Hera and Sphinx / achilles

aramini1 at cox.net · 02 Apr 2006, 09:12 · from 2006-April.txt.gz

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From: aramini1 at cox.net (aramini1 at cox.net)
Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 5:12:59 -0400
Subject: (urth) Hera and Sphinx / achilles
Message-ID: <20060402091259.NMGN17838.fed1rmmtao05.cox.net@[172.18.180.8]>

Jeff wrote:
> 
> It seems inappropriate for Hercules to tutor Ares either on wrestling or 
> on the wisdom of throwing a wrestling match.
> 
> -- 
> Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
> < http://www.io.com/~jwilson >
>

Yet this doesn't explain why Latro is explicitly called Pleistorus on two separate occasions, whereas Basias, who bested him, is never identified as a god, despite the fact that he wins the match.  

Why would Hercules help a mortal, anyway? Why would Odysseus help him take out three people?  Once he hears the advice of Hercules, he is able to implement it.  If Hercules gave someone who wasn't born to be a warrior advice, they would still lose the match, no matter how good the advice was.  You can tell someone how Mike Tyson fights, but it isn't easy to hear someone else and to just go out there and do it.

Your first argument, about the conventions of naming  someone as a child of the gods, is cogent.  I don't feel that this one, about it being inappropriate for Hercules to tutor a brain damaged Ares, effectively weighs one way or the other about the possibility of Latro being, in some way, divine.

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