Hylas and Ercole

Speranza

A famous legend of the third century is that of Heracles and Hylas.

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A good version comes from Theocritus.

A second extended account occurs in the first book of the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes.

(Apollonius was a contemporary of Theocritus).

Ercole searches through the night for his disciple Hylas.

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There is an educational phase here, involving hunting and war, designed to transform boy Hylas into a man.

Hylas, whose beauty is apparently matched only by that of Hyacinthus (there is an allusion in both cases to their handsome heads of hair) , is the eromenos of his educator.

In another version, Hylas is the SON of Ercole, and it is Polifemo who plays the part of the erastes.

The only equivalent that an Alexadrian author can find for a pedagogical relation of this sort, for the
solicitude that Ercole shows for a 'pais', for the cohabitation of master and disciple and the individualised, personalised aspects of the pupil's education, is in the relationship of father to son.

There is no explicit suggestion, hwoever, that Ercole feels for Hylas anything other than the virile affection that a hero should feel for a young 'page' (line 131, 'opaon') for whom he bears  moral responsibility.

The mystical death here is the drowning.

Apollonius says that both Ercole and Polifemo shared an interest in Hylas.

According to Socrates of Argos, Hylas's erastes was in fact Polifemo, whereas Ercole was Hylas's father.