[12]
Now it came to pass that after the battle with the Minyans Hercules was driven mad
through the jealousy of Hera and flung his own children, whom he had by Megara, and two children of Iphicles into the
fire;1 wherefore he condemned himself to exile, and was
purified by Thespius, and repairing to Delphi
he inquired of the god where he should dwell.2 The Pythian priestess then first called him
Hercules, for hitherto he was called Alcides.3 And she told him to dwell in Tiryns, serving Eurystheus for twelve years and to
perform the ten labours imposed on him, and so, she said, when the tasks were
accomplished, he would be immortal.4
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
1 Compare Eur. Herc. 967ff.; Moschus iv.13ff.; Diod. 4.11.1ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 38; Nicolaus Damascenus, Frag. 20, in Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, iii.369; Hyginus, Fab. 32.
2 Compare Diod. 4.10.7.
3 Herakles was called Alcides after his grandfather Alcaeus, the father of Amphitryon. See above, Apollod. 2.4.5. But, according to another account, the hero was himself called Alcaeus before he received the name of Herakles from Apollo. See Sextus Empiricus, pp. 398ff., ed. Bekker; Scholiast on Pind. O. 6.68(115).
4 For the labours of Herakles, see Soph. Trach. 1091ff.; Eur. Herc. 359ff.; Eur. Herc. 1270ff.; Diod. 4.10ff.; Paus. 5.10.9; Paus. 5.26.7; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica vi.208ff.; Tzetzes, Chiliades 229ff.; Verg. A. 8.287ff.; Ov. Met. 9.182ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 30.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.