Eurystheus

Apollodorus says Sthenelus, a son of Perseus, had a son Eurystheus, who reigned over Mycenae (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.5). His place in the story depends on a trick. Homer tells it in the Iliad. Zeus boasts that a man of his own blood will be born that day to rule all his neighbors. Hera makes him swear an oath to it. She then goes to Argos and brings Eurystheus, son of Sthenelus, to birth before his time. She holds back the delivery of Alcmene, who is bearing Heracles (Homer, Iliad 19.95-133). Apollodorus tells it differently. In his Library Hera persuades the Eileithyiai, the goddesses of childbirth, to hold back Alcmene's delivery (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.5).

Heracles then falls under his rule. Apollodorus says the Pythia told Heracles to live in Tiryns and serve Eurystheus for twelve years. She promised that he would become immortal once the labors were done (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.12). The Iliad already knows the arrangement. It names Periphetes of Mycenae as a man who carried messages from King Eurystheus to the strong Heracles (Homer, Iliad 15.638-640). In Euripides's Alcestis, Heracles says he is performing a labor for Eurystheus of Tiryns. He is on his way to fetch the horses of the Thracian Diomedes (Euripides, Alcestis 481-483). The anger behind the whole sequence is that of Hera, and Eurystheus is the king she placed over her enemy's son.

Eurystheus is not a fighter in these tales. He gives orders and keeps his distance. Apollodorus makes the first of his commands the skin of the Nemean lion. He adds that Eurystheus was so frightened by the sight of the beast that he had a bronze jar sunk in the earth to hide in (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.1). Apollodorus also says Eurystheus refused to count two of the first ten tasks, the Hydra and the Augean stables, and set two more in their place (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.11). The full list of tasks belongs to the story of the labors.

The ending of Eurystheus belongs to the quarrel that follows Heracles's death. Apollodorus says the children of Heracles fled to Athens, which refused to give them up and went to war with Eurystheus (Apollodorus, Library 2.8.1). He fled in a chariot and was overtaken and killed by Hyllus, a son of Heracles, at the Scironian cliffs. In this telling the king of Mycenae ends as a defeated enemy of a family he had once dominated. He is gathered with the Greek heroes as the ruler they serve. The sources checked here give him no character beyond his orders and his fear.