Chapter 13: Herakles
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♠ Pherekydes 3F82 FGrH – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, p. 82-83, ed. F. Jacoby. 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
♠ Tr 248-53 – Sophokles, Trachiniae
Lichas
No. The greater part of the time he was detained in Lydia, no free man, as he declares, [250] but sold into servitude. No offense should be taken at my tale, lady, when the deed is found to be Zeus’ work. He passed a whole year, as he himself says, a bought slave to the barbarian Omphale. Greek Text
♠ Tr 274-78 – Sophokles, Trachiniae
But in anger at that deed, the king, [275] the father of all, Olympian Zeus, sent him away to be sold, and did not tolerate that this once, he killed a man by guile. Greek Text
♠ Herodoros 31F33 FGrH – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, p. 222, ed. F. Jacoby. 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
♦ Malibu, California, J. Paul Getty Museum 77.AE.45: fragmentary Attic black-figure amphora from Group E; on left, seated, white-skinned Omphale wearing Herakles’ lionskin and holding his bow and arrows; black-skinned male figure (Herakles?) stands to right of Omphale, facing to right, i.e. away from her; he holds a plectrum in his right hand, and in front of him hangs a cloth with crosses, perhaps from a kithara; second female is seated on the right, facing standing male (a nurse?); F. Brommer claims to have seen traces of the head of a child (Lamos, a son of Omphale and Herakles?), facing right, under the left elbow of the second seated woman (p. 211; see citation under the photograph below)
F. Brommer, “Herakles und Theseus auf Vasen in Malibu,” Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum (1985) p. 212 fig. 34
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
Digital LIMC and link to entry in printed LIMC
♦ Berlin, Antikensammlung VI 3414: Boiotian red-figure skyphos; on left, a youth (Iolaos?); then Herakles, with club and quiver, holds out his bow to a woman Omphale (?); between last two figures, a column; on right, woman and a loom
Digital LIMC and link to entries in printed LIMC (with a photo of scene)
♦ Paris, Musée de Louvre K545: Lucanian red-figure pelike; Omphale in crown holds distaff and spindle; young Herakles leans on his club while in conversation with Omphale
Digital LIMC and link to entry in printed LIMC (with a photo)
♦ Berlin, Antikensammlung F3291: Apulian red-figure hydria; in center, enthroned woman with scepter (Omphale?); to right of her, flying Eros who is about to crown a youthful Herakles with a fillet; behind Omphale (?) is a standing woman and a kneeling woman with a boy (Lamos?; see above); beneath Omphale is a woman with a swan (Aphrodite?); on lower right is a youth in a Phrigian cap
E. Gerhard, Apulische Vasenbilder des Königlichen Museums zu Berlin (1845) pl. 14
Detail of Herakles and a Phrygian youth, from Wikimedia
Digital LIMC and link to entries in printed LIMC
♠ DS 4.31.5-8 – Diodoros Siculus, Library of History
Heracles then went to Deïphobus, the son of Hippolytus, and prevailing upon him was given the rite of purification, but being still unable to rid himself of the disease he inquired of Apollo how to heal it. Apollo gave him the answer that he would easily rid himself of the disease if he should be sold as a slave and honourably pay over the purchase price of himself to the sons of Iphitus, and so, being now under constraint to obey the oracle, he sailed over to Asia in company with some of his friends. There he willingly submitted to be sold by one of his friends and became the slave of Omphalê, the daughter of Iardanus, who was still unmarried and was queen of the people who were called at that time Maeonians, but now Lydians. [6] The man who had sold Heracles paid over the purchase price to the sons of Iphitus, as the oracle had commanded, and Heracles, healed now of the disease and serving Omphalê as her slave, began to mete out punishment upon the robbers who infested the land. [7] As for the Cercopes, for instance, as they are called, who were robbing and committing many evil acts, some of them he put to death and others he took captive and delivered in chains to Omphalê. Syleus, who was seizing any strangers who passed by and was forcing to hoe his vineyards, he slew by a blow with his own hoe; and from the Itoni, who had been plundering a large part of the land of Omphalê, he took away their booty, and the city which they had made the base of their raids he sacked, and enslaving its inhabitants razed it to the ground. [8] Omphalê was pleased with the courage Heracles displayed, and on learning who he was and who had been his parents she marvelled at his valour, set him free, and marrying him bore him Lamus. Already before this, while he was yet a slave, there had been born to Heracles by a slave a son Cleodaeus. Greek Text
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Tags:
#Omphale, #Herakles, #Lamos, #Iolaos, #Aphrodite
Artistic sources edited by R. Ross Holloway, Elisha Benjamin Andrews Professor Emeritus, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown Univ., and Frances Van Keuren, Prof. Emerita, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Univ. of Georgia, March 2025
Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, November 2023.
