Alcmene
Alcmena is the name of a spider genus; 82 Alkmene is an asteroid.In
Greek mythology Alcmene, or
Alkmênê ("might of the moon") was the mother of
Heracles. She was the daughter of
Electryon, king of
Mycenae and a son of
Perseus, and was the wife of
Amphitryon in his exile, though he had accidentally killed her father. Some mythographers identified her mother as
Eurydice (Graves, 110.c).
With Amphitryon she fled to
Thebes, where
Creon purified her husband of his blood-guilt. However, Alcmene's eight brothers had been killed in a cattle raid, and she would not lie with Amphitryon until they had been avenged.
Thus at Thebes she was the mother of
Heracles by
Zeus, who assumed the likeness of her husband during his absence to lie with her and stayed
Helios, to make one night into three; and she was the mother of
Iphicles by Amphitryon, when he returned, giving birth to Heracles' twin, younger by a day. In this way Alcmene is one among several mothers of mythic twins of whom the sire of one is mortal, of the other a god, the most famous of them being the
Dioscuri, two from the double set of such twins of
Leda. Theseus combined in his person a double fatherhood, a human father and a divine: see
Theseus. In this case Alcmene's son Iphicles was mortal, while Heracles became immortal.
While Alcmene was pregnant with
Heracles ("glory of Hera"),
Hera (sometimes her daughter
Eileithia) herself tried to prevent her from giving birth to the
hero who would help establish the new Olympian order. She was foiled by
Galanthis, Alcmene's servant, who told Hera that she had already delivered the baby. Hera turned her into a
weasel.
Through Heracles, Alcmene was regarded as the ancestress of the
Heracleidae, and venerated at
Thebes and
Athens.
After the death of Amphitryon, Alcmene married the Cretan
Rhadamanthus, who was exiled in
Boeotia. Their "tombs" were shown to travellers in classical times at Haliartus (Graves, 88.i); such "tombs" were generally sites for propitiatory ancestor
cults (compare Burkert 1985).
*
Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911: "Alcmene"
*
Burkert, Walter,
Greek Religion: "Clan and Family Mysteries pp 278ff.
*
Graves, Robert, 1960.
The Greek Myths (revised edition)
