Herakles and Kyknos – Apollo’s Wrath

The mythical battle between Herakles and Kyknos pits the forces of Apollonian light against those of Dionysian chaos

A popular theme in Attic black figure and early red figure vase-painting is the battle between Herakles and Kyknos. The use of the scene is less prevalent after 500 BCE, indicating the ancient myth fell out of favour compared to the more major components of the Herakles mythos. The myth is touched upon by the likes of Pindar, Apollodorus, Hyginus, Pausanias and Diodoros, as well as by Euripides. All of these provide very fragmentary retellings, some based on the lost poem “Kyknos” by Stesichoros from the early 6th century BCE. The fullest account is the Hesiodic poem “The Shield of Herakles.”

The Shield of Herakles

While no longer attributed to Hesiod by many scholars, the Shield of Herakles certainly is in the Hesiodic style. The poem tells of the battle between Herakles and Kyknos near Apollon’s sanctuary at Pegasai in Thessaly, with a lengthy description of the shield of Herakles, much like that of Achilles’ shield in the Iliad. What really draws our attention is the conflict between Dionysian and Apollonian forces, as laid out in Undying Glory: The Solar Path of Greek Heroes.

Herakles and Kyknos

Kyknos, according to Pausanias, was a bloodthirsty rogue who killed all of his houseguests, angering Zeus. Kyknos was the son of the war god Ares and his manner reflected that of the god who personified frenzied bloodlust. Kyknos preyed upon pilgrims to Apollon’s sanctuary at Delphoi, angering the god. 

As Herakles and his nephew Iolaos are driving on their chariot to Trachis, they encounter Kyknos and his charioteers, Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Dread) – divine sons of Ares. The encounter takes place just outside Apollon’s sanctuary in Pegasai, and the Light Bringer riles Herakles up against Kyknos, who eagerly accepts the son of Ares’ challenge to single combat. Pegasai is also the port  where Jason built the Argo.

Proxy Battle 

Several vases depict the scene with various gods present. Aside from Athena and Ares, Zeus, or his thunderbolt are often portrayed in the middle of the fighters, while Apollo and Dionysos are also found on many of the black figure ceramics. The battle is a proxy fight between Apollo and Dionysos, particularly as one ancient tradition holds that the ecstatic Dionysos sat on the tripod at Delphoi before orderly Apollon, though both share the sanctuary there. It is also a conflict between Athena, the goddess of battle wisdom and Ares, the frenzied god of war.

Before the battle, Athena advises Herakles to be ready for Ares’ attack, should he kill Kyknos, and not to strip his armour until after the threat of the war god’s reprisal has passed. Kyknos is the first to throw his spear, which fails to penetrate the shield of Herakles. After a peal of thunder is sent by Zeus to encourage his son, Herakles thrusts his spear through the throat of Kyknos, killing him in a particularly Homeric manner. Ares, true to form, charges towards Herakles in a rage. Athena attempts to convince him to stop, but the battle frenzy is upon him. He hurls his spear at Herakles, but Athena deflects it from the hero’s shield. Ares draws his sword and leaps at Herakles, who thrusts his spear into the thigh of the war god, who is taken by Phobos and Deimos back to Olympos to recover. 

Burial of Kyknos

Herakles strips Kyknos of his armour and leaves the body, which is retrieved by Keux, his father-in-law. Keux buries Kyknos with a royal funeral, but soon after his interment, Apollon makes the Anauros River flood, washing the mound and the body away.

What we see in this story is the continual struggle between Dionysos and Apollon, Ares and Athena. This is seen through the lens of a skirmish between to heroes. Kyknos represents the bloodthirsty, chaotic lunar forces, while Herakles fights on the side of the ordered, controlled solar.  The battle between Herakles and Kyknos ultimately sees the solar masculine winning the day. 

Herakles is the only hero in Greek mythology to reach the ultimate state of Solar Man, above the gods. To find out more, read Undying Glory: The Solar Path of Greek Heroes.

Ares and Athena: Chaos and Order

While Ares and Athena are opposite sides of the same coin in many ways, they are almost always fundamentally opposed to one another in the Greek tradition.

The story of Ares and Athena begins with the birth of goddess of wisdom. Metis was an early wife of Zeus. The Sky Father discovered that one of her offspring would be more powerful than him. He swallowed his bride and after several months, the goddess Athena was born from his head, making her the child of the father alone. In anger at this birth, Hera (his new wife and queen of the gods) said she too would have a child alone. She made an oath to her grandmother Gaia (Earth Mother) and went to Thrace where she bore Ares without a father. This telling contradicts Hesiod (who says Ares is the son of both Zeus and Hera) and is not mentioned at all in Homer, aside from the fact that Zeus (and to some extent Hera) hate Ares. Later tradition has the war god as the son of Hera alone.

