Sacrificing Herakles

Herodotus thought it a silly story: “how Herakles came to Egypt and was taken away by the Egyptians to be sacrificed to Zeus , with all due pomp and the sacrificial wreath upon his head; and how he quietly submitted until the moment came for the beginning of the actual ceremony at the altar, when he exerted his strength and killed them all” (Histories, 2.45).

Obviously, anyone who repeats that story knows “nothing whatever about Egyptian character and custom.”

Silly or no, it became a favorite scene in vase paintings. One is described by F.T. van Straten (Hiera Kala) as follows: “The scene goes round the vase, and the room underneath the handles is cleverly used for some of the sacrificial utensils : under one there is a metal basin . . . , which was dropped by an Egyptian whom Herakles holds upside down by the legs . Another Egyptian, facing Herakles at the other side of the blood-stained altar, swings a mallet, such as might be used to stun a sacrificial ox” (48). 

This looks not like a sacrifice.