Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

On the road to Nemea Heracles lodges with Molorchus, a poor man of Cleonae. Mice or vermin plague the household in Callimachus’s witty aetiology; Heracles helps, then goes against the lion. Molorchus prepares to sacrifice: if Heracles returns within thirty days, the offering will honor Zeus the Savior (or the hero); if not, it will be chthonic rites for the dead. Heracles kills the invulnerable lion, returns in time, and the sacrifice becomes thanksgiving—founding, in Callimachus’s learned frame, a pattern of Nemean/Cleonaean cult memory. Apollodorus’s labor summary passes Cleonae as the approach-route; Callimachus supplies the named host and the delayed-sacrifice plot. Catalogue Molorchus’s hospitality and the timed offering apart from the lion-fight itself.