Heracles had that bull First

 #Heracles #cretanbull #greekceramics 

The Bull Theseus caught at Marathon was supposedly the same one Heracles caught in Crete and shipped to Tiryns. It allegedly escaped and somehow wandered north all the way to Attica possibly because it had been dedicated to Poseidon and no one dared to kill it expect Theseus who offered it up as a sacrifice to dear maybe dad Poseidon or maybe just to annoy the Minoans who were supposed to give sacrificed it earlier. 

  

We know this is Heracles and not Theseus as he is bearded and has tied his archers quiver to the branch of a nearby tree. Heracles favorite weapon apart from his club was his bow.

You might want to compare this to the famous Vaphio cup.

Note the bull is lassoed and bound by the hind legs not the horns or neck. 

This black figure vessel has been dated to about 510 BCE so early Classical

Apollo the Archer and Heracles

APOLLO THE ARCHER AND HERACLES

In #Homer and #Hesiod #Apollo is usually described as the Farshooter or as Phoibos the Shining One and on Athenian ceramics he is also shown as an Archer rather than a Sun God.

Here he is disputing with his half brother Heracles who having been refused an oracle at Delphi had taken the tripod used there from the shrine and was threatening to remove it and start his own oracular shrine elsewhere. 

Apollo is depicted as a young aristocrat with fancy boots and long flowing hair and a quiver on his back with his sisters Athena and Artemis watching.

There's another and for me rather amusing version of this by a different potter / painter version in which the Mighty Heracles is shown running away from his brother !

Apollo is also shown as a musician but that will be the topic for the next post.

Cerberos

Hades' watchdog is the most famous hound in Greek mythology

Nephew Heracles has borrowed him to frighten his cousin

Catching Cerberos

CATCHING and CLEANSING
THE FINAL #hercworks

#Heracles and #Cerberos

This myth seemed to have been used to promote the Eleusinian Mysteries and justify the rites expansion to include non Athenians.

Heracles was ordered to descend to the Underworld and return with

Cerberos Hades' pet.

Before he could do so he had to be ritually cleansed of blood pollution.

Now Hades told his nephew he could borrow the dog if he could restrain and control it without using his club or arrows. Most versions of the story claim he wrestled or throttled the monstrous giant hound into submission and once again terrified his cousin but one Attic vase painter seems to have thought he took a gentler approach.

Have an excellent mid winter feast whatever mysteries rites and myths you honour!

Poor Ladon Poor Heracles

#hercworks #heracles #hercules #hesperides #greekmythology

Poor #Heracles 

He gets back to Greece from that cattle raid and gets sent back to the farthest reaches of the world and beyond to retrieve the golden apples of the Hesperides!

Some people think these were oranges tho since apples in ancient Greece seem to have been red they may have been some variant with yellow coloring?

Now these apples came from an orchard tended by the daughters of Atlas and guarded by a creature described as a dragon but usually depicted as a rather friendly looking snake ? 

Being Heracles he has several adventures on the way, killing a son of Ares, catching and interrogating Nereus, wrestling Antaios, slaying a tyrant called Busiris,  freeing Prometheus, and then he cons his cousin Atlas into picking and fetching the apples for him or in some versions killing the serpent whose name was Ladon. Hera created the constellation Serpens in memory of the faithful guardian of the tree.  

No stories record how the Hesperides felt about all this!

Geryon

#hercules #geryon #HERACLES
Good morning metousia followers !
I took a break over thanksgiving and then local storms and other problems disrupted my blogging schedule.

I simply couldnt find one good image I liked of the Geryon stories.
Its a odd one with a Celtic flaviur. Heracles shoots arrows at the sun and gets given a cup that can be used as a boat a kind of magical size changing coracle.
Coracles are NOT greek.
He also journeys to the mysterious West and steals cattle from a sacred guardian his dog. he guardian has 3 bodies and the dog 2 heads.

The Greeks seemed to have used this story to support colonization and trade with Spain and Southern France. A three bodied warrior suggests some kind of ritual combat and while most versions claim this took place in spain it could have been in a Celtiberian area!

Heracles and the Cretan Bull

#Heracles and the #CretanBull

#greekmyths

The Labours of Heracles 7

You've heard of Theseus and the Minotaur but Theseus wasn't the only Greek hero into bullfighting or ritual acrobatics or men wearing bull marks or whatever  possible historical events or Minoan rituals underlie the story about the Minotaur.

