Labours of Hercules

The establishment of a fixed cycle of twelve labours was attributed by the Greeks to an epic poem, now lost, written by Peisander (7th to 6th centuries BC).

[3] Heracles was the son born by the mortal woman Alcmene after her affair with Zeus, the king of the gods, who had disguised himself as her husband Amphitryon.

Heracles sucked so strongly that he caused Hera pain, and when she pushed him away, her milk sprayed across the heavens, forming the Milky Way.

[7] In each case, the pattern was the same: Heracles was sent to kill or subdue, or to fetch back for Eurystheus (as Hera's representative) a magical animal or plant.

A famous depiction of the labours in Greek sculpture is found on the metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, which date to the 460s BC.

Another version claims that he met Molorchos, a shepherd who had lost his son to the lion, saying that if he came back within 30 days, a ram would be sacrificed to Zeus.

When he found and shot the lion, firing at it with his bow, Heracles discovered the fur's protective property as the arrow bounced harmlessly off the creature's thigh.

Working in tandem, once Heracles had removed a head (with his sword or club), Iolaus burned the stumps with a firebrand, preventing them from growing back.

After a long search, Heracles awoke one night and laid eyes on the elusive hind, which was only visible due to the glint of moonlight on its antlers.

Eurystheus commanded Heracles to catch the hind in the hope that it would enrage Artemis and lead her to punish the hero for his desecration of the sacred animal.

Knowing that he must return the hind to the wild as he had promised Artemis, Heracles agreed to hand it over only on the condition that Eurystheus himself come out and take it from him.

On the way to Mount Erymanthos where the boar lived, Heracles visited Pholus ("caveman"), a kind and hospitable centaur and old friend.

Chiron's pain was so great that he volunteered to give up his immortality and take the place of Prometheus, who had been chained to the top of a mountain to have his liver eaten daily by an eagle.

This assignment was intended to be both humiliating and impossible, since these divine livestock were immortal, and had produced an enormous quantity of dung.

They had migrated to Lake Stymphalia in Arcadia, where they bred quickly and took over the countryside, destroying local crops, fruit trees, and townspeople.

[19] The Mares, which were the terror of Thrace, were kept tethered by iron chains to a bronze manger in the now vanished city of Tirida[20] and were named Podargos (the swift), Lampon (the shining), Xanthos (the yellow) and Deinos (or Deinus, the terrible).

Having scared the horses onto the high ground of a knoll, Heracles quickly dug a trench through the peninsula, filling it with water and thus flooding the low-lying plain.

[23] Roger Lancelyn Green states in his Tales of the Greek Heroes that the mares' descendants were used in the Trojan War, and survived even to the time of Alexander the Great.

[26] In earlier sources, however, the purpose of the labour was seemingly for Heracles to overcome the Amazons, with Eurystheus requiring the belt as evidence of his success.

[27] Accompanied by a group of companions, Heracles set sail for the land of Amazons, which was generally believed to be along the shore at the southern end of the Black Sea.

[28] Sources vary on who came with him: Hellanicus states that he was accompanied by all of the Argonauts,[29] while Pindar mentions that Peleus came on the voyage,[30] Philochorus considered Theseus to have been his companion,[31] and an early Corinthian vase shows Iolaus and another figure named Pasimelon by his side.

Hippolyta, impressed with Heracles and his exploits, agreed to give him the belt and would have done so had Hera not disguised herself and walked among the Amazons sowing seeds of distrust.

According to some versions, Heracles drove his remaining cattle past the cave, where Cacus had hidden the stolen animals, and they began calling out to each other.

Heracles then killed Cacus and set up an altar on the spot, later the site of Rome's Forum Boarium (the cattle market).

[40] In some variations, Heracles, either at the start or at the end of this task, meets Antaeus, who was invincible as long as he touched his mother, Gaia, the Earth.

Another says that Hades feigned hospitality and prepared a feast, inviting them to sit; they unknowingly sat in chairs of forgetfulness and were permanently ensnared.

According to Euripides's play Herakles, it is at this point after his labours are completed and he is returning home to meet his wife and family that Heracles is driven mad and kills them, after which he is exiled from Thebes and leaves for Athens.

As it was truly poison, Hercules screamed in agony and begged his cousin (the one who helped him in killing the Lernaean Hydra) to burn him on a funeral pyre.

There was another "labor" too, not properly so called, in which he cleared out the mass of dung (from the Augean stables) — in other words, the foulness that disfigures humanity.

The (Stymphalian) birds he scattered are the windy hopes that feed our lives; the many-headed hydra that he burned, as it were, with the fires of exhortation, is pleasure, which begins to grow again as soon as it is cut out.