striking him dead: by accident, but there is also an early tradition that they argued over the cattle and Amphitryon killed him in a fit of anger (see Hes. Shield11 f. and 82). This gives Sthenelos a pretext to take power in Mycenae, and Hera’s stratagem will ensure that his son Eurystheus rules there after him; and the expulsion of Amphitryon and Alcmene explains why Heracles will start his life in exile at Thebes.
she would marry him: this corresponds with the account attributed to Pherecydes in sc. Il. 14. 323 and sc. Od. 11. 266, but in Hes. Shield14 ff. (in lines taken from Hes. Cat.)they were already married (as one might well infer from the previous paragraph) and she makes the consummationof the marriage conditional on the vengeance. (Without a small emendation by Wagner, the passage would read, ‘she would marry the person who avenged . . .’)
the vixen: the Teumessian fox, which had its lair on Mount Teumessos in Boeotia; Dionysos is said to have sent it (P. 9. 19. 1) but we are not told why. (Perhaps because he was rejected by Pentheus, p. 103.) Here the Cadmeia clearly means the territory of Thebes (rather than just the citadel).
Cephalos, son of Deioneus: for his birth, see p. 44 (Deioneus can be identified with Deion).
the dog: its name was Lailaps, ‘Hurricane’ (e.g. Hyg. 189); for how Cephalos came to possess it, see also p. 134.
Zeus turned. . . them to stone: this divine intervention was needed to resolve, or at least remove, the intolerable contradiction which arose when a beast that was fated to catch its prey was set in pursuit of a beast that was fated never to be caught. In astral mythology Zeus turns the dog into a constellation (Canis Major, Catast. 33).
put Comaitho to death: he is unwilling to accept the love of one who has betrayed her father and city; compare the story of Scylla on p. 137.
Heracles: the only other complete life history to survive from antiquity is that of Diodorus of Sicily (4. 8–39), which follows a similar pattern, and should be consulted on all the following.
killed the serpents: cf. Pind. Nem. 1. 39 ff.
Linos had struck him: after losing patience at his ‘sluggishness of soul’, DS 3. 67. 2. Surviving accounts are late, although the episode is depicted in fifth-century vase-paintings.
Rhadamanthys: the Cretan lawmaker who became a judge in Hades, see p. 97.
should all conceive children by Heracles: he is impressed by his extraordinary strength and expects him to father fine children, cf. DS 4. 29. 3. According to the temple legend at Thespiai, P. 9. 27. 5, he slept with all but one, who became his priestess at the temple, and did so in a single night.
dressed in its skin: but according to some, it was the Nemean lion, p. 73, who provided the skin (e.g. Theocritus 25. 163 ff.; as the skin of an invulnerable beast, it had the advantage of being impenetrable—Heracles had to use the lion’s own claws to cut it).
the Minyans: here the inhabitants of Orchomenos in north-western Boeotia (cf. Il. 2. 511).
charioteer of Menoiceus: his master, a grandson of Pentheus, was a member of the Theban royal family; the killing was also attributed to a group of Thebans (P. 9. 37. 1 f.).
by Eurytos: in the manuscripts, autou, ‘by him’, referring to Rhadamanthys. Because this seems unlikely in itself, and Ap. said above that Heracles was taught archery by Eurytos, most editors favour the present emendation; but it is possible that there is a more extensive corruption. In DS 4. 14. 3 he is taught archery by Apollo.
the Pythia: the priestess who delivered the oracles at Delphi.
ten labours: corrected from twelve in the manuscripts (Hercher). According to the following account, Heracles was due to perform ten labours, but he has to perform two extra labours (making up the canonic twelve) because Eurystheus refuses to accept the second and fifth.
be immortaclass="underline" referring to his apotheosis, which takes place some time after the completion of the labours, and is a relatively late element in the tradition, see p. 91 and note.
invulnerable beast fathered by Typhon: in Theog. 326 f., the son of Orthos, son of Typhon and Echidna; it was reared by Hera. There is another tradition, also of early origin, that it grew up on the Moon, who shook it down to earth (Epimenides, fr. 2 DK, cf. Hyg. 30). In these mythical contexts, invulnerability means quite literally insusceptibility to wounds; if such a being can be killed by a means that does not entail the piercing of its body, it is not immune to death (hence the strangling). Pindar is the earliest author to refer to its invulnerability (Isth. 6. 47 f.; Bacch. 13. 50 ff. is more explicit).
sacrifice. . . as a hero: exceptional men, legendary but also historical, who were thought to exercise power after their death, were worshipped in a special cult; sacrifices to the gods above and those to the heroized dead were performed according to a different ritual (which is reflected in the use of different words here, thueinand enagizeinrespectively).
Copreus: cf. Il. 15. 639 f. His name is suggestive of kopros, dung.
the Lernaean hydra: see Theog. 313 ff., a child of Echidna and Typhon, raised by Hera to be an adversary for Heracles; hydra, meaning a water-serpent, is not a proper name (although the Lernaean hydra came to be thought of as ‘the’ hydra).
nine heads: Hesiod, ibid., does not say that the hydra has more than one head. Although Pausanias, 2. 37. 4, claims that Peisandros, the seventh-sixth-century author of an epic poem on Heracles, was the first to give the hydra many heads, the artistic evidence shows that he was not the inventor of the theme, for such representations can be traced to about 700. The number of heads varies according to the fancy of the poet or artist; already in early lyric, Alcaeus gives it nine heads, and Simonides fifty (sc. Hes. Theog. 313). The immortality of the middle head is unattested elsewhere.