The most famous group of stories tell of The Twelve Labours of Heracles.
Zeus, having made Alcmene pregnant with Heracles, proclaimed that the next son born of the house of Perseus would become king. Hera, Zeus' consort, hearing this, caused Eurystheus to be born two months early as he was of the house of Perseus, while Heracles, also of the house, was three months overdue. When he found out what had been done, Zeus was furious; however, his rash proclamation still stood.
In a fit of madness, induced by Hera, Heracles slew his wife and children; the fit then passed. Realising what he had done, he isolated himself, going into the wilderness and living alone. He was found (by his brother Iphicles) and convinced to visit the Oracle at Delphi. The Oracle told him that as a penance he would have to perform a series of ten tasks set by King Eurystheus, the man who had taken Heracles' birthright and the man he hated the most.
In his labours, Heracles was often accompanied by his boyfriend (an eromenos), according to some, Licymnius, or by others Iolaus, his nephew. Although he was only supposed to perform ten labours, this assistance led to him suffering two more. Eurystheus didn't count the Hydra, because Iolaus helped him, or the Augean stables, as he received payment for his work (in other versions it is because the rivers did the work).
The slaying of the Nemean Lion
The first of Heracles' twelve labours was to slay the Nemean Lion and bring back its skin.
The lion had been terrorising the area around Nemea, and had a skin so thick that it was impenetrable to weapons. When Heracles first tackled it, using his bow-and-arrow, a club made from an olive tree he pulled out of the ground himself, and a bronze sword, all were ineffective. At last Heracles threw away his weapons and wrestled the lion to the ground, eventually killing it by thrusting his arm down its throat and choking it to death.
Heracles spent hours trying unsuccessfully to skin the lion, and gradually growing angrier as it appeared he would be unable to complete his first task. Eventually Athena, in the guise of an old crone, helped Heracles to realise that the best tools to cut the hide were the creature's own claws. Thus, with a little divine intervention, Heracles completed his first task.
Thereafter, he wore the impenetrable hide as armour. King Eurystheus, Heracles' taskmaster for the labours, was so frightened by Heracles' fearsome guise that he hid in a large bronze jar, and from that moment forth communicated all his instructions to Heracles through a herald.
Lernaean Hydra
In Greek mythology, The Lernaean Hydra was an ancient nameless serpent-like chthonic water beast that possessed numerous heads—the poets mention more heads than the vase-painters could paint—and poisonous breath (Hyginus, 30). The Hydra of Lerna was killed by Heracles as one of his Twelve Labours. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, though archaeology has borne out the myth that the sacred site was older even than the Mycenaean city of Argos, for Lerna was the site of the myth of the Danaids. Beneath the waters was an entrance to the Underworld, and the Hydra its guardian (Kerenyi 1959, p. 143).
The Hydra was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, noisome creatures of the Goddess, who became Hera. It was said to be the sibling of the Nemean Lion, yet another creature of the archaic Goddess, and thus seeking revenge for Heracles' slaying of it. As such, it was said to have been chosen as a task for Heracles so that Heracles would likely die.
Upon reaching the swamp near Lake Lerna, where the Hydra dwelt, Heracles covered his mouth and nose with a cloth to protect himself from the poisonous fumes and fired flaming arrows into its lair, the spring of Amymone, to draw it out. He then confronted it, wielding a harvesting sickle in some early vase-paintings; Ruck and Staples (p. 170) have pointed out that the chthonic creature's reaction was botanical: upon cutting off each of its heads he found that two grew back, an expression of the hopelessness of such a struggle for any but the hero, Heracles.
The details of the confrontation are explicit in Apollodorus (2.5.2): realising that he could not defeat the Hydra in this way, Heracles called on his nephew Iolaus for help. His nephew then came upon the idea (possibly inspired by Athena) of using a burning firebrand to scorch the neck stumps after decapitation, and handed him the blazing brand. Heracles cut off each head and Iolaus burned the open stump leaving the hydra dead; its one immortal head Heracles placed under a great rock on the sacred way between Lerna andElaius (Kerenyi1959 p 144), and dipped his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood, and so his second task was complete.
