Tales of the Greek Heroes Read online

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE FIRST FALL OF TROY

  Where Heracles wandered, the lonely

  Bow-bearer, he lent him his hands

  For the wrecking of one land only,

  Of Ilion, Ilion only,

  Most hated of lands!

  EURIPIDES

  Trojan Women (Translated by Gilbert Murray)

  18

  When Heracles rescued Hesione, daughter of the King of Troy, from the sea monster, he was not able to take the reward with him, as he was still labouring for Eurystheus of Tiryns. But when his labours were ended, he sent to King Laomedon for the two magic horses which he had won.

  Laomedon, however, had never been known to keep his word; and this time he did not depart from his usual habits. He sent two horses, it is true, but instead of those which Zeus had given to King Tros in return for Ganymede, which were magic horses who could run like the wind over the sea or the standing corn, he sent two chargers of ordinary, mortal breed.

  Heracles vowed vengeance against Laomedon; but it was only when he came to settle at Trachis that he was able to set about gathering followers for this expedition of his own.

  Leaving his young wife Deianira safely at Trachis, Heracles set out, accompanied by his nephew Iolaus, to seek for companions; and he turned first of all to his old friends Telamon and Peleus who had been his companions on his expedition against the Amazons, as well as during the Quest of the Golden Fleece and at the Calydonian Boar hunt.

  Telamon lived at Salamis near Athens, and had married not long before. While Heracles was his guest a baby son was born to Telamon’s queen, and was named Ajax.

  Telamon and Peleus sat feasting with their guest when the baby boy was brought in for his father to see, and Heracles cried:

  ‘By the will of Zeus this son of yours shall be a strong and mighty hero. See, I wrap about him the skin of the Lion, the first of my many Labours: may Ajax prove as bold as a lion and as strong and fearless!’

  When the rejoicings were ended, Telamon gathered a fleet of six ships, and with Heracles in command they set sail for Troy. Now with Heracles were Telamon himself, Peleus, Oicles, Iolaus and Deimachus, each in command of a ship.

  They sailed quickly across the Aegean Sea and came unexpectedly to the land of Troy, where they anchored the ships, and leaving Oicles and his company to guard them, marched for the city itself.

  King Laomedon was not prepared for this sudden invasion, but he armed as many men as he could, and made a forced march by secret ways to the place where the ships were moored.

  He took old Oicles by surprise, and in the desperate battle which followed, Oicles was killed, and his men only saved the ships by entering them and putting out to sea.

  Well pleased with this beginning, Laomedon marched back to Troy by his secret route, and after a brisk fight with some of Heracles’s men, got into the city and barred the gates.

  Heracles surrounded Troy and settled down to besiege it. But on this occasion the siege did not last long, for the walls, although built by the Immortals Poseidon and Apollo, were not themselves immortal since they had been helped in their work by a mortal, Aeacus, the father of Peleus and Telamon.

  The first breach in the wall was made by Telamon, who knew from his father where the weakest place was to be found; and through the gap he rushed with his followers, while Heracles was still trying to storm the citadel. Very soon Heracles was in also, and the battle raged fiercely until King Laomedon lay dead, shot by the deadly arrows, and by him all his sons except the youngest. His name was Podarces, and he was spared because he had tried to persuade Laomedon to behave honestly and give up the magic horses.

  When the walls were levelled with the ground, Heracles summoned before him all the captives. Among them was the Princess Hesione whom he had rescued from the sea monster, and who should have become his wife.

  ‘But I am married already,’ said Heracles, ‘and so I will give this princess to my friend King Telamon; and in memory of what might have been, I will give her a bride-gift. Princess Hesione, you may choose one of these captives to go free.’

  Then Hesione, weeping for the death of her father and brothers, knelt before Heracles and said:

  ‘Great Hero of Greece, spare my brother Podarces and let him go free to rebuild Troy and reign there over my father’s people.’

  Heracles replied: ‘Podarces has been spared, but he is my slave, the spoil of war. Yet I will grant your request, but you must buy him from me: you must pay something in ransom, if it be no more than your veil!’

