Books by Philip Matyszak - Hercules

Hercules - the superman, the monster�slaying machine, the myth - who was the man beneath the lion-skin head-dress, and does he really live up to his legend? This unique biography tells the story of the first superhero from his traumatic birth to his dramatic death.

Hercules was more than just his twelve famous labours. He was a father, a lover, a leader of armies and a fine strategist. He was also a cattle-thief, a murderer and a rapist. Using ancient sources from early Greece to the Late Roman Empire, this detailed biography fleshes out the character of one of the most complex and flawed heroes of Greek mythology.

The inspiration for this book came when I twice in the same day came across references to Hercules in the classical sources I was using. It then occurred to me that when one put together all the references to Hercules in literature, histories and epic poetry, there was enough to assemble a complete biography.

A quick check proved that this was indeed the case. Chronologically, the sources were all over the place. The best source for the conception and first days of the hero came from the Roman playwright Plautus in around 200 BC, while some of the descriptions of his early battles were from Hesiod, writing in Greece half a millennium earlier. Playwrights such as Sophocles added their contribution, and before long, once Euripides, Diodorus Siculus and a whole bunch of others had been added I had a handy biography assembled without having had to write a word.

Of course, that's when the real work began, because some of the sources were downright contradictory, and the chronology was all over the place. Although the basic story was there, the different authors had taken huge liberties with the myth in order to tailor it to their specific purposes. (This though, is as nothing in comparison to the atrocities perpetrated by modern versions of the Hercules story.)

Nevertheless, after editing out the outliers, there remained enough of a general consensus of how the general story went for me to put it all together. The next task was to explain to a modern audience those aspects of morality and religious thought (using that term very loosely) which have become radically different over the past few thousand years. I've not tried to explain the myth in terms of semantics or textual criticism and analysis - the purpose of this book is to tell the story of Hercules so that it might be enjoyed and understood just as a person in ancient Greece or Rome might have understood it.