Minos ruler of Crete had a sacred bull allegedly fire breathing which had escaped and was ravaging farms and orchards tearing down fences damaging crops and reaking havoc.

Heracles managed to capture this bull and ship it to the mainland where it was turned loose.

I choose this particular vase painting cos the artists has given some thought to how one would actually catch a wild bull and take it alive without the modern benefits of tranquillizer darts or trained cattle dogs or horses trained to work with you while lassoing an animal. 

The end of the story suggests the mainlanders had better cattle herding skills.

The bull was driven across Greece and ended up in Attica probably siring calves on various herds of cows on the way.

The Cranes of Stymphalos

This week's #Hercworks is labour 6
#laboursofheracles #heracles #greekmythology #greekmyths

(My apologies this is later than usual having trouble with the wifi on the laptop)

The CRANES OF STYMPHALOS.

The painter has basically used the myth as an excuse or opportunity to demonstrate his ability to paint birds and the limited color makes the painting more beautiful. 

Greek vase painters used a limited range of colors because many pigments used by painters can not be used for ceramics due to the effect of heat and fire on them. True Glazes despite the use of faience by the Egyptians didn't reach the Mediterranean cultures from the Far East until much later.

The shine of the black part is burnished clay slip.

Now back to the myth.

There is still a lake in Arcadia by this name today. 

In ancient times there was a small city many religious shrines to Artemis and wetlands near the Lake. 

 A group of birds described as cranes migrated and settled there. 

These birds were said to have had razor sharp beaks and feathers and poisonous dung. Apparently none of the local farmers they were plaguing had archery skills at least not on the level of Heracles. Or the birds had the sense to hide deep in the marshes? 

Heracles used a rattle to startle them so he could shoot them. 

Some writers claim the "cranes" were actually fever demons.

However large birds despite their fragile appearance can be quite strong and a  swan can break a man's arm with its wings.

I suspect the farmers tried to drive the birds away from their fields and out of the wetlands but the birds defended their nesting sites so they had to call the Mycenaean age's leading pest control expert  HERACLES !

THE STABLES OF AUGEIAS

The Stables of #Augeias
The #Labors of #Heracles 5

Apparent ancient Roman and Greek artists didn't find cleaning out stables an inspiring subject. I did manage  find one image.  This is an example of a type of Roman mosaic using what we might call a "Stick image"  that depicts Heracles digging through rock. We know it is meant to depict the Augeian Stable Labor since similar iamges often appear as part of a sequence depicting all 12 labors.

AUGEIAS was the King of Elis in the NW Peloponnese region of Greece.

Elis is spelt with a LONG E in Classical Greece. EELIS.

Now Heracles offered to clear Augeias cattle yards of dung in ONE DAY and the  story claims these yards hadn't been cleared since they were first built. 

Cow manure makes great fertilizer but perhaps Augeias refused to share his supply with his people which may be another reason Heracles got involved. 

The location of these cattle  yards may have been in an area now covered by a dam where two rivers join the Peneios and Ladon as there was a Mycenaean settlement on the nearby hill of Armatova near Agraidhokhori thought to have been ELEAN PYLOS. 

Nestors PYLOS was in Messene further south. 

Heracles succeeded in doing this in one day by diverting the waters of two rivers thru walls he smashed though the depiction in Roman art of him digging suggests to me a more prosaic form of the story in which he made use of existing irrigation channels to direct those river waters into the yards. 

I suspect farmers further  downstream were probably extremely pleased to get their fields fertilized for free?

HOG HUNTING

The Labours of #Heracles
The Boar of #erymanthios

Erymanthios is a real mountain in the NW Peloponnese and its lower slopes did have Mid Helladic and Mycenaean settlements and those fertile slopes and farms were once ravaged by a enormous wild boar.

Heracles was ordered to bring the beast back alive not just kill it.

Now this wily porcine know all the hiding places and thickets and it was winter when Heracles finally cornered the beast forcing it into a deep drift of snow so he could could snare it and tie and bind it and carry it back to Mycenae.

