Early Greek myth had many Adams, as most regions had their own "first man."  As the myths tended to merge into a panhellenic version, one of these first men (Deukalion, son of Prometheus) took precedence while the others faded into obscurity.  Greek myth in general was not overly concerned with identifying the original mortal.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Belos is the Greek name for Baal, the Canaanite fertility god who appears in the Old Testament.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Most  of the questions asked of oracles in myth concern a king who wants a son and is told not to have one (or a grandson, or son-in-law).  Interestingly, the most common question asked of actual historical oracles by private individuals also expresses anxiety about virility:  When will I have a son?  Am I the father of her children?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Over the centuries the prison of Danae gradually moved upward.  In Roman versions she is sometimes immurred (a Roman punishment for prostitution), and in medieval fairy tales she is Rapunzel, waiting in a tower for the right suitor.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The hero's upbringing by foster parents, usually of low status, has a parallel in childhood fantasies of having other parents, usually of high status.  This same fantasy underlies the "foundling" genre of world liteerature, from Euripides to Dickens.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The motif of the Rash Promise.
 
 
 
 
 

The Hesperides were the daughters of Night, three (or four) beautiful nymphs who tended the paradise garden.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Groups of three are significant in this myth.  Three nymphs, three Graiai, three Gorgons, three sets of twins, and three representations of the mother:  Danae, Andromeda, and Medousa.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kepheus is like Akrisios:  to win his daughter, a suitor must perform an impossible task, to kill the monstrous sea sepent.  And his twin Phineus, like Akrisios' twin Proitos, is in love with his niece,
Similarly, Diktys vows to protect Danae from all other men, while his twin brother Polydektes wants to have her.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

When a man takes his mother on his honeymoon, we might well wonder whom he is really marrying.  But of course Andromeda and Danae are two aspects of the same person.  That is why they first appear in exactly similar situations.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The myth of Bellerophon is one of the few Greek myths which may plausibly have originated from the indigenous myths of Asia Minor.
 
 
 
 

On one hand the Bellerophon myth is a fairy tale, a wish-fulfilling story of a youth who receives supernatural help, defeats monsters and armies against all odds, and wins a princess from her unwilling father.  On the other hand it is one of several “Potiphar’s Wife” incidents in Greek myth and, like the others, represents a psychological triangle of demanding mother, anxious son, and vengeful father (Stheneboia, Bellerophon, Proitos/Iobates).  What differentiates this myth from the usual outcome of Potiphar’s Wife stories is precisely its fairy tale components:  the fearful child, who cannot even admit his own desires, acquires the phallic emblem Pegasos and becomes a great hero, overcoming his paternal enemies and winning the sister of the woman he had earlier been compelled to reject.  Finally, however, the fairy tale is negated and Bellerophon is conquered by the original objects of his fear, appearing now as the Xanthian women and Zeus.  And, since Pegasos is the means by which Bellerophon achieves temporary success, it is appropriate that Pegasos is also the cause of his defeat; it is the horse who is frightened by the women’s sexual display and put to flight by Zeus’ sexual weapon.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Tantalos is one of the four criminals (along with Sisyphos, Tityos, and Ixion) mentioned in early Greek literature as suffering special punishments in Tartaros.  The punishment of Tantalos is to be forever hungry and thirsty (hence the English word "tantalize").
 

