Shownotes Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video we're going to explore an interesting question, which is whether Hercules was stronger than the gods or, at the very least, possessed the strength of a god. Of course, Hercules did ascend to godhood at the end of his life. His accomplishments were so awe-inspiring and his suffering so profound that the gods granted him this honor. But we're not concerned with the version of Hercules that achieved immortality; our focus is Hercules as he was when he roamed the earth performing all manner of heroics while the frailty of mortality still permeated his flesh. We're going to unpack this question by looking at 5 times Hercules found himself at odds with gods or beings with god-like strength. You can expect a wrestling match against Thanatos, the god of death, a stint of holding the heavens aloft on one's shoulders, a scuffle with Apollo, a serious wound suffered by Hades, the lord of the underworld, and a war against the giants, a monstrous race boasting god-like power.Let's get into it. Starting us off is the time Hercules wounded Hades.This exchange doesn't quite illuminate Hercules' strength to the same degree as the subsequent entries do, but nonetheless, he does wound Hades, one of the most powerful gods in Greek mythology, even if it is at range with bow and arrow. In the Iliad, there's a passage that described Hades and Hercules pitted against each other because they supported opposing sides when the city of Pylos was besieged. Here's the passage: "the son of thunder-shielded Zeus. . .shot. . .[Hades] in Pylos - there with the troops of battle dead - and surrendered death to pain. But Hades made his way to craggy Olympus, climbed to the house of Zeus, stabbed with agony, grief-struck to the heart, the shaft driven into his massive shoulder grinding down his spirit ... But the healer applied his pain-killing drugs and sealed Hades' wound - he was not born to die. Following this, we have Hercules' involvement in the Gigantomachy, which was the war between the gods and the giants, a formidable race - though technically not immortal - possessing god-like power. Hercules was instrumental to the Gods defeating the giants. You see, none of the giants could die unless they suffered damage from a mortal, so each fight between one of the giants and one of the gods was punctuated by Hercules shooting a couple of arrows at them, much like you would pump a couple of extra silver bullets into a vampire or werewolf after they were brought down . Each fallen giant bristled with at least a couple of Hercules' arrow shafts. But beyond serving as a sort of Kryptonite used to deliver killing blows, Hercules also joined the fray, fighting in the thick of it, using his prodigious strength. Alcyoneus, one of the two most powerful giants, was even more resilient than the rest of his ilk. Not only did his death require grievous harm inflicted by a mortal, but he also could not die while his feet touched ground in his homeland. Hercules pincushioned him with arrows, but when the giant fell to earth, he was reinvigorated by the land of his birth; so Hercules used his incredible strength to manhandle the giant beyond the boundaries of Pallene, where death finally took him.