Iolaus

Nephew of Heracles and his constant companion — the charioteer who drove the hero's team through the labours and the partner who turned the Lernaean Hydra from impossible to possible (Hesiod *Shield of Heracles* 74-94). When Heracles cut off a head and two grew back in its place, Iolaus seared the stumps with a firebrand so nothing could regrow; Apollodorus (2.5.2) makes the cauterisation the key without which the labour could not have ended. After Heracles's death he led the Heraclidae — the hero's sons — in their long effort to reclaim their patrimony from Eurystheus, a role Euripides builds the tragedy *Heraclidae* around. Pindar (*Isthmian* 7.9; *Olympian* 9.98) treats him as the archetype of the loyal kinsman-companion.

Associated Places