Heracles battles three Amazon warriors on this vase by the anonymous ‘Haimon painter’ of the early 5th century BC. For the whole vase, visit Wikimedia Commons.
Part 1 of 2
ONE day, Eurystheus’s daughter Admete expressed a fancy for the girdle of Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons, a formidable tribe of female warriors who cast off their sons and raised their daughters like men. The doting Eurystheus at once sent Heracles to fetch it from Themiscyra, on the southern shores of the Black Sea.*
During a stop on Paros, the Cretan governors of the island killed two of Heracles’s men, so he took two of their sons in exchange;* coming then to Mysia in Asia Minor, he helped King Lycus enlarge his realm at the expense of the Bebryces. Heracles thus buccaneered his way to Themiscyra, where Hippolyte was so impressed that she was quite ready to hand the girdle over.
Hera, however, went among the Amazons whispering that Heracles meant to carry off their queen, and before order could be restored several brave Amazons were dead.* Nonetheless, Heracles now had Admete’s coveted girdle in his hands, and set sail for Tiryns, calling at Troy.*
Themiscyra is traditionally located just east of Samsun, at the mouth of the Terme River (in classical times, the Thermodon). See Google Maps.
Paros is an island in the Cyclades group of the Aegean Sea, southeast of Athens. See Google Maps. Apollodorus held that the governors of Paros were sons of Minos, King of Crete. In another telling of the Heracles story, Diodorus Siculus stated that a grandson of Minos, Rhadamanthys, had given Paros to his son Alcaeus. Clearly, the ancients believed that Paros was once a Cretan colony.
Some versions of the legend have Hippolyte herself killed in the fighting, whereas others have her survive to become the wife of Theseus in Athens, which is how she is portrayed by William Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
For Troy Google Maps; and see also our posts tagged The Siege of Troy (3). As Byzantine poet John Tzetzes (?1110-1180 AD) tells the tale, Admete went on this journey together with Heracles.
Précis
For his Ninth Labour, Heracles was sent to the land of the Amazons, a tribe of warlike women, to fetch Queen Hippolyte belt for Eurystheus’s daughter Admete. All would have gone peacefully had Hera not stirred the Amazons up to suspect Heracles of intending to kidnap Hippolyte, and although he came away carrying the belt, it was not without bloodshed. (60 / 60 words)
Part Two
The bay at Skala Panagia, on the island of Thasos in the northern Aegean Sea. According to the legend, Heracles stopped off here on his way back from the land of the Amazons on the Black Sea to the east, and conquered it for a friend.
THE ruler of Troy at this time was Laomedon, father of Priam and a man infamous for not paying his bills.*
Poseidon went undercover as a master stonemason, undertaking to build impregnable walls for the city while Apollo watched the king’s herds. Sure enough, when the work was done Laomedon withheld their wages. So Apollo sent a pestilence, and Poseidon sent a sea-monster.
An oracle assured Laomedon that if he chained his daughter Hesione to rocks on the seashore to satisfy Poseidon’s monster,* Apollo’s plague would be averted too, and Laomedon complied. True to form, however, he first engaged Heracles to rescue Hesione in exchange for a string of fine mares (a gift to his grandfather from Zeus), and then as soon as Hesione was safely home, cancelled delivery.
Grudgingly, Heracles postponed vengeance until Hippolyte’s girdle was in Admete’s hands, breaking his homeward voyage only at Thasos, which he conquered for a friend,* and Toroni,* where he killed two men in a wrestling match.
See Google Maps; Priam was the King at the time of the Siege of Troy: see our posts tagged The Siege of Troy (3).
Compare the story of Perseus and Andromeda.
Thasos lies in the north Aegean. See Google Maps. The friend was Androgeus, a son of Minos and Pasiphaë, who was later assassinated in Athens. When Minos heard the news, he was leading sacrifice to the Graces on Paros. Grief-stricken, he completed the solemnities without music, and without music the rites were performed ever after on Paros.
Toroni lies on the western side of the Sithonia peninsula in Chalkidiki. See Google Maps.
Précis
Heracles came home from the land of the Amazons on the Black Sea via Troy, where he became involved in a battle of wills between Poseidon and King Laomedon over unpaid wages. Laomedon tricked Heracles into helping him evade Poseidon’s penalties without reward, but Heracles could do nothing about it, as he was duty-bound to return home with Hippolyte’s belt. (60 / 60 words)
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