Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/126

 112 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY Italian legend unites its Hercules with. Juno herself. Hercules went down into the lower world at the promon- tory Taenarum, freed Theseus from his imprisonment, chained Cerberus, and came up with them at Troezen or Hermione. Another, perhaps an older, form of the same legend is apparently to be seen in the story, mentioned as early as the Iliad, of the expedition of Hercules against Pylus ('gate' of the lower world), during which he wounded with three-pointed arrows his inveterate enemy Hera, and also Hades, the rider of the lower world. After the com- pletion of the labors imposed upon him by Eurystheus, the servitude of Hercules came to an end. The appli- cation of the number twelve to his labors seems, how- ever, not to have been definitely made until about 480 B.C. 144. The third principal group of the Hercules myths is formed by the expeditions located in Thessaly and on Oeta. To this group originally belonged also his sacking Oechalia, and his servitude to Omphale. Hercules sued for the hand of lole, the daughter of the mighty archer Eurytus, who ruled in Thessaliaii Oechalia. But though he defeated her father in an archery contest, she was refused him. A short time thereafter, in revenge, he hurled her brother Iphitus down from a precipice, although he was staying as the friend and guest of Her- cules ; and later he also took the city, and carried lole with, him as a captive. To be absolved from this blood- guiltiness, he went to Delphi; but Apollo delayed his answer. Then Hercules seized the holy tripod, to carry it away ; the strife thus kindled was stopped by the interposition of a lightning flash from Zeus. Hercules