The tragic and the comic in the narrative construction of Hercules’ nativity: From Homer, Hesiod and Euripides to Plautus

Abstract

This article analyses the details in the myth of the hero Hercules' birth, as they appear in the play Amphitruo, attributed to the Latin playwright Plautus, in comparison with the corresponding details in other works that preceded the composition of this comedy, namely: the Iliad (attributed to Homer), the Shield of Heracles (attributed to Hesiod), Euripides' Heracles, and two painted pottery vases on display in the British Museum. With this comparative analysis, one observes that the elements presented in previous works do not harmonise with those present in Plautus' play: Hera's intervention in the Iliad does not match the absence of a Plautine Juno; Alcmena's conjunction with the fathers of her twins does not occur in the same way in the comedy as in the Shield; the hero's paternity in Euripides is not similarly treated in Plautus; and the vases indicate an attempted uxoricide that cannot be read into the Latin text. Thus, one concludes that the narrative as it is in the Amphitruo is a parodic version that subverts narrative elements from previous retellings, in order to cause laughter. Since the comedy is the version of the Herculean nativity that has become the most famous, it therefore represents a turning point in the reception of this myth, both in Antiquity as well as in Modernity.