  Then Hesione plucked the veil from her head and with it bought the freedom of Podarces; and ever afterwards his name was changed to Priam, which means ‘ransomed’.

  When Heracles and his followers had sailed away, Priam gathered all the Trojans together and built the new city of Troy, a great, strong place with mighty walls and gates. And he married a wife called Hecuba, and they had many sons, the most famous of whom were Hector and Paris.

  Meanwhile as Heracles and his little fleet of ships were sailing back towards Greece, his old enemy Hera could contain her hatred no longer. She knew that the Giants were stirring in their caves in the wild north and might make war on the Immortals at any moment; and she knew as well as Zeus himself that only with the help of Heracles could they be conquered, yet in her jealousy she made one last effort to destroy the son of Alcmena.

  She called to her Hypnos, the spirit of Sleep, own brother to Death, and child of Night:

  ‘Sleep, master of mortals and Immortals,’ said Hera, ‘go swiftly now to the couch of great Zeus, and lull his shining eyes to rest – for he has great need of you!’

  Hypnos went to where Zeus lay, and spread his gentle wings over him, so that presently the great King of the Immortals slumbered peacefully.

  Hera thereupon let loose the storm-winds from the north, and a great tempest descended upon the sea, and drove the ships before it, scudding over the waves and among the rocky islands, in deadly peril every moment.

  Then indeed Heracles might have met his fate if Zeus had not awoken in time. When he saw what had happened, his wrath was very terrible. He took Hera and hung her by the wrists from heaven, with an iron anvil hanging from each foot; and when Hephaestus tried to set her free, Zeus took him by the leg and flung him out of Olympus, down on to the island of Lemnos, where he was found by the sea-nymph Thetis.

  He ordered the storm-winds back to the island where Aeolus kept them in a cave until they were needed, and a great calm fell upon the Aegean Sea, just in time to save Heracles from being wrecked upon the rocky island of Cos.

  But scarcely had Heracles and his companions landed, tired and exhausted, when King Eurypylus who ruled the island attacked him with a large force: for Hera had already sent him word that a band of pirates were about to land on the island.

  The weary Greeks were defeated and scattered in the darkness, including Heracles himself. He was hotly pursued, since Eurypylus was particularly anxious to kill the captain of the pirates, and only escaped by hiding in a cottage. Here lived a large, fat woman who fled away into the darkness when she saw Heracles; and he had just time to dress himself in her clothes and bend over the cradle, when the men arrived at the door.

  Seeing only the old woman, they went on towards the centre of the island, and Heracles was able to rest and eat until his strength came back to him.

  In the morning he gathered his scattered followers, attacked the Coans, and defeated them, killing King Eurypylus. They remained on the island of Cos for some time, refitting their ships before setting sail for Greece; and Heracles had been wounded in the battle.

  Then one day the Immortal Queen of Wisdom and Strategy, Pallas Athena, came suddenly to Heracles:

  ‘Up, most mighty of mortals!’ she cried. ‘The day has come for which you were born! For the Giants are loose upon the earth, and without the aid of the mortal Hero appointed, even the Immortals cannot withstand them!’

  Then Athena took him up and carri
ed him across the sea to the dread plain of fiery Phlegra, where the ground smokes and trembles like the crater of a volcano.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS

  When on the smoky Phlegran field

  Immortals fight the Giant clan,

  Know that their lives shall only yield

  To arrows of a mortal man;

  And he, his Labours done, shall bide

  For ever in Olympian ease;

  And Hebe waits to be the bride

  Of the Immortal, Heracles!

  PINDAR

  First Nemean Ode (Translated by R. L. G.)

  19

  The invasion so long dreaded and expected came suddenly. For Earth had made the Giants and hidden them away in great caves far to the north of Greece until the moment came when they were strong and fierce enough to assail heaven.

  Then, as soon as Zeus seemed very much engaged in quarrelling with Hera and tossing Hephaestus out of heaven, the Giants came down into Greece and got ready to attack the Immortals.

