Hyllus
Hyllus, the son of Heracles and Deianira, received a dying father's final instruction. He was to marry Iole, a captive woman whom Heracles had loved, when he came of age. That command was personal. The other thing his father left him was political. Three kingdoms, which Zeus had intended for Heracles, were now held by a rival. The oracle at Delphi would eventually tell Hyllus how to recover them. What the oracle said, and what it actually meant, would not turn out to be the same thing.
Hera's interference had deflected what Zeus planned for Heracles. Eurystheus, the king of Mycenae, ended up holding Argos, Lacedaemon, and Messenian Pylos.
After Heracles died, his children wandered for years, unable to settle anywhere Eurystheus could reach. Athens finally gave them shelter.
Eurystheus demanded Athens hand the children over. Athens refused. He attacked. He was defeated and killed.
With Eurystheus dead, the immediate danger had lifted, but the three kingdoms remained in other hands.
Hyllus and his brothers invaded Peloponnesus directly. A pestilence struck after a year and forced them out. They retreated to Thessaly.
In Thessaly they found Aegimius, the legendary ancestor of the Dorian people. Heracles had once assisted Aegimius in a war against the Lapidae. In return, Aegimius formally adopted Hyllus and granted him a third of his territory.
When Aegimius died, his sons Pamphylus and Dymas chose to submit to Hyllus rather than contest his authority. Hyllus became ruler of the Dorian people. The three branches of that people took their names from him, from Pamphylus, and from Dymas.
Herodotus, in book five, preserved a Dorian tradition with a striking note: Hyllus was, by blood, actually an Achaean. A man of Achaean descent had become ruler of a Dorian people, holding that authority by adoption rather than birth.
What remained was the question of the three kingdoms his father had never ruled. For that answer, Hyllus turned to Delphi.
Hyllus asked the oracle at Delphi when he might reclaim his paternal inheritance. The oracle's answer came in two cryptic parts: wait for 'the third fruit,' and enter Peloponnesus through 'a narrow passage by sea.'
Hyllus understood both instructions literally. Three years passed. He led his army across the isthmus of Corinth toward Atreus, the successor of Eurystheus as ruler of Peloponnesus.
Before the battle could be decided, Echemus, the king of Tegea, faced Hyllus in single combat. Hyllus lost. He was killed.
Hyllus died having fulfilled his father's personal request. Iole had become his wife. Together they had a son, Cleodaeus, and three daughters: Evaechme, Aristaechme, and Hyllis. Cleodaeus now carried the family's unfinished claim.
Cleodaeus led the third attempt to take Peloponnesus. It failed. His son Aristomachus led the fourth. That also failed.
Aristomachus left three sons: Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus. They returned to the oracle at Delphi and complained that its instructions had proved fatal to every generation that trusted them.
The oracle replied that the fault lay in the interpretation. 'The third fruit' had never meant three years; it had meant the third generation. 'The narrow passage by sea' was not the isthmus of Corinth; it was the straits of Rhium.
The sons of Aristomachus built a fleet at Naupactus and prepared to sail. Before they could leave, Aristodemus was killed. Different traditions say he was struck by lightning or shot by Apollo. The fleet itself was also destroyed.
The oracle gave the reason: one of the Heracleidae had murdered an Acarnanian soothsayer. Three things were required to make amends: an expiatory sacrifice, a ten-year banishment for the killer, and a guide with three eyes.
On the road back to Naupactus, Temenus encountered Oxylus, an Aetolian who had lost one eye, riding a horse. Together the man and his horse supplied the three eyes the oracle had described. Temenus pressed him into service. A different version of the story gave Oxylus a one-eyed mule rather than a horse.
The sacrifice was offered, the killer sent away, and the repaired fleet waited at Naupactus for the crossing.
The fleet sailed from Naupactus to Antirrhium, and from there to Rhium on the Peloponnesian shore. Waiting for them was Tisamenus, the son of Orestes and the chief ruler in the peninsula.
