There is typically a description of how Hercules kills his victims. Curiously I have never come across any description of how he kills his first wife Megara. I’d been interested to know how she died.
In Seneca’s Hercules Furens (Mad Hercules), he kills her with a club, according to this summary:
“After another short pause, Amphitryo vividly describes for the audience the offstage killings of Megara and the third child of Hercules. The boy is truly terrified (pavefactus spiritum eripuit pavor, 1022– 23) by his father’s fiery expression (igneo vultu, 1022), while Hercules smashes Megara with his club (in coniugem nunc clava libratur gravis, 1024).” (Kohn 104)
Thomas Kohn. The Dramaturgy of Senecan Tragedy. University of Michigan Press, 2013.
Thanks I was looking at Seneca’s play today. I missed it. Thanks gkster. I’ll look at it again. So no versions where he strangles or throttles or breaks her neck. I remember hearing those versions but never seeing them in print.
You’re welcome; I enjoy these research puzzles. According to the Kohn summary, it’s in Act IV.
I looked at Graves’s Greek Myths and according to him there’s no consensus on how or when she dies.
Although, most of his victims are worthy opponents. How to kill a lion with skin impervious to weapons, or a hydra who regrows every severed head in duplicate, is a story worth telling. How to kill an ordinary unarmed mortal woman, much less so.
From Wiki:
Megara was married to Heracles by her father as a reward for the hero after he led the defense of Thebes against the Minyans at Orchomenus, and the couple had several sons together.[7] Hera sent Heracles into a fit of temporary madness due to her hatred for him. In his madness, Heracles killed their children either by shooting them with arrows or by throwing them into a fire.[8][9] Whether Megara also died as a result of this attack depended on the author.[10] In some sources, after Heracles completed his Twelve Labours, Megara married Heracles’ nephew Iolaus and became the mother of Leipephilene by him.[11][12]
Cites:
7 Apollodorus, Library, 2.4.11
8 Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 4.11.1
9 Apollodorus, Library, 2.4.12
10 Euripides, Heracles 1001; Hyginus, Fabulae 31.8, 241.
11 Apollodorus, 2.6.1.
12 Plutarch, Moralia “The Dialogue on Love / Erotikos / Amatoria”, Loeb, V. XII, p.339
Silk, Michael Stephen (1985). “Heracles and Greek tragedy”. Greece & Rome. 32 (1): 1–22. doi:10.1017/S0017383500030096. JSTOR 642295.
But that’s just a play. Octagon wants to know what happened in real life.
ZonexandScout. Why don’t you go educate yourself. Go troll somewhere else!
Modnotes: Not sure what you were hoping to accomplish with this remark but it does appear you’re dragging something in from another thread or trying to troll @Octagon. Please do not do this again.
@Octogon, this is so close to a warning, I debated it for a while. Do not accuse posters of trolling outside of the the pit, even when justified. Flag the post instead. Do not do this again.
My apologies. I did not intend to offend or troll. I was simply struck by the use of “actually” in relation to a (presumed) mythological incident and made a comment intended to be humorous. I failed and accept the blame.
Ok. Understood. It won’t happen again.
According to the well respected biographer Walt Disney, Megara is killed saving Hercules and he rescues her from Hades. 
I thought it was funny.
Thanks (I think)!
When my kids were 5 and 7, they were debating the unrealistic way that fights are shown in cartoons. One of them said “In real life it’s not that way” and the other replied “Yes, but in fake life it is!”
So for a few years “in fake life” was a catch-phrase in our household, and your post reminded me of it.