Pantheon: Greek
Class: DemiGod
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Human/Divine (Human mother, divine father)
Alignment: Good
Linked with: Athena, Zeus, Hera, Artemis, Odysseus, Achilles, many others
Technically, I should be calling him Heracles, as Hercules is the Roman name for him, but I've always called him Hercules and so I will continue. It's only semantics anyway. Hercules is perhaps one of the most well-known of the Greek heroes, and even those with only a passing knowledge of, or interest in, mythology will have heard his name. It has passed into common parlance, from being taken for the name of a dependable aircraft to providing television audiences with some harmless adventure fare to keep them amused, and has become identified with things strong and large, a Herculean task, and so on.
Born as the result of one of the many liaisons of Zeus, king of the gods, with mortals, Hercules was hated by Hera, Zeus's wife, for obvious reasons, and she did all she could to make his life miserable, from actually trying to kill him as an infant by sending two snakes into his crib --- both of which he slew with his own hands, presaging what would become his legendary strength --- to causing a madness to fall upon him, which resulted in his killing of his wife and children. Visiting the temple of the Oracle at Delphi, he explained that since the deed he had been unable to sleep, and the Oracle advised him that he must make amends for his crime. This resulted in the famous Twelve Labours of Hercules, which we will come to in due course.
The hatred Hera bore Hercules was also born out of the fact that she knew she had been tricked into allowing him to suckle at her teat, which gave him a god's powers; Athena, his half-sister and the protector of heroes, had found him left exposed on a hillside. His mother, Alkmene, fearing the wrath of the gods, had left her child to be taken by nature and the elements, but when taken by Athena to Hera, the mother of the gods did not recognise him and allowed him to suckle; he in fact bit hard and she pushed him away, enmity already growing between them.
Hercules/Herakles had many adventures though, and some are recounted in Roman mythos only, while some are exclusive to his Greek heritage. In this article, I'm going to mix them and not clarify which is from which, as this is after all just a small article about the hero, and not a scholarly thesis. The first of the tales concerns Cacus, a fire-breathing giant. One of the sons of the smith god Vulcan, Cacus terrorised the countryside by capturing victims whom he would eat, nailing their skulls to the outside of the cave in which he lived. When Hercules passed by with a herd of cattle he had stolen, Cacus decided he would help himself and while the hero slept the giant appropriated a number of the cattle. On waking, Hercules was furious and made to enter the cave but Cacus, terrified of the mighty hero, blocked the entrance with a great rock, forcing Hercules to throw tree branches and large rocks at the cave while Cacus belched fire and smoke at him. At length though, Hercules's patience snapped and he leaped into the cave and strangled the giant.
THE TWELVE LABOURS OF HERCULES
Surely the best known and most celebrated of his adventures, this story concerns the penance Hercules had to perform in order to attain forgiveness for the earlier slaying, while in the throes of madness, of his family. He visited the Oracle at Delphi, asking how he might make amends, unaware that the Oracle swore her fealty to Hera, who was by now his arch-enemy and determined to destroy him. The Oracle counselled him to travel to Tiryns, to the court of his cousin Eurystheus, and to place himself in his servitude. She also prophesied that, once he had served out his indenture, he would be made fully immortal, a god himself. Again, Hercules was unaware that Eurystheus had been placed on the throne of Tiryns by trickery worked by Hera, and he was in that regard her pawn, a pawn she fully intended to use to the maximum.
Eurystheus hated Hercules on sight. He was a slight, ineffectual man who, despite his power, had no bearing or charisma and standing beside Hercules seemed as an ant beside a lion. He decided to set the hero the most difficult, impossible tasks he could, and for twelve years Hercules worked to fulfil the whims of this weak king, whom he could, had he wished to or been allowed to, break like a twig. But he had sworn to serve him, and a man's oath was his bond.
The First Labour: The Nemean Lion
A great lion was terrorising King Eurystheus's realm and he thought sending Hercules to deal with it would be a quick and easy way of getting rid of the hero. This lion was no ordinary one; it was huge, and the bones of its victims littered the ground outside its lair. Eurystheus tasked Hercules to kill the lion, and as proof to bring him its hide, said to be proof against any weapon. Imagine his terror then when Hercules reappeared some time later, quite alive and wearing the lion's skin as evidence of his victory! So scared was the king that he ran and hid inside a large jar, from which he refused to emerge. Later he declared that all of Hercules's future labours must be shown as completed outside the city, as he would no longer allow the hero in.
It was said that Hercules had severe trouble killing the lion, whose hide, as I have mentioned, was impenetrable to all weapons. Of course, when dead it made a great suit of armour, but before it was stripped from the animal it provided it the perfect protection against Hercules's weapons. In the end, some accounts say that he shot his arrows into its soft mouth, and then strangled the beast in its lair. He had however difficulty removing the skin, which again resisted all weapons even to cut it, until Athena appeared and told Hercules to use the lion's own tooth, which allowed him to easily skin the beast and don its pelt.
