But born with his father’s superhuman strength, the infant strangles them. So, even when he is just a baby, Hera sends snakes into his crib to poison him. Because Heracles is the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene, Hera greatly resents him. Hera, queen of the gods and unhappy wife to Zeus, is Heracles’ enemy throughout his story. And then, moving past myth, we’ve also included Heracles’ deification and his worship as a god.

We’ve put together the most popular tellings of Heracles’ Twelve Labours, as well as what led our hero to perform these death-defying feats. Later writers collated and refined these, and ended up with the classic twelve. Heracles as a mythological figure had already been around for millennia before the classical Greek period, and there were countless stories about him, albeit with lots of overlap. The hero is iconic for his Twelve Labours, but this version is actually an invention of later writers. Heracles is the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene – considered to be the most beautiful and wise woman of her time. He features in many myths and plays, and various monsters in Greek mythology are created specifically to battle the heroic demi-god. Heracles (also known as Herakles and Hercules) is the most important hero in Greek mythology.

Is hercules son of zeus and hera