athlos means more than labour, it carries a sense of ‘test’. Our words athlete and athletic derive from it. fn2 At the risk of sending you mad by going over the family tree again, his father was Sthelenus, making Eurystheus a great-grandson of Perseus. As was Heracles, whose parents Alcmene and Amphityron were cousins and each a grandchild of Perseus. But of course Zeus was really Heracles’ father, as he was Perseus’s. Therefore Perseus was both Heracles’ great-grandfather and half-brother. Those Greeks, eh? fn3 For more about this beast, see the chapter devoted to the adventures of Bellerophon. fn4 Greek ceramic representations of the Hydra tend to show a kind of upside-down octopus: a round, sometimes doughnut shaped body out of which extend nine snakes. Popular comic book art makes the creature more like a nine-headed dragon. fn5 Pronounced ‘Serry-nay-uh’ I think. Ceryneia, or Keryneia, today lies in the north west of the Peloponnese in the region known as Achaea. ‘Achaean’ is the name Homer most commonly gave the Greek forces in the Trojan War. fn6 What’s the difference between a hind and a doe? Your guess is as good as mine. fn7 For the fraught circumstances of their birth see Mythos, Vol. I. fn8 See Mythos, Vol. I, for the story of Ixion. There is more to come on Nephele and Chiron in Jason’s story, and we will meet the centaurs again with Theseus. fn9 See Mythos, Vol. I. fn10 In some versions of this episode, Chiron himself was accidentally scratched by one of Heracles’ arrows and suffered the most appalling agony. He alone amongst his race, being a son of Kronos, was immortal. The prospect of living eternally in such pain was insupportable to him. He begged the gods to be released into death and Zeus granted his wish, casting him into the heavens as the constellation Sagittarius, the man-horse archer. This is an egregious example of timeline inconsistency since Chiron was later tutor to ACHILLES who was yet to be born. fn11 Was this Greek satire against the gods? A way of suggesting that the immortals were more full of shit than mortals? fn12 The southern Adriatic. Confusing because the name ‘Ionia’ refers to parts of Asia Minor, today’s Turkey, far to the other side of Greece. fn13 Perhaps inspiring the phrase ‘to take the bull by the horns’. fn14 See Mythos, Vol. I, Twice Born. fn15 We will see more of Pelias in the story of Jason, where he is an important figure. Alcestis was one of the daughters who would make that unfortunate mistake with their father and the cooking pot. fn16 See Mythos, Vol. I, pages 309 and 315. fn17 Loosely taken from the fifth-century Athenian dramatist Euripides’ version of this story, Alcestis. fn18 Also the name of the philosopher SOCRATES’ legendarily shrewish wife. Really Xanthos is yellow with a tinge of red, so perhaps it means ‘bay’ in the equine sense. Strange that although they are mares, all the sources give names with male endings. It should really be Podarge, not Podargos. fn19 Cf. dinosaur, the ‘terrible lizard’, as mentioned in realtion to the Graeae. fn20 Some sources claim they breathed fire, too. fn21 Heracles, like most classical Greeks, was as happy to dine at the man-trough as at the lady-buffet. Iolaus his nephew and Hylas, his page during the quest for the Golden Fleece, were another two male lovers or eromenoi. fn22 Abdera still stands and was notable in the great age of Greek philosophy for producing Democritus, whom some regard as the founder of the scientific method (I recommend the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli’s thoughts on him in his excellent book Reality Is Not What It Seems). The sophist Protagoras, famous for his dialogue with Socrates as recorded by Plato, was also born there. Earlier, in the sixth century BC, the lyric poet Anacreon found sanctuary there from the Persians. His life and work inspired the creation in eighteenth-century England of the Anacreontic Society of gentleman amateur musicians. The tune of the club’s song, ‘To Anacreon in Heaven’, was poached by the Americans in 1814 to fit the words of the poem ‘The Star Spangled Banner’, now their national anthem. Would that tune be heard at the start of every major sporting occasion in the United States if Abderus hadn’t been eaten by horses? Such speculations might well drive a person mad. fn23 The name Amazon means or may mean ‘breastless’, and while later artists and sculptors often depicted the women as being either without breasts or single-breasted, it is now thought that the name derived from their matchless skill at archery. In that to draw back a bow to its full extent, the breast has to be tucked out of the way … fn24 See under Atalanta, here. fn25 Now the River Terme in northern Turkey. fn26 An identical indignity to that suffered by Andromeda. The image of the helpless damsel tied to a rock awaiting her fate at the hands of a dragon is a pervasive one, not just in Greek myth and art. We can all, I dare say, offer