In an alternative version, Hera's crab was at the site to bite his feet and bother him, hoping to cause his death. Hera set it in the Zodiac to follow the Lion (Eratosthenes, Catasterismi)
When Eurystheus, the agent of ancient Hera who was assigning to Heracles The Twelve Labours, found out that it was Heracles' nephew who had handed him the firebrand, he declared that the labour had not been completed alone and as a result did not count towards the ten labours set for him. The mythic element is an equivocating attempt to resolve the submerged conflict between an ancient ten Labours and a more recent twelve.
In another version, Hercules defeated the Hydra by remembering the words of his wise teacher, Chiron, who had said, "We rise by kneeling; we conquer by surrendering; we gain by giving up." All his other weapons having failed, Hercules remembered his mentor's words and knelt down in the swamp and lifted up the monster by one of her heads into the light of day, where she began to wilt. Hercules then cut off each of her heads, dipping his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood at the same time. However, none re-grew. After he had severed all nine heads, a tenth one appeared; Hercules recognised this as a jewel and buried it under a rock.
Today "Hydra-like problem" or "hydra" refers to a multifaceted problem that seems incapable of step-by-step solution, or to one that worsens upon conventional attempts to solve it, for example, attempts to suppress a particular piece of information resulting in it being disseminated even more widely.
Capture the Ceryneian Hind
Eurystheus was greatly angered to find that Heracles had managed to escape death, on the previous two labours, and so decided to spend more time thinking up a third task that would spell doom for the hero. The third task did not involve killing a beast, as it had already been established that Heracles could survive even the most fearsome opponents, so Eurystheus decided to make him capture the remaining Cerynian Hind.
The hind was so fast it could outrun an arrow. When Heracles awoke from sleeping, he could see the hind from the glint on its antlers. Heracles chased the hind on foot for a full year through Greece, Thrace, Istria and the land of the Hyperboreans. In some versions, he captured the hind when it stopped to drink, rendering it lame by shooting it with an arrow that had not been poisoned with centaur/hydra blood, as most of his arrows were, in other versions he captured it when it was unable to run any further.
Eurystheus had given Heracles this task hoping to incite Artemis' anger at Heracles for his desecration of her sacred animal. As he was returning with the hind, Heracles encountered Artemis and her twin, Apollo, and begged the goddess for forgiveness, explaining that he had to catch it as part of his penance, but he promised to return it. Artemis forgave him, foiling Eurystheus' plan to have her punish him.
Upon bringing the hind to Eurystheus, he was told that it was to become part of the King's menagerie. Heracles knew that he had to return the hind as he had promised to Artemis, so he agreed to hand it over on the condition that Eurystheus himself came out and took it from him. The King came out, but the moment Heracles let the hind go it sprinted back to her mistress, and Heracles left saying that Eurystheus had not been quick enough.
Capture the Erymanthian Boar
In Greek mythology, the Erymanthian Boar is remembered in connection with The Twelve Labours, in which Heracles, the (reconciled) enemy of Hera, visited in turn "all the other sites of the Goddess throughout the world, to conquer every conceivable 'monster' of nature and rededicate the primordial world to its new master, his Olympian father," Zeus (Ruck and Staples, p.163).
In the primitive highlands of Arcadia, where old practices lingered, the Erymanthian Boar was a vicious creature that lived on Mount Erymanthos, a mountain that was apparently once sacred to the Mistress of the Animals, for in classical times it remained the haunt of Artemis (Homer, Odyssey, VI.105). A boar was a dangerous animal: "When the goddess turned a wrathful countenance upon a country, as in the story of Meleagros, she would send a raging boar, which laid waste the farmers' fields." (Kerenyi 1959, p 149) One was sent by Apollo to kill the youth Adonis, a favorite of Aphrodite, for revenge on her, as she had blinded Apollo's mortal son, Erymanthus because he had stumbled upon her bathing. Robert Graves (Graves 1955,126.1) suggested that Aphrodite had been substituted for Artemis in this retelling of the mytheme of the eponymous Erymanthus.
