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new head from springing up. He
finally succeeded in slaying the
Hydra by cutting off and burying
its final, immortal head. Herakles
then armed himself for future
struggles by dipping his arrows in
the monster’s blood as it lay dying.
His triumph was brief: Eurystheus
ruled that the killing did not count,
as he had relied on outside help.A hind and other animals
The Ceryneian hind—also known
as the Golden Hind—was a deer
with golden antlers, sacred to
Artemis. The creature was so fast
it could outrun a speeding arrow.
Herakles was told to bring it back
for Eurystheus’s menagerie.
He had no trouble finding this
extraordinary animal—the glint
of the sun on its golden antlers
gave it away—but catching it
was harder. He chased it for a year
across the whole of Greece before
he finally caught it in a net and
headed home.
Herakles’s next target—the
Erymanthian boar—was not just
fast but ferocious, and Eurystheuswas terrified of it. The boar lived on
Mount Erymanthos, where it was
laying waste to farmers’ fields.
After a hunt which took him the
length and breadth of Greece—and
across the uplands of the Near
East—Herakles drove the boar into
a mountain snowdrift where he
could tie up the floundering beast.
Eurystheus begged him to get rid
of it, so Herakles flung the boar into
the sea.
Herakles’s fifth labor was to
clean the Augean stables, which
housed not horses but the cattle of
King Augeas, who ruled Olympia.
Home to 1,000 cows, the shed had
not been cleared for over 30 years.
Herakles undertook this dirty andTHE LABORS OF HERAKLES
The labors of Herakles were a
popular subject in Greek and Roman
carvings. This frieze covered one side
of a sarcophagus (ca. 240–250 ce), now
in Rome's Palazzo Altemps.degrading job with miraculous ease
by diverting a nearby river through
the site to flush it clean. Eurystheus
cried foul: Herakles had not done
the work himself and he would not
count this as a completed task.
Next, Herakles was sent into
a swamp outside the town of
Stymphalos, not far from Corinth,
where metal-beaked fowl that fed
on human flesh went to roost.
Herakles struggled to make his way
on the soft and soggy ground, so
Athena gave him a rattle. When
swung, the rattle made a terrifying
sound, startling the birds into
flight. He could then pick them off
with his bow and arrows.More beasts, and a belt
After the Stymphalian birds were
dispatched, Herakles was given the
task of capturing the Cretan bull:
the animal which had mated with
Pasiphaë, wife of King Minos.
Driven mad by Poseidon, the bull
rampaged across the entire island
of Crete. Herakles caught the great
beast unawares by sneaking up
behind it and strangling it with his
mighty hands. He took the bull
to Eurystheus’s court in chains,
but Eurystheus later set it free.
Next, Herakles had to steal the
man-eating mares of Diomedes,
king of Thrace. They were reputedWhen he had chased the
boar with shouts from a
certain thicket, Herakles
drove the exhausted animal
into deep snow.
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to be uncontrollable, and Herakles’s
companion Abderus had previously
been eaten by them. Herakles
killed the king to avenge Abderus,
and fed Diomedes’s flesh to his
horses. This briefly satisfied their
hunger, making them calm enough
for Herakles to bind their muzzles,
put the horses in harness, and lead
them back to Mycenae.
The ninth labor turned out
to be the easiest. Herakles had to
steal the belt of Hippolyta, Queen of
the Amazons—a tribe of ferocious
women warriors who lived in the
Greek town of Themiscyra. Queen
Hippolyta was so charmed by
Herakles that she offered him her
girdle of her own free will, but
then Hera intervened. Determined
to pursue her grudge against
Herakles, the vengeful goddessstirred up hostility among the
Amazons, forcing Herakles to kill
Hippolyta in order to escape.Further burdens
Herakles’s next labor took him to
the very edge of the western ocean,
to the island of Erytheia, near Libya.
There, he had to steal the red cattle
of Geryon, the three-headed giant.
He also killed Geryon’s herdsman
Eurytion and his dog Orthrus—a
two-headed monster with a
writhing snake for a tail. Then,
with great difficulty, he drove
Geryon’s cattle home to Greece.
For his eleventh task, Herakles
headed west again to obtain the
apples of the Hesperides: nymphs
of the setting sun. Mysteriously
unable to pick the apples himself,
he convinced Atlas to do so in hisANCIENT GREECE
place. The Titan agreed—as long
as Herakles would hold up the
heavens for him. Atlas returned
with the apples, but threatened
to leave Herakles there for good.
Herakles asked him to take the
strain just for a moment and—
when Atlas unthinkingly agreed—
escaped with his prize.
Back in Mycenae, Herakles was
given his final task: to go down
deep into the earth and bring back
Hades’s many-headed watchdog,
Cerberus. Herakles could have the
dog, Hades said, only if he could
capture him without using any of
his weapons—so Herakles swept
the hell hound up inside his
lionskin cloak. Herakles had atoned
for his sins and, redeemed, was
finally released from his oath to
serve Eurystheus. ■The 12 labors of Herakles
- Slay the
Nemean lion. - Capture the
Ceryneian hind. - Slay the
Hydra. - Capture the
Erymanthian boar. - Capture the
mares of Diomedes. - Slay the
Stymphalian birds. - Capture the
Cretan bull. - Clean the
Augean stables. - Steal
Hippolyta’s belt. - Steal the
apples of the
Hesperides. - Capture
Geryon’s cattle. - Capture
Cerberus.
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