The fate of Pelops is similar to that of Osiris in Egyptian myth.  Parts of his dismembered body were hidden throughout Egypt.  When his sister/wife Isis found the parts and re-assembled Osiris, one part was missing, and so she had to provide him with an ivory or wood phallus.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The story of Pterelaos’ magic hair is an example of a theme found in many myths around the world, sometimes called the “external soul” motif:  a man’s strength or life resides in some external object or in some part of the body (such as hair) which normally can be removed without harm.  These myths are basically symbolic representations of the wishes and fears associated with the preservation of power and potency.  In the best-known instance of the motif Samson, whose strength lies in his hair, is rendered impotent by the treacherous Delilah, who persuades him to reveal his secret and then cuts off his seven locks of hair; the Philistines confirm the meaning of this deed by blinding Samson, since blinding is a typical symbol of the loss of potency.
A similar story is told of the Cretan king Minos:  his enemy Nisos had a magic purple hair, which his daughter Skylla plucked for love of Minos (who then killed her).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The three children Hera has with Zeus, all rather unimportant, are the war-god Ares and two daughters Eileithyia and the eternally 12-year-old Hebe.  All three appear in the Herakles myth.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hera, the stepmother (and thus the persecuting “bad mother”) of the many heroes fathered by Zeus, is especially hostile to Herakles, the greatest of all heroes.  Indeed a primary cause of Herakles’ greatness is the superhuman efforts he must make to carry out her will or protect himself against her; in one account the people of Argos gave Herakles his name, meaning “Glory of Hera,” immediately after he strangled the serpents in his bed.  Before his birth and throughout his life, the intentions of Hera underlie everything that Herakles does or suffers; only after his death and apotheosis will he be reconciled with her.  The nursing episode is a particularly revealing indication not only of the psychological basis of Hera’s enmity (the male child’s fantasy of a feared and rejecting mother) but also of a certain ambivalence in the relationship:  the one time Hera assumes a maternal role, giving Herakles the milk which provides life (and in some versions immortality), she becomes the bad mother who rejects the child from her breast and denies him this fundamental expression of maternal nurturance.
 Three closely related motives will recur prominently throughout Herakles’ life:  the search for a good (that is, nurturant but unthreatening) mother, the attainment of immortality, and the demonstration of unfailing virility.  The first two motives are already present in the nursing episode, and the third will initially appear at the end of Herakles’ childhood, during his stay at Thespiai; fulfillment of these three wishes will end Hera’s persecution and make Herakles similar to his father Zeus, greatest of the gods and the exemplification of supreme male sexuality.

    The story begins with the river god Inachos, from whom all the people of Argos are descended.  His son Phoroneus is the "first man" of the region, its Adam.  He gathered people together after a great flood and taught them to live in cities, he was the first king, he discovered the use of fire and invented law-courts.
 
 

    Four generations later another Inachos was king of Argos, and his daughter Io was a priestess of Hera.  Zeus appeared to her in dreams and asked her to come to the meadow of nearby Lerna and become his lover.  Hera, Zeus' jealous wife, changed Io into a half-cow, half-woman, and sent a stinging insect called the Oistros to chase her out of Argos.  In her wanderings Io swam in the sea west of Greece (that's why it is called the Ionian Sea) and also swam across the waterway which separates Europe and Asia (that's why it is called the Bosphoros, which means "Cow-Crossing).

    Eventually Io came to Egypt, where Zeus breathed on her and touched her; she regained her human form and became pregnant with a son Epaphos (whose name means "Touch").  Io married the king of Egypt and Epaphos married Memphis, a daughter of the river-god Nile.  Their daughter Libya had an affair with Poseidon and gave birth to the twins Agenor and Belos. 

    The birth of twins is a recurrent and important occurence in Argive myth.  Almost always they quarrel, and then one stays as king while the other leaves to start a new kingdom elsewhere.  In the case of Belos and Agenor, Belos stayed and ruled Egypt and Agenor went to Phoenicia.

    It's at this point that the myths of Crete and Thebes are derived from the Argive story.  Agenor's daughter Europa was carried off by Zeus to Crete, and their son was the famous king Minos.  When Agenor sent his sons to look for their missing sister, one of them, Kadmos, eventually arrived in Greece and started the city of Thebes.
 
 

    Meanwhile Belos had twin sons, Aigyptos and Danaos.  Danaos had fifty daughters, and Aigyptos had fifty sons, who were commanded by their father to marry their fifty cousins.  At Danaos' urging, his daughters (the Danaids) refused to marry.  Their father then invented big ships, so that he and his daughters could sail back to Argos, their ancestral home.  They were pursued by their cousins, accompanied by an Egyptian army, and eventually (perhaps because of a war) were forced to marry.  On the wedding night Danaos gave each of his daughters a dagger and commanded them to kill their new husbands while they slept.  All the girls obeyed their father except one, Hypermestra, who fell in love with her new husband Lynkeus and spared his life.  Danaos then held a race to obtain husbands for his other daughters; there were too few contestants (understandably), so he had to arrange a second race to marry them all off.
 
 

    Abas. the son of Lynkeus and Hypermestra, followed the family tradition and had twin sons, Proitos and Akrisios.  The twins fought continually, even while still within their mother's body, and continued their conflict as they grew up.  Eventually Proitos left and started a new kingdom at Tiryns, only a few miles south of Argos, while Akrisios assumed the kingship of Argos.  He married a woman (whom late sources name Eurydike) and had a daughter Danae.  He then inquired of the Delfic oracle as to how he could have a son.