Heracles' fourth labour—by some counts, for there is no single definitive telling—was to capture the Boar. On the way there, Heracles visited Pholus ("caveman"), a kind and hospitable centaur and old friend. Heracles ate with him in his cavern—though the centaur devoured his meat raw—and asked for wine. Pholus had only one jar of wine, a gift from Dionysus to all the centaurs on Mt Erymanthus. Heracles convinced him to open it, and the smell attracted the other centaurs, who did not understand that wine needs to be tempered with water, became drunk and attacked. Heracles shot at them with his poisonous arrows, and the centaurs retreated all the way to Chiron's cave.
Pholus was curious why the arrows caused so much death, and picked one up but dropped it, and the arrow stabbed his feet, poisoning him. A stray arrow hit Chiron as well, but Chiron was immortal, although he still felt the pain. Chiron's pain was so great, he volunteered to give up his immortality, and take the place of Prometheus. Prometheus' torturer, the eagle, continued its torture on Chiron, so Heracles shot it dead with an arrow. The tale of the Centaurs sometimes appears in other parts of the twelve labours, as does the freeing of Prometheus.
Heracles had visited Chiron to gain advice on how to catch the boar, and Chiron had told him to drive it into thick snow, which sets this Labour in mid-winter. Having successfully caught the Boar, Heracles bound it and carried it back to Eurystheus (illustration upper right), who was frightened of it and ducked down in his subterranean wine jar, begging Heracles to get rid of the beast, a favorite subject for the vase-painters. Heracles obliged.
Clean the Augean stables in one day
The fifth task set to Heracles was to clean the Augean stables in a single day. The reasoning behind this being set was twofold: firstly, all the previous labors only exalted Heracles in eyes of the people so this one would surely degrade him; secondly, the amount of dirt ammassed in the uncleaned stable made the task surely impossible. However, Heracles succeeded by rerouting the rivers Alpheus and Peneus to wash the filth out.
Augeas was irate because he had promised Heracles one-tenth of his cattle if the job was finished in one day. He refused to honour the agreement and was killed by Heracles, who gave his kingdom to Augeas' son, Phyleus, who had been exiled for supporting Heracles against his father.
According to the Odes of the poet Pindar, Heracles then founded the Olympic Games : the games which by the ancient tomb of Pelops the mighty Heracles founded, after that he slew Kleatos, Poseidon's goodly son, and slew also Eurytos, that he might wrest from tyrannous Augeas against his will reward for service done.
Slay the Stymphalian Birds
In Greek mythology, the Stymphalian Birds lived by Lake Stymphalus in Arcadia. They had migrated there to escape a herd of wolves. They bred quickly and took over the countryside. They had sharp metallic feathers that they shot at people, claws of brass they used to eviscerate flesh, and they destroyed local crops and fruit trees. Some sources claim these were the same birds that attacked the Argonauts.
The forest around Lake Stymphalus was very dense and too dark to see much. Athena and Hephaestus helped Heracles kill the birds as the sixth of his Twelve Labours. Hephaestus made huge bronze clappers to drive the birds into flight, and Heracles shot them with his arrows or a catapult. The birds that survived never returned to Greece.
Capture the Cretan Bull
Heracles was compelled to capture the bull as his seventh task. He sailed to Crete, whereupon the King of Crete, Minos, gave Heracles permission to take the bull away, as it had been wreaking havoc on Crete. Heracles used a lasso and rode it back to his cousin, Eurystheus. Eurystheus wanted to sacrifice the bull to Hera, who hated Heracles. She refused the sacrifice because it reflected glory on Heracles, and the bull was released to be captured by Theseus later.
Steal the Mares of Diomedes
The Mares of Diomedes were four, magnificent, wild, uncontrollable, man-eating horses. They belonged to the giant Diomedes, King of Thrace, a son of Ares and Cyrene who lived on the shores of the Black Sea. Bucephalus, Alexander the Great's horse, was said to be descended from these mares.
