From the Pyre to Olympus

Heracles is the rare mortal hero the Greeks believed had crossed fully into divinity. His death comes through the poisoned robe of the centaur Nessus, which burns his flesh unbearably; unable to die, he builds his own funeral pyre on Mount Oeta and is consumed, and from the fire is taken up to Olympus, reconciled at last with Hera and made a god. This double status made him unique in Greek cult: he received worship both as a hero, at tombs and with chthonic rites, and as an Olympian god, with the sacrifices due a deity. He was the patron of gymnasia and of the ephebes, an emblem of endurance and civilizing labour, the hero who clears the world of monsters, and the Romans, who called him Hercules, made him a favourite of emperors seeking to advertise their own toils on the state's behalf. Few figures better show the Greek sense that the boundary between the human and the divine could, through suffering and achievement, be crossed.