His unfortunate cousin Eurystheus was so horrified he was said to have hidden himself inside a pithos or a bronze urn and refused to face him though the vase painter seems to have preferred a version of the story in which Heracles confronts him.

Perhaps this is a scene from an Attic satyr play?

The Labors of Heracles 3 - the Ceryneian Hind

One of the lesser known labors of #Heracles is that of the #CeryneianHind.

The Hind of Ceryneia was sacred to Artemis with golden horns and hooves of bronze and could not be hunted by ordinary men.

Possibly it was just some priestess' spoilt pet helping itself to local crops and gardens and just making a general nuisance of itself damaging gardens however it be have been sacred for other reasons too!

Legend and some historians speak of "Hyperboreans" visiting the shrines of Greece particularly Delphi following the Amber trade route.

Perhaps this deer was a reindeer hence its special status.

Now Ceryneia was the name of both a settlement and a river now called the Vouraikos, and this river that flows through a narrow gorge which is now notable for a scenic railway called the Kalavrita.

Due to the local geology the valley is broader up near Kalavrita and narrows to a gorge before reaching the narrows coastal plain.

Deer raiding gardens and farms near could have retreated into the safety of the narrow gorge and hidden in forested slopes difficult for even the most skilled hunters to access.

Heracles has said to have taken a year to catch the beast which may seem odd to modern hunters but remember he had to catch it alive to avoid offending the goddess or breaking a taboo.  Also no infra red scope!

I can also see some one saying
"How can we avoid breaching the taboo on that pesky deer?
Oh hey that Guy over at Mycenae whats his name Heracles the one already working off a curse ..."

Some versions claim Eurysthenes was going to add the deer to his private collection but Heracles either arranged its escape or first returned it to his half sister depending on which author you read.

The vase painting I selected shows Heracles between Athena and Artemis.

He is shown breaking off a horn so perhaps there is a lost variant of the story in which he does that?

The Labours of Heracles Two - The Hydra of Lerna

#Heracles and the #Hydra of #Lerna

I have written about this before but that post focused more on Lerna as a whole.

Although artists and poets disagree about the number of heads the Hydra is described consistently as multiple heads that were snake like and a thick trunk and the ability to grow back any head that was removed and as being amphibious. 

The word Hydra means Water serpent.

The creature was said to have out of the wetlands adjacent to Lake Lerna which has now silted up and become farmland and made a lair near the source of a sacred river or the springs from which streams flowed that converged into a river. These have also disappeared apart from one last small pond. 

In ancient times Lerna south of the lake was an area of springs and several shrines and cults. Settlement here dates back to the Helladic and this is the location of the famous House of Tiles. 

This site is south of the modern village of Myloi the Mills.

Now notice that like the Hydra the river had MULTIPLE SOURCES.

While the Hydra could have been one creature Heracles was also famous of opening springs diverting rivers building walls ... he was some sort of engineer.

How does Heracles defeat the Hydra?  He cuts off and then burns the stumps of the heads and one head is buried under a rock? 

The stumps are burnt with wooden brands!

Now charcoal is used as a water filter and several writers have suggested the Hydra was a nick name for malaria. 

If heracles had been fighting a malaria outbreak he would tried to divert the waters away from the wetlands maybe by opening an extra channel to the sea. 

Instead he fights the Hydra near the source of springs.

I'm thinking somehow one or more of  the springs became contaminated with a virus or bacteria and cutting off the heads is a metaphor for having to cut off the springs and block one source ... the head under a rock ?

Perhaps he had to temporarily block each source to work out which one was contaminated and then permanently block that one? 

Or there was an infestation of snakes and he burnt down grasslands and shrubs around the springs? 

Or even both with the snakes mistakenly being thought the source of a plague of some sort? 

however whether the Hydra was a supernatural monster a plague or too many snakes Heracles acted to help commoners by ending its attacks.

It also inspired this famous Italian Renaissance painting.

 I hope you enjoyed the vase painting images I found. You can Google Earth Lerna and see the last remaining spring. Enjoy!

Next Time Over hill and dale. Heracles hunts a sacred deer or reindeer? 

The Labors of Heracles ONE The Nemean Lion

The Legend of #Heracles

Apollodorus Hesiod Pindar and many others mention him.

Like Arthur perhaps a real historical person underlies the myths and legends and worship that have centered around this character over the centuries.