Daughter of the Father

Athena embodies the finest masculine elements, borne from the cranium of the Lord of Olympos. She stands for skilful action, honour in battle and life, subtle craft, loyalty, battle tactics, wisdom and bravery. She is the hero’s friend, a masculine virgin goddess who is there by the side of the Solar Hero at the moment of decisive action. Unlike the fierce virgin Artemis, who is violent towards suitors, Athena invokes only feelings of fellowship and patronage from those who she is closest to. She is the patroness of the heroes she chooses, abandoning them if they act with dishonour. Athena is part of the most powerful trinity in the Greek pantheon with Zeus and Apollon.

Son of the Mother

Ares on the other hand embodies the wrathful, angry and violent tendencies reflected in Hera at her worst. Conceived with anger, he is the god of frenzied bloodlust. He is the violent abandon that takes over the warrior in the heat of battle and drives him to commit inhuman acts. In the Greek tradition he is reviled in many ways, as evidenced in the Iliad where he is invoked as a terrible chaotic force that needs to be quelled. That he is born in Thrace, a non-Greek territory in the mythological era, tells us that the Greeks considered him foreign in some regard.

Olympians

The difficulty arises in the modern mind that sees this as pure dualism. The Greeks, while fearing and loathing Ares in many ways, and revering and loving Athena, place them both in the Olympian pantheon. The two forces do not fully oppose each other in the ancient mind. Both occur in the warrior in the heat of action. The mature warrior can rein in his bloodlust and frenzy, while still making use of it. The immature violence of the youth is reined in and focussed by the wisdom and council of Athena. 

The two represent Dionysian (Ares) and Apollonian (Athena) forces, which, as I state in Undying Glory, are not fundamentally opposed, but two sides of the same coin. The Apollonian order controls the Dionysian abandon, allowing it to be used when necessary in order to further that hero’s journey on the Solar Path. 

Delphic Maxims – Lessons for the Solar Seeker

An ancient visitor to the holy sanctuary of Apollon at Delphoi was greeted by the 147 Delphic Maxims. These lessons were given to men by Apollon, who spoke through his oracle, the Pythia. 

Oracle

Seated on a tripod above a fissure in the ground, the female Pythia entered into a trance and spoke in riddles that were interpreted by the priests of Delphoi. Men came from across the Greek world to ask the Oracle questions in the hope that they could make the correct decision. The answers, given by the Phythia, were the words of Apollon, whose mantic messages were the will of Zeus. In the Homeric Hymn to Apollon, this role is expressed by the god himself: “I will declare to mankind great Zeus’ infallible purpose. The Delphic Maxims, therefore, were lessons from the Lord of Olympos himself, transmitted to mortal men so that they could bring order to the chaos of existence.

Solar Path

In my book, Undying Glory, I advance the Apollonian Solar Path as a way for men to become exceptional versions of themselves. It is a path that leads to ascension and to the rebirth of the Golden Age. These Delphic Maxims contain lessons that hold the budding Solar Hero in good stead. Cling to discipline, pursue honour, test your character and act from knowledge – these timeless aphorisms are powerful prompts for those seeking to rise higher and cut ties with a life of Dionysian abandon.

Know Thyself

Of the 147 Delphic Maxims preserved through the Cult of Apollon, one was upheld above all others: Σαυτὸν ἴσθι (or γνῶθι σεαυτόν) – Know Thyself. This maxim can be interpreted in several ways, but in essence, it means to “know thy measure.” To inquire deeply into your own nature and plumb the depths of your very being is not a task undertaken lightly. Self exploration has been pursued by many over time, notably in the Indo-European tradition by Gautama Siddhartha – the Buddha. Simply to know your true self is one part of the equation. You must also be true to yourself. No matter what the external pressure, you must be yourself. You may be able to trick others, but you can never fool yourself. 

This is not a license to engage in all sorts of morally questionable behaviour in the name of being oneself. While knowing your measure and being true to yourself, you still need to “struggle for glory” – another of the Delphic Maxims. To place this most important maxim in the context of the Solar Path: know thyself, know who you are now, know your potential and reach for it. 

The Greeks had a follow up to “know thyself” – “know that thou art man.” This gives us a warning from the gods not to try and become more than man. In Undying Glory, I say that the gods do not want us to ascend, that we need to work against them while honouring them. A story that embodies this struggle is Herakles stealing the Delphic Tripod and vying with Apollon for it. When looked at from this perspective, we can see “know thyself” as a veiled threat. A threat that we must take seriously, but at the same time see as a challenge to overcome. Know you are man, but know that you can also ascend higher than the gods, but that they do not want you to do so.

