Hyllus

Also known as: HYLLUS · Family: Heraclids · Role: son of Heracles and Deianira · First appears: Sophocles, The Trachinian Maidens — Scene 1

In The Trachinian Maidens, Hyllus is the son of Heracles and Deianira. He departs to investigate Heracles’s fate, promising Deianira, “I will go, mother.” At Cenaeum, Heracles commands him to carry him away from his agony, while Hyllus accuses Deianira of causing his father’s death. After Deianira kills herself, Hyllus realizes that his angry accusation helped bring about her death, though the Centaur’s deception was responsible; he is left orphaned of both parents. Heracles then orders him to carry his body to the pyre and tells him to marry Iole, despite Hyllus’s hostility toward her as the cause of his mother’s death and his father’s suffering. Hyllus accepts: “Then I will do it, for the act is thine. I will not cast it off.”

In The Heraclidæ, Eurystheus drives Heracles’s children from Greece, and Iolaus protects them while seeking safety in Athens. After Macaria willingly gives herself for the family and is honored for her death, Hyllus and his brothers search for a stronghold, and the Heraclids go to battle. Hyllus later arrives with an army, marshals it against the Argive forces, and, with Iolaus, defeats them and captures Eurystheus. They erect a statue of Zeus for the victory, after which Alcmena declares Heracles’s children free to return to their father’s city and inherit his land.