Macaria, daughter of Heracles and Deianira, freely gave herself to death when an oracle demanded that one of Heracles' children die a willing death for victory; the spring at Marathon was named for her.1
Her story belongs to the aftermath of Heracles' passing. When the hero had finished his grievous toils, he was made immortal: in snowy Olympus he took to wife neat-ankled Hebe, child of great Zeus and golden-shod Hera, and thereafter lived among the undying gods, untroubled and unaging all his days. So Hesiod sings of the deified father whose children Macaria would not outlive in cowardice.2
Apollodorus gives the same passage from man to god, and adds who kindled it. Dying of the Nessus-shirt's poison, Heracles charged Hyllus to wed Iole, built a pyre on Mount Oeta, and bade it lit; when no one would, Poeas, passing by in search of his flocks, set the light to it, and a cloud bore Heracles up. So he obtained immortality, and being reconciled to Hera he married her daughter Hebe. With the father gone to heaven, his children were left to the malice of Eurystheus.3
Pausanias supplies the frame of Macaria's death. When Heracles left Tiryns in flight from Eurystheus, he went to live with his friend Ceyx, king of Trachis; and when Heracles departed this life, Eurystheus demanded the surrender of his children. The king of Trachis, too weak to shield them, sent them on to Athens, where Theseus had power enough to protect them. Their coming as suppliants kindled, for the first time, war between Peloponnesians and Athenians, Theseus refusing to give up the refugees at Eurystheus's demand.4
Then an oracle was given the Athenians: one of the children of Heracles must die a voluntary death, or victory could not be theirs. Thereupon Macaria, daughter of Deianira and Heracles, slew herself, and so gave to the Athenians victory in the war and to the spring at Marathon her own name. Pausanias alone among our seven authors names her and tells of her willing death and her parentage from Heracles and Deianira.5
Apollodorus's own catalogue of the children Heracles had by Deianira lists Hyllus, Ctesippus, Glenus, and Onites; no Macaria stands among them, so her parentage rests on the single Pausanian witness.6
Apollodorus tells the same persecution without the willing victim. After the apotheosis the sons of Heracles fled Eurystheus, came first to Ceyx, and then, hard pressed, took refuge as suppliants at the altar of Mercy in Athens. The Athenians refused to surrender them and went to war; Eurystheus was defeated and, pursued, was slain by Hyllus as he drove past the Scironian cliffs. Here Eurystheus is the constant adversary of the line, but no oracle and no Macaria appear — her sacrifice is the Pausanian tradition alone.7
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
