Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Hermes had sold Heracles to Omphale, daughter of Iardanus and queen of Lydia, for the three years the Delphic oracle prescribed as purification and compensation after the murder of Iphitus. While bound to her service Heracles did not idle: Apollodorus records a string of local suppressions that cleanse the Lydian countryside as the labors had cleansed Greece. He seized the Cercopes, mischievous twin (or brother) brigands who plagued the land—creatures of proverbial cunning whom Zeus later turned to stone, or, in other notices, whom Heracles carried off suspended from a yoke so that they could mock his black-haired rump. He killed Syleus in Aulis’s neighborhood of Asia: that man forced passers-by to dig his vineyard; Heracles, set to the same task, uprooted the vines with the spade and slew Syleus with his own hoe, then gave the place to the dead man’s daughter Xenodoce (or buried the girl when she died of grief, according to the telling). Other deeds of the servitude include the capture or killing of highwaymen and the restoration of order along the Lydian roads. When the term ended, Omphale released him; some accounts say she bore him a son (Lamus or Agelaus in later genealogies). Free again, Heracles turned west and south toward the unfinished quarrel with Troy and the wider mainland campaigns that fill the remainder of his mortal career. This file continues entry 030, which only opened the sale; the Lydian years themselves are the content here.