1. Symbolic aspects of the figure of Heracles in the context of 5th century Greek beliefs
In order to contextualize Heracles's iconography historically, I first consider narratives that describe his immortalization as a reward for his labors. In one well-known version, Heracles performs these labors under the oversight of his cousin Eurystheus, who rules over Mycenae and Tyrinth; in another, the labors are imposed on the hero by the Pythia of Delphi as a means of purification for killing his children in a fit of madness. In both cases, the labors are brought on by the harassment of Hera, who is infuriated by the fact that the hero is a product of her husband Zeus's love affair with the mortal Alcmene.1
The protracted evolution of representations of Heracles's exploits in the Archaic and Classical periods assimilated and established mythological, literary, and iconographic elements of Greek culture, some of which may have traced back to the Bronze Age. These elements are blended in the Homeric poems, each of which presents the hero's prowess in distinct ways. In general, the Iliad emphasizes the psychological and genealogical aspects of the heroes' destinies, often in a deterministic manner reminiscent of Athenian tragedy, whereas the Odyssey highlights individual effort and the suffering that is characteristic of the human condition. In both poems, diverse and intense pressures on human initiative enhance the psychological and theological significance of the characters' experiences through narratives about their acceptance of mortality. When considered together with the main Homeric heroes, Heracles, who belongs to an earlier generation, is conspicuous for his greater proximity to the gods, his greater exploits, and his greater suffering. At the same time, he remains comparable to the Homeric heroes in that his human dimension is almost always in the forefront. It is particularly telling in this respect that the Odyssey seems to associate Heracles with Odysseus by describing both heroes' exploits as aethloi.2
Adapting the epic tradition in his own way, Hesiod places ‘painful Toil’ (Ponos) as Eris' first-born in the Theogony, while stressing Zeus' and the other gods' capacity to endure the toil of their fierce fight against Tipheus.3 The importance of endurance is particularly highlighted in the Works and Days, which elevate the notion of ‘work’ to the rank of a moral value, condemning idleness (aergia) and proposing what can loosely be called an ‘ethics of productive life’ in contrast with the uncertainties of mortal destiny.4 Both the Homeric and the Hesiodic poems can thus be considered representative of an ancient epic tradition that praised human initiative and commitment, a moral perspective also emphasized by some archaic elegists.5
These preliminary remarks on the moral value of ‘work’, ‘effort’, and ‘labor’ in Greek archaic poetry provide a framework for understanding the evolution of Heracles in the arts, since the hero was conspicuously defined by toil and suffering from his earliest known representations. The advent and expansion of hero cults in Greece contributed further to his importance in Greek culture as a whole. According to Farnell, despite the absence of direct evidence in the Homeric poems, a few passages appear to refer to hero cults.6 Hesiod also alludes to this complex of religious practices but as usual adapts Greek religion to his rhetorical purposes, in particular when narrating the disappearance of the silver race from the surface of the earth: “But since the earth covered up this race too, they are called blessed mortals under the earth –in second place, but all the same honor attends upon these as well” (Works and Days, 140-142).7 The simple existence of hero cults in the Archaic period indicates that they had been active some time before, at least from the 12th century BCE on. Owing to his status as the most popular of Greek heroes, Heracles would very likely have been one of those “whose worship certainly belongs to the Homeric or pre-Homeric period, and who are generally supposed to have been in origin divinities that by the time of Homer had sunk into the position of mortal heroes or heroines”.8
These general remarks about Heracles's antiquity and nature provide historical context for the cultural process that transformed his characteristic violence against monsters and in war into a kind of moral virtue.9 The divine status typically emphasized in hero cult further strengthened his protective role.10 In poetry, a more restrained Heracles appears in Panyassis of Halicarnassus's Heracleia (frs. 19-22 West), in which, at least according to the interpretation of the editor, West, the hero, when encouraged by Eurythos, the king of Oichalia, to drink wine (fr. 19), reminds the latter of importance of self-restraint in such matters. This –in West's words– ‘temperate Heracles’ already represents a significant departure from earlier versions of him.11 In the context of the evolution in Greek spirituality from the 6th century on, Heracles comes to represent universal conceptions of humanity as well as new ideals of sovereignty.
