Iolaos

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Iolaos holds Heracles' arrows. Attic black-figure lekythos . Edinburgh painter , around 500 BC. Chr.

Iolaos ( Greek  Ἰόλαος ) is in Greek mythology the son of Iphicles and Automedusa and nephew of Heracles . In some versions he is also his younger brother. He is Heracles' companion and charioteer. He took part in the Calydonian hunt for the wild boar and in the Argonaut procession. He assisted Heracles in various of his twelve works , particularly in the fight against the Hydra .

He won the Olympic Games as a charioteer and after Heracles' death, in whose memory he built a burial mound, he was the protector and adviser of his children. In her defense against Eurystheus he fell. Euripides and Plutarch describe him as the lover of Heracles. Heracles gave Iolaos his ex-wife Megara as his wife after he madly killed their three children.

In his honor, the Iolaeia was celebrated in Thebes with sacrifices and horse races.

On TV

Iolaos is one of the main characters in the television series Hercules and The Young Hercules . He is portrayed by Michael Hurst and Dean O'Gorman .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Libraries of Apollodor 2, 4, 11, 7
  2. ^ Hyginus , Fabulae 173
  3. Plutarch, Erotikos 761d; Pelopidas 18.4
  4. Libraries of Apollodor 2,6,1; Diodorus 4.31

Web links

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