Soma

Soma, as it is called in the Rigveda, was a ritual drink prepared with potent magical ingredients. This entheogenic draught is found in several Indo-European cultures, from the North Indians of the Vedic period through to its possible use by the Nordic berserkers of the 9th and 10th centuries. While the ingredients may have varied due to the different environments in which the various tribes around themselves, the main constituents of the original Vedic Soma remain unknown. according to the most ancient accounts, Soma was used in a ritual setting or before battle.

The first literary reference to it is in the Rigveda in the 2nd millennium BCE. It is drunk by Indra before he battles the serpent Vritra. The Indo-Aryan Haoma is described in the Avestan Yasna (2nd millennium BCE) as a drink that grants “speed and strength to warriors.”

Where then, in the the Greek tradition, does Soma appear? 

Abrosia

The Ambrosia of the gods, a drink that granted them immortality, is identified by many scholars as being cognate with the Indian Amrita, which in turn is equated to Soma. The Sanskrit word Amrita means “immortality” as this, along with wisdom and power, is what the drink was said to impart to the gods. Nektar, an associated food/drink of the Greek gods has the meaning of “overcoming death.”

Ambrosia appears several times in the mythological record. Aside from the gods consuming it, Achilles is anointed in it by his mother Thetis to make him invulnerable and Apollo anoints the body of Sarpedon with it in the Iliad. Calypso in the Odyssey tells us the Olympian gods are brought Ambrosia by doves and it is used by Aphrodite as an oil in her Homeric hymn. 

In these instances, Ambrosia is both consumed and used externally.  This magic potion confers the immortal power and strength, much like Soma. 

Prometheon

In the Argonautika, the hero Jason uses a potion derived from the Prometheon root before ploughing the fields of Aietes. In my book Undying Glory: the Solar Path of Greek Heroes, I describe the scene in detail, as well as interpreting the details of the mythos. 

Medeia, priestess of the goddess Hekate, prepares an elixir for Jason from the root of a plant known as Prometheon. The plant grew from the drops of blood shed by the Titan Prometheus when the Eagle of Zeus pecked out his liver each day. Medeia pulls the taproot of the plant, which looks like freshly-slaughtered flesh, and after a ritual, prepares a potion from it. Jason also conducts a ritual with a sacrifice to the goddess Hekate before using the potion. When he uses it, it is as a balm, rather than a drink. He covers himself and his weapons with it before he yokes the fire-breathing bulls and reaps the earthborn men.

The location of this story and the root are of interest, as the kingdom of Aietes is on the “edge of the world” and Prometheon is found in the Caucasus Mountains. This supports the idea that the Prometheon potion is the Soma of the Indo-Europeans, originating in their potential ancestral homeland in the Pontic Steppe. The connection to Prometheus is also important here, as he is the god that most resembles man, being the first to make a sacrifice and the bringer of fire. Hence, the Titanic deity made human existence human, elevating man above the animal realm and no longer fully submissive to the gods. In the words of Karl Kerenyi: 

“as soon as man is man… …man becomes unable to submit. And the sufferings that spring from unsubmissiveness are special sufferings that exceed those of the animals – they become, in a sense, punishments.” 

This share of the Soma, originally only intended for the gods, is given to man through Prometheus who assumes the punishment for man’s ascent.

Kykeon

Aside from this mythical version of soma, the Greeks utilised an entheogenic draught during initiatory mysteries. While little is known of the mysteries at Eleusis, we know that the initiates would break their fast with a drink known as Kykeon. 

Kykeon was a wine-based drink that was popular with the rural Greeks, and appears in the Greek mythological and historical record several times. In the Iliad, it is given as as a healing tonic to Nestor and his companions. The version here is made with Pramnian wine, shredded goats cheese, barley and honey, garnished with onions. The same draught is prepared by Kirke for Odysseus and his men in the Odyssey, but the sorceress also infuses it with her magic potion to turn them into pigs. 

This is not likely the Kykeon served during the Eleusinian Mysteries, as the Homeric hymn to Demeter indicates. In the hymn, which serves as the story behind the mysteries, the goddess Demeter is served Kykeon made with water, barley meal and pennyroyal. During the mystery initiation, celebrants would face death and journey into the Underworld. Some scholars have claimed that the Kykeon at Eleusis was entheogenic, with either ergot fungus of barley, paspalum grass ergot, or a hallucinogenic mushroom as the active agent. This magic potion would provide the initiates with visions of the Underworld, unlocking its secrets. 

This entheogenic Kykeon is more in line with the Soma of the Indo-Europeans with it’s “magical” properties, than the Homeric drink given to heroes. That it is given to both heroes in one context and to mystery cult initiates in another furthers the case of Kykeon being a Greek Soma. 

