Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 50406 (M472): Attic black-figure amphora with Herakles and lion
P. Mingazzini, Vasi della Collezione Castellani: Catalogo (1930), pl. 65.1
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
Olympia Museum: metope from the Temple of Zeus. Herakles, Athena and lion.
♠ Theokritos 25.153-281
♠ Tibullus 3.7.12-13
Indeed, even Alcides, a god who would ascend to Olympus,
placed his auspicious footprints in the house of Molorchos. (Transl. E. Bianchelli) Latin Text
♠ ApB 2.5.1 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)
When Hercules heard that, he went to Tiryns and did as he was bid by Eurystheus. First, Eurystheus ordered him to bring the skin of the Nemean lion; now that was an invulnerable beast begotten by Typhon. On his way to attack the lion he came to Cleonae and lodged at the house of a day-laborer, Molorchus; and when his host would have offered a victim in sacrifice, Hercules told him to wait for thirty days, and then, if he had returned safe from the hunt, to sacrifice to Saviour Zeus, but if he were dead, to sacrifice to him as to a hero. And having come to Nemea and tracked the lion, he first shot an arrow at him, but when he perceived that the beast was invulnerable, he heaved up his club and made after him. And when the lion took refuge in a cave with two mouths, Hercules built up the one entrance and came in upon the beast through the other, and putting his arm round its neck held it tight till he had choked it; so laying it on his shoulders he carried it to Cleonae. And finding Molorchus on the last of the thirty days about to sacrifice the victim to him as to a dead man, he sacrificed to Saviour Zeus and brought the lion to Mycenae. Greek Text
♠ Scholia to Pindar: Nemean Odes Hypothesis – Scholia vetera in Pindari carmina, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 660, ed. A.B Drachman. Leipzig 1817.
Artistic sources edited by Frances Van Keuren, Prof. Emerita, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Univ. of Georgia, September, 2017.
Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, December 2020
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