  They camped on the volcanic plain of Phlegra, and the first thing they did was to capture the golden-horned cattle of the Sun-Titan, Helios, and carry them off for food.

  The leader of the Giants was called Alcyoneus, and he was immortal so long as he stayed in the land of Phlegra. And at first they attacked Olympus, hurling huge rocks and burning oak-trees.

  ‘We cannot slay the Giants unaided!’ cried Zeus. ‘So much the Titan Prometheus told me. A mortal must kill them, when we have overcome them – the greatest Hero in all Greece, if he be brave and strong enough. And that man is Heracles! For this he was born, my son, and the son of a mortal woman. For this he has been trained all these years, and has accomplished such labours as no mortal did before, nor shall do again!’

  Then he sent Athena to fetch Heracles. But meanwhile the words of Zeus had reached Earth, and she, fearing lest all her plots should come to nought, bade the Giants seek for a magic herb which would render them proof even against the mortal Hero.

  Zeus learnt of this, and knowing that there was only a single plant of the magic herb, he instructed Athena to help Heracles in his search for it; and to prevent the Giants from finding it first, he ordered Helios to keep the Sun-chariot at home, and Selene the Moon-chariot also, that there might be no light on the earth save the feeble glimmer of the stars.

  In this strange, unnatural twilight Heracles found the herb; and when the sun rose again the great battle began.

  Earth sent out a breath of fire from the subterranean caves of Phlegra, and the Giant King spoke in a terrible voice, crying:

  ‘Giants, now is the hour! Tear up the mountains and hurl them at Olympus! Tear down the Immortals from their high thrones and bind them with our kinsmen the Titans in Tartarus! And one of you shall have Aphrodite to be his wife, and another shall have Artemis – while I, your king, claim Hera as my prize!’

  The rocks hurtled through the air, and whole hilltops were torn away in the struggle.

  And first of all, by Athena’s direction, Heracles shot Alcyoneus with a poisoned arrow. But as soon as he fell to the ground he began to recover.

  ‘Quick!’ cried Athena. ‘He cannot die so long as he remains in Phlegra! Drag him away into another country!’

  So Heracles hoisted the still-breathing Giant on to his back and staggered with him over the border. There he flung him down and finished him with repeated blows of his club.

  Returning to the battle, Heracles found that the Giant Porphyrion had assumed the lead and tried to carry off Hera. They had now piled up great rocks, and were fighting on the slopes of Olympus. Eros, the Lord of Love, wounded this Giant with his arrow, but the only result was to make him fall most desperately in love with Hera. This, at least, drew him from the battle, and when he saw his chance, Zeus felled him with a thunderbolt; and Heracles, returning just in time, settled him with an arrow.

  The battle grew fast and furious now, and Heracles stood by to send in the shaft of death whenever an Immortal had laid a Giant low. When, for example, Apollo had smitten one in the eye with his bright shaft, or Hecate had burnt another with her torches; when Hephaestus had laid low a Giant with missiles of red-hot metal, or Dionysus brought down an enemy with his magic thysus, or Ares the War Lord smote home with his terrible spear.

  Finally the remnants of the Giants fled in terror towards the south of Greece, all except the two greatest ones, Ephialtes and Otus. These made a last, desperate assault; and first of all they captured Ares himself and shut him up in a brass jar.

  Then they piled Mount Ossa on top of Mount Pelion, and started climbing up towards Heaven, Ephialtes vowing that Hera should be his prize, and Otus that he would marry the Maiden Artemis.

  In this emergency even Heracles was powerless to help, for these two Giants could only be killed by their own kind – neither man nor Immortal could do anything against them.

  They were easily tricked, however, being as stupid as Giants usually are; and when Zeus sent a message that he would give up Artemis to the most deserving of the two, they began to quarrel violently. While they were arguing Artemis turned herself into a white doe and ran suddenly between them. Each, eager to prove that he was at least the better marksman, hurled a spear at it. Both missed their mark, but each spear pierced the other Giant to the heart. Thus each was struck by his own kind, and so they died, and were chained to a pillar in Tartarus with fetters made of living vipers.