The Second Labour: The Lernaean Hydra
Realising that, fierce as it had been, the Nemean Lion had after all only been a wild beast and was therefore too easy a task for Hercules, and advising the hero that each labour would be more difficult than the last, Eurystheus pronounced the second of what were to have been originally ten labours, but which became twelve in the light of the result of this next one, and the king's pettiness and rage at Hercules's continued successes. The Lernaean Hydra was a huge water serpent, said to be immortal, and indeed Hera herself had raised it for the sole purpose of slaying Hercules. Realising he might need some assistance with this second Labour, as the Hydra had nine heads, Hercules accepted the help of his nephew, Iolaos.
When they came to the Hydra's lair they found it hard to entice it to battle, as it stayed out in the middle of the swamp, but Hercules's arrows, though ineffectual against the monster, drew its ire and it moved towards shore. As it came within reach, Hercules swung his mighty club (which he had fashioned from a tree during the previous Labour) and struck off its heads, but to his horror and dismay, for each head lopped off, two more grew to take its place, so that defeating the beast seemed indeed an impossible task.
Then Iolaos, inspired by Athena, hit upon the idea of cauterising the stumps, so that no new head could grow back once struck off. This worked well, and Hercules was finally able to drag the Hydra out of the swamp, lop off its middle head, which was the only one that was immortal, and so, its stump sealed with the fire from Iolaos's torch, the gruesome beast shuddered in its death throes and breathed its last. Hercules dipped his arrows in the creature's blood, thus turning them into deadly weapons against which no foe could stand.
On their return to the city, Hercules and Iolaos were greeted not by the king, who had again taken to hiding in his jar at word of the approach of the two, but by his servants. Gathering courage, Eurystheus declared that this Labour was null and void, as Hercules had had help carrying it out, and the Twelve Labours were his to complete alone. Rather than push the point, the hero acceded and resigned himself to the fact that, though he had grappled with one of the fiercest beasts he had ever encountered, he had yet eleven Labours to perform.
The Third Labour: The Augeian Stables
King Augeias, whose realm was hard by, had stables that had not been cleaned out in, it seemed, ever. To Hercules fell the task of scrubbing them out. The stench was indeed strong and he encountered it long before he even came in sight of the stables. He went to the king and declared that he would clean out the stables if Augeias would give him one-tenth of the cattle therein as a reward. The king agreed, and Hercules set to work, cutting deep channels through the stables and then diverting two rivers to make them flow through the muck and grime, and in a short time they were clean again. Hercules redirected the rivers to their original course and rehoused the cattle in the now pristine stables.
However, when he went to claim his reward he was refused by King Augeias (who had assumed the task was beyond any man and so had no real intention of honouring the bargain anyway), who told him that as Hercules had already been ordered to clean the stables by Eurystheus, he was not entitled to any reward. This did not deter his tormentor from also discounting this Labour, on the basis that he requested, although did not receive, a reward.
The Fourth Labour: The Ceryneian Hind
Having established that it was useless to try to have Hercules destroyed by monsters, as he had already bested the strongest she could put in his path, Hera ordered Eurystheus to decree that Hercules should have to catch the Ceryneian Hind, the most fleet-footed deer in the world, and more, an animal sacred to Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt. This put the hero in a no-win situation: if he failed to catch the deer, the Twelve Labours would not be completed and he would be in disgrace, to say nothing of being unable to cleanse his soul and attain immortality, but if he succeeded, Artemis would be angry and would probably kill him. Either way, it looked bad for the hero.
It took him a full year to catch the hind, pursuing it every day, never once stopping to catch breath, eat or sleep, and eventually he wore it down, trapping the great animal. But as Hera had planned, as he trudged back to Eurystheus with the deer over his back, Artemis appeared and swore to punish him for defiling her animal. Hercules fell to his knees and explained the compulsion he was under, and promised only to take the deer to Eurystheus, to show him that the Labour had been carried out, after which he would return it to its mistress. Relenting, Artemis agreed, but when Hercules got back to the city Eurystheus wanted to keep the hind in his zoo. Hercules agreed, on condition that the animal be surrendered to the king personally. But when Eurystheus approached, Hercules let the hind go and it ran off like the wind. Artemis had been satisfied, the bargain kept, and Eurystheus could do little but admit that the Labour had been completed.
The Fifth Labour: The Erymanthian Boar
Not so interesting for the actual capture of the animal, which was fairly basic: Hercules drove it into deep snow and wrestled it to the ground, thereafter bringing it to Tiryns. However this Labour takes in also a visit by Hercules to his friends the Centaurs, half man half horse, one of whom had taught him as a child. Thirsty from his journey, Hercules asked his friend Pholos for some of the wine the centaurs brewed up here in the mountains. Pholos knew that his people tended to go wild if they drank wine (so why they made it is unclear but anyway) but Hercules insisted until finally the centaur opened a jar. However the smell alerted the other centaurs who, being denied the wine, attacked Hercules. He drove them off with his poisoned arrows, but one accidentally fell on the foot of his friend, and Pholos died. Hercules buried him on the mountain before continuing on to his quest.
