Sources on Hercules' Labors
The Sources on the 12 Labors From the Archaic Period to 500 B.C.
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The labors of Hercules were familiar to the Greeks at least as early as Homer, who mentions the fetching of Cerberos:
He forgets how often I saved his son when he was worn out by the labours Eurystheus had laid on him. He would weep till his cry came up to heaven, and then Jove would send me down to help him; if I had had the sense to foresee all this, when Eurystheus sent him to the house of Hades, to fetch the hell-hound from Erebus, he would never have come back alive out of the deep waters of the river Styx.Homer is also familiar with a connection between Hercules and Eurystheus.
Iliad 8.362-69
Written around the end of the eighth and beginning of the seventh century B.C., Hesiod's Theogony names three of Hercules' labors: the Nemean Lion:
but Echidna was subject in love to Orthus and brought forth the deadly Sphinx which destroyed the Cadmeans, and the Nemean lion, which Hera, the good wife of Zeus, brought up and made to haunt the hills of Nemea, a plague to men. There he preyed upon the tribes of her own people and had power over Tretus of Nemea and Apesas: yet the strength of stout Heracles overcame him.the Lernaean Hydra:
Theogony ll.311-12
And again she bore a third, the evil-minded Hydra of Lerna, whom the goddess, white-armed Hera nourished, being angry beyond measure with the mighty Heracles. And her Heracles, the son of Zeus, of the house of Amphitryon, together with warlike Iolaus, destroyed with the unpitying sword through the plans of Athene the spoil-driver.and the Cattle of Geryon:
Theogony ll.308-09
But Chrysaor was joined in love to Callirrhoe, the daughter of glorious Ocean, and begot three-headed Geryones. Him mighty Heracles slew in sea-girt Erythea by his shambling oxen on that day when he drove the wide-browed oxen to holy Tiryns.The fifteenth Homeric Hymn recognizes a relationship between Eurystheus and Hercules.
Theogony ll.293-94
I will sing of Heracles, the son of Zeus and much the mightiest of men on earth. Alcmena bare him in Thebes, the city of lovely dances, when the dark-clouded Son of Cronos had lain with her. Once he used to wander over unmeasured tracts of land and sea at the bidding of King Eurystheus, and himself did many deeds of violence and endured many; but now he lives happily in the glorious home of snowy Olympus, and has neat-ankled Hebe for his wife.
In addition to literary source, black figure vases depicting the capture of the Erymanthian Boar, the fight with the Amazons, the Cretan Bull, the man-eating mares of Diomedes, and the quest for the Apples of the Hesperides suggest some familiarity with five additional labors.
Next page > Classical Period Hercules > 1, 2, 3, 4, Hercules' Expiation for Murder
