Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Myths and Legends: Heracles and the Amazons

Heracles and the Amazons. To find out more about Heracles and the Amazons, see this Wikipedia article: link; for information about the image: image source.

Ares, the god of war, had given a belt to Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, and for his ninth labor, Heracles had to obtain the belt and bring it back to King Eurystheus, who had promised it to his daughter. At first, Hippolyta was willing to give the belt to Heracles, but Hera stirred up trouble (no surprise!), which led to a confrontation between Heracles and the Amazon warrior women. Heracles killed Hippolyta in order to obtain the belt, which he brought back to King Eurystheus. There are various versions of the story; you can read more at Wikipedia.

You can also find more myths and legends for the week of June 24-30 here. For more information and links to the actual javascript code, see the Myths & Legends Widget Reference Page.