In Greek mythology, Omphale was a queen or princess of Lydia. As penalty for his murder of Iphitus, Heracles was, by Zeus' command, sold as a slave and Omphale became his purchaser. Greek mythology comprises the collected legends of Greek gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines, originally created and spread within an oral-poetic tradition. ... Lydia was an ancient kingdom of Asia Minor, known to Homer as Mæonia. ... Statue of Heracles In Greek mythology, Heracles, or Heraklês (glory of Hera, Ἡρακλῆς) was the demigod son of Zeus and Alcmene, the grand-daughter of Perseus and the wife of Amphitryon. ...

Heracles and Omphale

Omphale was daughter of the river Iardanus (also called Iardanes). According to Apollodorus she was the widow of King Tmolus from whom she inherited the throne. There are many references in text and art to Heracles being forced to do women's work and even wear women's clothing and hold a basket of wool while Omphale and her maidens did their spinning. At times Omphale even wore the skin of the Nemean Lion and carried Heracle's olive-wood club. Unfortunately no full account survives. Apollodorus was a popular name in the ancient world. ... In Greek mythology, Tmolus was a mountain god and husband to Omphale. ... The Nemean Lion was a vicious monster in Greek mythology that lived in Nemea. ...

But it was also during his stay in Lydia that Heracles enslaved the Itones, killed Syleus who forced passersby to hoe his vineyard, and captured the Cercopes. In Greek mythology, the Cercopes were mischievous forest creatures who lived in Thermopylae or on Euboea. ...

At some time during this stay Omphale freed Heracles and took him as her husband.

Omphale's name means Navel (i.e. axis), and may represent a significant Lydian earth goddess. Herakles' servitude thus represents the servitude of the sun to the axis of the celestial sphere, the spinners being Lydian versions of the Moirae. Most earth goddess religions contained a priesthood which wore women's clothing, was effeminate, or involved eunuchs. The priest of Herakles, curiously, also wore female clothing, and this myth may represent an attempt to explain the fact. For the plant of this name, see Umbilicus rupestris. ... In Greek mythology, the white-robed Moirae or Moerae (Greek Μοίραι — the Apportioners, often called the Fates) were the personifications of destiny (Roman equivalent: Parcae, sparing ones, or Fatae; also equivalent to the Germanic Norns). ... Effeminacy is character trait of a male showing femininity, unmanliness, womanliness, weakness, softness and/or a delicacy, which contradicts traditional masculine, male gender roles. ...

Sons of Heracles in Lydia

It would be expected that accounts should speak of at least one son born to Heracles by Omphale. It might also be expected that such accounts would not agree. Both expectations are spendidly fulfilled.

Diodorus Siculus (4.31.8) and Ovid in his Heroides (9.54) mention a son named Lamos. But Apollodorus (2.7.8) gives the name of the son of Heracles and Omphale as Agelaus. Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian, born at Agyrium in Sicily (now called Agira, in the Province of Enna). ... Engraved frontispiece of George Sandyss 1632 London edition of Publius Ovidus Naso, (Sulmona, March 20, 43 BC â€“ Tomis, now Constanta AD 17) Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. ... Apollodorus was a popular name in the ancient world. ...

Pausanias (2.21.3) gives yet another name, mentioning Tyrsenus son of Heracles by "the Lydian woman" by whom Pausanias presumably means Omphale. This Tyrsenus supposedly first invented the trumpet and Tyrsenus' son Hegeleus taught the Dorians with Temenus how to play the trumpet and first gave to Athena the surname Trumpet. The name Tyrsenus appears elsewhere as a variant of Tyrrhenus whom many accounts bring from Lydia to settle the Tyrsenoi/Tyrrhenians/Etruscans in Italy. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1.28.1) indeed does cite a tradition that the supposed founder of the Etruscan settlements was Tyrrhenus the son of Heracles by Omphale the Lydian who drove out the Pelasgians of Italy from the cities north of the Tiber river. Dionysius gives this as an alternate to other versions of Tyrrhenus' ancestry. Pausanias was Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century A.D., who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. ... This article or section should include material from Dorian invasion The Dorians were one of the ancient Hellenic (Greek) races. ... In Greek mythology, Temenus was a son of Aristomaches and brother of Cresphontes and Aristodemus. ... Athena from the east pediment of the Afea temple in Aegina After a sculpture of Athena at the Louvre. ... In Etruscan mythology, Tarchon and his brother, Tyrrhenus were culture heroes who founded the Etruscan Federation of twelve cities. ... The Etruscan civilization existed in Etruria and the Po valley in the northern part of what is now Italy, prior to the formation of the Roman Republic. ... Dionysius Halicarnassensis (of Halicarnassus), Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, flourished during the reign of Augustus. ... Ancient Greek writers used the name Pelasgian to refer to groups of people who preceded the Hellenes and dwelt in several locations in Anatolia, the Aegean and mainland Greece, as neighbors of the Hellenes. ... Tiber River in Rome The River Tiber (Italian Tevere), the third-longest river in Italy (disputed — see talk page) at 406 km (252 miles) after the Po and the Adige, flows through Rome in its course from Mount Fumaiolo to the Tyrrhenian Sea, which it reaches in two branches that...

