0895NOTPhiloctetes_ClementsMusker

0895NOTPhiloctetes_ClementsMusker

Apollodorus Libr. 3.10.8
Sophocles Philoctetes passim

Philoctetes, a.k.a. Phil, character in Hercules by Ron Clements and John Musker (Disney 1997), animated by Caroline Cruikshank, voiced by Danny DeVito.

Phil may be the Disney artists’ broadest divergence from classical mythology in this animated film. Iconographically, Hercules’ diminutive and rotund mentor is based largely upon the iconography of classical satyrs. His name, however, comes from Philoctetes, a character that belongs naturally in the Heracles story but is NOT a satyr.

See S. Rebello and J. Healey, The Art of Hercules: the chaos of creation (NYC: Hyperion, 1997) for serious treatment of Clements & Musker's artistic approach.

Black and white image of Disney's Hercules smiling, with Philoctetes (Philo) the satyr standing beside him.

Philoctetes, in classical sources, is the keeper of Heracles’ bow and arrow. He was entrusted with these at Heracles’ self-immolation on Mt. Oeta. Philoctetes set the fire. A stinking, festering, and agonizing wound on his foot — explained variously — made Philoctetes socially intolerable; so, he was dumpted on the island of Lemnos to wait out the Trojan War in solitude.

A precondition for the fall of Troy was that her enemies must be armed with Heracles’ bow and arrows. Since Philoctetes possessed those, the Greeks under Odysseus’ supervision weighed the unpleasantness of Philoctetes’ company against their need for his weapons. Sophocles great play, Philoctetes, deals with the approach taken. After Troy’s fall, he returned home.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled forThe Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.