Near Eastern influence contemporaneous with the flourishing of Orphic-Pythagorean cults seems to have played a part in this evolutionary process, particularly in the spiritual manner in which Heracles's passage to immortality is represented.12 The religious atmosphere of Orphic-Pythagorean cults strongly connected Heracles to the mythological theme of a journey to the underworld. His association with the Eleusinian Mysteries in Attica is thus a natural progression manifesting his worshippers' interest in embedding him in their local culture, thereby creating the opportunity for other associations between him and Demeter.13 According to some interpretations, this new perspective on the Heracles myth motivated textual interpolations into the Homeric and the Hesiodic tradition, most notably his brief dialogue with Odysseus in the nekyia:
I recognized Heracles, strong and courageous
–only his phantom, for he himself is among the immortal
gods enjoying abundance, with Hebe of the beautiful ankles,
daughter of powerful Zeus and of Hera, whose sandals are golden. (Od. 11.601-604)
I find convincing the arguments that lines 602-603 are an awkward and later, probably classical, addition that reflected then-current trends in the hero's myth, possibly contemporary with the appearance in Athenian vase painting of representations of the hero's apotheosis as a journey to the sky.15 Philological difficulties notwithstanding, the passage suggests that the interest in Heracles's apotheosis may well have interfered with the poem's processes of composition and transmission. Through strength and self-mastery, then, the ‘hero of ponos’ takes a step ahead of the other heroes that brings him closer to the gods.16
2. The Classical period
The moral dimension of toil and effort remains an important cultural trait throughout the Classical period, as is evident in a wide range of poetry and prose passages. In this climate, even the hedonistic god Dionysos was blamed for the toils (ponous) that he demands from his followers, as in the words of Silenus in the opening lines of the Euripidean satyr play The Cyclops: “O Dionysus, do you know how many times –not only now / but since I was a youth– I put myself through toils for you? So many times they're numberless”.17
Always very popular in literature and the arts, Heracles's representation as a suffering hero is transformed by his acceptance in Olympus, in which respect his destiny is comparable to that which Proteus predicts for Menelaus in the Odyssey.18 Beginning in the 5th century BCE, Athenian vase painters, inspired by this second life of his myth, multiplied the representations of Heracles's apotheosis to the point that it became the most common form of his iconography.19 Instead of the magnificence of diverse superhuman exploits that challenge death, Athenian iconography comes to prefer immobile heroes, in this respect synthesizing new Greek values associated with the intellectual and political climate of the 5th century BCE.20 Heracles in this later context becomes a figure of calm, an exemplar of excellence (aretē) and law (nomos).
The so-called ‘Choice of Heracles’ is arguably the most programmatic literary evidence of this perspectival shift in the hero’s myth. Originally conceived as a rhetorical discourse by the 5th century sophist Prodicus and now lost, it is known from accounts in Xenophon and Diogenes Laertius.21 In a scene related by these authors, Socrates cites the Choice in the context of a discussion of enkrateia, that is, self-control regarding pleasures in general (eating, drinking, enduring extreme weather and toil) and sexual behavior in particular.22 Beginning with a statement of the importance of enkrateia in political activity, both for the rulers and the ruled, Socrates develops the traditional argument that he who governs others must first and foremost be able to govern himself, comparing life to a road chosen by each person, either of indiscipline and excessive pleasure or of measure and temperance. Socrates' questioning emphasizes the necessity that a ruler possess self-restraint (ἐγκρατής) and of endurance (καρτερός) so as to be able to endure the harshest deprivation, and the strongest temptation, without neglecting his commitment to his city.
In Xenophon’s account, Socrates cites Prodicus as his source for the story of how a hesitant or perplexed (aporounta) young Heracles is approached by two women, each of them suggesting that he should follow a different road. The first is naturally beautiful, whereas the second is artificially and exaggeratedly adorned and overtly proud.23 As the first woman is preparing to address Heracles, the second, outpacing her (phthanōn) rushes up to tempt him with an easy, effortless road:
I see, Heracles, that you are perplexed as to which road you should take in life [aporounta poion hodon epi ton bion trapēi]. If you befriend me, I will lead you to the most pleasant and easiest road; you will not miss the taste of any delight, and you will live your life without experience of the hard things.24
Prompted by Heracles, the same woman introduces herself by saying: “My friends call me Happiness [Eudaimonia] (...) but those who hate me nickname me Vice [Kakia]”. The second woman, who does not introduce herself but is called by Socrates Virtue (Aretē), proposes for Heracles an alternative and very different road:
I too have come to you, Heracles, since I know those who begot you and that nature of yours, having observed it in your education. Therefore, I have hope: for you, that if you should take the road toward me, you will become an exceedingly good worker of what is noble and august; and, for me, that I will appear still far more honored and more distinguished for good things. I shall not deceive you with preludes about pleasure. But I shall truthfully describe the disposition the gods have made of the things that are. For without labor and attentiveness the gods give humans none of the things that are good and noble. But if you wish the gods to be gracious to you, you must serve the gods; if you want to be cherished by your friends you must do good deeds for your friends; if you desire to be honored by some city, you must benefit the city; if you think you deserve to be admired by all Greece for your virtue you must attempt to be the cause of good for Greece; if you wish the earth to bear you fruit in abundance, you must serve the earth; if you think you must become rich from cattle, you must be attentive to the cattle; if you set out to increase yourself through war and wish to be able to make your friends free and subdue your enemies, you must learn the warlike arts themselves from those who understand them, as well as practice how one must use them. And if you wish to be powerful also in your body, you must accustom your body to serve your judgment, and you must train with labors and sweat.25
By invoking the general principle that no achievement can be attained without persistent effort, the second woman implies that the first woman's effortless pleasures cannot possibly be enjoyed by a mortal. In addition and more importantly, the second woman brings the gods into the discussion, making a point of stating that effort is indispensable even to those mortals who receive their favor:
But I am a companion of the gods, and a companion of good human beings. No noble work, divine or human, comes into being without me. I am honored most of all among gods and among those human beings by whom it is fitting to be honored; for I am a cherished coworker for artisans, a trusted guardian for masters of households, a well-disposed assistant for household servants, a good helper for the labors of peace, a reliable ally for the works of war, and an excellent partner in friendship.26
While the choice that these women present is binary, taking the form of two roads, their offers are not symmetrical; for while Vice promises a road leading to happiness, that is to say, to herself (according to what she wants Heracles to believe), Virtue does not even mention happiness or any form of bodily pleasure, proclaiming as her main advantages her indispensable participation in any good work (ergon), both human and divine, the company of gods and good men, and the privilege of being honored by them.
