Heracles… you might be
thinking that that name sounds familiar. Heracles’
Roman name was Hercules! While Walt Disney’s
“Hercules” was a very entertaining movie, Heracles’ life didn’t go exactly
like that.
Heracles was the greatest hero in Greek mythology. His parents were Zeus and a mortal woman. Hera, Zeus’ wife, was very jealous of Heracles. When he was an infant she sent two serpents to kill him in his crib. Zeus found him with a strangled snake in each fist.
When Heracles grew up, he had already proved that he was a great wrestler, that he had superhuman strength, and that he was very good with the bow and arrow. He was driven mad by Hera, so he killed his own children. To make up for what he had done, he had to perform twelve Labors for his cousin Eurystheus, who was the king of Tiryns and Mycenae. Heracles actually should have been king, but Hera intervened and Zeus crowned Eurystheus instead.
His first Labor was to kill the Nemean lion. It was more a deadly monster than an ordinary lion. The Nemean lion’s skin could not be penetrated y arrows or spears. Heracles blocked the entrances to the lion’s living quarters and then fought it with his bare hands. After that, he wore the lion’s skin as a cloak and its jaws as a helmet.
King Eurystheus was very afraid of Heracles. When he saw him coming with the lion on his shoulder, he hid in a storage jar.
The second Labor was to destroy the Hydra, who had many heads. Whenever one was shopped off, two more grew in its place. The Hydra had very bad breath. It could even kill an ordinary mortal! But, Heracles was no ordinary mortal. He went to the beast’s lair and brought it out with flaming arrows. But then the Hydra twined its heads around Heracles and tried to trip him. It called on a really big crab that lived near it. The crab bit Heracles, who remembered his cousin Iolaus, the son of his twin brother Iphicles. Iolaus grabbed a torch. As soon as Heracles cut off one of the Hydra’s heads, Iolaus scorched the neck with flame, so that the heads could not sprout. Together they killed the Hydra.
The third Labor was to capture the Cerynitian hind. This was a female deer that had golden horns. It was sacred to Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, so Heracles thought twice before he wounded it. He hunted it for a year before running it down in Arcadia. He took careful aim with his bow and fired an arrow between the tendons and the bones of the two forelegs, pinning it down without drawing blood. Artemis wasn’t very happy, but Heracles blamed Eurystheus.
The fourth Labor was to bring a huge boar back alive. When Heracles was trying to find it, he stopped to visit Pholus, a centaur. Pholus was looking at one of the hero’s arrows when he dropped it on his foot. It had been soaked in poisonous Hydra venom. Uh-oh! Anyway, Heracles located the boar and drove it into a snow bank. When he carried it back to Eurystheus, he found that his cousin was once again cowering in his usual storage jar.
The fifth Labor was to clean out he stable of King Augeas in a single day. Augeas had many herds of cattle. But this was no problem for Heracles! He diverted two rivers through the stable yard and got the job done without getting dirty. When he demanded payment from Augeas, Eurystheus didn’t count it as a Labor.
The sixth Labor was to kill the Stymphalian birds, which inhabited a marsh near Lake Stymphalus in Arcadia. The ground was too swampy for Heracles to approach the birds, so he used some castanets given to him by Athena to make a racket, causing the birds to fly off. When they were in the air, he brought them all down with his arrows.
The seventh Labor was to get rid of a bull that the Queen of Crete had fallen in love with after Poseidon inspired her. The Minotaur was born from the queen and the bull. The father of the Minotaur was ravaging the Cretan countryside. Even though the monster belched flames, Heracles overpowered it and shipped it back to the mainland. It ended up near Athens, where Theseus had to deal with it.
The eighth Labor was to bring Eurystheus the mares of Diomedes. The horses ate the flesh of travelers who accepted Diomedes’ hospitality. Heracles rounded them up and herded them down to sea where he embarked them for Tiryns. When he showed them to his cousin, he let them go. Eventually wild animals on Mount Olympus ate them.
The ninth Labor was to retrieve the belt of the Amazons’ queen for Eurystheus’ daughter. The Amazons were warrior women who had invented the art of fighting from horseback. Heracles had a number of heroes with him, including Theseus. The Amazon queen, Hippolyte, gave Hercules her belt with no trouble at all. But Hera stirred up the Amazons with a rumor, and a great battle ensued. Heracles dashed off with the belt.
The tenth Labor was to steal some cattle from Geryon. Geryon had three separate heads, and his watchdog, Orthrus, had only two heads. Orthrus rushed at Heracles when he was taking the cattle, and the hero killed him with a blow from a wooden club. Heracles drove the herd back to Greece.
The eleventh Labor was to get the apples that had been given to Hera as a wedding present. The Hesperides, the nymphs, guarded them. They were kept in a grove guarded by Ladon, a dragon with many heads. The grove was located in the western mountains named for Atlas, one of the Titans. Heracles tricked the Titan into getting him the apples.
The twelfth Labor was to bring Cerberus up from Hades. The first thing Heracles had to do to accomplish this task was to get across the River Styx. Charon the Boatman would not take anyone across unless they had a coin under the corpse’s tongue, and they were dead. Heracles met neither condition.
But our Heracles certainly
found a way. He just forced Charon to ferry him
to the other side. The next step was defeating
Cerberus. The
big dog lunged for Heracles’ throat, but the hero was wearing his lion’s
skin, which, as you might remember, was impenetrable by any mere spear or
arrow. Heracles choked Cerberus into submission and dragged him to Eurystheus.
Heracles had many other adventures after his Labors. He was the only
mortal to become a god when he died.
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