"Hercules" or "Hercules in madness" is a tragedy of an ancient Greek playwright Euripides. Date of writing is not known, but by the stylistic features researchers attribute this piece to the end of 420's or early 410's BC.
The name "Hercules" means "praise the goddess Hera." Hera was the goddess of the heavenly, the wife of Zeus. And Hercules was the last of earthly sons of Zeus: Zeus descended to many mortal women, but after Alcmene, Hercules' mother - has no one. Hercules had to save the Olympian gods in the war for control of the world against the rebelled Giants: there was a prophecy that the gods would conquer the Giants, unless at least one mortal man comes to help. This man became Hercules. Gera had to be, like all the gods, grateful to him. But she was the legitimate wife of Zeus, the patron of all legal marriages, and the illegitimate son of her husband, and the most favorite, was hateful for her. Therefore, all the stories about the earthly life of Hercules - is a tale of how he was pursued by the goddess Hera.
Here were three stories about it. The first of the twelve feats of Hercules: Gera arranged so that the mighty Hercules was forced to serve a twelve services to the insignificant king Eurystheus. Secondly, about the madness of Heracles: Hera drove to a frenzy, and he shot from the bow his own children, taking them for enemies. Third, the martyrdom of Heracles: Hera made so that the wife of Hercules, unknowingly gave him poison soaked raincoat, which so tormented hero, that he burned himself. And about the madness of Heracles Euripides wrote a tragedy "Hercules."