Scholars have linked this parable to earlier Greek narratives in which a hero meets a group of women and thereupon makes an important decision regarding the course of his life. According to Burkert, the fundamental shift in the characterization of Heracles through which he became a culture hero served as a powerful metaphor in the evolution of Greek classical thought.27 Together with Odysseus, Heracles represented the definitive traditional model of triumph over the inevitable challenges that humans face.28 Both embedded in this wide process and influencing it, the cycle of Heracles's labors and exploits must also be considered in the context of a drive for increasing clarity in the Greek iconographic vocabulary. The many changes in the expression of heroic action were naturally reflected in images of heroes.29 Only when Heracles had transcended the limits already established for the representation of human action did he appear as the immortalized hero living among the gods.30 At this point, the confrontations with monsters and disasters, battles of the sexes, and rivalries with the gods gave way to representations of Herakles's physical exhaustion, which manifested the very exhaustion of his mortal possibilities.31
On the other hand, there is also reason to suspect Near Eastern influence in the spiritual manner in which Heracles's passage to immortality is represented.32 According to Mühl, possible Near Eastern models include the Adapa, Etana, and other Old Babylonian-Sumerian legends and, in the Old Testament, the prophets Enoch and Elisha (Genesis 5.24); looking beyond the Near East, he cites the Indic Veda (Atharva Veda XVIII, 4.10) and, in the Mahabharata, Bhisma.33
3. Physical weariness in some Classical images
The changes in Heracles's representation from the 6th through the 4th centuries BCE took place in the context of more widespread change in the representation of heroes on Athenian vases.34 As noted long ago by Furtwängler, these changes would first have occurred in images on smaller and less prestigious objects, most notably coins, before manifesting in sculpture.35 Instructive in this context is an Etruscan scarab of the Severe Style, dating to the 4th century, that displays “Heracles unbearded (according to the Italic usage), tired, with his head leaning on his right hand; in front of him a fountain that will refresh him flows from the rocks”.36 So also a sumptuously decorated coin from Abdera which “displays the hero unbearded, tired and resting; his stance, particularly that of the head, has both something of weariness and of sadness”.37 Granted that these two examples are on coins, on which artists' expressive resources were fairly limited, the head position can be considered the decisive element for the overall interpretation of weariness. In fact, this shift in the head position to express weariness and suffering is the most prominent change witnessed in numismatic iconography during the 5th century BCE.38
Another important example of Heracles's connection with the afterlife can be found on one of the metopes of Zeus's temple in Olympia, sculpted between 470 and 457 BCE, which provides the earliest example of the dodekathlos.39 The relevant metope here is only fragmentary, but it seems to show Heracles in the process of recovering from a recent effort. One of the difficulties of interpreting this image is the novel way in which the labor involving the Nemean lion is represented: earlier representations focused on the combat between the hero and the lion,40 but the metope depicts the moment immediately afterward. Thus Heracles inclines his head toward the floor and rests it on his right hand while resting his right arm on his right leg, which in turn rests on the animal's carcass; Athena and Hermes observe the scene from behind and to the right, respectively.41 As with the 5th century coins mentioned above, the position of the hero's head provides the narrative cue for interpreting the image despite its fragmentary state.
