Mightiest of Men

XV. TO HERACLES THE LION-HEARTED
[1] I will sing of Heracles, the son of Zeus and much the mightiest of men on earth. Alcmena bare him in Thebes, the city of lovely dances, when the dark-clouded Son of Cronos had lain with her. Once he used to wander over unmeasured tracts of land and sea at the bidding of King Eurystheus, and himself did many deeds of violence and endured many; but now he lives happily in the glorious home of snowy Olympus, and has neat-ankled Hebe for his wife. Hail, lord, son of Zeus! Give me success and prosperity.


- Homeric Hymn 16


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Explanation of possible authorship and dating from Theoi:

The Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three Greek poems composed in the old Epic style. They range in length from 3 to 500 lines. The shortest of these are brief invocations which served as preludes to longer festival recitations of epic. The largest four are complete epic narrative poems in themselves.

The dating and authorship of the Hymns is complex. Greek writers assigned several authors including Homer, Pamphos (Hymn to Demeter), and Cynaethus of Chios (Hymn to Apollo). However they are now regarded as a largely anonymous collection of works. The majority of the collection, including the longer hymns, dates from the C7th - C6th B.C. A few of the shorter poems are clearly Hellenistic, and the Hymn to Ares was probably composed in Roman times.