Later Deeds of Heracles — Greek Mythology

The Hero Still on the Road

When the twelve labors were at last finished, Heracles walked away from the gates of Eurystheus’ palace.

Again and again that gloomy house had thrust commands before him: the Nemean Lion, the Hydra of Lerna, the Cretan Bull, the watchdog of the Underworld. Each task had seemed meant to send him to his death. Yet Heracles had returned alive. The lion skin still hung across his shoulders; his great club was still in his hand; his bow and quiver were slung upon his back. The arrowheads had been dipped in the Hydra’s venom, and even the lightest wound from them was hard to heal.

By all rights, he might have stopped then. He might have settled in some city, listening to songs and drinking at feasts. But Heracles’ life was rarely granted such peace. His strength was too great, his fame too loud, and his enemies too many. Some came to him for rescue. Some laid tables in order to deceive him. Some died under the force of his anger. Others escaped death because his hand reached them in time.

So he took to the road again.

The Chains on the Caucasus

Once, Heracles journeyed far to the north. There the mountains rose as if they meant to pierce the sky, and a bitter wind came twisting down through the cracks of stone, sharp enough to blind a man. No smoke of houses rose from those cliffs. Only the shadows of eagles circled in the gray-white light.

As Heracles was passing below the rocks, he suddenly heard the sound of suffering from the cliff face. He looked up and saw a god fastened there with iron chains. The rings bit into his wrists and ankles; his body was pressed against the freezing stone. Beside him perched a monstrous eagle, tearing at his liver with a hooked beak. Blood ran down the rock and fell among the broken stones below.

The chained god was Prometheus.

Long ago, he had brought fire to humankind and defied the will of Zeus. For that he had been condemned to this long punishment. Every day the eagle came and fed upon his liver; every night the wound grew whole again, so that the torment could begin anew at dawn.

When Heracles saw it, his face darkened. He asked no long questions and did not turn away. He took the bow from his shoulder, drew out an arrow, planted his foot on a loose stone, and pulled the string steady.

The bowstring sang, and the arrow flew like black lightning. The eagle had bent its head to tear the flesh and had no time to beat its wings. The shaft struck it through, and it tumbled from Prometheus’ side, crashing against the rocks.

Heracles climbed the cliff and seized the chains in his hands. With one strain of his fingers the iron gave a shrill cry. Link after link loosened, and Prometheus came down at last from the rock wall. The god, who had not walked freely for years beyond counting, leaned against the stone and drew a long breath.

Yet the judgment of Zeus could not be snapped like a dry twig. In one tradition, someone had to accept Prometheus’ fate in his place before he could be truly freed. Later, wise Chiron the centaur willingly gave up his immortality, trading his own death for the release of the sufferer.

Prometheus also wore an iron ring set with a stone from the Caucasus. In that way, people said, he still carried a little of the mountain with him, and the sentence of Zeus had not vanished without a mark.

Heracles did not remain long among those peaks. He slung the bow across his shoulder again and turned back toward the world of mortals. Behind him the mountain wind blew, and the chains gave a few last hollow clinks upon the rock.

Vengeance Beneath the Walls of Troy

After leaving Lydia, Heracles remembered another old offense.

Years earlier, Laomedon, king of Troy, had angered the gods. A sea monster had been sent to the coast to devour the people, and the king’s daughter, Hesione, had been bound to a rock by the sea to wait for the creature. Heracles came that way and promised to kill the monster, on condition that the king give him the divine horses.

He slew the sea monster and rescued the princess. But afterward Laomedon broke his word and refused to hand over the promised reward.

Heracles did not forget.

Now he gathered ships and companions and sailed against Troy. The sea wind filled the sails, and when the heroes came ashore, they rushed upon the walls. Laomedon’s city was high and strongly built, but no wall could hold back Heracles’ anger. He broke into the city and killed Laomedon and his sons, sparing only one young man.

That young man would later be called Priam.

Hesione begged Heracles to spare him and offered a ransom for her brother’s life. Heracles agreed. So Priam lived and afterward became the new king of Troy.

As the flames in the city died down, Heracles departed with his spoils. Troy did not forget that disaster. Many years later, the same city would be drawn into a greater war, but that belonged to the blood-debt of another generation.

Other Roads Remembered Briefly

Some later deeds still belong to this same road, but they are better read in their own stories. Heracles came to the house of Admetus and brought Alcestis back from Death. He killed Iphitus and served Omphale as punishment. He married Deianira, was deceived through the blood of Nessus, and met his end on Mount Oeta. Here they remain as signposts rather than a second full telling.