Capture of Oechalia

The Capture of Oechalia (traditionally The Sack of Oechalia, Ancient Greek: Οἰχαλίας Ἅλωσις) is a fragmentary Greek epic that was variously attributed in Antiquity to either Homer or Creophylus of Samos; a tradition was reported that Homer gave the tale to Creophylus, in gratitude for guest-friendship (xenia), and that Creophylus wrote it down.

Oechalia (also known as the "city of Eurytus") was an ancient Greek city whose capture by Heracles was said to be the main subject of the epic. It is debated, based on a scholium on a line in Euripides' Medea whether Medea's poisoning of Creon may have been another feature, which Franz Stoessl suggested will have been a comparative aside in the telling of Deianira, in her original guise as the "man-destroyer" of her etymology: "the innocent Deianeira, whose murder of Heracles is tragically inadvertent, will be a later invention," Malcolm Davies asserts, "perhaps the brain-child of Sophocles."

The ancient Greek geographer Strabo noted in his Geographica that the true location of the city was unknown even to him, saying that various sources referred to Oechalia by many different names and placed it in various locations around Greece. Further complicating the factual details behind the epic is the fact that there seemed to have been several different cities called Oechalia, only one of which was discussed in it.