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- Slaughtered the Nemean Lion. This was a strong lion which could not be killed with any weapon. Hercules used his power to trap the lion in a cave. He then killed it by strangling it with his bare hands.
- Murdered a monster named Hydra. Hydra was a nine-headed monster with unimaginable venom. It has been said that the moment a head of Hydra was cut off, two or more heads sprung up to replace the one that was cut.
- Captured the Cerynitian Hind. This was female a deer with golden horns which was sacred to Artemis – the goddess of the hunt and the moon. Hercules toiled for more than a year to capture the deer alive.
- Captured the Erymethian Boar. Hercules traveled to Centaurs and used wine to attract a boar. When the boar attacked Hercules, he caught it alive and brought it to Eurystheus.
Apr 11, 2024 · Labours of Hercules, the 12 labours, or tasks, assigned to the Greco-Roman legendary hero Hercules (Heracles) by King Eurystheus. Sarcophagus relief depicting the Labours of Hercules, marble, Roman, 3rd–4th century ce; in the Honolulu Museum of Art. Traditionally, Hercules was the son of Zeus, the chief deity among the Greek gods, and Alcmene ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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- The Nemean Lion
- The Lernaean Hydra
- The Golden Hind
- The Erymanthean Boar
- The Augean Stables
- The Stymphlaian Birds
- The Cretan Bull
- The Horses of Diomedes
- Hippolyte’s Belt
- The Cattle of Geryon
First, Apollo sent Hercules to the hills of Nemea to kill a lion that was terrorizing the people of the region. (Some storytellers say that Zeus had fathered this magical beast as well.) Hercules trapped the lion in its cave and strangled it. For the rest of his life, he wore the animal’s pelt as a cloak.
Second, Hercules traveled to the city of Lerna to slay the nine-headed Hydra—a poisonous, snake-like creature who lived underwater, guarding the entrance to the Underworld. For this task, Hercules had the help of his nephew Iolaus. He cut off each of the monster’s heads while Iolaus burned each wound with a torch. This way, the pair kept the heads ...
Next, Hercules set off to capture the sacred pet of the goddess Diana: a red deer, or hind, with golden antlers and bronze hooves. Eurystheus had chosen this task for his rival because he believed that Diana would kill anyone she caught trying to steal her pet; however, once Hercules explained his situation to the goddess, she allowed him to go on ...
Fourth, Hercules used a giant net to snare the terrifying, man-eating wild boar of Mount Erymanthus.
Hercules’ fifth task was supposed to be humiliating as well as impossible: cleaning all the manure out of King Augeas’ enormous stables in a single day. However, Hercules completed the job easily, flooding the barn by diverting two nearby rivers.
Hercules’ sixth task was straightforward: Travel to the town of Stymphalos and drive away the huge flock of carnivorous birds that had taken up residence in its trees. This time, it was the goddess Athena who came to the hero’s aid: She gave him a pair of magical bronze krotala, or noisemakers, forged by the god Hephaistos. Hercules used these tool...
Next, Hercules went to Crete to capture a rampaging bull that had impregnated the wife of the island’s king. (She later gave birth to the Minotaur, a creature with a man’s body and a bull’s head.) Hercules drove the bull back to Eurystheus, who released it into the streets of Marathon.
Hercules’ eighth challenge was to capture the four man-eating horses of the Thracian king Diomedes. He brought them to Eurystheus, who dedicated the horses to Hera and set them free.
The ninth labor was complicated: stealing an armored belt that belonged to the Amazonqueen Hippolyte. At first, the queen welcomed Hercules and agreed to give him the belt without a fight. However, the troublemaking Hera disguised herself as an Amazon warrior and spread a rumor that Hercules intended to kidnap the queen. To protect their leader, th...
For his 10th labor, Hercules was dispatched nearly to Africa to steal the cattle of the three-headed, six-legged monster Geryon. Once again, Hera did all she could to prevent the hero from succeeding, but eventually, he returned to Mycenae with the cows.
Dec 12, 2021 · Hercules was given twelve years to complete his twelve labours. For the following summaries of the details of the labours, we follow Pierre Grimal’s excellent entry on Heracles in The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology (Penguin Dictionary). Strangling the Nemean lion. The Nemean lion was a monster, the son of Orthrus and Echidna.
The Labours of Hercules or Labours of Heracles ( Greek: ἆθλοι, âthloi [1] Latin: Labores) are a series of tasks carried out by Heracles, the greatest of the Greek heroes, whose name was later romanised as Hercules. They were accomplished in the service of King Eurystheus. The episodes were later connected by a continuous narrative.
Myths / Greek Myths / Labours of Heracles. The Twelve Labours of Heracles were a number of tasks that the mythical hero Heracles was told to complete by King Eurystheus. It all started when Hera, who loathed Heracles for he was a living example of her husband's infidelities, drove the hero mad, making him kill his wife Megara and his children.
Initially, Hercules had to complete ten labours. However, king Eurystheus later disqualified two of them, extending Hercules’ redemption journey to twelve labors. The promise of immortality upon successful completion became Hercules’ beacon of hope, guiding him through these daunting trials. Labor 1: Confronting the Nemean Lion
