After speaking with his wife, he discovered the truth: Alcmene had spent the previous night with someone else. The next day when the real Amphitryon returned home, he wondered why she did not give him a hero’s welcome. Alcmene was overjoyed, and gladly allowed him into her bed. He told her that he had just come home from killing the pirates. On the night before Amphitryon returned from his journey, Zeus came to Alcmene in the form and shape of her husband. So before even sleeping with his wife, Amphitryon traveled to the Taphian Islands (off the western coast of Greece, near Ithaca) and stayed there for several weeks until he had killed all of the Taphian Pirates. But Alcmene refused to consummate her marriage until Amphitryon had avenged the murder of her brothers, who had been killed by the Taphian Pirates. Alcmene was married to Amphitryon, the heir to the throne of Tiryns. Heracles was the son of Zeus and a mortal woman named Alcmene.

Functions: son of Zeus, mortal hero, and eventually a god The Birth of Heracles

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