Heraclidae at Athens: Death of Eurystheus

Catalogue ID: 03-heroes/191-heraclidae-athens-eurystheus-death-apollodorus

Cycle: Heroes — Heraclidae / Attic asylum

Version line: Apollodorean / Euripidean (*Heraclidae*) — Attic refuge and Eurystheus’s end

Sources: Apollodorus, *Library* 2.8.1; Euripides, *Heraclidae*; Pausanias 1.32.6, 1.44.10; Strabo 8.6.19

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/03-heroes/191-heraclidae-athens-eurystheus-death-apollodorus.md

Characters

Demophon — grant asylum
Heracles — persecutor; slain or executed in Attica
Hyllus — children/descendants of Heracles as suppliants
Iolaus — companion; rejuvenated helper in another
Macaria — daughter who volunteers sacrifice in Euripides

Places

Marathonian Tetrapolis — alternate refuge in some tellings
Mycenae — Eurystheus’s seat
Rhamnus — asylum and battlefield
Scironian Road — tomb traditions (Pausanias)

Themes

Narrative

After Heracles’ death, Eurystheus pursued the hero’s children. The Heraclidae—led in tragic tradition by Iolaus and sheltered by Alcmene—fled to Athens (or Marathonian Tetrapolis). Athens granted asylum; Eurystheus invaded Attica. In battle he was defeated: Hyllus killed him in some accounts; in others Iolaus, miraculously rejuvenated for a day, took him; Euripides’ *Heraclidae* has him captured and denied burial at Alcmene’s insistence, his body cast to dogs, while Attic local tradition pointed to his tomb near the Scironian Road or at Gargettus/Macaria’s spring associations. The episode is Athens’s charter myth of protecting suppliant Heraclids against Argive tyranny—distinct from the later “return” under Temenus that conquers the Peloponnese (03/108).