One labour of Heracles was to steal them. In one version of the story, Heracles brought Abderus, one of his many male beloveds (eromenos), and some other youths to help him. They took the mares and were chased by Diomedes and his men.
Heracles was not aware that the horses were kept tethered to a bronze manger because they were wild, man-eating and uncontrollable, and Heracles left Abderus in charge of the horses while he fought Diomedes, but Abderus was eaten. In revenge, Heracles fed Diomedes to his own horses, then founded Abdera next to the boy's tomb.
In another version, Heracles stayed awake, so that he didn't have his throat cut by Diomedes in the night, and cut the chains binding the horses. Having scared the horses onto the high ground of a peninsula, Heracles quickly dug a trench through the peninsula, filling it with water and thus rendering it an island. When Diomedes arrived, Heracles killed him with an axe (the one used to dig the trench), and fed the body to the horses.
Eating made the horses calmer and Heracles took the opportunity to bind their mouths shut, and easily took them back to King Eurystheus, who dedicated the horses to Hera. In some versions, they were allowed them to roam freely around Argos, having become permanently calm, but in others, Eurystheus ordered the horses taken to Olympus to be sacrificed to Zeus, but Zeus refused them, and instead sent wolves, lions, and bears to kill them.
Obtain the Girdle of Hippolyte
In Greek mythology, Hippolyte was the Amazonian queen, who possessed a magical girdle given to her by Ares, her father.
Heracles' ninth labour was to obtain the girdle, at the request of Admete, Eurystheus' daughter. In one version of the story, Hippolyte fell in love with Heracles and freely gave him the belt. According to another the girdle is obtained by Heracles kidnapping Hippolyte's sister, Melanippe, and demanding the girdle as the ransom, succeeding and thus releasing the sister.
After Heracles gets the girdle, Theseus, one of Heracles' companions (also including Sthenelus), kidnaps Antiope, another sister of Hippolyte. The Amazons then attack (because Hera, Heracles' enemy, has spread a vicious rumour that Heracles was there to attack them or to kidnap Hippolyte) but Heracles and Theseus escape with the girdle and Antiope. According to one version, Heracles kills Hippolyte as they flee. In order to rescue Antiope, the Amazons attack Athens but fail, in some versions with Antiope dying in the enslaught.
In many versions Theseus marries either Antiope or Hippolyte, having a son Hippolytus. Theseus eventually marries Phaedra, having left his wife, or his wife having died after childbirth. In the version where Theseus is married to, and leaves, Hippolyte, Hippolyte tries to exact revenge by bringing the Amazons into Theseus and Phaedra's wedding to kill everyone, though this fails as she is killed by, in some versions Theseus' men, in others Penthesilea, another Amazon.
Theft of the Cattle of Geryon
Heracles was told to obtain the Cattle of Geryon as his tenth labour. While journeying towards there, he crossed the Libyan desert (Libya was the generic name for Africa to the Greeks), and was so frustrated at the heat that he shot an arrow at Helios, the sun. Helios begged him to stop, and Heracles demanded the golden cup used by Helios to sail across the sea each night. Heracles used the cup to reach Erytheia.
Heracles tried to steal the cattle, and killed Orthrus, then Eurythion. Geryon arrives, in some versions due to having been informed of Heracles' actions by Menoetius, Hades' shepherd. Heracles finally kills Geryon, tearing his body into its three pieces.
Heracles then had to herd the cattle back to Eurystheus. On the Aventine hill in Italy, Cacus stole some of the cattle stolen from Geryon as Heracles slept, making the cattle walk backwards so that they left no trail. According to some versions, Heracles drove his remaining cattle past a cave, where Cacus was hiding the stolen ones, and they began calling out to each other, but in others, Caca, Cacus' sister, told Heracles where he was. Heracles then killed Cacus, and according to the Romans, then founded an altar where the Forum Boarium, the cattle market, was later held.
