There is a book called "Gender and Immortality. Heroines in Ancient Greek Myth and Cult" by Deborah J. Lyons that really clarified the Greek idea of heroes for me. In today's world, we think of a hero as someone who as overcome some enormous challenges. To the ancient Greeks, it's the gods who would put such an obstacle in your path. Why would they do that? They must be mad at you. So it's only natural to have a hero like Heracles named after the god who hates him the most.
An example in Lyons' book is Iphigenia, who doesn't really match up with our modern ideas of heroism. Iphigenia is just a victim of circumstance, but she still became an object of worship through her association with Artemis, which lands her in the "heroine" category. Even then, the play "Iphigenia in Tauris" reveals how Greeks (or at least some Greeks) would have thought about her: even after the cycle of revenge that destroyed her family in the Oresteia, she's eager to return home with her brother as soon as she encounters him. Clearly, she'd rather be alive than deified.
There is a book called "Gender and Immortality. Heroines in Ancient Greek Myth and Cult" by Deborah J. Lyons that really clarified the Greek idea of heroes for me. In today's world, we think of a hero as someone who as overcome some enormous challenges. To the ancient Greeks, it's the gods who would put such an obstacle in your path. Why would they do that? They must be mad at you. So it's only natural to have a hero like Heracles named after the god who hates him the most.
An example in Lyons' book is Iphigenia, who doesn't really match up with our modern ideas of heroism. Iphigenia is just a victim of circumstance, but she still became an object of worship through her association with Artemis, which lands her in the "heroine" category. Even then, the play "Iphigenia in Tauris" reveals how Greeks (or at least some Greeks) would have thought about her: even after the cycle of revenge that destroyed her family in the Oresteia, she's eager to return home with her brother as soon as she encounters him. Clearly, she'd rather be alive than deified.