Tisamenus was defeated and killed in the battle that followed.
Argos, Lacedaemon, and Messene fell to the victors by lot. Argos went to Temenus. Lacedaemon went to Procles and Eurysthenes, the twin sons of Aristodemus. Messene went to Cresphontes. Elis had been set aside for Oxylus by a prior agreement with the Heracleidae.
The conquest received the name the Return of the Heracleidae. It was understood in tradition as the recovery of what Zeus had originally planned.
The Heracleidae held the throne of Lacedaemon until 221 BC. That made them the most enduring dynasty in Peloponnesus; in every other territory, Heracleid rule ended earlier.
Neither Homer nor Hesiod mentions Hyllus or the Heracleidae's return to Peloponnesus.
Herodotus, in book six, noted that poets had celebrated the deeds of the Heracleidae. Those poems, however, reached only as far as the events immediately following Heracles' own death.
The Greek tragedians were the first to give the full story its shape, drawing on local legends preserved across Peloponnesus.
Those legends gave the city of Athens credit for sheltering the children of Heracles. They also gave the Dorian ruling families a claim to heroic descent through the same line.
Aetolians and Dorians were the real peoples behind the invasion, in the historical reading of the myth. The Dorians had been driven south from an original northern homeland by pressure from the Thessalians.
Hyllus's first march and his death at Tegea set the unfinished question that the Heracleidae carried across generations. The oracle he first consulted at Delphi gave an answer that only the sons of Aristomachus could finally read correctly.
Common questions
Who was Hyllus in Greek mythology?
Hyllus was a son of Heracles and Deianira, and the husband of Iole. Heracles charged him on his deathbed to marry Iole, and together they had a son named Cleodaeus and three daughters: Evaechme, Aristaechme, and Hyllis. Hyllus led the first attempt by the Heracleidae to reclaim the kingdoms Zeus had intended for Heracles.
How did Hyllus die in Greek mythology?
Hyllus was killed in single combat by Echemus, the king of Tegea. He had marched his army across the isthmus of Corinth to attack Atreus, the ruler of Peloponnesus, when Echemus faced him one-on-one and defeated him before the larger battle could be decided.
What did the oracle at Delphi tell Hyllus about reclaiming his inheritance?
The oracle told Hyllus to wait for 'the third fruit' and enter Peloponnesus through 'a narrow passage by sea.' Hyllus interpreted this as three years and the isthmus of Corinth, and was killed when he acted on that reading. Generations later, the oracle clarified that 'the third fruit' meant the third generation, and the narrow passage was the straits of Rhium, not the isthmus.
Who were the three Dorian tribes named after Hyllus?
The three branches of the Dorian people took their names from Hyllus, Pamphylus, and Dymas. Pamphylus and Dymas were the sons of Aegimius, who adopted Hyllus and granted him a third of his territory. Herodotus recorded, in book five, a Dorian tradition holding that Hyllus was actually an Achaean by blood.
Who were the children of Hyllus and Iole?
Hyllus and Iole had a son named Cleodaeus and three daughters: Evaechme, Aristaechme, and Hyllis. Cleodaeus later led the third attempt to reclaim Peloponnesus, following the earlier efforts by Hyllus and his brothers.
What was the Return of the Heracleidae and how did it connect to Hyllus?
The Return of the Heracleidae was the successful conquest of Peloponnesus by Hyllus's descendants, completed generations after his own failed attempt. The victors divided the peninsula by lot: Argos went to Temenus, Lacedaemon to Procles and Eurysthenes, and Messene to Cresphontes. The Heracleidae held the throne of Lacedaemon until 221 BC.
All sources
5 references cited across the entry
- 2BookA History of the Archaic Greek world : ca. 1200-479 BCEJonathan M. Hall — Wiley-Blackwell — 2014
- 4The Histories, Book 6, chapter 52Herodotus