  Meanwhile the other Giants fled, pursued closely by the Immortals and Heracles. One was caught by Poseidon, who broke off a piece of the island of Cos and buried him under it, making the Rock of Nisyros which still sticks up out of the sea near by.

  The rest came to Arcadia, and at a place called Bathos the Immortals surrounded them and the final battle took place. There Hermes, wearing the Helmet of Invisibility which he had borrowed from Hades, struck down a Giant; and Ares, whom Hermes had just rescued from the brazen pot, wielded his spear to good effect, while Artemis sped home her arrows and Zeus whirled down his thunderbolts upon the doomed race of Giants. And Heracles, with his fatal shafts and his mighty club, made certain that there could be no recovery from the blows of the Immortals.

  The last Giant left alive was Enceladus. Heracles had wounded him and when he saw all his companions, whom he had thought immortal, lying dead around him, he fled before the sword of the drunken Satyr, Silenus, who had accompanied Dionysus into the battle.

  He rushed across Greece, waded the Adriatic Sea, and was at last overtaken by Athena at Cumae in Italy – where he still lies, breathing fire, under the volcano of Vesuvius. But some Roman writers believed that it was Enceladus, and not Typhon the Terrible, who lay imprisoned under Mount Etna in Sicily.

  The battle was ended, the Giants destroyed and the Immortals were saved. Heracles, the great Hero, had done his work on earth, and Zeus was preparing to raise him to Olympus and make him an Immortal.

  But, a mortal still and a very weary one at that, Heracles went to visit his friend Nestor at Pylos to rest after the battle. This was the same Nestor whom he had known on the Argo and at the Calydonian Boar hunt; and earlier still, he had fought against Nestor’s father in a battle where both Hera and Hades tried in vain to overcome him and, though Immortals, both felt the sting of his arrows. After that battle, Heracles had set Nestor on the throne, and he found the young king always a staunch friend and ally.

  Now at Pylos Heracles met his friend Tyndareus, father of Castor and Polydeuces, the rightful king of Sparta, who had been driven out by his wicked brother. Heracles already had a grievance against the usurper, who had killed a friend of his for merely striking a Spartan dog which attacked him. As soon therefore as Heracles was recovered from his weariness, he led an army to invade Sparta.

  The army came mostly from Tegea, whose king feared to leave his little city unguarded, and would only march out with his men after Athena had given a lock of the Gorgon’s hair to Heracles. This was concealed in a bronze jar and entrus
ted to the Princess Sterope: when, just as the king had expected, a troop of Spartans appeared suddenly in front of Tegea, she waved the lock of hair three times from the city wall – and the Spartans were seized with panic and fled back to Sparta.

  There Heracles had already captured the city and killed the wicked king, with all his sons, and Tyndareus succeeded to the throne.

  Heracles then set out for his home in Trachis, where Deianira was waiting eagerly for him. Not far from Trachis, on a headland overlooking the sea, he paused to raise an altar and offer a sacrifice to Zeus; and he sent his herald, Lichas, to Trachis for the robe which he usually wore on such occasions.

  Now Deianira was intensely jealous, and from some chance remark made by Lichas she jumped to the conclusion that Heracles had grown tired of her and was bringing back a new wife called Iole. In actual fact this captive princess was destined to be the bride of their son, Hyllus.

  Suddenly, Deianira remembered the love-charm which the dying Centaur, Nessus, had given her, and now she determined to use it. So she unsealed the jar, and quickly soaked the robe in it before sending it to Heracles in a casket. Then she tossed a bit of rag which had fallen into the jar out into the courtyard to dry.

  Presently, as she sat happily weaving by her window, she glanced out and a sudden chill of terror struck her heart. For the piece of rag was twisting and burning in the sunlight till it turned into fine white powder like sawdust; and under it were seething clots of foam like dark bubbles in fomenting wine.