Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology X, A Homeric lens for viewing Hēraklēs

Abstract

This essay, for which I give the abbreviated title TC X, connects in a special way with nine previous essays posted in Classical Inquiries, TC I through IX, which are all interconnected in their focusing on myths about the Labors and sub-Labors of the ancient Greek hero Hēraklēs. Also connected are two previous essays, published earlier in Classical Inquiries 2019.07.12 and 2019.07.19, about the death and subsequent apotheosis of the hero. To illustrate what makes TC X special, I start with a painting that pictures Hēraklēs in the act of completing the only Labor of his that we can see being narrated directly in Homeric poetry, that is, in Iliad 8.360–373 and in Odyssey 11.617–626. This Labor, viewed through a Homeric zoom lens, as it were, is the hero’s act of delivering the monstrous Cerberus, Hound of Hādēs, to Eurystheus, king of Mycenae. In its visual contrasting of Hēraklēs with Eurystheus, this painting shows some details that remind me of comparable details we see in the Homeric narrative. After having subdued and captured the beast, Hēraklēs now leashes it and brings it to Eurystheus for a formal presentation to the king, who is shown cowering inside a huge storage jar at the very sight of the Hound. Though Eurystheus is socially superior to Hēraklēs, his cowardice thus reveals just how pathetically inferior he is as a man.