Heracles

Heracles: Readings and Discussion for Aug. 29

Primary sources for the 12 Labors

The main assignment: read the primary sources for 2-4 of Heracles’ Labors. 

How to proceed:

• Go to the Perseus Project and select Starting Points.  Put “Heracles” in the search box and you’ll find a list of references.  Go to the 2 encyclopedia entries.  One  -- no problem deciding which – is our guy.  You will find a pretty comprehensive list of references to the primary sources for the main events in his life.  Find the ones that relate to the Labors you want to investigate, and read them.
• Or go to the Herakles Project for a list of primary sources which is organized around more general events than the Perseus list.  Select your Labors and follow the links.

Questions:

• Which of these repositories for primary sources did you find most helpful and why?
• Do you notice any specific differences in details between different accounts of the Labor you chose?
• Is there any mention of whether anyone else was there at the time, whether Heracles had to offer any proof that the Labor was accomplished, whether any shrine or monument or physical feature was associated with the Labor (and exists in the “present day”)?

Authors/type of source:

• Who are the authors from whom you get information about the Labor?  What sort of work is this description in?  Some possibilities:
• travel writing (e.g. Pausanias)
• history (e.g. Herodotus)
• drama (e.g. Euripides, Sophocles)
• poem celebrating an athletic victory (e.g. Pindar, Bacchylides)
• mythology collection (e.g. Apollodorus)
• epic (e.g. Apollonius of Rhodes, Homer)
• philosophy or discursive writing
• other?  

To find out more about your author, go to Perseus and click on starting points.  From the sidebar menu, choose Encyclopedia, and type in the name of the author you want to know about.  The first paragraph of your entry will give you the basic information you need; you can continue reading for more detail if you so desire.