Heracles was livid, but at this point there was nothing he could do, so he went back to Tiryns. Next Heracles was sent to clear away the Stymphalian birds. Lake Stymphalus was overrun by a flock of man-eating birds. Heracles decided that a loud noise would be just the thing, so he crashed a few shields together to scare the birds into taking flight.
As the birds few into the air, he picked them off one by one with his arrows. Now Heracles was sent to capture the Cretan bull. This bull was the father of the Minotaur [see Minotaur ] and Heracles trapped it and brought it back to Tiryns alive. Eurystheus did not want it, so Heracles let the bull go.
The bull wandered up to the area around Athens [see Athenae on map ] and Theseus later killed him as one of his heroic feats [see Theseus ]. The eighth labor was to retrieve the mares of Diomedes.
Diomedes was a Thracian [ map ] king and he had man-eating mares. Heracles, with the help of his lover Abderus, stole the mares from their stable and herded them down to the sea-shore. When Heracles came back, however, he found that the mares had eaten most of Abderus. He then gathered the mares into his ship and took them back to Eurystheus. Again, Eurystheus did not want the terrible creatures in his city, so Heracles let the mares loose. They were eventually eaten by wild animals as they wandered on Mount Olympus [see Olympus Mons on map ].
For his next labor, Heracles had to retrieve the belt of the Amazon queen, Hippolyte. Hippolyte and the Amazons female warriors lived in Themiscyra, on the southern coast of the Black Sea. Heracles was joined on this expedition by his friend Theseus and they set off together.
When they reached Themiscyra, Hippolyte came aboard their ship to meet with them. She agreed to give them her belt with no fight and everything seemed to be going swimmingly for Heracles and Theseus.
However, Hera was not about to allow this labor to be easy, so she came down from Olympus, disguised as an Amazon. Hera told the Amazons that Heracles was kidnapping their queen, and she roused them to fight the heroes. Next, Heracles was sent to steal the cattle of Geryon, who was the King of Erytheia which is modern day Cadiz in Spain. Geryon had three heads, three upper- bodies, as well as six arms and six legs. Furthermore, his cattle were guarded by a two-headed watch dog named Orthus.
Heracles decided to go through Africa to make his way to Spain and as he crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, he set up large rocks on either side, called the Pillars of Heracles, to show how far he had come across the world. The sun beat down upon him, greatly annoying Heracles, so he drew his bow and pointed it at the sun, chastising it.
Helius, the sun god, was amused by this little stunt, so he lent his golden cup to Heracles to use as a boat to take him the rest of his way to Erytheia. When he arrived, Heracles dispatched of Geryon and Orthus. Nearly done with his labors, Heracles now went to retrieve the apples of the Hesperides. The Hesperides were nymphs who lived in Libya near the mountains where Atlas held up the world now called the Atlas Mountains and tended a garden growing golden apples.
On his way there, Heracles passed by the Caucasus Mountains and shot the eagle that had long tortured Prometheus [see Prometheus ], freeing him from his bonds. Grateful for his help, Prometheus gave Heracles some advice as to how to retrieve the apples. It sounds simple, but at the end of the day, Hercules was still wrestling a big-ass killer lion, and that's pretty awesome.
Know how he skinned it? He used the lion's own claws. As tricking Atlas shows, Hercules wasn't really dumb, he was just way stronger than he was smart. He used both his brains and his brawn to complete his fifth Labor: cleaning the legendary stables of Augeas. Of course, they were legendary because Augeas supposedly had more oxen than anybody else in the entire world, and never once cleaned up after them. By forcing Hercules to clean up veritable mountains of shit,. Eurystheus was trying to defeat Hercules through shame as much as actually physical labor.
But Hercules took one sight of the stables — or more likely one whiff — found the nearest river, and moved it until it ran through the stables, washing all the crap away. Hercules didn't have to lift a shovel, although he did have to single-handedly divert an entire river, which is quite a feat.
The ninth labor is weird. It sounds difficult, but turned out to be really easy… until Hera messed things up for Hercules and suddenly it got hard again. Of course, Hercules wasn't as much a man as The Man, and when he wandered into Themiscyra, the Amazons were pretty content to let him go where he wanted. Herc even went up to Queen Hippolyte and asked to have her belt, and she said no problem! So Hercules took a quick break to celebrate an easy Labor and party with his new friends.
Hera, meanwhile, was so pissed at how easy this had been that she disguised herself as an Amazon, went down to Themiscyra and started talking shit about Hercules — mostly about how he was going to kidnap the queen — until all the Amazons were trying to kill him. The fact Hercules managed to survive and escape an entire nation of badass, female warriors with chips on their shoulders is the true feat here, and not one that should be dismissed.
On a sad note, during his escape, Hercules killed Hippolyte after thinking she'd betrayed him. After hearing about all the monsters Hercules fought, just catching a deer hardly seems to compare, does it? What about a deer that could run faster than an arrow? Hercules basically had to run non-stop after this thing for an entire year before he caught it. Hercules was running three full marathons — around 75 miles a day, for about 12 straight hours or so — for days in a row. That's some demi-god level badassery right there.
Also, this specific hind was sacred to Artemis, goddess of the hunt;. Eurystheus assigned this Labor specifically to get Herc in trouble with the goddess.
So when Hercules finally caught it, he had to fast-talk his more divine cousin into not smiting him. Which he did. Because he's Hercules. Much like the Cerynian Hind, capturing a boar — even a giant boar with big tusks and anger issues — doesn't sound that impressive, given what Hercules accomplished in his other Labors. But let me tell you this: Eurystheus was the King of Tiryns, while the boar was rampaging at Mt.
That's a distance of kilometers, or just over 83 miles. The average boar weighs lbs. Many of the great families of Greece and Rome traced their ancestry back to Heracles. The most famous of all his myths are the Twelve Labors.
In a fit of madness, Heracles killed his wife Megara. He asked the Oracle of Apollo in Delphi how he could atone. He was told to travel to Tiryns and do the tasks asked of him by King Eurystheus his cousin through his mortal mother. For twelve years, he traveled all over to complete these incredible tasks.
The first task was traveling to Nemea and slaying the Nemean Lion, a fierce beast terrorizing the countryside. This monster of a lion had a hide was so tough that no arrow could pierce it. Heracles stunned the beast with his olive-wood club and then strangled it with his bare hands.
Athena urged him to skin the lion, using the lion's own sharp claws, and ever after wore its hide. The evil, snakelike Hydra had nine heads.
If one got hurt, two would grow in its place. But Heracles quickly sliced off the heads, while his charioteer, Iolaus, sealed the wounds with a torch. Heracles made his arrows poisonous by dipping them in the Hydra's blood. The goddess Artemis loved and protected this stubborn little deer, which had gold horns. Heracles found it a challenge to capture the delicate hind without hurting it and making Artemis angry. After following the hind for an entire year, he safely carried it away.
The people of Mount Erymanthus lived in fear of this deadly animal. Heracles chased the wild boar up the mountain and into a snowdrift. He then took it in a net and brought it to the king of Tiryns, who was so frightened of the beast that he hid in a huge bronze jar.
Thousands of cows lived in these stables belonging to King Augeas.
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