Heracles

Heracles, born Alcaeus or Alcides, was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene and foster son of Amphitryon. Renowned as the greatest of the Greek heroes, he served as champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters and became the ancestor of the Heracleidae, royal clans that claimed descent from him. His mythology centered on the Twelve Labors, feats that established his fame across the Mediterranean and made him a figure of extraordinary cultural endurance. Unlike other Greek heroes, no tomb was identified as his, reflecting his unique status as both hero and god, what Pindar called heros theos. In Rome and the modern West, he was known as Hercules, with whom Roman emperors including Commodus and Maximian often identified themselves. The core of his myth has been traced to Neolithic hunter culture and shamanistic traditions of the netherworld, though the possibility that the myths originated with real individuals whose deeds became exaggerated has also been proposed.

The attributes of Heracles became instantly recognizable across ancient and later art. His most distinctive attribute was the impenetrable hide of the Nemean Lion, which he wore as armor after strangling the beast with his bare hands, its head serving as his helmet. He carried an olive-wood club and later a bow and quiver, with arrows dipped in the Hydra's poisonous blood. These weapons and the lion skin carried layered meanings: the club represented raw strength, the bow the cunning of the hunter, and the lion skin invincibility. The myth of Heracles at the crossroads, first attested in the Sophist Prodikos's telling, presented him choosing between Virtue and Pleasure, making him an emblem of moral deliberation. His dual nature as hero and god, his suffering and apotheosis, gave artists a rich vocabulary of human struggle and divine transcendence. The milk that spilled from Hera's breast when she cast away the infant Heracles, forming the Milky Way, provided another potent image of his semi-divine origin.

The treatment of Heracles evolved significantly across cultures and periods. In Greek art of the Archaic and Classical periods, he appeared as a bearded, muscular figure, often in combat with monsters or in the hero-reliefs that celebrated his apotheosis. The painters during the time of Peisistratos frequently presented Heracles entering Olympus, reflecting his integration into the Olympian pantheon. Hellenistic poets elevated his mythology into high poetic and tragic atmosphere, while Roman art emphasized his identification with imperial power, as emperors from Commodus onward claimed him as an ancestor and model. In the Renaissance and Baroque, artists returned to the full narrative cycle of his labors and to allegorical interpretations, as seen in the collection's Allegory on Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. The Baroque period particularly favored dramatic moments of physical exertion and emotional intensity, while also developing the erotic and domestic episodes such as his submission to Omphale. Across these periods, his figure served variously as model of virtue, exemplar of physical strength, and vehicle for political legitimation.

Among the canonical depictions represented in the collection, The Origin of the Milky Way stands out for its treatment of the infancy narrative, in which Athena brings the infant Heracles to Hera's breast, or alternatively in which Hera discovers him nursing. The Labors of Hercules would constitute a major narrative cycle, while individual works such as Hercules, Deianira, and Nessus address the tragic conclusion of his mortal life, when the centaur Nessus's blood-soaked tunic poisons him. Hercules at the Crossroads represents the moral allegory that had particular appeal in Renaissance and later art. The game piece with Hercules Slaying the Three-Headed Geryon demonstrates how his iconography penetrated even small-scale decorative and functional objects. The Nude Warrior with a Spear may represent Heracles in one of his martial aspects, while Hercules Separates Mounts Calpe and Abylla refers to his creation of the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, a feat that connected him with the limits of the known world.

The legacy of Heracles extends far beyond classical antiquity into continuous artistic and cultural reception. His cult persisted through the absorption of local figures and traditions, and he remained constantly invoked as a patron, especially for young men and in military contexts, presiding over gymnasiums and the training of ephebes. The royal house of Macedonia claimed descent from him for purposes of divine protection and political legitimation, a model later adopted by Roman emperors. After the 4th century BCE, he became identified with the Phoenician god Melqart, demonstrating his capacity to bridge cultures. In the modern era, his labors became a standard subject for artistic cycles, his moral choice at the crossroads a philosophical commonplace, and his name and attributes a persistent reference for heroism. The very number of works in the collection, 147, testifies to his enduring hold on the artistic imagination across millennia.