Heroes of Olympia

Heroes

Since many years heroes are a symbol for everyone. All people know Hercule and his strength, Achille and its heel… These heroes given rise to expression. Today i speak about heroes in greek mythology.

Heracles :

It is one of the most recognized and revered heroes of all mythology by the success of his work. The story of this hero begins with his birth. His mother Alcmene is the wife of King Amphitryon. Zeus quickly falls in love with the beautiful queen. While her husband is at war, Zeus takes the appearance of Amphitryon and enters the room of the young woman. This is how Heracles came into the world.

Back home, the king discovers his wife’s infidelity and decides to reject the child. Zeus' wife, Hera, also did not accept her husband’s infidelity and tried to kill Heracles while he was still a baby. Heracles rejected on all sides was raised and educated by the famous centaur Chiron.

After this difficult childhood, Heracles became a big and powerful boy. He was taught the arts, combat, skill, etc. Only Heracles had difficulty in controlling his strength and mastery. Also, he is a disturbing and sometimes violent student. In an excess of rage he struck and killed his music teacher which earned him exile from his hometown.

As a war began Heracles and his father-in-law left Creon the king of Thebes. This war will cost Hercules his father-in-law who died in battle. For the thanked Creon offers Heracles the hand of his daughter Megara. The two beings fell madly in love with each other and had several children together. But Hera, jealous and taking a hatred against Heracles, sees the happiness and the success of the latter what irritates him even more. Then she casts a spell on the hero who goes crazy. Seized of a great madness, he kills his wife and children. When he wakes up Heracles notices the crime. He is inconsolable, filled with sadness that he lost the woman he loved more than anything and his children. Taken of guilt he will consult the oracle of Delphi in order to be purified. The oracle tells him that if he wants to be purified he will have to answer the 12 works that Eurystheus, his greatest enemy, will entrust to him.

The 12 labours :

1- Kill the Nemean Lion whose skin is impenetrable and whose claws are sharp.

2- Kill the Lernaean Hydra, a gigantic snake whose head ends in fifty snake heads. The particularity of this snake is that the main head is immortal and the others grow back twice once cut.

3- Bring back the wild boar of Erymanthus alive. He ran him, threw stones at him for several days, so that the beast finally fell tired into a pit that Heracles had dug to trap the boar.

4- Capture the Ceryneian Hind. Reputed to have golden horns and brass hooves, Heracles pursued the beast more than a year before he succeeded in capturing it.

5- Clean the stables of Augias in less than a day. To get there Hercules diverted a river.

6- Killing the Stymphalian birds. These birds were monstrous. They fed on human flesh.

7- Tame the Cretan bull, which decimated the harvests.

8- Capture Diomedes' anthropophagous mares.

9- Bring back the belt of Hippolyte, the queen of the Amazons.

10- Defeat Geryon and bring back his herd of oxen. Geryon is an immense three-bodied being.

11- Recover the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides guarded by Ladon a huge dragon.

12- Go down to the underworld to chain Cerberus the three-headed dog.

After his 12 labours (and a poisonus tunic) Heracles, immortal, reached Mount Olympus where he reconciled with Hera. There he married Hebe, goddess of youth where they will have two children.

Orpheus :

Orpheus is the son of Oeagre and Calliope, one of the nine muses. He sings and plays the lyre wonderfully well which makes him very famous in his time. These songs made the beasts and the fiercest men calm and gentle, he was also known to have surpassed the sirens and their songs.

But if he is really known it is because of his tragic love story. Orpheus fell very in love with Eurydice, a beautiful nymph. Only one day while she was walking another man was chasing her for violence, trying to flee, she walked on a snake that bit her and she died.

Orpheus, inconsolable, went down to Hell to look for his wife. Thanks to this music, it charms not only the monsters of the Underworld, but even the god Hades. Hades and Persephone agree to return Eurydice to a husband who gives such proof of love. But they put a condition in it, that Orpheus will go back to the day, followed by his wife, without turning to see her before leaving their kingdom. Orpheus accepts, and sets off. Already, he had almost returned to the light of day when he had a doubt, immediately he turns around. But Eurydice fainted and died a second time. Orpheus tries well to go back to find her, but, this time, the access of the infernal world is denied to him. He must return among the humans, inconsolable…

Ariadne: 

Ariadne, in Greek mythology, was the daughter of Persiphae and King Minos who reigned on an island of Crete. Ariadne is considered a Heroine. 

On this island there was a monster, the Minotaur, who lived in the Labyrinth of Daedalus, and every year seven young men and seven young girls were delivered to him.

That year, the Hero Theseus went there with the future victims.

Ariadne fell madly in love with him, and against her promise to bring him and marry him, she gave him a thread that he rolled behind him. He killed the Minotaur and was able to come out alive from the Labyrinth, which had only one door.

He brought Ariadne with him as promised and they made a stopover on the island of Naxos.

However, lacking in his promise, taking advantage of Ariadne’s sleep, Theseus set sail. He left leaving her behind.

Dionysos found Ariadne in tears, the console, then became in love with him. She followed him and has children with him.

Then the god Dionysos brought him with him on his chariot to go to Olympus and marry him.

As a wedding present, he offered her a golden tiara that became a constellation. It is called the Boreal Crown.

Ulysses :

Ulysses was born in Ithaca which is a west coast island of Greece of which he later became king. During his childhood he was also the pupil of the centaur Chiron. 

King of Ithaca, he is married to Penelope and he is the father of Telemachus. His superior intelligence makes him appreciated by all, she will serve very well during the Troy War in which he participated.

Ulysses, a wise king and a fine orator, is Athena’s favorite. He holds an important place in the council of kings. It was he who had the idea of the Troy Horse’s cunning.

When the Troy War was over, he tried to return to his kingdom. But the wrath of Poseidon complicated his travel and made him wander on the sea for many years where he encountered many obstacles and had many adventures like the cyclops Polyphemus, the witch Circe or the cursed couple Charybdis and Scylla.

It took him 20 years to regain his kingdom, his wife Penelope and his son Telemaque. "The Odyssey" is the name of his adventures after Homer's Iliad, referring to his original Greek name "Odysseus".

Later he undertook another travel, forgot Penelope. He remarried. Back in Ithaca Telegonos, a son he had with Circe killed him. Telegonos married Penelope, and his son Telemaque married Circe.

Ulysses' death marked the end of the Heroes' Age.

QUIZZ :

How much work has Hercules done?

What prompted Hercules to carry out his work?

What Hero marks the end of the age of heroes?

Who did Ariadne marry?

Why didn’t Orpheus bring his wife back from hell?

How long did it take Ulysses to get home?