    This is the basic pattern of most Greek heroic myth.  When a king's wife either has no children or produces a daughter, the king asks an oracle about having a son.  The answer is almost always the same:  don't have a son, or that son will kill you.  If the king has a daughter, he is told by the oracle not to let his daughter get married.  If she does, the king will be killed by some version of a son (e.g., grandson, son-in-law, stepson).  So all these kings with daughters proceed to impose an apparently impossible task upon any suitors of their daughters.  To become a hero, therefore, you had to overcome an insurmountable obstacle (which always means to win a princess from her father by doing something impossible for everyone else).

    For example, if a suitor wished to marry Hippodameia, daughter of king Oinomaos of Olympia, he had to beat her father in a chariot race (but Oinomaos had the fastest horses in the world, and the suitor had to take Hippodameia with him in his chariot).  If he wanted to marry Iole, daughter of king Eurytos of Oichalia, he had to beat her father in an archery contest (and Eurytos was the best archer in the world).  And if he wanted to marry Alkestis, daughter of Pelias, he would have to yoke a lion and a boar to a plow (something only Pelias could do).

    In the case of Akrisios and his daughter Danae, he was told by the oracle that if his daughter married, she would have a son who would kill him.  Akrisios therefore locked up Danae in a bronze underground dungeon, and set guards to watch over the prison.

    One day, however, Akrisios came to visit his daughter and discovered that Danae had a baby named Perseus.  Who was the father?  Some said it was Zeus, who came through the keyhole in the form of golden rain, and others said it was Akrisios' twin brother Proitos, Danae's uncle, who had bribed the guards with gold and then made up the story of Zeus and the golden shower.

    Danaos took his daughter and her baby son a few miles south to Nauplion, put them in a box, and threw the box into the Aegean Sea.  This is another recurrent aspect of heroic myth:  the infant hero-to-be is almost always exposed by his father (or sometimes mother) to what seems to be certain death in the sea or the wilderness.

    These children sent to die always survive, of course; usually they are found and raised by parents of low status (or sometimes even by animals) and they eventually seek out their true parents.  The oracle is always fulfilled (that is, the king dies), the mother is often rescued from some terrible predicament, and it is often in the quest for his real parents that the heroic status of the son is attained.

    The box containing Danae and Perseus washed ashore on the island of Serifos and was found by a poor fisherman named Diktys.  He had once been the king of Serifos but he was deposed by his twin brother Polydektes.  When Diktys found and opened the box, he immediately fell in love with Danaeand told her, "I love you and would marry you if I could, but you are obviously a princess and I am a poor fisherman.  Still I will protect you from all other men, and I will raise your son Perseus as if he were my own."

    When Perseus was 21 years old, king Polydektes saw Danae and fell in love with her.  Since he could tell that Perseus was a son of Zeus, he had to figure out some way to get rid of him.  Making up a false story, he announced that he intended to court Hippodameia, daughter of king Oinomaos of Olympia.  Since he didn't want to engage in the chariot race with Oinomaos, which all other suitors had lost, along with their heads,he told his people that he had a different strategy.  If all his subjects gave him a horse, he would take the entire herd to Oinomaos, who might then be so grateful that he would hand over his daughter without forcing Polydektes to race.

    All of Polydektes' subjects brought him a horse; finally it was Perseus' turn, and he told the king, "I live with the poor fisherman Diktys and we have no horses.  But I am a loyal suject and I would do anything for you, even bring back the head of the Gorgon Medousa."  This is just what Polydektes wanted to hear, and he commanded Perseus to bring him Medousa's head, figuring that such a task would cause the certain death of Danae's son.

    The three Gorgons were Medousa, who was mortal, and her immortal sisters Sthenno and Euryale.  They lived in what is now called Morocco, near the paradise Garden of the Hesperides (one of the several Greek versions of the Garden of Eden).  They had tusks like a boar, wings, snakes instead of hair, and the power of turning to stone anyone whose eyes met theirs (that is, if a Gorgon saw you looking at her you would be petrified and die). 

