In Greek mythology, Omphale was a queen (or princess) of the kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor. She is best known as the mistress and master of the hero Heracles during a period of required servitude that he served to expiate the murder of Iphitus. Diodorus Siculus gives the first full literary treatment of the Omphale theme, though Aeschylus already knew the episode; the Greeks did not regard her as a goddess. The tradition that Heracles wore women's clothing and spun wool while Omphale donned his lion skin and club is largely a later Hellenistic and Roman elaboration.
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I.Family
According to Diodorus Siculus, Omphale was the daughter of Iardanus. The mythographer Apollodorus names her father as Iardanes and identifies her as the wife of Tmolus, a king of Lydia from whom she inherited the throne.
II.Heracles and Omphale
Heracles (identified by the Romans as Hercules) inadvertently murdered Iphitus of Oechalia. As penalty, commanded by the Delphic Oracle Xenoclea, he was remanded as a slave to Omphale for the period of a year, with compensation to be paid to Eurytus.
The theme represents a comic inversion of sexual roles. While no surviving Classical Greek text fully illustrates it, later Hellenistic and Roman sources describe Heracles being forced to perform women's work, wear women's clothing, and hold a basket of wool while Omphale and her maidens spun. Omphale meanwhile wore the Nemean Lion's skin and carried Heracles' olive-wood club.
During his stay in Lydia, Heracles captured the city of the Itones, killed Syleus, and captured the Cercopes. After some time, Omphale freed Heracles and took him as her husband. They traveled to the grove of Dionysus to celebrate his rites; while they slept, the god Pan attempted to reach Omphale's bed but found Heracles instead, who threw him to the floor.
III.Sons of Heracles in Lydia
Sources differ regarding Omphale's sons by Heracles. Diodorus Siculus and Ovid mention a son named Lamos; the Bibliotheca names the son Agelaus, from whom the family of Croesus descended; Pausanias gives the name Tyrsenus, who supposedly invented the trumpet. A variant name Tyrrhenus is linked to the Etruscan settlements in Italy, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus cites the tradition that Tyrrhenus, son of Heracles and Omphale, drove the Pelasgians from Italian cities north of the Tiber.
Herodotus references a Heraclid dynasty ruling Lydia, describing them as descended from Heracles and the slave-girl of Iardanus. Xanthus of Lydia instead identifies the Heraclid dynasty as descended from a son named Tylon, called the Tylonidai.
IV.In Art
Omphale appears throughout the later artistic tradition. In opera, André Cardinal Destouches composed Omphale, performed at the Paris Opera on 10 November 1701. Camille Saint-Saëns created the symphonic poem Le Rouet d'Omphale ("The Spinning Wheel of Omphale") in the 1870s, which later became theme music for The Shadow radio program. The burlesque Hercules and Omphale, or The Power of Love premiered at London's St. James's Theatre on 26 December 1864.
In painting, Lucas Cranach the Elder created multiple works depicting Hercules dressed as a woman among Omphale and her maids, and Édouard Joseph Dantan painted Hercules at the Feet of Omphale. In literature, Guillaume Apollinaire included the sexually explicit poem "Hercule et Omphale" in his novel Les onze mille verges, and August Strindberg's The Father (1887) references Omphale regarding the power dynamics of relationships.
V.In Cinema
Queen Omphale appears as a main character in Hercules Unchained, the 1959 sequel to the 1958 film Hercules. She captures men who drink from a fountain of forgetfulness, making them her love slaves before having them killed, and Hercules becomes captive after drinking from the fountain. His companion Ulysses pretends to be deaf and mute to remain imprisoned and help him; after discovering a cave filled with preserved statues of previous lovers, Ulysses provides Hercules with regular water, restoring his memory. Omphale commits suicide by jumping into the preservation bath when Hercules escapes.