I first read Mary Renault's 1958 novel The King Must Die on a cruise in the Aegean sea seven years ago. I had chosen the book specifically because one of the stops on the itinerary was the the partially reconstructed bronze age ruins of Knossos on Crete, center of the Minoan civilization. There's no separating this archeological site from the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur. Even the tour guides tell it as a matter of course. Renault reimagines the half-man half-bull creature as a metaphor for the ancient Cretan sport of bull jumping, but her story starts long before Theseus ever sets foot on the island of Crete. The title of the novel comes from an extended episode early on when the young hero stumbles upon a matriarchal society in Eleusis and inadvertently gets chosen as the next year-king because he arrived on the "day when the king must die." In Renault's telling, Theseus is forced to kill the current king and become the new king by marrying the queen. Such violent transitions of power happen frequently in The Histories of Herodotus, starting with Candaules, last of the Heraclids.
In the previous post, I discussed Candaules's plan to secretly expose his wife's naked body without her knowledge to the prying eyes Gyges, his trusted bodyguard. Gyges does hide behind the door of the royal bedchamber, where he is spotted in the dark by the queen as she undresses. Discreetly, she does not cry out for help, but instead waits a while and confronts Gyges privately. The queen has intuited Candaules's perverse intentions to violate the sanctity of her body, probably knowing her husband better than he knows her. She makes Gyges an ultimatum, either he must die for his transgression or he must kill the king in vengeance for dishonoring her and become her husband himself. Gyges chooses the latter option, the king must die.
In Mary Renault's novel, Theseus realizes after he kills the year-king that his own royal tenure is limited and attempts to change the social order so that he will not die in a year's time. Eventually, when his queen catches on, she sends her brother to kill him early. Theseus manages to kill his would-be assassin and flees Eleusis for good.
Meanwhile, in my ongoing recap of Hercules Unchained, Steve Reeves's musclebound hero is trapped in a similar situation, but thus far lacks the insight of either Theseus or Candaules's queen to challenge fate. Poor Hercules is still under the spell of Omphale.
In a scene echoing the arguably homoerotic bond shared by Candaules and Gyges as master and servant, the now enslaved Ulysses is called forth one morning to give Hercules his daily massage. The crafty youth takes this opportunity to try to talk some sense into his friend. In a bizarre flashback sequence, Ulysses relates how he discovered the secret underground chamber where Omphale keeps the petrified corpses of her former lovers standing around in assorted action poses.
Hercules refuses to believe Ulysses and goes back to the waterfall to make out with Omphale, but their latest divan session is interrupted by the arrival of unexpected guests at the palace, including Laertes, Ulysses's father!
Laertes recognizes Hercules immediately and tries to tell the hero about his true identity. Of course, frustrating as ever, Hercules once again refuses to believe. He just wants to get back to playtime with Omphale.
What Hercules does not realize is that Omphale has already taken a shine to Castor, one of Laertes's men. Like Theseus's Eleusinian queen or the queen of Candaules, Omphale is impatient to get rid of her husband and take a new one. She's decided that the king must die.
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