[2] In the play Children of Heracles by Euripides, Macaria,[a] along with her siblings, Alcmene and Iolaus flees from King Eurystheus, who is determined the kill all the children of Heracles, to Athens where they find shelter in the court of King Demophon, who refused to hand them over when Eurystheus gave him an ultimatum of war upon Athens unless he surrendered the Heraclidae.
[3] As Eurystheus prepares to attack, an oracle dictates that the Athenians will only be victorious if a maiden of noble birth is sacrificed to the goddess Persephone, the queen of the Underworld.
Hearing that, Macaria willingly volunteers to be sacrificed, reasoning that dying on the altar is more noble than living a life as a coward who doomed a city and its inhabitants.
[7] In other authors, Heracles moved with his family to Trachis, ruled by the amicable king Ceyx, where they lived until his death and Eurystheus forced them to flee to Athens, where they were offered shelter by Theseus, rather than his son.
[10] The 10th-century Byzantine lexicon Suda mentions a proverbial phrase connected to Macaria, "be gone in blessedness", that is into misery and destruction, used as a euphemism (since the dead were called the 'blessed ones')[9] for those whose courage endangered them.