Hercules- Roman DemigodDemigod"The Unconquered"

Son of Jupiter

Jupiter took Amphitryon's form and lay with Alcmena while her husband was at war. He held the sun below the horizon. One night stretched to three. Alcmena bore twin sons: Hercules from Jupiter, Iphicles from Amphitryon.

Juno hated the child from birth. She sent two serpents into the nursery. Iphicles screamed. Hercules, still in his cradle, strangled them both.

He grew into a man of impossible strength, and Juno was not finished. She drove him mad. In his frenzy he killed his own wife Megara and their children. When sanity returned, he went to Delphi. The Pythia told him to serve King Eurystheus of Tiryns and perform whatever tasks the king set. These became the Twelve Labors.

The Labors

The first labor sent him against the Nemean Lion, whose hide no blade could pierce. Hercules cornered it in its cave and choked it to death. He skinned it with its own claws and wore the pelt ever after. The second was the Hydra of Lerna, a water-serpent whose nine heads grew two more for every one he cut. His nephew Iolaus cauterized each stump with a torch while Hercules hacked. The last head was immortal. He buried it under a stone and soaked his arrows in the creature's blood. No wound from them healed.

The twelfth and last labor took him below the earth. Eurystheus ordered him to bring back Cerberus, the three-headed hound of the dead. Hercules descended through the cave at Taenarum, crossed the Styx, and found Pluto on his throne. The god set one condition: take Cerberus without weapons. Hercules seized the dog barehanded, dragged it into daylight, and presented it to Eurystheus. The king hid in a bronze jar. Hercules returned Cerberus to the underworld.

The Cattle Road

The tenth labor sent Hercules to the far west to take the cattle of Geryon, a giant with three bodies. He killed Geryon and drove the herd east, across the length of the world. At the strait between Europe and Africa, he set up two pillars to mark the boundary of the known.

When the herd reached the Tiber, Hercules stopped to rest near what would become Rome's cattle market. Cacus lived in a cave on the Aventine. He was a son of Vulcan who breathed fire and nailed human heads above his door. In the night he crept down and dragged the finest cattle backward into his cave, so their hoofprints pointed out instead of in.

At dawn Hercules counted his herd and found it short. He called out. From deep inside the Aventine, the stolen cattle answered. In the Aeneid, Virgil describes what Hercules found when he tore the rock away: a cavern choked with smoke and human bones, Cacus backed against the far wall, vomiting fire. Hercules waded through the flames, caught the giant by the throat, and squeezed until his eyes burst. He dragged the body into the light.

The Greatest Altar

Evander, an Arcadian king who had settled on the Palatine before Rome existed, witnessed the killing. He recognized Hercules's divine parentage and built an altar on the spot: the Ara Maxima, in what would become the Forum Boarium.

Two families, the Potitii and the Pinarii, were given charge of the rites. The Pinarii arrived late to the first sacrifice, and Hercules barred them from the sacred meal. For centuries only the Potitii served. The worship followed Greek rite: the priest's head uncovered, no women at the altar. In 312 BCE, the censor Appius Claudius transferred the cult to public slaves. Within the year, every Potitius was dead. Thirty families gone. Appius went blind.

Merchants tithed a tenth of their profits at the altar. An oath sworn there bound a man absolutely.

The Poisoned Robe

After the labors, Hercules married Deianira. When the centaur Nessus tried to carry her off at a river crossing, Hercules shot him with an arrow soaked in the Hydra's blood. Dying, Nessus told Deianira to keep his blood: smear it on a garment, he whispered, and Hercules would never stray. She believed him.

Years later, Hercules took the princess Iole as a concubine. Deianira remembered the centaur's gift. She soaked a robe in the blood and sent it to her husband. When he put it on, the Hydra's venom burned through his skin. He could not tear the cloth away. His flesh came with it.

He built a pyre on Mount Oeta and climbed onto it. In the Hercules Oetaeus, Seneca has him order the torch himself. His mortal body burned. What came from Jupiter could not. It rose to Olympus. Jupiter received him among the gods, and Juno, after a lifetime of hatred, gave him her daughter Juventas as his bride.