Slavery in Lydia
Many adventures of Herakles take place after his labors were completed. 
One of the more
remarkable ones
is probably that involving his Lydian slavery, as here we see the hero in an entirely
unusual, almost comic role. Told by the Delphic oracle that the road to vindication from an
accidental manslaughter he had committed was through three years of slavery, he goes to serve
Omphale, the queen of Lydia is eastern Asia Minor. There, the two often reversed their roles, with
her putting on his garb, dragging the club and playing a hero,
and Herakles dressing as a female and reportedly performing
women's chores (admittedly, more a housewife's than a queen's). There are many twists to this
story - sure enough, some of them casting the hero in more manly functions - and ample
Hellenistic and Roman artistic renditions of this episode, though again, rather few of them on coinage, and naturally confined to a couple of Lydian mints.