Illustration
Mosaic panel depicting the madness of Heracles (Hercules furens), from the Villa Torre de Palma near Monforte, 3rd-4th century CE (National Archaeology Museum of Lisbon, Portugal).
When Hercules grew up and had become a great warrior, he married Megara. They had two children. Hercules and Megara were very happy, but life didn't turn out for them the way it does in the movie. Hera sent a fit of madness to Hercules that put him into so great a rage, he murdered Megara and the children. When Hercules regained his senses and saw the horrible thing that he had done, he asked the god Apollo to rid him of this pollution. Apollo commanded the hero to do certain tasks as a punishment for his wrongs, so that the evil might be cleansed from his spirit.
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This image was first published on Flickr.
Original image by Carole Raddato. Uploaded by Carole Raddato, published on 28 July 2014 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
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Cite This Work
APA Style
Raddato, C. (2014, July 28). Hercules Furens Mosaic. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/image/2844/
Chicago Style
Raddato, Carole. "Hercules Furens Mosaic." Ancient History Encyclopedia. Last modified July 28, 2014. https://www.ancient.eu/image/2844/.
MLA Style
Raddato, Carole. "Hercules Furens Mosaic." Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 28 Jul 2014. Web. 17 Aug 2019.