So far, we've had a look at the possible historical origins of many aspects of the Heracles legend, from his behaviour to the wild and wonderful places he visits. The question remains, however, why these aspects came together into the tale of one semi-divine hero, rather than surfacing in a variety of different folk-heroes and deities. What was the motive for creating such a figure, and why did the Greeks believe in him at all?
The simplest answer was that Heracles was a convenient figure to excuse and contest the colonialism of the so-called Orientalizing period, the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. Greek settlers could claim a harbour or piece of land of their choice by asserting that as Heracles had been there before, clearing it of some monster or barbarian ruler, the Greeks, being in their view descended from him, were simply inheriting what was theirs by birth right. By the same token, native communities or rival colonists could claim that Heracles had visited their ancestors, or fathered a child with one of their ancient queens or princesses, and therefore had a better claim. We know, at least, from vases recovered from the Etruscan necropolis of Caere that Odysseus was seen by them as a legitimizing figure, clearing the seas of barbarian pirates and one-eyed giants so that later, they could share the Mediterranean world equally with their contemporaries. Greek gods and demigods were not the preserve of the Greeks alone - most of them were not originally from Greece - but the settlers of the Orientalizing period were the most effective at playing their cards.
The other alternative is something I mentioned at the end of the last part, that the Heracles legend was affected by one or more real, contemporary figures. This is plausible considering the late date of most retellings of the story. The two main sources, Euripides' Heracles and Apollodoros' Bibliotheca dates to the mid-5th century BCE and the early 2nd century CE respectively. The demigod is mentioned by Homer and Hesiod, just before the main period of colonization, but only in passing.
The account of Euripides was, in all likelihood, probably heavily influenced by contemporary events. Heracles' voyage to Erythria to steal the cattle of Geryon, which Euripied explicity names as being alongside the river Tartessos, could have been based on the travels of Colaeus the Navigator, a Greek explorer from Samos who, blown off from a trading mission destined to Egypt sailed alone beyond the Straits of Gibralatar, trespassing boundaries imposed by the Phoenicians, and washed ashore to visit the kingdom of Tartessos and its ruler Arganthonios.
On his return to Samos, Colaeus dedicated a tenth of the profit gathered from his journey to crafting a large bronze cauldron decorated with griffins, donating it to the temple sanctuary of the the patron goddess of the island, Hera. The memory of these events was preserved by the historian Herodotus, writing in the early fifth century, who places them in c.640 BCE, and indicates that the cauldron or krater was still around and admired in his time. The Heracles of Heracles and the Bibliotheca is a prolific wine-drinker, pouring mixed wine from kraters, and its is Hera who drives him to kill his family and thwart him from carrying out the last of his Twelve Labours. Griffins are furthermore associated with fantastical lands and kingdoms in early literature, particularly the Arimaspea attributed to Aristaes of Proconessus, which describes the author's journey to a 'land of griffins' bordering the mythical Hyperborea in the far north.
Although Euripides wrote a century after Herodotus and two centuries after the achievements of Colaeus, he spent much of his life as a recluse on the island of Salamis, where he would have been in contact with tales and legends coming from all corners of the Aegean; especially along the trade route between Miletus, on the Anatolian coast, and Athens, where he became a professional playwright. Another figure might have informed his Heracles; the historical Egyptian pharoah Senusret III (1878 - 1839 BCE), who became credited (as Seostris) in the Greek world with a continent-spanning campaign of conquest from the Black Sea to the Atlas mountains in north Africa. He even appears in literature from the late Roman period as the opponent of the legendary Gothic king Tanausis, duelling each other on the shores of the Black Sea. Much like Heracles, ancient writers claim that cities, temples and pillars were founded in his wake, and that retired sections of his army went on to populate parts of the world, such as Colchis (modern Georgia), much like the Spartans claimed they were descended from the Heraclidae, and much like some north Africans claimed that their ancestors were among Heracles' companions. Seostris is also associated with defeating and taming the Thracians and the Scythians, the former of which Heracles does in his Seventh Labour.
So what can we conclude from this winding exploration into the legend of Heracles? Firstly, that the topic is far too complex and multi-faceted to dedicate a couple of blog posts to; even the lengthy Oxford Handbook of Heracles doesn't fully do the subject justice. But it goes to show that while no one historical hero inspired, or was the model for, Heracles as we know it today, the legend, and all Greek legends, derived from real, incredibly ancient and diverse traditions; from early colonization across the western Mediterranean, to bicameral mindsets from Bronze Age Mesopotamia, to Upper Palaeolithic hunting magic.
Heracles, the behaviour he embraces and the labours he overcomes, represents no better symbol for the astonishing debt that the classical world owes to the depths of prehistory. It's no surprise that, even today, he continues to be a model of virtue, manliness and masculine behaviour, albeit a somewhat misguided one.
References:
Papalexandrou, N. (2022). Chapter Four: Kolaios’s Monster Cauldron at the Heraion of Samos. In Bronze Monsters and the Cultures of Wonder: Griffin Cauldrons in the Preclassical Mediterranean (pp. 143-159). New York, USA: University of Texas Press. https://doi.org/10.7560/765986-008
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