    Perseus, however, had no idea where the Gorgons lived and was wandering around Serifos helplessly until Athena came to his aid.  Athena, the goddess whose entire career is dedicated to disguising herself as a man, is the great friend and helper of most heroes, just as Hera is usually their greatest enemy (since most heroes are the illegitimate sons of her husband Zeus).

    When Perseus asked Athena where the Gorgons lived, she told him that there were three nymphs who knew the answer.  Perseus said, "What three nymphs?  There's a nymph for every pond and fountain, a nymph for every tree, and hundreds more in the ocean."  Athena replied that the three Graiai knew which three nymphs knew the home of the Gorgons.

    The three Graiai were old hags who had been born as old hags.  They had one eye and one tooth between the three of them, and both were detachable.  If a Graia wanted to eat something, she said, "Pass the tooth," and if she wanted to see what she was eating, she said, "Pass the eye." 

    Perseus found the Graiai, snatched away the eye and tooth as they were passed around, and refused to give them back until they revealed the identity of the nymphs.  Then he went to the nymphs, learned where the Gorgons lived, and received from the nymphs and from Athena many gifts to help him get the head of Medousa.

    He received a shield with a mirrored surface (so he could see the Gorgons indirectly), a special bag kalled the kibisis (to put Medousa's head in, so he wouldn't accidentally look at it), a sickle to cut off her head, winged sandals (so he could fly), and the cap of Hades (which made whoever wore it invisible).

    Weighted down with all these implements, Perseus flew to the Garden of the Hesperides, where he found the three Gorgons asleep on the ground.  Looking in the mirror-shield, and with Athena guiding his hand, he cut off Medousa's head.  As soon as he did this, the winged horse Pegasos and an armed warrior named Chrysaor jumped out of the neck of headless Medousa.  She had recently had an affair with Poseidon, and had become pregnant with these two children.

    The noise of this double birth awakened her sisters and they started to pursue Perseus.  Putting on the cap of Hades, however, he became invisible to them and easily escaped.  Perseus then began his return to Serifos, where his mother Danae was being pursued by the lecherous Polydektes (who was sure that Perseus would never return). 

    As Perseus flew over Ethiopia (probably modern Haifa) he looked down and saw what was apparently a princess about to be eaten by a huge sea serpent.  He flew to the palace of the king, Kepheus, and asked what was happening.  Kepheus told Perseus that because of the arrogance of his wife Kassiopeia Poseidon had sent the sea serpent to harass his country.  When he asked the oracle how he could get rid of the monster, he was told the only way was to sacrifice his most precious possession, his daughter Andromeda.  Perseus asked, "If I kill the sea serpent and rescue Andromeda, can I marry her?"  When the king agreed, Perseus flew to the coast, took Medousa's head out of the kibisis and showed it to the monster, who was turned to stone.  He then returned with Andromeda to the palace, where king Kepheus told him, "There's one thing I forgot to tell you.  To marry Andromeda you first must defeat her fiancee, my twin brother Phineus, and his army.".

    Perseus again used Medousa's head to turn Phineus and his army to stone, then flew back to Serifos to rescue his mother.  After finding Danae and her protector Diktys, who had taken refuge on an altar, he turned Polydektes and his entire army to stone.  He then restored Diktys to his rightful position as king of Serifos and announced his intention of returning to Argos to visit his grandfather Akrisios.

    At this point we would certainly expect Danae and Diktys to get married and live happily ever after; he had loved and protected her for all these years, but could not marry her because of his poverty.  But even though he now is king again, Danae cannot be allowed to marry.  Perseus flew back to Argos with his bride under one arm and his mother under the other.

    When he arrived in Argos, he discovered that Akrisios had disappeared and no one knew where he was (when Akrisios learned that Perseus, the grandson who was destined to kill him, was going around turning people to stone, he had left Argos and was secretly living in the northern Greek city of Larissa under an assumed name).  Perseus therefore assumed the kingship of Argos, and he and his wife Andromeda had many children.  Some years later Perseus went up to Larissa to participate in athletic games being held in honor of a dead king.  Since Perseus had recently invented discus-throwing, the people of Larissa invited him to demonstrate this new sport.  Perseus threw the discus very far and rather wildly; it sailed into the stands, struck Akrisios on the foot, and killed him instantly.

    When he returned to Argos, Perseus was ashamed to be king of the city whose former king he had just killed.  He therefore arranged an exchange with his father's twin brother Proitos, king of Tiryns.  Proitos and his son Megapenthes came to rule Argos, while Perseus became king of Tiryns.  At this time Perseus founded the city of Mycenae.
 