To be more specific, the first reconstruction of this metope presented the hero's head turned to the left, which gave him a contemplative look. In the new reconstruction, he looks directly at the ground, thereby expressing physical weariness rather than a more psychological disposition, such as fear or sadness. Regarding the connection between this labor and the afterlife, Kerényi makes the important point that this sculptural group does not foreshadow the hero's future suffering, as had formerly been proposed42 –rather, the representation of a body suffering in anticipation would correspond to the Christian conception of an incarnated Christ, to a ‘history in flesh’ (en sarki) tracing back to the Jewish prophetic tradition.43 Basing his interpretation instead on scholia to Virgil's Georgics attributed to the grammarian Probus and on passages in Pseudo-Apollodorus' Library, Kerényi argues that the myth about the Nemean lion presupposes a number of elements related to the underworld:
(a) descent to Hades to hunt the lion and deliver its carcass to Molorchus, a Nemean hero;
(b) a thirty-day deadline requested by Heracles himself, during which Molorchus grants him access to the underworld in order to accomplish the task and after which Molorchus is to grant Heracles divine honors;
(c) an irresistible sleep –perhaps sent by Hera– overtakes the hero after he kills the lion but is still in the underworld and threatens to trap him there;
(d) once Heracles awakens, he races to reach the exit in time.44
From this perspective, the sculptural group on the metope seems to represent the exact moment when the hero emerges of the cave through which he originally entered the underworld, victorious but exhausted by the effort that he has just expended. Alternatively, the scene could depict the precise moment in which he struggles with sleep while he is still in the underworld and at risk of being unable to escape.45
Hermes's presence, as the psykhopompos who regularly travels between the earth and the underworld, supports Kerényi's interpretation, though, curiously enough, he makes no mention of the god.46 In any case, with or without Hermes, the metope is remarkable in portraying an invincible hero’s solitary struggle. Beyond the significance of the mythological information uncovered by Kerényi's perceptive study, the difficulty of interpreting this sculptural group is further increased by the subtlety of the artistic language used to convey the invisible struggle within the limits of the body.47
Another classical representation of Heracles that has proved difficult to interpret is his apotheosis in Athenian pottery. The popularity of this image was directly related to the broad diffusion of the hero's cult in Attica.48 Built up from the borrowed iconographic patterns of ‘parade’ or ‘quadriga’ but also incorporating new ones, particularly that of ‘meeting’, these new images maintain Heracles's main physical attributes while leaving in the background any reference to his exploits, which have already served their purpose on his path toward his destiny.49
The main difficulty in the interpretation of these vase paintings concerns the hero's condition: he has moved on to immortality and enjoys the company of the Olympian gods. Verbanck-Piérard, rejecting earlier interpretations, argues that the images of Heracles's apotheosis would not imply a double nature –mortal and immortal– but rather an intrinsic ambiguity, for the “idea of tension or limit to be surpassed or respected” distinguished his cult in Attica.50 Thus the transition to immortality and to commensality with the gods occurs without ruptures or exceptional changes; it is rather a natural development from the hero's close links with his father, Zeus.51 Athena's presence beside the hero in these paintings –a characteristic of the vases that distinguishes them from the previous images of him– highlights his membership in the Olympian family and confirms the autonomy of his iconography from the literary tradition.52 The close relationship between the hero and Athena is also a feature of the Odyssey and also appears in vase paintings of the Archaic and Classical periods.
It is not always easy to distinguish vases representing Heracles's apotheosis from those in which he is simply depicted as being in the company of one or more gods. In some paintings, it is quite clear that the setting is Olympus, for instance when Heracles is welcomed by Zeus, appears on a car making a celestial journey, strikes a contemplative pose amid the ranks of the gods, participates in the Gigantomachy, is nursed by Hera, or is paired with his immortal wife Hebe, one of the cupbearers of the gods.53 Other depictions are suggestive but unclear regarding his divinity, such as those in which he is accompanied by Hermes or Dionysos.54
4. Final remarks
This selective survey of images of Heracles from the Classical period demonstrates the continuity between representations of his weariness and apotheosis and a more general evolution in the Greek conception of the hero, in particular the inherent tension between mortality and immortality. The motif of Heracles's apotheosis provided an excellent opportunity to reconsider the artistic representation of extreme exhaustion: while keeping the focus on human mortality, these images suggest an absence of goals that can only be overcome in the exclusive case of Zeus's son. Because Heracles is depicted in repose, his heroic prowess remains implicit, so that his apparent moment of weakness alludes in fact to his superiority. In this respect, that which is actually depicted is distinct from the central meaning of the depiction. The profound and complex cultural change in 5th century Greece, then, brought to the fore a new conception of iconographic expression in which temporality was no longer communicated by the duration of the action represented but rather in terms of a series of events leading up to and following the action, many of which are divine, which is to say, invisible to humans and therefore incapable of representation.55