Peplos

An obvious question arises: what on earth can Herakles do with a peplos? Throughout Greek tradition, the peplos ("piece of cloth, veil, dress") is a woman's garment, and sometimes a barbarian's garment—no contradiction, as far as a Greek is concerned.

The garments (peploi) that serve the Trojan women as a pretext to laying hands on their victims are also the means of concealing the daggers that will kill […]

I leave aside the vexed questions about whether one or two peploi were woven and presented to Athena during the Greater (every four years) and Lesser (every year) Panathenaic festivals […]