Young Wolves: Hybristes

A common thread throughout Indo-European cultures was the Wolf Cult. Before youths could take their place as fully-formed functional men in society, they had to live as outlaws: wolves on the fringes of civilisation. In ancient Greece, this was also practiced. The young men were known as Hybristes (ὑβριστή), meaning “hubris men.” This is because their time in the initiatory warband is outside of the natural order, as they live much like bandits. This epithet is also given to Titans in the Greek mythos, as it conveys the quality of unlimited violent insolence. The young men are thus guilty of hubris (ὕβρις): the arrogant pride that offends the gods, but are forgiven its consequences while wearing the wolf hood. The Athenians called them the Epheboi, the Spartans called them the Krypteia, both states having slightly different roles for these young “outsiders.”

There was a critical moment when a boy turned 17, where they had to go through an initiation of manhood. This was normally a period of around 2 years, where he would have to leave society and live in the forests and mountains with other boys his age. The Hybristes would put on a figurative or literal “wolf hood” and act with impunity. They hunted, raided rival state’s agricultural and pastoral resources, and acted in a generally wild manner, indulging in the more animalistic urges of a young man. They were given very little in terms of resources; a cloak, dagger and spear. They had to use all of their skills to survive through their rite of passage and reenter society.

Apollon Lykeios

The main god responsible for the Hybristes was Apollon. One of the epithets of the light-bringer was Lykeios – wolfish. Apollon the wolf god was a pastoral wind deity who was associated with wolves and the caves in which they lived. This role also made him the patron of the Greek Wolf Cult. He was responsible for helping the boys become men. As Apollon was also the deity who embodied the solar path of order, his roles cross over. He is both the embodiment of order, as well as being responsible for the young men who lived outside of that order, but were destined to return to it as fully-fledged mature warriors. These Hybristes would enter back into the Polis (city-state) and become valuable assets, capable of governing and defending the city and its interests.

In Mythology, there are several personifications of the Hybristes as youthful hero archetypes. The two notable examples are Perseus and Theseus, both of whom must go through the hybristic rites of passage as outsiders to become the rulers of their dominions. I go into detailed analysis of these two figures and their journey in my book Undying Glory: The Solar Path of Greek Heroes.

Krypteia

The Spartan Hybristes were called the Krypteia, or “secret service.” All Spartan men from the Spartiate citizen class went through the agoge, a tough military training that began when they were seven years old and continued until they were 29. At the end of the first stage of training, at age 17, the most promising boys with leadership potential were entered into the Krypteia. The main role of the Krypteia was to terrorise the servile Helot population. The Helots were the subservient people who lived under Spartiate dominion. Every Autumn, the newest class of kryptai were sent into the countryside to wage a symbolic war on the countryside Helots so as to keep them in line and to prevent insurrection.

Armed with only knives, they were given explicit instructions to kill any Helot they encountered and steal whatever they needed. They were told to seek out the strongest and best of the Helots in particular. If they were caught performing their mission by other Spartiates, they were punished with flogging. This encouraged stealth: a Spartan trait. The institution of the Krypteia predates the formal agoge, as it came from the earliest days of Spartan rule, when the Indo-European Dorian people invaded the Peloponnese from the north. The Dorians, ancestors of the Spartiate class, were also called the Herakleidai; the children of Herakles.

Epheboi

The Athenians had a more institutionalised version of the Hybristes (called the Ephebeia) by the time their society had fully-matured. Epheboi attended an academy and upon graduation were given a shield, spear, cloak and hat, before being sent off to garrison and patrol the borders of the Athenian territories. They would fight in skirmish battles and fetch sacred objects for religious festivals. This more formal institution, which ended by the 3rd century BCE, was a late form of the original Black Hunter, as Vidal-Naquet called them.

The original Ephebe was armed with a spear and wore a black cloak. Aged 17, he was sent out into the wilderness where he had to hunt to survive. He would have to use aggression, stealth, guile and trickery to complete his time on the fringes. These traits also brought the Epheboi under the aegis of Hermes, one of the patron gods of Athens. The trickster god takes some of the responsibility for the Hybristes from his brother Apollon in the Homeric hymn to Hermes, by both conducting a cattle raid on his herds and solidifying his close friendship with the light-bringer. The Athenian Epheboi also came under the patronage of Dionysos of the Black Goatskin, as their behaviour was more Dionysian than Apollonian. During the Great Dionysia festival, the Epheboi sacrificed a bull to the god.

Rites of Passage

Today there is no meaningful rite of passage for young men. The purpose of the Hybristes, to let the young men go wild, but become self-reliant and thus useful to their society, has no modern equivalent. Without these institutions for the young to come into manhood, it is hard for the modern man to understand his place in the world. Instead, the violent, animalistic instincts of young men are channelled destructively (often self-destructively), leading to a society filled with dysfunctional adults. Instead the university campus or the bar district of a town have become the setting for young men to release their violent and sexual energy. 

A culture that gives young men a structure through which to channel their raw energy in a more constructive way, rather than punishing them for its misdirection, fills its ranks with capable, strong men who are able to lead and defend. It creates heroes.