Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology VIII, Some rough patches along the way toward a prototyping of Hēraklēs

Abstract

Previously, at TC VII §7, I observed that the leveling-out and the smoothing-over of differences in the various different roles of Hēraklēs in various different tellings of ancient myths about this hero could lead not only to a sense of uniqueness but even to a kind of certainty about absolute uniqueness. And this kind of certainty, I went on to observe, could in turn lead to a prototyping of this hero as an absolute model. But now we will see that there were some rough patches along the way toward such a leveling-out and smoothing-over in the process of modeling Hēraklēs as a hero. For an example, I will concentrate here on the role of Hēraklēs as a warrior in the service of a king.