Heroön at Nemea

Opheltes and the Nemean Games

The Nemean Games began in 573 BCE, near the time of the Heroön's construction. Written sources for the myth of the child-hero Opheltes date only to the early 5th century BCE; the construction of the Heroön likely predated the production of written tales about its hero.

According to the written myth, Opheltes was the son of a king or priest named Lycurgus. At his birth, a seer prophesied that the boy would die in his infancy if allowed to touch the ground before learning to walk. When the Seven against Thebes—a legendary, likely mythical group of champions—stopped in Nemea, they asked Opheltes's nurse Hypsipyle for water. Hypsipyle set the child down in a bed of wild celery to retrieve water for the Seven. This left Opheltes exposed to a serpent, which strangled him to fulfill the prophecy. To honor the dead child, the Seven elevated Opheltes to a hero and held funeral celebrations and athletic events in his name. Victors were awarded crowns of wild celery.

Artifacts recovered

Excavations at the Heroön at Nemea have yielded several complete vessels which were intentionally arranged and buried. Archaeologists have also recovered seven lead curse tablets engraved with erotic binding spells, four of which retain legible text. Because Opheltes died violently in infancy, practitioners of magic viewed his shrine as an exceptionally potent site.

Although discovered scattered across the Heroön, the tablets share a uniform manufacturing technique: each was inscribed on a thin lead sheet, folded, and pierced with a nail. The binding spells command that the target be "turn[ed] away" from their lover, systematically invoking various physical and spiritual attributes of the victim to isolate them fully. Variations in handwriting across the tablets indicate that distinct individuals deposited each curse, while the cursive script and letterforms—unattested before the 4th century BCE—suggest that these rituals took place after the Heroön had fallen out of formal use.