There are dozens of stories associated with Heracles but I'm going to focus on the 12 labors and look also at geographical and historical aspects. What they possibly tell us about Mycenaean society at its peak?

Heracles was a descendant of Perseus allegedly a son of Zeus and had a twin brother.

There were several legends about royal twins with claims of one being divine and the other human. Possibly this means one twin the older of a fraternal pair was placed under the special protection of a god. Curiously there is little  mention of female twins?


Most of the stories agree Heracles killed or captured monsters and wild animals who were dangerous to humans and that he fathered a great many children in and outside of his marriages however one aspect overlooked is that he was also a civil works engineer building wells drainage canals fountains for natural springs roads and city walls. He seems to have been seen as a defender of commoners despite his being prone to fits of rage since most of the victims of those psychotic moments were other aristocrats . Possibly he was bipolar which may explain why the Greeks thought his madness was inflicted on him by the gods given the cyclical nature of that illness?

THE NEMEAN LION

His first official Labor was that of the killing of the nemean Lion a maneater attacking people in the area around Nemea.

I wonder if the last of the Greek lions were possibly cave lions or a different sub species from those of Africa. They are never recorded as living in packs.

Ancient Nemea is near Ayios Yeorgios between Mycenae and Corinth on a plateau and was also the site of the Nemean games and a temple to Zeus.

That temple and the site of the games overlies a Helladic settlement and the cave said to be that of the Lion was the site of discovery of  Neolithic artifacts.

Now this lion it is claimed had an inpenetratable skin that no blade could cut.

At first Heracles is said to have tried to use a sword or spear down its throat then he clubbed it and throttled it choking it to death and using the lions own razor sharp claws to skin the beast and then wearing its head and hide to protect himself.

Despite Greek artists using this as an excuse to depict heracles semi naked I seriouslt doubt whatever species of beast of monster the Nemean lion was that heracles fought him stark naked. 

I note here that Maasai warriors and white hunters try for a frontal chest thrust or shot. Heracles seems to have tried every known method and given his wrestling training and exceptional strength perhaps he really did strangle a lion?

This was the first of 12 labors. 

Next time the Hind with the Golden Horns !

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Heracles and Athena An Image

with the new Heracles movie coming soon I thought for my middle week post I might look at some images of Heracles. Here's the son of Zeus and his half sister.

Notice he's not the pumped up wrestler of later Hellenistic and Roman art but more svelte! That lion skin is suppose to act as armor as the Nemean lion allegedly had a hide so thick Heracles had to spear or stab it down its throat to kill it.

MMM no one ever dares suggest Mycenaean  aristos may have been such lousy hunters they celebrated lion hunts cos they weren't very good at catching them?

LERNA and LEGENDS reposted

Due to its popularity I'm bumping this ( a 3rd time a couple of years later) so more readers can see it.
#LERNA site of the #HYDRA legends is also a fascinating archaeological site.
I've collected a set  of the most interesting and useful  images I could find for you to use.

The Hydra was said to have been a many headed water snake however the lake at Lerna which has now dwindled to a mere pool seems to have had a very thin barrier between it and the sea.

Perhaps the Hydra was a giant squid or octopod swept into the lake by a storm who attacked swimmers?

Yet The Lake was supposedly always unsafe to swim in even after the Hydra was killed.

The legend speaks of Heracles burning the stumps of the Hydra however other legends also tell of him creating large scale water diversion schemes. Was the Hydra a parasite or disease in a coastal wetland? Was the charcoal from burnt trees used to purify water. Another part of the legend tells of a forest being cut down. Did Heracles divert water into a channel beginning the process of draining the lake and coastal wetlands ? Did he block a dangerous sinkhole perhaps?

Map of Lerna Was the lake north or south of modern Lerna village?

Here's a diagram showing the archaeological site. One of the oddest things about Lerna is that the famous House of Tiles one of the largest #Helladic structures in ancient Greece seems to have been delibarately pulled down carefully and then buried under a tumulus. What were later occupants trying to do? Cherish the ancients or protect themselves from ghosts?

You'll see this aerial shot several times if you google image search Lerna. It seems to date back to the 50s?

I suggest you use Google Earth as their image set show the site area and photos of the springs !

And do read Pausanias if you can!