In Greek mythology, the wife of Amphitryon and mother of twins Iphicles and Heracles. Iphicles was the son of Alcmene's mortal husband, Amphitryon, while Heracles was the son of Zeus, who had tricked Alcmene by impersonating her husband. The goddess Hera, wife of Zeus, was jealous of her husband's infidelity and delayed Alcmeme's delivery of Heracles so that his cousin, Eurystheus, became king of Mycenae and Tiryns.
In Greek mythology Alcmene, or Alkmênê ("might of the moon") was the mother of Heracles.
With Amphitryon she fled to Thebes, where Creon purified her husband of his blood-guilt. However, Alcmene's eight brothers had been killed in a cattle raid, and she would not lie with Amphitryon until they had been avenged.
Thus at Thebes she was the mother of Heracles by Zeus, who assumed the likeness of her husband during his absence to lie with her and stayed Helios, to make one night into three; In this way Alcmene is one among several mothers of mythic twins of whom the sire of one is mortal, of the other a god, the most famous of them being the Dioscuri, two from the double set of such twins of Leda.
While Alcmene was pregnant with Heracles ("glory of Hera"), Hera (sometimes her daughter Eileithia) herself tried to prevent her from giving birth to the hero who would help establish the new Olympian order.
Through Heracles, Alcmene was regarded as the ancestress of the Heracleidae, and venerated at Thebes and Athens.
After the death of Amphitryon, Alcmene married the Cretan Rhadamanthus, who was exiled in Boeotia.
Popular Culture
Alcmene was featured by two different actresses in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys: Elizabeth Hawthorne and Liddy Holloway.
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