refused ... a response: because he was denied by the murder, see further P. 10. 13. 4.

the Cercopes: two brothers who robbed passers-by; for details we have to rely on late sources. According to Zenobius 5. 10, they had been warned by their mother to beware of the ‘Black-Bottomed One’ (Melampygos). When they tried to rob Heracles, he hung them by their feet from either end of a pole, and they saw too late that his bottom, where it was not covered by the lion’s skin, was black because of the thickness of the hair. They laughed, and when Heracles asked why and he learned the reason, he was amused and released them.

in his vineyard: added for clarity, cf. DS 4. 31. 7; he killed Syleus with his own mattock.

the body of Icaros: see pp. 140 f.

the voyage to Colchis: the voyage of the Argonauts; for the tradition on Heracles’ involvement, see p. 51 and note.

the hunt. . . from Troezen: since Meleager was killed after the hunt, p. 41, this is irreconcilable with the tradition that Heracles met him in Hades during his final labour, p. 84; and likewise, if Heracles brought Theseus up from Hades, Theseus could hardly have performed his earliest feat (of clearing the Isthmus of malefactors, see pp. 138 f.) at this later period.

he sailed against Ilion: known to Homer, Il. 5. 640 ff. (where he remarks on the small size of the expedition, with only six ships; although it is three times larger here, it is still far smaller than the later expedition, cf. p. 148). For the reason for Heracles’ attack, see p. 79.

to Heracles the Noble Victor: Kallinikos, thus explaining a cultic title of Heracles as a hero who could overcome and avert evil.

Priam: according to this etymology, the name of the king of Troy during the great Trojan War was derived from priamai, to buy.

Hera sent violent storms: see Il. 14. 249 ff. and 15. 24 ff.

suspended her from Olympos: with two anvils hanging from her feet, and her hands tied with a golden band, Il. 15. 18–20. See also p. 31 and note.

mar against the Giants: see pp. 34 f.

against Augeias: who had refused to pay the agreed fee when Heracles cleared his stables, p. 76. Heracles now embarks on a series of campaigns in the Peloponnese, before his final campaigns in northern Greece.

Eurytos and Cteatos: at Il. 2. 621, Homer gives their names, and calls them the Actoriones after their father, but at 11. 709, the two Moliones, apparently after their mother. At Il. 23. 641 they are said to be twins, but there is no indication that they are joined together. See also Pind. ol. 10. 26 ff. (where they are separate). Their depiction as ‘Siamese’ twins may have its origin in Hes. Cat. (see fr. 18).

set an ambush: a highly dubious action because they were protected by a religious truce at such a time (cf. P. 5. 2. If, where we are told that the Eleans demanded satisfaction, and when none was offered, boycotted the Isthmian Games ever afterwards).

recalled Phyleus: the son of Augeias who had been exiled for supporting Heracles, p. 76.

an altar of Pelops: this seems inappropriate, because Pelops was a hero rather than a god; in P. 5. 13. 1 ff., the sanctuary of Pelops is said to have contained not an altar but a pit, into which annual sacrifices of a black ram were made, in the rite befitting the heroized dead.

marched against Pylos: on sandy Pylos and Periclymenos, see p. 45 and notes; for the cause of the war, p. 85 and note. The story explains why Nestor alone represented the sons of Neleus at Troy, cf. Il. 11. 690 ff.

Hades, who came to the aid of the Pylians: but see Il. 5. 395–7, Heracles struck him ‘amongst the dead’; he was thus collecting the dead, cf. Pind. ol. 9. 33 ff., rather than fighting in the battle. Ap.’s account reflects a later misunderstanding. Heracles is said to have wounded Hera also ( Il. 5. 392; and Ares in Hes. Shield357 ff).

the son of Licymnios: Oionos (P. 3. 15. 4f.), said to have been the first Olympic victor in the foot-race (Pind. ol. 10. 64 ff). Licymnios, who went into exile with Amphitryon, p. 69, was the half-brother of Heracles’ mother, so Heracles was bound to avenge the murder of his son. This campaign is important dynastically because it caused Tyndareus to be restored to the Spartan throne. According to Pausanias, Heracles attacked at once in a fury, but was wounded and withdrew (3. 15. 5), and returned later with an army after he had been cured by Asclepios (3. 19. 7).

raped Auge . . . the daughter o/Aleos: Aleos was king of Tegea, and founder of the temple of Athene Alea (P. 8. 4. 8). The tradition is complex and contradictory; Ap. follows the Tegean temple legend, in which Heracles raped Auge by a fountain north of the temple, P. 8. 47. 4, as against the tradition in which he fathered the child in Asia Minor on the way to Troy (e.g. Hes. Cat. fr. 165). In another version of the Tegean story, the birth of Telephos resulted from a love affair (P. 8. 4. 8 f., after Hecataeus) rather than a rape.

by a plague: because of Auge’s sacrilegious use of the sacred precinct. When Ap. refers to this episode again on p. 116, he says that the sacrilege caused the land to become barren; Wagner’s suggestion that the original reading here was limoi, by a famine, rather than loimoi, by a plague, is quite plausible.

Telephos: the name is explained as a combination of thele(teat) and elaphos(deer).

Deianeira, the daughter of Oineus: see also p. 40; she was the sister of Meleager, who is said to have suggested the marriage to Heracles when they met in Hades (Bacch. 5. 165 ff., cf. sc. Il. 21. 194).

wrestled with Acheloos: strictly a river (the largest in Greece, flowing along the Acarnanian frontier of Aetolia for part of its course, and thus no great distance from Calydon), but river gods were thought to manifest themselves in the form of a bull. See also p. 113 and note.

that of Amaltheia: the cornucopia. Here Amaltheia is the nymph who fed the infant Zeus on milk from her goat (as against the goat itself on p. 28, cf. Hyg. PA13 for both versions). According to Zenobius, 2. 48, Zeus turned the goat into a constellation in gratitude, but gave one of its horns to the nymphs who had cared for him, endowing it with the power to produce whatever they wished; in that case, Amaltheia’s horn would not be a bull’s horn as stated here. DS 4. 35. 4 offers a rationalized account identifying it with the horn broken from Acheloos.