Traces of the epics on Heracles in the archaic and classical periods: between local interests and never-ending traditions

Despite of the constant presence of Heracles in every aspect of the Greek culture, the almost total disappearence of the hero from the Archaic and Classical epic poetry has normally produced in the scholarship about this subject-matter the effect of a progressive and massive focus on his sporadic 'appearances' on the Homeric poems or on his presence in the Hesiodic poetry. Such consideration of the extant evidence has had a consequence also on the interpretation of the better transmitted and preserved Hellenistic epic poem, i.e. the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, as well as of the Theocritean Idylls, in which the Heraclean myth became crucial and not only a glimpse a broader frame. In a path which traces back to the few 'apparitions' of Heracles in the Theban and the Trojan epic cycle until the Ἡράκλεια composed by Panyassis, the paper offers a reassessment of a series of fragments and evidence with the aim of highlighting the local perspective as well as some traces of an aetiological function the use of the Heraclean myth had in the 'non-Homeric' Archaic and Classical epics. Moreover, the regional values of Heracles' exploits in the fragmentary epics appear to survive in the revival these motifs had in the Hellenistic epic production, where the links with the previous, not exclusively Homeric and Hesiodic, epic tradition can often be traceable through the many threads provided by the scholiasts, the commentators and the readers of the Hellenistic texts focused on Heracles, especially those of Apollonius and Theocritus.