Hercules

Hercules was born in Thebes, a powerful city in central Greece, to Alcmene, a mortal woman of extraordinary beauty and strength, and Zeus, the king of the gods who ruled from Mount Olympus. Zeus had disguised himself as Alcmene's husband Amphitryon, who was away at war, and from that deception came a child of terrifying power. Hera, the queen of Olympus and Zeus's wife, learned of the affair and swore eternal vengeance against the infant. She sent two giant serpents to his cradle, but the baby Hercules seized them both, one in each hand, and strangled them while his mortal half-brother Iphicles screamed in terror beside him. The Thebans knew then that this child was no ordinary mortal. As he grew, Hercules was trained in every art of war by the finest teachers in Greece, but his strength was so vast that he once killed his music teacher, Linus, with a single blow of the lyre in a fit of anger. He was sent to tend cattle in the mountains to learn patience, and there he grew into a man whose shoulders could bear the weight of mountains and whose fists could shatter stone.

Hercules married Megara, the daughter of the king of Thebes, and for a brief time he knew peace. They had children, and he seemed destined to live as a king and father rather than a wanderer. But Hera had not forgotten. She struck him with a madness so terrible that he could not see his own family, and in his delirium he killed Megara and their children, believing them to be enemies. When the madness lifted and he saw what he had done, Hercules would have killed himself in grief, but the oracle at Delphi, the sacred shrine of Apollo where the priestess Pythia spoke the words of the god, told him that he must serve King Eurystheus of Tiryns for twelve years and complete any task the king demanded. Only then would his soul be cleansed. Eurystheus, a weak and jealous man who feared Hercules's strength, devised twelve labors so dangerous that he believed the hero would never survive them. 

THE TWELVE LABOURS OF Hercules

1. The Nemean Lion - A monstrous lion with a golden hide impenetrable to any weapon, who terrorised the valley of Nemea near Corinth. Hercules cornered it in its cave, strangled it with his bare hands, and ever after wore its skin as a cloak that no arrow or blade could pierce.

2. The Lernaean Hydra - A many-headed serpent that lurked in the swamps of Lerna, whose breath was poisonous and who grew two new heads for every one cut off. Hercules called his nephew Iolaus to cauterise the bleeding necks with a burning torch while he struck off the heads, and together they destroyed the monster and buried its immortal central head beneath a rock.

3. The Ceryneian Hind - A golden-antlered deer sacred to the goddess Artemis, the huntress who roamed the wild with her bow, which Hercules pursued for a full year across the mountains of Greece before capturing it alive without shedding its blood.

4. The Erymanthian Boar - A giant, man-eating boar that ravaged the countryside around Mount Erymanthus. Hercules drove it into deep snow, trapped it, and carried the struggling beast back to Eurystheus on his shoulders, so terrifying the king that he hid inside a bronze jar.

5. The Augean Stables - The infinite stables of King Augeas of Elis, which had not been cleaned in thirty years and housed thousands of cattle. Hercules diverted the rivers Alpheus and Peneus through the stables and washed away every speck of filth in a single day, though Eurystheus later claimed the labour did not count because Hercules had been paid for the work.

6. The Stymphalian Birds - Man-eating birds with bronze beaks and claws, and feathers they could shoot like arrows, who haunted the lake of Stymphalus. Hercules used a bronze rattle given to him by Athena, the grey-eyed goddess of wisdom and war, to startle them into flight, then shot them down with his bow.

7. The Cretan Bull - A magnificent white bull that had been sent by Poseidon, the god of the sea who shook the earth with his trident, but which King Minos of Crete had refused to sacrifice. The bull had gone mad and destroyed the fields of Crete. Hercules wrestled it to the ground, rode it across the sea, and brought it back alive to Eurystheus, who released it and let it roam until it was later killed by the hero Theseus near Marathon.

8. The Mares of Diomedes - Man-eating horses bred by Diomedes, the savage king of Thrace, who fed them human flesh to make them fierce. Hercules overpowered the grooms, threw Diomedes to his own horses, and after they had consumed their master, he tamed the beasts and brought them back.

9. The Belt of Hippolyta - The war-belt of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, the warrior women who lived beyond the Black Sea and who cut off their right breasts to draw the bow more easily. Hercules was welcomed at first, but Hera stirred the Amazons into battle by spreading a rumour that he had come to kidnap their queen. In the fighting that followed, Hercules killed Hippolyta and took her belt.

10. The Cattle of Geryon - The red cattle guarded by the triple-bodied giant Geryon, who lived on the island of Erytheia at the far western edge of the world. Hercules sailed there, killed the two-headed dog Orthrus and the herdsman Eurytion, and then shot Geryon with a poisoned arrow. On his journey, he set up the Pillars of Hercules, the two great rocks that still guard the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea at the Strait of Gibraltar.

