Heracles wife
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Was Hercules a God?
Hercules was not a god but was born a mortal, although, like many mythic heroes, he had a complicated family tree. According to legend, his father was Zeus, ruler of all the Greek gods on Mount Olympus and all the mortals on earth, and his mother was Alcmene, the granddaughter of the hero Perseus. (Perseus, who was also said to be one of Zeus’ sons, famously beheaded the snake-haired Gorgon Medusa.)
Did you know? The constellation Hercules is the fifth-largest one in the sky.
Then, after Hercules was born, Hera sent two snakes to kill him in his crib. The infant Hercules was unusually strong and fearless, however, and he strangled the snakes before they could strangle him.
But Hera kept up her dirty tricks. When her stepson was a young adult, she cast a kind of spell on him that drove him temporarily insane and caused him to murder his beloved wife and their two children.
10 Amazing Ancient Olympic Facts
Guilty and heartbroken, Hercules tracked down Apollo, the god of truth and healing (and another of Zeus’ sons), and begged to be punished for what
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Hercules
Roman adaptation of the Greek divine hero Heracles
This article is about Hercules in Roman classical mythology. For the Greek divine hero from which Hercules was adapted, see Heracles. For other uses, see Hercules (disambiguation).
Hercules (, )[2] is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divineheroHeracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
The Romans adapted the Greek hero's iconography and myths for their literature and art under the name Hercules. In later Western art and literature and in popular culture, Hercules is more commonly used than Heracles as the name of the hero. Hercules is a multifaceted figure with contradictory characteristics, which enabled later artists and writers to pick and choose how to represent him.[3] This article provides an introduction to representations of Hercules in the later tradition.
Mythology
Birth and early life
In Roman mythology, although Hercules was seen as the champion of the weak
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Heracles
Divine hero in Greek mythology
This article is about the Greek divine hero. For the similar figure in Roman mythology, see Hercules.
"Herakles" redirects here. For other uses, see Herakles (disambiguation) and Heracles (disambiguation).
| Heracles | |
|---|---|
One of the most famous depictions of Heracles, Farnese Hercules, Roman marble statue on the basis of an original by Lysippos, 216 CE. National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy | |
| Abode | Mount Olympus |
| Symbol | Club, lion skin |
| Born | Thebes, Boeotia, Greece |
| Died | Mount Oeta, Phocis, Greece |
| Parents | Zeus and Alcmene |
| Siblings | maternal: Iphicles, Laonome; paternal: Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Dionysus, Helen of Troy, Perseus and many others |
| Consort | Megara, Omphale, Deianira, Hebe |
| Children | Alexiares and Anicetus, Telephus, Hyllus, Tlepolemus |
| Canaanite | Melqart[1] |
| Roman | Hercules |
Heracles (HERR-ə-kleez; Ancient Greek: Ἡρακλῆς, lit. 'glory/fame of Hera'), born Alcaeus[2] (Ἀλκαῖος, Alkaios) or Alcides[3] (Ἀλκείδης, Alkeidēs), wa
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