The action of the play occurs after Heracles performed the 12 labours. Temporarily driven mad by the goddess Hera, Heracles kills his wife and children. When he recovers his reason, he fights suicidal despair and then is taken to spend an honourable retirement at Athens.
Determined to make him suffer, Hera once again interfered in Hercules's life. Hera used her power to get inside Hercules's head. He fell into madness and went insane with rage. Under Hera's dark influence, he gruesomely murdered his beloved wife and children.
Hercules then asked for help from the gods to end his life, and he received it. The Greek god Zeus sent lightning to consume Hercules' mortal body and took him to live with the gods on Mount Olympus. This was the apotheosis, the transformation of Hercules into a god.
However, the poisoned blood on the tunic burns Hercules' flesh, causing intense pain. Realizing that he has been poisoned, Hercules builds his own funeral pyre and burns himself to death on it. After he died, Athena carried him to Olympus on her chariot.
Heracles is on the last of his labors currently: he has gone to Hades to retrieve Cerberus. Meanwhile, Lycus has taken rule of Thebes and become a murderous tyrant. He wants to kill Hercules three sons for fear they will grow up and seek revenge for other family murders.
The Story Where Hercules Killed His Own Family | Labours of Hercules | Greek Mythology Explained
What happened after Hercules killed his family?
Some versions say that following the murders, Hercules traveled to Delphi, and was instructed by the oracle to go to Tiryns and to serve Eurystheus for twelve years and perform any tasks that he might ask of him.
Hera hates Heracles because he is a living reminder of her husband's infidelity. Because of this she is cruel to him. She could bring about Herakles' death but instead she wants him to suffer. She sends Madness to drive Heracles to murder his wife and progeny.
During the course of his life, Heracles married four times. Heracles waged a victorious war against the kingdom of Orchomenus in Boeotia and married his first wife Megara, daughter of Creon, king of Thebes.
In the movie, we see Hercules receive his immortality but give it back. In the myth, Hercules got his immortality after completing his labors. In the movie, Hercules brings Meg back from the dead, but in the myth Hercules killed Meg due to his insanity which was caused by Hera.
How does Achilles die? Achilles is killed by an arrow, shot by the Trojan prince Paris. In most versions of the story, the god Apollo is said to have guided the arrow into his vulnerable spot, his heel. In one version of the myth Achilles is scaling the walls of Troy and about to sack the city when he is shot.
Of course, these travels never actually happened because Hercules never actually existed. But the Greeks used his mythos to justify their interests in the western Mediterranean. Wherever Greeks colonized, Hercules had conveniently voyaged first to clear the land of wild beasts and savages.
Antaeus (/ænˈtiːəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἀνταῖος Antaîos, lit. "opponent", derived from ἀντάω, antao – 'I face, I oppose'), known to the Berbers as Anti, was a figure in Berber and Greek mythology. He was famed for his defeat by Heracles as part of the Labours of Hercules.
The relationship between Zeus and Herakles is not like any other father-son relationship; they both acknowledge each other with the respect due but they do not closely communicate or function as a family.
Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus, who then used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity, the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion.
In his private life Zeus was quite the lothario, fathering an unbelievable number of around 100 children with many different women (but don't hate him too much – it's just a myth, after all). Of this 100, he fathered a mix of sons and daughters, many of whom were gods and goddesses, and some became great leaders.
Hades and Heracles actually got along pretty well, considering. Heracles asked Hades' permission to borrow Cerberus for one of his Labors and later Heracles pulls a successful Orpheus and rescues Theseus from imprisonment in Hades (Theseus had tried to abduct Persephone).
Heracles and Hercules are two different names for the same figure in Greek mythology known for his heroic feats of strength. Hercules, the more common form, is based on the Latin version of the original Greek name, rendered in English as Heracles.
Hera is jealous because Hercules is the product of her husband Zeus having an affair. Hera sends Hercules into an insane rage during which he kills Megara and their children.
The fire burned away Heracles' mortal flesh and he became immortal. He was taken up to Olympus to live with the other gods and he married his half-sister, Hebe. And Hera finally put aside her anger against him.
The arguments between Zeus and Hera were fairly frequent As Zeus continued to have one affair after another, Hera could not punish him because he was much stronger than she was. But she could avenge herself on the females with whom Zeus dallied, and she often took full advantage of this.
The action of the play occurs after Heracles performed the 12 labours. Temporarily driven mad by the goddess Hera, Heracles kills his wife and children. When he recovers his reason, he fights suicidal despair and then is taken to spend an honourable retirement at Athens.
