Hyllus is the eldest son of Heracles by Deianira, daughter of Oeneus. As the hero lay dying of the poisoned shirt he charged Hyllus to marry Iole when he came of age, and in the roll of Heracles' children Hyllus stands first among the brothers Ctesippus, Glenus, and Onites.1
Heracles, poisoned by the shirt steeped in the centaur's blood, was carried in agony to Trachis; learning what she had done, Deianira hanged herself. Before he mounted the pyre on Mount Oeta, the dying hero charged Hyllus, his elder son by Deianira, to take Iole to wife when he came of age. When none would kindle the fire, Poeas, passing by in search of his flocks, set it alight and received the bow in return.2
In the catalogue of Heracles' children, Hyllus stands first of the sons borne by Deianira, daughter of Oeneus, before Ctesippus, Glenus, and Onites. Hyginus likewise opens his roll of Heracles' sons with "Hyllus by Deianira."3
When Eurystheus harried the orphaned Heraclids, his own sons fell in battle and Eurystheus himself fled in his chariot. Hyllus overtook him as he drove past the Scironian cliffs and slew him, then cut off his head and gave it to Alcmena, who gouged out the dead king's eyes with her weaving-pins.4
Pausanias preserves a rival tradition of the persecutor's end: on the road near Megara stands the tomb of Eurystheus, who, the story goes, fled from Attica after the battle with the Heraclids and was killed there not by Hyllus but by Iolaus.5
Hyllus married Iole as his father had commanded and sought to bring the Heraclids home. He inquired at Delphi how they should return, and the god answered that they should await the third crop; but Hyllus took the third crop to mean three years, and after that span he marched with his army into the Peloponnese.6
The premature Return failed. In the reign of Echemus, son of Aeropus, king of the Arcadians, the Dorians attempting to return under Hyllus were turned back by the Achaeans, and Echemus the Tegean killed Hyllus, who had challenged him to single combat. Pausanias sets the duel at the boundary between Megara and Corinth and Hyllus' tomb on the road by Megara; the true Return would wait for his descendants in a later generation.7
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