Classical Wisdom Litterae - April 2019

dragons and monsters. He had a drinking contest with Dionysus and lost. He founded a new nation in Scythia by having relations with a half-woman, half-snake. In addition to all the warring, Heracles managed to have endless affairs with women and men, fathering countless children and heirs, and thereby passing on his strength and partial divinity. Kings for ages on would boast lineage from the demi-god. Eventually though, these extramarital affairs were the end of Heracles. It all happened when Heracles and his third wife, Deianira, tried to cross a river. A centaur named Nessus offered to help the young lady, but then tried to take advantage of her while Heracles was on shore. The mighty warrior was not pleased and swiftly shot the deceitful centaur with a poisoned arrow. As Nessus lay dying, however, he plotted his revenge. He told Heracles’ wife that she should gather up his blood and spilled semen in order to prevent her husband from being unfaithful. All she had to do was apply his (poisoned) fluids to Heracles’ clothes.

Eventually when Deianira suspected that Heracles was enamored with Iole (the one with the dishonest father), she inadvertently followed through with Nessus’ lethal plan. She soaked Heracles’ clothes in the blood and gave the item to his servant to deliver to him. Heracles put it on and was immediately in torment. The poison burned the flesh from his bones. Heracles then chose to die on a pyre to end his suffering. After the flames ate away at his mortal body, all that remained was a immortal and divine entity. He then became a full god, joined his father on Mount Olympus and married his fourth and final wife, Hebe. Heracles was then living upstairs, on the mountain top, with Hera, the goddess who unsuccessfully tried to kill and torture him. Her Herculean efforts to ruin him all failed and in the end Heracles was killed by the trait that Hera hated so much…. infidelity.

Pallas Athena, Franz von Stuck, 1898

Roman copy of a Greek 5th century Hera of the "Barberini Hera" type, from the Museo Chiaramonti, Vatican City

Hercules, by John Singer Sargent, 1921

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