 

    After Proitos became king of Argos (or in some versions while he was still in Tiryns), a young man named Bellerophon came to ask him for purification.  Bellerophon had accidentally killed his brother and, even though it was not a deliberate murder, he still had to leave his home (Sikyon, near Corinth) and find a foreign king who would purify him.  Proitos agreed to do this for Bellerophon, but while Bellerophon was staying in Argos Proitos’ wife Stheneboia attempted to seduce him.  When Bellerophon refused her advances, she went to her husband and told him that Bellerophon had tried to seduce her.  Proitos believed her lie and gave Bellerophon a sealed letter to deliver to his father-in-law Iobates, king of Xanthos (a mountainous peninsula in southern Turkey); apparently restrictions imposed on those involved in purification rites compelled Proitos to find an indirect means of punishing Bellerophon for his alleged crime.  When Iobates opened the letter, the message was to kill the person who had brought it.  Iobates therefore sent Bellerophon on a mission he was sure would cause his death, to kill the monster Chimaira.

    The Chimaira was a composite beast:  a lion in front, a serpent behind, and a goat in the middle.  It had wings and could fly, and the middle of its three heads (a goat’s head) breathed fire.  One of the horde of monsters born to Typhoeus (Typhon) and Echidna, it was raised, according to Homer, by Amisodaros, king of Karia (the region immediately west of Lykia).  To fight against this monster Bellerophon needed divine assistance, and Athena now gave him a magic golden bridle which enabled him to ride the winged horse Pegasos; in some versions Bellerophon acquired Pegasos earlier, while still in Corinth.  In the midair conflict between Bellerophon and the Chimaira, the hero was ultimately victorious (in one version by putting a lump of lead on the tip of his spear and thrusting it into the Chimaira’s fiery mouth, causing the monster to swallow the molten metal and die of lead poisoning). 

    Iobates then sent Bellerophon on a number of missions he hoped would prove fatal to the hero:  helped only by Pegasos, Bellerophon had to fight the Solymoi (a warlike people north of Lykia), and then the Amazons, a fierce race of women who lived along the shore of the Black Sea.  When Bellerophon returned alive and successful from each of these tasks, Iobates sent the best soldiers of the Lykian army to ambush him, but Bellerophon killed all of them.  Realizing the futility of his intention, Iobates now gave his other daughter Philonoe to Bellerophon and named him as heir to his kingdom.  Returning later to Tiryns, Bellerophon persuaded Stheneboia to ride with him on Pegasos, then threw her from the sky to her death.

    Despite his apparent invincibity after acquiring Pegasos, Bellerophon was defeated on two occasions.  The first occurred after he conquered the Amazons:  after praying to his father Poseidon, who sent a great wave against the Lykian city of Xanthos, Bellerophon rode up to the city; the men stayed inside in helpless fear, but the women came out of the city, lifted up their dresses, and exposed themselves; the wave receded, Pegasos was frightened, and Bellerophon was forced to retreat in shame.  His second defeat came at the end of his career:  overly proud of his many victories, Bellerophon decided to fly up to Olympos to test the strength of Zeus.  The god saw him coming and sent out the Oistros fly, which stung Pegasos “beneath the tail.”  The frenzied horse began to buck, and Bellerophon was thrown off to the Lykian plain below. 
 
 

    While these events were taking place in the Argolis (the northeast part of the Peloponnese), another hero named Pelops was establishing his rule in Elis (the area of Olympia, in the northwest Peloponnese). 

    Pelops' father Tantalos was a son of Zeus and seems to have been originally an Anatolian  mountain god connected with Mount Sipylos (near Izmir in Turkey).  Tantalos was obsessed with proving himself superior to the gods, and concocted several bizarre schemes to accomplish this.  Once he stole the nectar and ambrosia which made the gods immortal and for a while gave the divine food to mortals, until the gods stopped him.  But he is best known for the "Feast of Tantalos," a dinner party to which he invited all the gods.  Before they arrived, he chopped up his young son Pelops and then, putting aside identifiable parts like the head and hands, he mixed Pelops' flesh into the main course (Rice Pelops?). figuring that if any of the gods ate a piece of Pelops this would prove that he, Tantalos, knew something the gods didn't know.  All the gods recognized Pelops in the pot and refused to eat, with one exception:  Demeter, who was in mourning for the loss of her daughter Persephone, absentmindedly picked at her food and ate Pelops' right shoulder.  The other gods immediately pointed out to her what she had done, and they then put the remaining parts of Pelops into a cauldron while Demeter or Rhea put in magic herbs and spoke incantations.  Pelops jumped out of the cauldron alive and reconstituted, but missing a shoulder, so Demeter gave him a shining ivory replacement.  In archaic Greek literature Pelops is always called "gleaming-shouldered Pelops," and the ivory shoulder made him irresistable to all.

