Hyllus Marries Iole

Catalogue ID: 03-heroes/238-hyllus-marries-iole-sophocles-apollodorus

Cycle: Heroes — Heracles aftermath / Trachiniae close / Heraclid marriage

Version line: Sophoclean / Apollodorean — dying Heracles exacts Hyllus’s marriage to Iole

Sources: Sophocles, *Trachiniae* 1219–1258; Apollodorus, *Library* 2.7.7–8; Diodorus 4.37–38

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/03-heroes/238-hyllus-marries-iole-sophocles-apollodorus.md

Characters

Ajax — dying; exacts the marriage oath
Deianeira — dead mother whose jealousy frames Hyllus’s horror (background)
Hyllus — son; reluctant bridegroom under oath
Iole — captive of Oechalia; assigned bride

Places

Oechalia — Iole’s origin (background)
Pleuron — scene of the command

Themes

Marriage

Narrative

On the pyre-road from Trachis, Heracles—consumed by the Nessus-robe’s poison—binds his son Hyllus by oath: after the pyre, Hyllus must take Iole, the Oechalian captive for whom Deianeira’s jealousy began, as his wife. Hyllus recoils at wedding his father’s concubine while the house still reeks of Deianeira’s suicide and Heracles’ agony; Heracles insists the marriage is piety and command, not desire. Hyllus yields under the oath. Apollodorus and later mythographers treat the union as historical for the Heraclid line: Iole bears a son (e.g. Cleodaeus in some stems) linking Oechalia’s captive into the Return genealogy. Catalogue the marriage-command apart from the robe, Lichas’s death, and the Oeta fire itself.