To annoy Heracles, Hera sent a gadfly to bite the cattle, irritate them and scatter them. Hera then sent a flood which rose the water level of a river so much Heracles could not ford the cattle. He piled stones into the river to make the water shallower. Heracles then had to kill a monster that was half-woman and half-serpent. When he finally reached he court of Eurystheus, the cattle were sacrificed to Hera.
The poet Stesichorus wrote a 'song of Geryon' (Geryoneis) in the 6th century BC, which is the best source of this epic, and also contains the first reference to Tartessus.
Steal the Apples of the Hesperides
In Greek mythology, the Hesperides are nymphs who tend a blissful garden in a far west corner of the world, located, according to various sources, in the Arcadian Mountains in Greece, near the Atlas mountains in Libya, or on a distant island at the edge of the ocean. Acording to the greek poet Stesichorus, in his poem the "song of Geryon", and the greek geographer Strabo, in his book Geographika (volume III), the Hesperides are in Tartessos, a location placed to the south of Iberia (Spain). The greek poet Hesiod said that the ancient name of Cádiz was Erytheia.
Additionally, Hesperides (also called Fortunate Isles) is a name given by the ancients to a series of islands located to the extreme west of the then known world. These may have included the Canary Islands, the Madeira Islands, and Cape Verde.
According to different accounts, the Hesperides were either three, four, or seven Hesperides, but they are usually numbered three, like the other Greek triads (the Three Graces and the Moirae). Among the names given to them are Aegle ("dazzling light"), Arethusa, Erytheia (or Erytheis), Hesperia (or Hespereia), Hespere (or Hespera), Hestia, and Hesperusa. They are sometimes called the Western Maidens, the Daughters of Evening, or the Sunset Goddesses, all apparently tied to their imagined location in the distant west, and Hesperis is appropriately the personification of the evening (as Eos is of the dawn) and the Evening Star is Hesperus. They are also called the African Sisters, perhaps when thought to be in Libya. In addition to their tending of the garden, they were said to have taken great pleasure in singing.
They are sometimes portrayed as the evening daughters of Night (Nyx) and Darkness (Erebus), in accord with the way Eos in the farthermost east, in Colchis, is the daughter of the sun titan Hyperion. Or they are listed as the daughters of Atlas, or of Zeus and either Hesperius or Themis, or Phorcys and Ceto.
The Garden of the Hesperides is Hera's orchard in the west, where either a single tree or a grove of immortality-giving golden apples grew. The apples were planted from the fruited branches that Gaia gave to her as a wedding gift when Hera accepted Zeus. The Hesperides were given the task of tending to the grove, but occasionally plucked from it themselves. Not trusting them, Hera also placed in the garden a never-sleeping, hundred-headed, dragon, named Ladon, as an additional safeguard.
Although Heracles was only supposed to perform ten labours, Eurystheus discounted those where he was aided or paid, and so two additional labours were given. The first of these (the eleventh overall) was to steal the apples from the garden. Heracles first caught Nereus, the shape-shifting sea god, to learn where the Garden of the Hesperides was located.
In some versions of the tale, Heracles did not know where to travel, and so sought help, being directed to Prometheus to ask, and when reaching Prometheus freed him from his torture as payment. This tale is more usually found in the position of the Erymanthian Boar, since it is associated with Chiron choosing to forgoe immortality and to take Prometheus' place.
In some variations, Heracles, either at the start or at the end of his task, meets Antaeus, who was invincible as long as he touched his mother, Gaia, the earth. Antaeus was killed by placing him above the earth, suspended in a tree.
Occasionally, versions tell that Heracles stopped in Egypt, where King Busiris decided to make him the yearly sacrifice, but Heracles burst out of his chains.
Finally making his way to the Garden of the Hesperides, Heracles tricked Atlas into retrieving some of the golden apples for him, by offering to hold the heavens for a little while (Atlas was able to take them as in this version, Atlas was the father of the Hesperides). Upon his return with the apples, Atlas decided not to take the heavens back from Heracles, but Heracles tricked him again by agreeing to take his place on condition that Atlas relieved him temporarily so that Heracles could make his cloak more comfortable. Atlas agreed, Heracles walked away. According to an alternate version, Heracles slew Ladon instead.
