Heracles' role as a culture hero, whose death could be a subject of mythic telling (see below), was accepted into the Olympian Pantheon during Classical times. It is possible that the myths surrounding Heracles were based on the life of a real person or several people whose accomplishments became exaggerated with time. The core of the story of Heracles has been identified by Walter Burkert as originating in Neolithic hunter culture and traditions of shamanistic crossings into the netherworld. Heracles was both hero and god, as Pindar says heros theos at the same festival sacrifice was made to him, first as a hero, with a chthonic libation, and then as a god, upon an altar: thus he embodies the closest Greek approach to a ' demi-god'. Heracles was the greatest of Hellenic chthonic heroes, but unlike other Greek heroes, no tomb was identified as his. His figure, which initially drew on Near Eastern motifs such as the lion-fight, was widely known. Many popular stories were told of his life, the most famous being The Twelve Labours of Heracles Alexandrian poets of the Hellenistic age drew his mythology into a high poetic and tragic atmosphere. Maternal: Iphicles, Laonome paternal: Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Dionysus, Helen of Troy, Perseus and many othersĪlexiares and Anicetus, Telephus, Hyllus, Tlepolemus