interpretations according to our adherence to varying schools of psychology, gender politics and so on. fn27 Two generations earlier Zeus had Ganymede, the beautiful Trojan prince, to be his lover and cupbearer. He sent magical horses to Tros by way of compensation. fn28 The girdle of Hippolyta was successfully excavated from the ruins of the Temple of Hera at Mycenae by Dr Henry Walton ‘Indiana’ Jones Jnr., but currently languishes in a crate hidden in a vast US government warehouse along with the Ark of the Covenant and a copy of the board game Jumanji. fn29 The frequent appearances of bulls, cows, boars, sows, rams, ewes, stags, hinds and horses that feature in the heroic adventures are of course a reflection of the importance of these animals in ancient Greek economic, social and agricultural life. Their place in farming, commerce and civilisation contrasts with the threat to these elements of life posed by dragons, centaurs and other monsters. The class of mutant or savage boars and bulls might be said to represent a medial state between the tame and the monstrous. Snakes, sacred to Athena and Hera especially, might be said to exist in a class of their own. They can be lethal, they can be prophetic but they cannot be tame. fn30 Erytheia’s name means ‘red’, or ‘reddish’, because by the time the sun had travelled that far west it was close to its red, sunset colouring. Some Greek and later Roman writers placed Erytheia in the Balearics. Maybe it was Ibiza. Others located it further west; the volcanic island of Madeira is a possibility. Given the presence of the fabled dog Orthrus, perhaps it was one of the Canary Islands – the word ‘canary’ deriving, of course, not from a bird but from the Latin canus, meaning ‘dog’. Lanzarote would be the best candidate, since the ‘rote’ in its name means ‘red’; though dull, factually obsessed historians will tell you that this is a coincidence. fn31 India, most sources are agreed. fn32 Ireland? Britain? Portugal? There are many theories. fn33 Perhaps Helios’s western palace was in Wales and the bowl-shaped coracles that Welsh fisherman use are descendants of the Cup of Helios. fn34 A favourite torment. She had done the same to Zeus’s lover Io. The moon goddess Selene also sent one down to sting Ampelos, the beloved of Dionysus (see Mythos, Vol. I, for both stories). fn35 Perhaps the Rhine, possibly the Danube. Some even maintain that the river flowed in the legendary Cassiterides, the ‘Tin Islands’, which probably refer to the British Isles … If Heracles did visit Britain it is likely that in Cornwall he invented the sport of Tug of War. fn36 A title also given to the minor sea deity Proteus, who shared with Nereus the gifts of prophecy and shapeshifting. Hence ‘protean’. NEREUS is perhaps most familiar as the progenitor – along with his wife, the Oceanid DORIS – of the numerous friendly sea nymphs named Nereids in his honour. fn37 Tunisia and Algeria, we must suppose. fn38 Aegyptus, you will recall, was the grandson of Poseidon and Libya, and the uncle of Andromeda. Heracles’ descent from Perseus and Andromeda made Busiris a distant relative. fn39 The ruins of Thebes, Egypt, are contained within the cities of Luxor and Karnak. fn40 The Greeks usually called the Mediterranean just The Sea, or sometimes The Great Sea or Our Sea. fn41 Or a vulture. See Mythos, Vol. I, page 147. fn42 Ananke is the Greek personification of Necessity. Like Moros (Doom) and Dike (Justice) the laws of these gods are more powerful than the will of the gods. To call them personifications is perhaps stretching it a bit. They can be talked about as if they are deities, but in reality they are treated as ineluctable elements of fate. fn43 See Mythos, Vol. I. fn44 Another version says he went to Attica for the ceremony and that he needed to be made a citizen of Athens to undergo the ritual. This may be the people of Athens wishing to claim the greatest of all heroes, greater even than their beloved Theseus, as one of their own. fn45 Perhaps more familiar nowadays under its other name of Cape Matapan. fn46 The disgraceful adventures of Pirithous and Theseus are coming soon. fn47 The disturbing fate of Meleager will be revealed when we reach the story of Atalanta. fn48 Most accounts of the Twelfth Labour use this, later, name for Hades. Plouton became fused with the Roman PLUTO, the god of wealth. Precious metals and precious crops come from under the ground, so it was a natural elision. fn49 They say that where Cerberus’s drool fell aconite grew, the deadly poison sometimes called wolf’s bane. fn50 He seems to have forgotten his plan to bring his own wife back and, for the moment, his promise to seek out Meleager’s sister Deianira as a bride. fn51 Pronounced ‘Eekaylia’. fn52 See the ‘Rages of Heracles’ afterword for thoughts on this. fn53 We don’t know which gods. It seems a bit direct for Hera, so perhaps it was Zeus, for whom xenia was sacred. fn54 Neleus was the brother of King