11. The Apples of the Hesperides - Golden apples from a tree sacred to the goddess Hera, tended by the Hesperides, the nymphs of evening who lived in a garden at the far western edge of the world, and guarded by a serpent that never slept. Hercules found the Titan Atlas, who was condemned to hold up the heavens for eternity, and offered to bear the sky himself if Atlas would fetch the apples. Atlas agreed, but when he returned he refused to take the burden back. Hercules tricked him by asking Atlas to hold the sky just a moment longer while he padded his shoulders, then seized the apples and fled.

12. Cerberus - The three-headed hound with a serpent for a tail and snakes writhing from his back, who guarded the gates of the Underworld, the realm of the dead ruled by Hades, the gloomy god who sat on a throne of darkness. Hercules descended into the Underworld, found the hound at the gates, and wrestled it into submission with his bare hands, dragging the beast up into the light of day and presenting it to Eurystheus, who cowered in terror and declared the labors complete.

The first was the Nemean Lion, a beast whose golden hide was impenetrable to any weapon. Hercules cornered it in its cave, strangled it with his bare hands, and ever after wore its skin as a cloak that no arrow or blade could pierce. The second was the Lernaean Hydra, a many-headed serpent that grew two new heads for every one cut off. Hercules called his nephew Iolaus to cauterise the necks with a burning torch while he struck off the heads, and together they destroyed the monster. The third was the Ceryneian Hind, a golden-antlered deer sacred to the goddess Artemis, which he pursued for a full year before capturing it alive.

The labours grew ever more impossible. He captured the Erymanthian Boar alive, cleaned the infinite stables of King Augeas in a single day by diverting two rivers through them, drove away the man-eating Stymphalian Birds with a bronze rattle given to him by Athena, the grey-eyed goddess of wisdom and war, and wrestled the Cretan Bull to the ground. He stole the man-eating horses of Diomedes, king of Thrace, and fed the king to his own beasts. He seized the belt of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, the warrior women who lived beyond the Black Sea, though Hera stirred up a battle that cost many lives. He stole the cattle of the triple-bodied giant Geryon, who lived on the island of Erytheia at the far western edge of the world, and on his journey there he set up the Pillars of Hercules, the two great rocks that still guard the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. He fetched the golden apples of the Hesperides, the nymphs who tended a sacred tree in a garden at the edge of the world, by holding up the sky for the Titan Atlas while the giant collected them. And finally, he descended into the Underworld, the realm of the dead ruled by Hades, the gloomy god who sat on a throne of darkness, and dragged Cerberus, the three-headed hound who guarded the gates of death, up into the sunlight. After each labour, Eurystheus found reasons to claim it did not count, but Hercules completed them all, and his name spread across the world as the hero who had done what no man could do.

But Hercules's story did not end with the labors. He fought in the great war between the Lapiths and the Centaurs, the half-man, half-horse creatures who lived in the mountains of Thessaly. He sacked Troy in a single campaign, years before the great Trojan War, because the Trojan king Laomedon had cheated him of payment after Hercules saved the king's daughter Hesione from a sea monster. He took the princess as a slave and gave her to his companion Telamon. He married again, this time Deianira, the daughter of the king of Calydon, after wrestling the river god Achelous for her hand. When the centaur Nessus tried to assault Deianira, Hercules shot him with a poisoned arrow dipped in the blood of the Hydra. As Nessus lay dying, he told Deianira that his blood was a love charm, and she kept it in a vial. Years later, when Hercules fell in love with Iole, a princess he had captured in war, Deianira smeared Nessus's blood on Hercules's cloak, believing it would win back his love. The blood burned like fire, and the poison, mixed with the Hydra's venom, ate through his flesh. No water could quench the flames, and Hercules knew he was dying. He built a funeral pyre on Mount Oeta and lay upon it, and as the flames rose, the gods themselves intervened. A cloud descended from Olympus, and Hercules was taken up to the home of the gods, where he became immortal and married Hebe, the goddess of youth. His mortal body burned away, but his divine soul endured forever.

Hercules was worshipped across the Greek world as both a hero and a god. He was the patron of athletes, the protector of travellers, and the guardian of cities. The Olympic Games, the greatest athletic competition in ancient Greece, were said to have been founded in his honour. His club and bow became symbols of unstoppable force, and his image appeared on coins, shields, and temple walls from Sicily to the Black Sea. The Romans adopted him as Hercules, and his legend spread through every corner of their empire. In the modern age, his name survives in the word "herculean," describing any task of enormous difficulty, and the Pillars of Hercules still mark the Strait of Gibraltar, the gate between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. He remains the archetype of the hero who suffers, atones, and transcends, the man who did the impossible not because it was easy, but because the gods demanded it, and who earned his place among the immortals through pain rather than privilege.