The Women In Heracles' Life Trivia Quiz

Answer: Zeus and Alcmene

Hephaistos = Vulcanus. Aphrodite = Venus. Alcmene was a royal princess who lived with her husband Amphitryon at Thebes. Zeus disguised himself as Amphitryon and slept with Alcmene. When Amphitryon came home, he noticed his wife was quite surprised. He saw that as an indication that she had been unfaithful to him. Fortunately, Zeus himself came and explained what had happened. Alcmene gave birth to two children: Heracles, Zeus' son, and Ifikles, Amphitryon's.

Answer: Ironically enough, it meant 'Hera's glory'

Hera would forgive indeed, but only after a lot of suffering. At the very moment that the funeral pyre of Heracles was about to be ignited, last-minute negotiations between Hera and Zeus led to a happy end: Athena was allowed to save her half-brother and take him up to Mt Olympus.

Answer: She sent snakes into his crib, but baby boy Heracles gripped and strangled them

The Nemean lion appeared in the first Labour ... a lot later!

Answer: After all, Heracles was her half-brother.

Well, one might look for other psychological motivations. Was she not the goddess of wisdom AND military victory? Maybe she was impressed by his potential as a soldier, his virility, etc. He may have been her natural complement.

Answer: By helping King Creon defeat the Minyans

The battle between Creon and the Minyans took place near Orchomenos. Together, Hercules and Megara had anywhere between three and eight children. The Nemean Lion episode was one of the Labours of Heracles, which were a consequence of his murdering the children he had with Megara. The story about Diomedes's horses and the Cretan Bull are also part of the Twelve Labours .

Answer: Just after Heracles had saved Megara from the ferryman Lycos, Hera sends him a fit of lunacy which made him mistake his own children for those of an enemy of his, Eurystheus.

Hera sent a fit of madness that put Heracles in such a rage that he murdered his children (and, in some versions, also Megara herself). According to Euripides, Lycus had tried to overthrow Creon in Heracles' absence. Just when Lycus was about to murder Megara and their children, Heracles arrived on the scene and rushed to the defense of his family.

A little later, Hera misled Heracles into thinking the kids he saw in front of him were not his own, but Eurystheus' sons.

Answer: Just when he was about to kill his own adopted father Amphytrion, she knocked him out with a well-aimed piece of rock

Heracles not only failed to recognize his own kids (taking them for Eurystheus's), he also thought that the old man who accompanied them was not his adopted father Amphitryon, but his enemy Eurystheus' father, Sthenelus. After having been knocked out cold by Athena, Heracles regained consciousness and saw what disasters he had caused.

He wanted to commit suicide, but this time it was his friend Theseus who intervened, and proposed another solution: exile.

Answer: Immortality

The club Heracles usually carried was a tool he had always been using, and not any new piece of weaponry. The lion's skin he was often depicted wearing was the skin of the Nemean lion, the lion he had to eliminate in his first 'Labour'.

Answer: the Queen of the Amazons

The Amazons were a tribe of women warriors. Amazon literally means missing one breast. Indeed, they considered that their right breasts got in the way when they threw spears, and so they had them amputated.

Answer: She disguised herself as an Amazon and told the others it was a trick: Heracles wanted to carry off their Queen.

When Heracles saw himself suddenly surrounded by Amazons in full armour (including his 'friend' Hippolyta), he knew there had been foul play. He saw no way to solve the problem other than killing a woman who had been very kind to him, to say the least.

Heracles, who for this labour had got the help of a small expeditionary corps of Greek assistants, then sailed home, via a stop-over at Troy, and gave the belt to Eurystheus in Mycene.

Answer: She sent a gadfly that attacked the herd.

During this trip Heracles first reached the so-called Pillars of Hercules (a variant spelling of his name used by the Romans), which are nothing else but the narrow thoroughfare between Africa and Europe, near the Rock of Gibraltar. Heracles then returned via Spain, Southern-France, Italy and Sicily to the Balkans and finally back to Greece.

Answer: After the apples had been shown to Eurystheus, Athena would take them back to the Garden of the Hesperides.

For this labour an expedition had to be organised 'to the north of the known world'. In the garden of the Hesperides there is the hundred-headed dragon, Ladon, and the Hesperides, the daughters of Atlas, who guard those magic apples. After various fights (Kyknos, Nereus, Anntaeus, Poseidon...), Heracles met Prometheus and killed the eagle that daily tortured Prometheus. Atlas then helped him to find the apples.

Answer: f

Cerberus was one of the children of Echidna (half-woman, half-serpent) and Typhon (a fire-breathing giant covered with dragons and serpents). The other children were Orthus, a two-headed hound, the Hydra, and the Chimaera. Cerberus had three heads, a serpent for a tail, and heads of snakes all over his back.

Answer: his daughter Iole

Originally his 'punishment' had been to carry out ten labours, but Eurystheus disqualified a couple of them.

Answer: Eurytus was unhappy when he heard about Heracles' violent past and his moments of insanity

Disappointed, Heracles left Oechalia. Only Iphytus remained on friendly terms with him. He was also the only one who believed in Heracles' innocence when cattle get stolen by Autolycus, but Heracles got the blame. Alas, another fit of insanity led to a tragic incident: Iphytus was hurled to his death from the top of the walls of the town where they are staying, Tiryns.

In his anger and disappointment, Heracles also stole the Delphic tripod, thinking he could set up his own oracle with it.

Answer: Hercules was sold to Omphale, the Queen of Lydia

While in the service of Omphale, Heracles continued his amazing feats. In one episode Heracles helped the gods kill Alkyoneus by dragging him to Thrace. Closely assisting the gods, Heracles also killed Porphyrion. Apollo, Athena, Poseidon, Hermes, Artemis, Hephaistos, ... they all had their share in the slaughtering of the remaining giants.

Another of his feats was his intervention in favour of Hesione. For this he raised an army of Greek volunteers, one of them being Telamon, the father of Ajax.

Hesione then married Telamon. With her Telamon has another child, Teucer.

Answer: Deianira

Hera knew that Zeus had fallen in love with Io, and to thwart his plans she changed Io into a cow. Argos, who was to keep 'an eye' on her, was killed by Hermes. Hera then sent a warble-fly to follow Io wherever she went. Danae was the daughter of the King of Argos.

She was locked up underground in a bronze cellar. In spite of that, Zeus managed to have intercourse with her by entering her 'prison' in the shape of golden rain. Because Cassiopeia had claimed she was prettier than the daughters of Nereus, Poseidon wanted to punish her.

He sent a sea monster that attacked her home country, Ethiopia. The sea monster would only withdraw if Cassiopeia was ready to hand over and sacrifice her daughter Andromeda.

Answer: She gave him a magic 'love-shirt ' that actually caused burning pain

The shirt has been drenched in the blood of Nessus, a centaur who tried to assault Deianira when he was ferrying her across a river, and was killed for that act by Heracles. As he was dying, Nessus made Deianira believe that his blood would work as a love-potion, but it was in fact a burning poison.

Answer: Athena, Heracles's protectress

Nectar was what Hebe served the gods to drink. Ambrosia was what they ate.

Answer: Hebe, the cupbearer of the gods

Hebe was the goddess of peace and pardon. Freed prisoners would hang their chains in the sacred grove of her sanctuary at Phlius.