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TheShield of Heracles (Ancient Greek:Ἀσπὶς Ἡρακλέους,Aspis Hērakleous) is anarchaicGreekepic poem that was attributed toHesiod during antiquity. The subject of the poem is the expedition ofHeracles andIolaus againstCycnus, the son ofAres, who challenged Heracles to combat as Heracles was passing throughThessaly. It is generally dated from the end of the 7th to the middle of the 6th century BCE.[1]
It has been suggested that this epic might reflect anti-Thessalian feeling after theFirst Sacred War (595–585 BCE): in the epic, a Thessalian hero interfering with thePhociansanctuary is killed by a Boeotian hero (Heracles), whose mortal fatherAmphitryon had for alliesLocrians and Phocians. This was apastiche made to be sung at a Boeotian festival at midsummer at the hottest time of the dogstarSirios.[2]
To serve as an introduction, fifty-six lines have been taken from the HesiodicCatalogue of Women. The late 3rd- and early 2nd-century BCE criticAristophanes of Byzantium, who considered theCatalogue to be the work of Hesiod, noted the borrowing, which led him to suspect that theShield was spurious.[3]
CompareVirgil's "shield of Aeneas" (Aeneid viii.617–731) and the much briefer description of Crenaeus' shield inThebaid ix.332–338.Marcus Mettius Epaphroditus wrote a commentary on theShield of Heracles in the 1st century CE.
The poem takes its cue from the extended description of the shield of Achilles inIliad xviii, from which it borrows directly, with a single word altered:
ἐν δ' Ἔρις ἐν δὲ Κυδοιμὸςὁμίλεον, ἐν δ' ὀλοὴ Κήρ
ἄλλον ζωὸν ἔχουσα νεούτατον, ἄλλον ἄουτον,
ἄλλον τεθνηῶτα κατὰ μόθον ἕλκε ποδοῖιν·
εἷμα δ' ἔχ' ἀμφ' ὤμοισι δαφοινεὸν αἵματι φωτῶν.
Upon it Strife, upon it Uproarjoined battle, upon it baneful Death,
holding one freshly wounded, another unwounded,
another she dragged dead through the battle by the foot:
she wore around her shoulders a garment red with the gore of men.
ἐν δ' Ἔρις, ἐν δὲ Κυδοιμὸςἐθύνεον, ἐν δ' ὀλοὴ Κὴρ
ἄλλον ζωὸν ἔχουσα νεούτατον, ἄλλον ἄουτον,
ἄλλον τεθνηῶτα κατὰ μόθον ἕλκε ποδοῖιν·
εἷμα δ' ἔχ' ἀμφ' ὤμοισι δαφοινεὸν αἵματι φωτῶν,
Upon it Strife, upon it Uproarrushed, upon it baneful Death,
holding one freshly wounded, another unwounded,
another she dragged dead through the battle by the foot:
she wore around her shoulders a garment red with the gore of men.
TheIliad gives just enough detail for its hearers to marvel atHephaestus' workmanship. TheShield of Heracles makes heavier use of description:
The round shield's "whole orb shimmered with enamel and white ivory and electrum, and it glowed with shining gold; and there were zones of cyanus drawn upon it."Cyanus denotes a blue low-fired glass-paste or smalt. At the center was a mask of Fear (Phobos) with the staring eyes and teeth of agorgon. Though Achilles' shield has nothing about it that might mar its function, the shield of Heracles is atour de force of high relief: the vineyard has "shivering leaves and stakes of silver" and the snake heads "would clash their teeth when Amphitryon's son was fighting" and in the ocean vignette the "fishes of bronze were trembling." As for "the horsemanPerseus: his feet did not touch the shield and yet were not far from it—very marvellous to remark, since he was not supported anywhere; for so did the famousLame One fashion him of gold with his hands."
The extravagant description seems to have encouragedrhapsodes to contribute their interpolations, which have been identified and teased apart by modern scholarship.[4] Some similes may strike the careful listener as infelicitous, such as the contrast of glowering with fierce action in "fiercely he stared, like a lion who has come upon a body and full eagerly rips the hide with his strong claws..."
The popularity of theShield of Heracles in 6th-century BCE Athens may be assessed from instances where H. A. Shapiro detected its presence inAttic vase-painting betweenca 565 andca 480 BCE.[5] Acalyx-krater byEuphronios depicting the minor episode of Heracles' combat with the Thessalian brigandKyknos occasioned Shapiro's examination of the myth's creative reworking among Attic vase-painters, who based their imagery of Heracles' shield on the literary model. The likelihood of both oral and literary transmission during the same time is noted by Janko (1986:40).
TheShield of Heracles was first printed, included with the complete works of Hesiod, byAldus Manutius, in Venice, 1495; the text was fromByzantine manuscripts. In modern times severalpapyri have offered sections of the text, notably a 1st-century papyrus in Berlin (Berlin Papyri, 9774), a 2nd-century papyrus fromOxyrhynchus (Oxyrhynchus Papyri 689), and the 4th-century Rainer Papyrus (L.P. 21–29) at Vienna. There are numerous texts from the 12th to the 15th century.
Works related toShield of Herakles at Wikisource
The Shield of Heracles public domain audiobook atLibriVox| Extant poems |  | |
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| Fragmentary poems | ||
