Hercules
Also known as: Jove’s mighty son Hercules / lion-hearted son Hercules · Family: Greek · Role: hero and father · First appears: BOOK II
🌐 Also appears in: Greek Mythology — A Family Orrery (as Heracles) · The Odyssey (as Hercules) · The Aeneid (as Hercules) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Hercules) · Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (as Hercules) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Heracles) · The Divine Comedy (as Hercules)
In Book II, Hercules is named as the father of Tlepolemus, described as “a man both brave and large of stature,” and of Thessalus. He also killed Licymnius, his father’s uncle.
In Book V, Laomedon is linked to Hercules’s quest for horses, refusing to give them to his father. In Book XIV, Jove calls Hercules his “lion-hearted son,” born to Alcmena in Thebes. By Book XIX, Hercules is suffering under the cruel labours imposed by Eurystheus, who angered him by making his son groan under them.
Relationship record
BOOK II
- child: Tlepolemus “Tlepolemus, son of Hercules, a man both brave and large of stature”
- with Licymnius (interaction) “he killed his father’s uncle Licymnius”
- child: Thessalus “two sons of King Thessalus the son of Hercules”
BOOK V
- child: Tlepolemus “Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules”
- enemies with Laomedon “He would not give your father the horses which he had come so far to fetch.”
BOOK XIV
- parent: Jove “Alcmena in Thebes by whom I begot my lion-hearted son Hercules”
- parent: Alcmena “Alcmena in Thebes by whom I begot my lion-hearted son Hercules”
BOOK XIX
- parent: Jove “he was ever angry with her when he saw his son groaning under the cruel labours that Eurystheus laid upon him”
- parent: Alcmena “she stayed the offspring of Alcmena”
- enemies with Eurystheus “he was ever angry with her when he saw his son groaning under the cruel labours that Eurystheus laid upon him”
- with Eurystheus (Eurystheus imposed labours on Hercules.) “the cruel labours that Eurystheus laid upon him.”
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Extracted from the original text of The Iliad. Made with Rho MD.