The attempt of Lycus, King of Thebes, to murder Amphitryon, Megara, and the children of Hercules, is also described in the play. The motive of Lycus was political. Hercules had married Megara, daughter of Kreon, the Regent of Thebes, and his family was therefore a dangerous rival in the matter of dynastic succession. Hercules, as soon as he heard of the plot, put Lycus to death.[224] This penalty, we have suggested,[225] was a normal penalty for attempted murder (βούλευσις) in Achaean or quasi-Achaean[226] society. We have discussed this penalty in our analysis of the Ajax of Sophocles. Whether there was an antique legend which referred to this penalty, or whether the dramatist is consciously archaising, it is difficult to decide. The Chorus, at least, have no doubt that the penalty was just and Amphitryon takes the same view.[227] The Chorus say to him as he dies[228]:
Others have perished by that bloody hand.
... the retribution thou endur’st ... is just.
The ‘Children of Hercules’
Of the Heracleidae, another family of Hercules, Pausanias says[229]: ‘When Hercules fled from Eurystheus at Tiryns, he went to his friend Ceyx, the King of Trachis. But when Hercules left the society of men[230] Eurystheus demanded his children, and Ceyx sent them to Athens, suggesting that Theseus should protect them. And coming to Athens, they caused the first war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians, as Theseus would not give them up to Eurystheus.’
In this Euripidean play, also, the children of Hercules are represented as dwelling in the city of Athens, in the charge of Iolaus and Alcmene,[231] and the war between Eurystheus and Theseus for their extradition is the main theme. The presence of Iolaus in the drama is probably, we think, derived from the legend of an expedition which the Athenians made under his leadership to Sardinia.[232] The chief point which we wish to emphasise here is that the demand for the extradition of the Heracleidae has no connexion with homicide. Amphitryon had slain Electryon. Hercules had sought in vain to ‘appease’ Eurystheus. It is now evident that Eurystheus has refused all ‘appeasement,’ as the sons of Oedipus refused it, for political reasons. In Greek law homicide could not continue to afflict the children of a slayer unto the fourth generation. With the death of Amphitryon, the homicide episode is closed. In this drama, the extradition demand is therefore entirely political. Upon this point our play is quite explicit. Eurystheus says to Alcmene[233]:
For well I knew thy son
Was no mere cipher, but a man indeed:
Though strong my hate, on him will I confer
The praise he merits from his valiant deeds.