The Sixth Labour: The Stymphalian Birds
Next Hercules had to rid the land of the dread Stymphalian Birds, which were maneaters with beaks of bronze. They had taken the nearby jungle for their lair, and rested low on the branches of the trees therein. But the undergrowth was so dense that Hercules could not cut through it, and seemed resigned to fail in this latest of his Labours. Just then, the goddess Athena came to him, and using brass cymbals she clashed them together (another legend says she gave Hercules a rattle made by Hephaestos; there are differing accounts. This other version also states that the birds were on the shores of a lake. I don't know which is correct, and I suppose it doesn't really matter that very much) which startled the birds and like any of their species they took flight, enabling Hercules to shoot them with his arrows. Some escaped though, and would later attack the Argonauts, see next post.
The Seventh Labour: The Cretan Bull
Another somewhat uneventful Labour. Hercules was to capture the great bull and bring it back to Eurystheus, which he did, but when the king tried to sacrifice it to Hera, she refused the honour, as it was proof of her hated enemy's having completed another Labour, and being more than half the way towards claiming his position as a full god.
The Eighth Labour: The Mares of Diomedes
More man-eating beasts, the horses had been trained to eat human flesh by their savage owner, the king of Thrace. So when Hercules loosed them the king's men came after the hero. Leaving his companion Abderos in charge of the horses while he fought the king and his men, Hercules was dismayed to find on his triumphant return that the boy was dead, eaten by the horses. He bound their mouths so that they could be transported without trouble, but not before he fed Diomedes to them. Again, there are conflicting legends and stories as to what happened to them afterwards.
The Ninth Labour: The Girdle of Hippolyte
She was the Queen of the Amazons, tall, stately, fierce warrior women who had never bought a book online in their lives, and lived in service to no man. This is quite a tragic Labour, for Queen Hippolyte, impressed with Hercules and unwilling to make an enemy of him, offered to hand over the girdle, but Hera disguised herself as one of their kind and spread the rumour that Hercules was planning to ride off with their queen, whereupon the Amazons attacked. Thinking that it had been a trap, Hercules killed Hippolyte and took on the Amazons, routing them.
The Tenth Labour: The Cattle of Geryon
A monstrous giant with three bodies, Geryon was attended by the two-headed hound Orthos, whose brother Cerberus guarded the entrance to Hades. This dog leaped at him when it saw him approaching, but Hercules struck his two heads off with his mighty club. On the way, Hercules had had to cross the desert and in irritation at the blistering heat had shot an arrow at the sun. This had so impressed Helios, the sun god, that he gave Hercules his golden chariot in which to ride. This was the same chariot that he used to ride across the sky from day to night. Hercules fought Geryon, shooting him through the forehead with one of his poisoned arrows, and killing the beast. He then stole some of Geryon's cattle, which led to the incident with Cacus related earlier.
In frustration at his having had, at this point, almost completed the Twelve Labours, Hera sent a gadfly to attack the cattle and bite them. He had to gather them back together when they ran off, and it took him a year. Then Hera flooded the river, so that Hercules could not cross with the cattle, but he piled massive stones into it to lower it and thus safely crossed, and made his way back to Tiryns.
The Eleventh Labour: The Apples of the Hesperides
Nymphs of the evening, and daughters of the titan Atlas, the Hesperides guarded the golden apples Hercules had been tasked to retrieve. Knowing how dangerous the Labour was, Hercules sought out Atlas, and asked him if, in return for Hercules's shouldering his burden, the world, Atlas might ask his daughters for some of their apples. Atlas agreed, but when he returned with the apples he found that he preferred to remain at liberty and not take up his post again. Hercules, seeing that all he could do was trick the god, agreed but asked Atlas to take the world back for but a moment, while he adjusted his clothing. Of course, once Atlas had the world back on his shoulders Hercules legged it, and there was nothing the titan could do.
The Twelfth Labour: Cerberus, Hound of the Dead
The final and Twelfth Labour was the most dangerous, and the most seemingly impossible. Hercules was to descend to Hades, the Underworld, and there bring the dread three-headed guardian back to the surface. He went down into Hades, where he encountered Persephone, consort of the Lord of the Underworld himself, for whom that realm is named. She told him that, provided he could subdue Cerberus himself without any help or weapons, she and her husband would allow Hercules to borrow the Hound of Hell, as long as he returned him. Grabbing Cerberus by his middle neck, Hercules made it impossible for the huge dog to bite him, and slung him over his back. On returning to the upper world he made his way to Tiryns, where Eurystheus, so in terror of Cerberus, advised Hercules his Labours were at an end, and Hercules triumphantly went to return the dog to its master and mistress.
(To be continued...)