Euripides’ – A Hero Denied a Family.

Heracles () was one of the most famous of all Greek heroes. The mortal son of , he was renowned for completing twelve incredible labors involving taking wild beasts and visiting the ends of the earth. In this play, Heracles has been away from home for a year trying to complete his final labor - an impossible journey to the underworld where only the dead may go. His wife, , his step-father, Amphityron, and his children wait for his return and fear the worst – that he has perished and will never return. In the meantime, there has been a violent coup and the king, the father of Megara and benefactor of Heracles, has been overthrown and killed by a man called Lycus, who feels he has a right to the throne. Lycus is a man of the people – a soldier who despises the aristocrats who have been in power. He places Heracles’ family under a death sentence and tells them that they must all die, including the children so the line of the king will be extinguished. Megara asks for a little more time to prepare her children for their deaths and Heracles appears just in time, having secretly made his way into the city. He learns of what Lycus intends to do to his family and plans to stop him. His father urges him to hide inside the house. When Lycus arrives, asks him inside and we know he is going to meet his death at the hands of Heracles. But the goddess sends the spirit of Madness on Heracles. Her anger stems from the fact that Heracles is the illegitimate son of her husband, Zeus, but also, as a warrior, she hates his destructive powers. Hera protects childbirth and families and so she prevents Heracles from ever having domestic peace. In the scene here, a messenger comes out of the house and tells the audience that after killing Lycus, Heracles changed – his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell on his own wife and children, believing them to be his enemies. His father was only spared because Athena pinned Heracles under a great rock and sent him into a deep sleep. Heracles awakes and is told what he has done and his pain is too much for him to bear; he wants to die. Finally his friend, , comes and pleads with Heracles to be saved and comes with him back to Athens where he can help protect the city. Heracles had rescued Theseus from the Underworld and even though he is defiled with the blood of his own kin, Theseus picks him up and leads him away in friendship, leaving Amphityron distraught to bury his own family.

Heracles was produced in Athens sometime between 421 and 416 BCE. Athens was in the midst of the debilitating Peloponnesian War against Sparta. The Athenians fortified their city and refused to engage with the powerful Spartan army, preferring to rely on her supremacy of the sea. This means that the entire population of Attica had to live between the walls during campaigning season while the Spartans ravaged the countryside. These policies led to huge losses from an outbreak of the plague and to the war, which was dragging on, with no end in sight.