In both Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey Herakles (sometimes called Hercules) features as a famous archer. He also appears in art and on pottery. By the 7th century BC he has become fairly easy to spot, and a black figure vase painting from early Archaic Athens (c.620BC) by the Nettos Painter depicts Herakles with a quiver on his back and drawing his bow to shoot the eagle that had been devouring Prometheus' liver.
According to Apollodoros, Herakles learned archery from Eurytos, King of Oichalia. The King promised to give his daughter in marriage to the winner of a bow contest between himself and his sons. This suggests that archery was held in high esteem as not only the King was a skilled archer but his sons were also.
Although Herakles won the contest the King did not keep his word. In Sophocles’ Trachiniai, Eurytos tells Herakles he is inferior to his sons at archery, ‘You have inescapable arrows in your hands but my sons excel you in the test of archery.’ Obviously Herakles must have been a good archer otherwise he would not have won the contest. So what was Eurytos really objecting to?
In later vase paintings the bow contest is depicted and Herakles is shown slaying Eurytos and his sons with the bow.
In one of the Twelve Labours set for Herakles he was told to rid the country of the Stymphalian birds. It is not clear how he achieved this but some sources say he shot them with his bow and arrows.
According to legend, Herakles gave his bow to Philoktetes, who then helped the Greeks defeat the Trojans at Troy. The Trojan prince Paris (who caused the war by running off with Menelaus' wife, Helen) was also an archer. He used archery to bring down the great Achilles, yet Paris is rarely represented as an archer in Greek art.
