Even before the time of this war (according to the common narration) Hercules had embroiled himself with the Œchalians by killing Iphitus, the son of Eurytus, who demanded of him the restitution of some plundered cattle or horses. In the common version of this story, Peloponnesus was the scene of the encounter; for Hercules is said to have hurled him from the walls of Tiryns.(1737) But to expiate this murder, and the violation of the rights of hospitality, Hercules became a slave; and, in order to release himself from the guilt, he was compelled to pay to the father of Iphitus his own ransom.
2. The meaning of this servitude cannot be rightly explained without observing the remarkable coincidence between some parts of the mythology of Hercules and Apollo, which we will here shortly elucidate. As Eurytus is represented sometimes as killed by Apollo, sometimes by Hercules, so in the poem of the Shield of Hercules(1738) this hero punishes Cycnus for profaning the Pagasæan temple; thus, in another tradition, he slays Phylas and Laogoras, princes of the Dryopes, for violating the shrine of Delphi and other temples;(1739) and consecrates the whole nation to the Pythian Apollo.(1740) Nor do I believe that Euripides invented the fable of the restoration of Alcestis, and the contest between Hercules and death.(1741) It is also perhaps fair to infer, from the legends of epic poets, in which Hercules is represented as a hero in brazen armour, who defended the sacred roads with his sword, and overthrew the violent sons of Ares that waylaid the sacrificial processions in the narrow passes and defiles, that in ancient fables he was considered not only as the defender of the Doric race, but also of the Doric worship.
We may now proceed to consider the sale and servitude of Hercules; a point of primary importance in the various forms which the legends concerning this hero assume. In the present instance this degradation originated from the killing of Iphitus. Here also the parallel with the servitude of Apollo at Pheræ cannot fail to strike every one. The god and the hero were chosen, as examples, to impress the people in early times with a strong sense of the sacred character, and necessity of expiation for homicide.(1742) By whom Hercules was supposed to have been purchased in the original legend of northern Thessaly we know not; at a later period Omphale was called his mistress, who (according to Pherecydes)(1743) bought him for three talents.