Pelias of Iolcos, and so the father of Alcestis. fn55 An especially apt name, given Heracles’ crime against xenia or guest friendship. Xenoclea is a name that glorifies the stranger or guest. fn56 Omphale’s name might be considered to be related to omphalos, meaning ‘navel’, it also can mean ‘button’ which plays into the cross-dressing narrative. It also means ‘boss’ which is apt enough – but the name had no such double meaning to the Greeks, of course. fn57 One of the judges in the musical competition between Pan and Apollo in which Midas made such an ass of himself. See Mythos, Vol. I, page 390. fn58 According to Herodotus, the ‘Father of History’, who lived in the fifth century BC, the descendants of this son (the name is variously given as AGELAUS or LAMAS), ruled Lydia for twenty-two generations. The most famous monarch of this dynasty was the sixth-century King CROESUS, who was as rich as … as rich as himself. fn59 Fine heroes in their own right, Peleus and Telamon also joined Heracles in the quest for the Golden Fleece, as we shall see. But they are now most remembered as the fathers of the two mightiest Greek heroes of the Trojan War: AJAX, son of Telamon, and Achilles, son of Peleus. The son of Telamon and Hesione was the legendary bowman TEUCER, who fought beside his half-brother Ajax at Troy. fn60 Some say it was in revenge for the abduction of his sister Hesione that, many years later, Priam sent his son PARIS to carry off Helen of Sparta, thus sparking the cataclysmic conflict which brought ruin upon both Greeks and Trojans. But that dreadful tale is for another day. fn61 Confusing, but not the same Eurytus whose son, Iphitus, Heracles threw from the walls of Tiryns. fn62 Not many words or names begin with ‘Ct-’, do they? The twins were sons of Poseidon and MOLIONE (hence their joint name of the MOLIONIDES). Molione was married to Augeas’s brother ACTOR, hence their loyalty to him. fn63 Presumably at the head of some sort of force or army: the mythographers aren’t very clear on this. Though such was his strength and temper that he certainly could do the work of one hundred armed men. fn64 Known to this day as Pylos-Nestoras (Navorino to the Italians across the Adriatic Sea). fn65 Consider, for instance, the stories told of Hermes and of his son Autolycus in Mythos, Vol. I, pages 101 and 268. Or, more recently, the quarrel of Eurytus and Heracles that we have just heard. fn66 As Odysseus and his men would discover to their cost one day. fn67 See Mythos, Vol. I, page 22. fn68 Thus ‘giant’ and ‘gigantic’ really mean ‘earthborn’ and have nothing to do with size, despite the way the words are now used and how the ‘giga-’ was taken from ‘gigantic’ to mean ‘huge’. fn69 The Greek word is pharmakon, as in ‘pharmacy’ and ‘pharmaceutical’. fn70 Pronounced ‘Die-an-era’. fn71 Like most water divinities he could change his shape at will – witness those Old Men of the Sea, Nereus, Proteus and later Thetis. fn72 At least so says Sophocles, the Athenian tragedian of the fifth century BC in his play Women of Trachis, which tells the story of Deianira and of the later life and death of Heracles. fn73 See Mythos, Vol. I, page 32. fn74 You meet one person whose name begins with ‘Ct’ and then another pops up ten minutes later. fn75 Pronunciation? Your guess is as good as mine. Kay-uhx perhaps, or maybe Cakes. I assume Alcyone is pronounced to rhyme with Hermione. fn76 In Philoctetes’ possession, the arrows of Heracles would play a crucial part in the climax of the Trojan War. The gods move in mysterious ways to achieve their ends. fn77 In The Odyssey, Homer places Heracles in Hades, a discrepancy that caused later mythographers to offer confusing and rather unconvincing explanations. His mortal shade went to the Underworld, they suggested, while the immortal one rose up to Olympus. There hadn’t been a suggestion before this, so far as I know, that anyone could be endowed with two souls, whether they had a divine parent or not. The Greeks, if the truth be told, were far too wise to have a consistent eschatology that presumed infallible knowledge of an afterlife. They had noted that no one ever returned from death and took the sane and sensible view that those who claimed to know what happened to a person after they died were either fools or liars. Thus there was no ‘system’ to Elysium, Tartarus, Erebus, the Fields of Asphodel and the Underworld. Nor is there any such consistent law of the afterlife in either testament of the Bible, come to that. All the threats of hell and punishment and promises of heaven and reward came much, much later in our history. fn78 Hebe would be Heracles’ half-sister of course, but that’s nothing. Perseus was simultaneously his great-grandfather and half-brother. fn79 Athenian exceptionalism at the height of the classical era was as unpopular with the rest of the world as British exceptionalism in the days of the Raj or American and Russian exceptionalism are today.