Herodotus (1.7) refers to a Heraclid dynasty of kings who ruled Lydia yet were perhaps not descended from Omphale. For what Herodotus writes is "The Heraclides, descended from Heracles and the slave-girl of Iardanus, ...". Omphale as slave-girl seems odd. However Diodorus Siculus relates that when Heracles was still Omphale's slave, before Omphale (daughter of Iardanus) set Heracles free and married him, Heracles fathered a son Cleodaeus on a slave-woman. This fits, though in Herodotus the son of Heracles and the slave-girl of Iardanus is named Alcaeus.

But according to the historian Xanthus of Lydia (5th century BCE) as cited by Nicholaus of Damascus, the Heraclid dynasty of Lydia traced their descent to a son of Heracles and Omphale named Tylon and were called Tylonidai. We know from coins that this Tylon was a native Anatolian god equated with the Greek Heracles. Anatolia ( Greek: ανατολή anatolē or anatolí, rising of the sun or East; compare Orient and Levant, by popular etymology Turkish Anadolu to ana mother and dolu filled), also called by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is a region of Southwest Asia which corresponds today to the Asian portion of...

Herodotus' genealogy seems confused in any case. Herodotus asserts that the first of the Heraclids to reign in Sardis was Agron, the son of Ninus, son of Belus, son of Agelaus, son of Heracles. But later writers know a Ninus who is the primordial king of Assyria and they often call this Ninus son of Belus. Their Ninus is the legendary founder and eponym of the city of Ninus, Greek Ninos, Latin Ninus, referring to Ninevah while Belus, though sometimes treated as a human, was obviously originally intended to be the god Bel. A simpler genealogy is likely to have made Agron, as a legendary first king of an ancient dynasty, to be a son of the mythical Ninus son of Belus and have stopped at that point. But in the genealogy given by Herodotus someone has rather stupidly stuck a son of Heracles followed by Heracles himself at the top end of it, so that Ninus and Belus in the list now become descendants of Heracles who just happen to bear the same names as the more famous Ninus and Belus. Sardis, (also Sardes) the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, the seat of a conventus under the Roman Empire, and the metropolis of the province Lydia in later Roman and Byzantine times, was situated in the middle Hermus valley, at the foot of Mt. ... Ninus, was accepted in texts arising in Hellenistic period and later as the eponymous founder of Nineveh, and thus the city itself personified. ... Assyria in earliest historical times referred to a region on the Upper Tigris river, named for its original capital, the city of Asshur (or Ashshur). ... This article is about the ancient Middle Eastern city of Nineveh. ... Bel, signifying lord or master, is a title rather than a genuine name, applied to various gods in Babylonian relgion. ...

That, at least is the interpretation of later chronographers who also ignored Herodotus' statement that Agron was the first to be a king and included Alcaeus, Belus, and Ninus in their List of Kings of Lydia. Thus does myth become legend and legend become purported history. This page lists Kings of Lydia, an ancient Kingdom in western Anatolia, based on the city of Sardis. ...

As to how Agron gained the kingdom from the older dynasty descended from Lydus son of Atys, Herodotus only says that the Heraclides: "... having been entrusted by these princes with the management of affairs, obtained the kingdom by an oracle."

Strabo (5.2.2) makes Atys father of Lydus and Tyrrhenus to be one of the descendants of Heracles and Omphale. This is likely careless error rather than independent tradition as all other accounts place Atys and Lydus and Tyrrhenus brother of Lydus among the pre-Heraclid kings of Lydia. Strabo (squinty) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. ... Genera Aliculastrum Atys Cylichnium Diniatys Haloa Haminoea Hamineobulla Liloa Limulatys Micratys Mimatys Nipponatys Sericohaminoea Sphaeratys Ventomnestia Weinkauffia Family Haminoeidae Pilsbry, 1895 , or the haminoeid bubble family, is a family of marine bubble shells that belong to the superfamily Haminoeoidea. ... In Etruscan mythology, Tarchon and his brother, Tyrrhenus were culture heroes who founded the Etruscan Federation of twelve cities. ...