This was a group of Clerico's ballets which were used as interval entertainments during opera performances at Teatro di Via della Pergola in the 1792 autumn season. It is likely that they drew either on Sophocles or on Seneca. The use of these ballets is recorded in the libretti for the production of L'Artaserse by various authors (Sartori ID 3109) and for Gaetano Isola's opera Le Danaidi (Sartori ID 7094). The intervals of the latter also featured another Clerico's ballet, titled Il folletto in sogno. It is possible that the work is related to Clerico's other ballets on the subject:

Ercole e Dejanira, Padua 1789 (Sartori Ids 7057 and 9044a), La morte d’Ercole, Milan 1790 (Sartori Ids 447 and 19180), Ercole e Dejanira, Parma 1798 (Sartori ID 24978). Clerico's work probably also influenced the work of his brother-in-law Panzieri, whose choreography La morte d’Ercole was staged in Trieste in 1798 (Sartori ID 10084).