of monsters, beasts, and other dangers, Heracles was deified as a god. His father Zeus, king of the gods, took him up to the heavens of Mount Olympus, where Heracles reconciled with Hera and lived forever as the immortal gatekeeper of Olympus.
Heracles’ ascent was both figurative and literal, as he rose from being a man, to a hero, to the ultimate glory of attaining godhood as Greece’s primary Heros-Theos, or hero-turned-god.
Heracles’ cult on Thasos was one of the largest on the island, coming second in importance only to that of Dionysus, Heracles’ his half-brother and the god of wine, Thasos’ primary export.
Heracles’ role as a founder, savior, and protector figure earned him a place in Thasian religion as the god guarding the city, its gates, and the island itself. Heracles is commonly depicted in Thasian sculpture and coinage wielding his bow and arrows, which were dipped in the lethal venom if the multi-headed Hydra, his second Labor. He is often crouched, taking aim at unseen foes; forever ready to be of service to the people and the state.
The Thasian temple dedicated to him, the Sanctuary of Heracles, was strategically placed at the southwestern end of the ancient city, at the entrance to the main road. The road led north from the Gate of Heracles and Dionysus, and the Herakleion, to the Thasian civic center, the agora, and the temple of Dionysus, the Dionysion.
The Herakleion dominated the landscape as a physical and spiritual bulwark against invading forces who might mean Heracles’ protectorate harm.
The Legend
Heracles’ history with Thasos is deeply embedded in Greek mythic and epic tradition, which provides a compelling, if somewhat loose narrative of how Heracles became connected with Thasos as a both a hero and a god.
Heracles Kallinikos
There are tensions and ironies around circumstances in which “an enemy hero could be a conqueror of the city that worshiped him…a foreign invader…who was for some reason quite extraordinary to his fellows” (Visser, 1982: 425). Heracles’ reputation as the monster-slaying savior, founder, and protector of cities has deep roots in Greek mythic tradition. But he is also known for his many wars, sackings, and invasions of foreign territories throughout the Mediterranean, whose leaders he killed, people he either liberated or conquered, and whose cult centers he founded, which bear his name.
This relationship between Heracles and various cities is important when examining how Heracles’ cult on Thasos originated. Thasos itself was a colony of the island of Paros in the Cyclades. But Thasos is also connected with mythic and historical accounts about the Phoenician conquests and settlements of Greece, which also relate back to Heracles as a conqueror and savior alike.
Heracles in Paros
Heracles’ cult on the island of Paros was established well before the Parians migrated to Thasos and settled there in the 7th century BC. Already known as Heracles Kallinikos (Heracles the Glorious Victor), he was identified in Paros as the “archetypal culture-bearer, the agent of civilization” (Gregory, 1991: 122).
Heracles arrived in Paros while en route to complete his ninth Labor, retrieving the Belt of Hippolyta from the Amazons.
“Taking with him a band of volunteer comrades in a single ship he set sail and put in to the island of Paros, which was inhabited by the sons of Minos.”
Upon disembarking from their ship, some of Heracles’ crew were killed by the Parian Minoans, and so, “indignant at this, Hercules killed the sons of Minos on the spot and besieged the rest closely,” (Pseudo-Apollodorous, Bibliotheca, 2.5.9). However, he spared Minos’ grandsons, the warriors Alcaeus and Sthenelus, and gave over the island of Paros to them.
But according to Diodorus Siculus, it was Rhadmanthus, King Minos’ son, who gave his general Alcaeus the island of Paros (Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica 5.79.2).
It is interesting to note that Alcaeus, or Alcides, was Heracles’ birth-name, prior to receiving the name Heracles at the Oracle of Delphi, before he embarked on his 12 Labors. If Paros was given to a warlord Alcaeus, this could refer to either a Minoan takeover of Paros, or an Argolid one (as Heracles hailed from the Argolid dynasty).
Heracles in Thasos
According to the epic cycle, Heracles arrived in Thasos after completing his ninth Labor, having obtained the Belt of Hippoltya, and defeating the Amazons.
“Having come to Thasos and subjugated the Thracians who dwelt in the island, [Heracles] gave it to the sons of Androgeus to dwell in.”
Grandsons of King Minos, the sons of Androgeus are the same Alcaeus and Sthenelus, to whom Heracles had given the island of Paros, earlier in the same account.
Again, the myths seem to suggest that it was Alcaeus-Alcides-Heracles who not only saved the city, but claimed the land as well. The Parians, under either Alcaeus in mythic tradition, or the historical settlers under Telesicles, then introduced the cult of Heracles Kallinikos to the inhabitants.
Heracles in Troy
Heracles’ life can be reasonably dated to the early to mid 13th century BC, based on the more or less accepted dates given for the Trojan War occurring in the late 13th century BC or early 12th century BC.
According to mythic tradition, after finishing his 12 Labors, and then his 3-year service under Queen Omphale, Heracles sacked the kingdom of Troy. He did so as an act of revenge, after being cheated by the then-king Laomedon for the price of slaying a sea monster and rescuing a princess. Heracles killed Laomedon, and razed the city. But, in an act of mercy, reminiscent of his encounter with Alcaeus and Sthenelus in Paros, Heracles spared Priam, who became the next king and father of the heroes Hector and Paris.
This battle was immortalized in the famous pediments at the Temple of Aphaia, depicting the two sacks of Troy in the epic cycle, with the first led by Heracles nearly two generations before the events of Homer’s Iliad. It is also interesting to note that while Heracles’ siege of the Troad lasted 10 days, Agamemnon’s lasted 10 years.
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
