What Makes Hercules One of The Most Significant Greek Heroic Characters

Hercules is considered one of the greatest demigod greek heros to have ever existed, according to scholars. But why is this true? Isn’t Hercules the “hero” who brutally slaughtered his beautiful wife and children as well as being an alcoholic? There are many factors other than his sad past that are the reason he is the greatest hero ever to exist within greek writings and myths

Hercules is considered one of the greatest gods because of his extreme cleverity and how he was able to quickly think of solutions to complete his 12 tasks that were impossible for a mortal human. One example of his incredible skill is when he found out how to kill the 12 headed hydra that grew 2 more heads for every head chopped off. He got his friend to hold torches to the neck of every head he chopped off to keep the head from growing back. Then after he finished that, he put the hydra under a huge and heavy rock. This prevented it from harming any other human and he completed his task. Another example of this is how he completed cleaning the infinite stalls from livestock and cattle manure as one of his tasks. He knew he could never do it by cleaning up a pile at a time, so he flushed the stalls out by using the river and completed this task.

Another reason that proves Hercules superiority is his godly strength and physical attributes that many of us know him by. His strength had been used in every one of the 12 tasks he was forced to do and without it he would have never completed them. For example, he was able to wrestle a huge lion that was not affected by weapons and was feared by all other humans. He killed it by choking it out and completed his task. Without his strength he would have been doomed. He had also used his physical superiority to move an entire river to flush and clean out the cattle stables.

Finally, he was very resilient. He stayed sane throughout the tasks and didn’t give up. When he was faced with each challenge, he thought he wouldn’t be able to complete them yet he still found ways to complete every single one. An average human would have not been able to have done these tasks because they are mentally, and physically impossible for us to endure. His tasks were inhumane to him yet he seemed numbed to the strain that he was encountering. He never went insane.

In conclusion, He is the greatest hero to have ever existed in greek mythology. And despite Hercules having mercilessly slaughtered his family, he will always be known and scholars can agree that Hercules was the greatest hero to exist, even surpassing Achilles, the immortal warrior who took the glorious and powerful troy down with trickery and skill.