Son of Sthenelus the Perseid and king of Mycenae, born before Heracles by Hera's contrivance so that the lordship Zeus had sworn for the Perseid of that day fell to him; it is he who imposes the Labours upon Heracles.1
Sthenelus, son of Perseus and Andromeda, took to wife Nicippe, daughter of Pelops, and got the daughters Alcyone and Medusa and afterwards a son, Eurystheus, who reigned over Mycenae. When Heracles was about to be born, Zeus declared among the gods that the descendant of Perseus then about to come into the world would be lord over Mycenae; but Hera, out of jealousy, persuaded the Eileithyiai to hold back Alcmena's delivery and contrived that Eurystheus, though a seven-month child, should be born first — and so the kingship passed to him.2
Homer tells the same contrivance through Agamemnon's tale of Ate: Hera, exacting an oath from Zeus, announced that a valiant man was that day born to be lord over the Argives — "even Eurystheus, son of Sthenelus, the son of Perseus, of thine own lineage" — having hastened his birth and stayed Alcmena, so that the rule Zeus had sworn for the Perseid born that day belonged to Eurystheus and not to Heracles.3
So Heracles came to dwell at Tiryns and serve Eurystheus, and the king set him his tasks one after another. Twice Eurystheus refused to reckon a labour — the Lernaean hydra, because Iolaus had helped, and the cleansing of Augeas's yards — and so swelled their number. What was brought back he disposed of as a king: the cattle of Geryon he sacrificed to Hera, the man-eating mares of Diomedes he loosed, and when Cerberus was shown to him the toils were at an end.4
Apollonius gives the doom independently: as the Argonauts sought the vanished Heracles, the sea-god Glaucus rose from the deep and told them it was Heracles' fate, by the will of Zeus, to labour at Argos for insolent Eurystheus and accomplish twelve toils in full, and after them to dwell among the immortals.5
When Heracles had passed to the gods, his sons fled the wrath of Eurystheus, who demanded their surrender and made war on those who sheltered them. He was beaten, and as he fled past the Scironian cliffs he was overtaken and slain by Hyllus, son of Heracles; his head was given to Alcmena, who gouged out its eyes with her weaving-pins. After his death the Heraclids fell upon the Peloponnese.6
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