Heracles was the only person to successfully steal the apples, although Athena later returned the apples to their rightful place, in the garden.
Capture Cerberus
Heracles' final labour was to capture Cerberus. After having been set the task, Heracles went to Eleusis to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries so that he could learn how to enter and exit the underworld alive, and in passing absolve himself for killing centaurs. He found the entrance to the underworld at Tanaerum, and Athena and Hermes helped him to traverse the entrance in each direction. He passed Charon thanks to Hermes' insistence, and his own heavy and fierce frowning.
Whilst in the underworld, Heracles freed Theseus but the earth shook when he attempted to liberate Pirithous, so he has to leave him behind. They had been imprisoned by Hades, by magic binding them to a bench, because they had attempted to kidnap Persephone. The magic was so strong that when Heracles pulled Theseus free, part of Theseus' thighs remained on the bench, explaining why his descendants had notably lean thighs.
In some versions, Heracles merely asks Hades for permission to take Cerberus, to which Hades agrees as long as Heracles does not harm the hound, though in other versions Heracles shot Hades with an arrow. In some versions, Heracles drags the dog out of Hades, passing through the cavern Acherusia, but in other versions, Heracles treats the vicious dog with the first kindness it has seen, and easily walks out with it.
| Has authorithy over Lichas
Friend of Molorchos and Thespios
Studied under Pollux and Linos
Uncle of Iolaos
Worked for Omphale and Eurysthée
Son-in-law of Aléos
So called in Ancient Greece : Hercule
Killed by Nessos
Victorious of Achéloos, Actor, Amaryncée, Ctéatos, Eurytos, Erginos and Le Sanglier d'Erymanthe
Murderer of Archeloüs, Antée, Kyknos, Théodamas, La Biche de Cérynie, L'Hydre de Lerne, Eurytos, Lion de Némée, Eurytion, Les Oiseaux du lac Stymphale, Sarpédon, Hippolyté, Ladon, Eurytion, Géryon, Orthros, Cacus, Eryx, Sylée, Cycnos, Eurypylos, Emathion, Lycaon, Busiris, Hippocoon, Linos, Mégara, Thersimaclos, Créontidas and Déicoon
In connection with Amphitryon, Niké, Hésioné, Clyménos, Enlèvement de Déjanire par Nessos, Anténor, Le Taureau de Crète, Déxaménos, Mnésimachè, Pholos, Hylas, Fleuve Alphée, Nauplios, Constellation du Lion, Sthénélos, Ménoétés, Nérée, Les Hespérides, Hespéris, Alcyonée, Laomédon, Poltys, Alcée, Hippolyte, Adméte, Lycos, Alceste, Ilithye, Taygèté, Philoctète, Poeas, Hespérousa, Hespéraea, Augias, Phylée, Thanatos, Abdéros, Androgée, Les Juments de Dioméde, Diomède, Admète, Prométhée, Les Nymphes du fleuve Eridan, Aeglé, Erythie, Hestia, Aréthuse, Hespéra, Eumolpos, Tithonos, Constellation du Serpent, La Ceinture de l'Amazone, Descente aux Enfers, Les Ecuries d'Augias, Pthie, Tithonos, Céphée, Podarcès, Iphitos, Nélée, L'Oracle de Delphes, Phylas, Aegimios, Poeas, Eumolpos, Les Argonautes, Charon, Les Molionides, Acaste, Les pommes des Hespérides, Ascalaphos, Méléagre, Polyphème, Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus (Maximien Ier Hercule), Pélias, Teuthrania, Oeclès, Cerbère, Tmolos, La Gorgone Méduse, Pirithoos, Hadès, Les Ombres, Euripide, Athéna, Perséphone, Hermès, Hélios, Héra, Eumolpos, Charon, Les Géants and Thésée
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