called the bull italus: Heracles asked the local people if they had seen the calf anywhere, and when he heard them talking about it in their own language, he gave the name Italy to the country that it had passed through, after vitulus, the Latin for a calf (Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. Rom. 1. 35, following Hellanicos).
unless Heracles defeated him: or they fought on the terms that if Heracles was victorious, he would take the land, but if Eryx was, he would take all the cattle of Geryon (DS 4. 23. 2, P. 3. 16. 4 f.). In the early fifth century, Dorieus, a member of the Spartan royal family which was supposedly descended from Heracles, went to Sicily and laid claim to the land on these grounds (P. 3. 16. 4, cf. Hdt. 5. 41 ff.).
the gulf: the Adriatic.
golden apples from the Hesperides: according to Pherecydes, Ge gave apple trees bearing golden fruit to Hera as a wedding present, and Hera ordered that they should be planted in the garden of the gods near Mount Atlas (sc. AR 4. 1396, Hyg. PA3). In Theog. (213 ff.) the Hesperides, the nymphs of the evening who helped guard the fruit, were daughters of Night (but subsequent accounts vary).
in the land of the Hyperboreans: a mythical people who lived in the far north. Although Ap. rejects the tradition that the Hesperides lay in the west, that was certainly their original location; their name alone is sufficient to associate them with the evening, and thus the sunset and the west, and Atlas too was commonly associated with the western end of North Africa. In the present version (cf. DS 4. 26. 2 ff.) Heracles’ journey takes him to all points of the compass; he passes through Italy to Libya and the west, then east again to Egypt, and south to Arabia, and finally north on the eastern Ocean to the Caucasus and beyond.
to avenge him . . . engaged him in single combat: interpreting the phrase Areos de touton ekdikountos kai sunistantos monomachiain a different sense, Frazer translates, ‘Ares championed the cause of Cycnos and marshalled the combat,’ which would allow us to assume that the text is complete, but in the present translation I have followed the example of Carriere, who argues that there is a short gap beforehand and that Ap.’s account originally accorded with that in Hyg. 31; there Heracles kills Cycnos in single combat, but when Ares is about to attack him to avenge the death of his son, Zeus hurls a thunderbolt to separate Heracles and Ares. Frazer’s version raises serious problems; in all other accounts of the story (including Ap.’s second version of it on p. 90), Heracles kills Cycnos (cf. Hes. Shield 416ff. and Stesichorus in sc. Pind. ol. 10. 19), and the story seems altogether pointless if he does not. And it is hard to see why Zeus should intervene to protect Cycnos. (A discussion of the points of language can be found in Carriere’s note.) It should be mentioned, however, that there is some evidence from sixth-century vase-paintings that there may have been a tradition in which Zeus restrained the combatants.
Nereus. . . transformed himself: for Nereus, see p. 29; sea-gods, as inhabitants of a formless medium, are naturally shape-shifters. Nereus appears in no other mythical narrative; the present story was probably suggested by Homer’s account of Menelaos’ encounter with Proteus, another old man of the sea (Od. 4. 382 ff).
Antaios: he roofed Poseidon’s temple with travellers’ skulls, Pind. Isth. 4. 54. His peculiar relationship with the Earth is first recorded in Roman sources (Ov. Met. 9. 183 f., Lucan 4. 593 ff.), but the motif is surely of earlier origin.
a drover: in other versions, a ploughman (e.g. Conon 11). For a similar incident see p. 89 and note.
he killed Emathion: for his birth, see p. 124 and Theog. 984 f. The only indication of the reason for the killing is the remark in DS 4. 27. 3 that after Heracles had sailed up the Nile Emathion attacked him without provocation in Ethiopia. Perhaps the significance of the episode lay in the fact that it marked the southernmost stage of his journey.
through Libya: this may be an error; but it is unlikely that Ap. had a clear conception of the geographical connections here.
He then . . . in Prometheus’ place: for the cause of Prometheus’ punishment, see p. 36. There was an ancient tradition that crowns and garlands are symbolic of the shackles worn by Prometheus as a result of his services to the human race (Athenaeus 672e ff.); so presumably Heracles dons an olive crown as a symbolic substitute for Prometheus’ fetters. (The wild olive was especially associated with Heracles, and he is said to have brought it to Greece from the land of the Hyperboreans, P. 5. 7. 7.) The meaning of Cheiron’s exchange has been much disputed, and only a tentative suggestion can be offered here. We know that Cheiron wants to die because he is suffering from a painful and incurable wound, p. 75. Since Prometheus is immortal by nature, there can be no question of Cheiron simply exchanging his immortality for the mortality of Prometheus and thus becoming able to die (as might be inferred from the phrase on p. 75). It would seem, on the contrary, that this is another symbolic exchange; by passing below, Cheiron assumes the sufferings of Prometheus. The fact that Heracles presents him to Zeus suggests that by giving himself up to die, Cheiron is fulfilling a prior condition set by Zeus. A passage in [Aesch.] PV1026 ff. may be relevant here, in which Hermes tells Prometheus that there will be no end to his sufferings unless a god shows himself ready to succeed to them and offers to descend to Hades. This would be a dire fate for an immortal being; but because of Cheiron’s special circumstances, the seemingly impossible condition mentioned in PVcould be fulfilled.
he said that. . . the sky back unticlass="underline" a passage from sc. AR 4. 1396 is inserted to fill a gap in the text; it is based on Pherecydes, Ap.’s main source here.
It is said. . . guardian snake: cf. Soph. Trachiniae1099 f., and Eur. Hercules Furens, 394 ff.
unholy: these apples and the trees that bore them belonged to Hera or Zeus (see p. 81 and note), and it is thus unholy for them to be removed permanently from their appointed home.
to fetch Cerberos: Homer knew of this feat, Il. 8. 367 f., Od. 11. 623 ff.; see also Bacch. 5. 56 ff.
with a view to being initiated: into the Eleusinian Mysteries, which ensured a better fate for initiates in the Underworld after their death, and could thus prepare Heracles for his premature journey to Hades.
purified by Eumolpos: the legendary founder of the Mysteries, see also p. 135 and note. There was another tradition that Demeter founded the Lesser Mysteries (the preparatory rites at Agrai, near Athens) to purify Heracles (DS 4. 14. 3). In historical times, all who spoke Greek could be initiated, with the exception of murderers.