    Pelops now came to Olympia to race king Oinomaos for the hand of his daughter Hippodameia.  Already twelve suitors had competed and lost, and Oinomaos had nailed their heads to his palace wall.  But this time Hippodameia fell in love with her new suitor Pelops, and she persuaded her father's charioteer Myrtilos, who was also in love with her, to sabotage Oinomaos' chariot.  Myrtilos put wax pins into the chariot wheels, and when the race began and the wheels got hot the wax melted and the wheels fell off.  Oinomaos fell from the chariot, was entangled in the reins, and died.  Pelops now became king of Elis and soon afterwards caught Myrtilos trying to seduce Hippodameia and killed him by throwing him over a cliff.  As Myrtilos fell, he cursed Pelops, and it is this curse which will eventually lead to all the horrible disasters which will afflict Pelops' descendants (Atreus, Thyestes, Agamemnon, Klytemnestra, etc.).

    Pelops and Hippodameia had many children, especially daughters, and many of these daughters married sons of Perseus and Andromeda.  In this way the royal dynasties of the eastern and western Peloponnese were united, and that is why the whole area came to be known as the "Island of Pelops" or Peloponnese.
 
 

    The sons of Pelops and Hippodameia included Atreus, Thyestes, and Pittheus, and the sons of Perseus and Andromeda included Alkaios, Elektryon, Sthenelos, and Mestor.  After marrying daughters of Pelops, Alkaios had a son Amphitryon and daughter Anaxo, Sthenelos had a son Eurystheus, and Mestor had a son Taphios and grandson Pterelaos; as for Elektryon, he succeeded Perseus as king of Mycenae and had a daughter Alkmene by his niece Anaxo. 

    The descendants of Mestor left the Peloponnese and settled in the Taphian Islands (now called the Echinades) in the Ionian Sea.  While Mestor's grandson Pterelaos was king, his sons came to Mycenae and rustled the cattle of king Elektryon.  When suitors came for the hand of Elektryon's daughter Alkmene, he told them that the successful suitor would have to accomplish a task which seemed impossible:  he would have to recover the cattle taken by the Taphians.  Why was this impossible?  Because Pterelaos, king of the Taphians, had a magic golden hair on his head which made him immortal and unconquerable. 

    Elektryon's nephew Amphitryon now joined the suitors and, since he was very wealthy, was able to do the impossible task by paying a great ransom for the cattle.  As they were being returned to Elektryon, however, one of the cows charged at the king; Amphitryon threw his club at the cow, it bounced off its horn, and struck Elektryon on the head and killed him.

    Even though Elektryon's death was apparently accidental, Amphitryon was forced to go into exile and went north to Thebes to be purified.  He was accompanied by his new bride Alkmene, but she told him she would never be his wife unless he really did perform the impossible task and conquer Pterelaos and the Taphians.

    When Amphitryon arrived with an army at the Taphian Islands, Pterelaos' daughter Komaitho fell in love with the invader and, while Pterelaos was asleep, she plucked the golden hair from her father's head.  As a result Amphitryon was able to kill Pterelaos and conquer the Taphians, and he repaid Komaitho for her help by killing her as well.  He then sailed back to Thebes with Taphian plunder, to prove he had been victorious.
 
 

    On the night before Amphitryon arrived in Thebes, Zeus (always on the lookout for occasions like this) disguised himself as Amphitryon and came to Alkmene's bedroom.  "I've returned victorious," he said, and showed her some Taphian weapons and a Taphian gold cup.  They then went to bed together and Zeus enjoyed the night so much he extended it to three times its normal length.  As a result of this extraordinary kength of time, Herakles, the greatest of all heroes, was conceived.

    The next night the real Amphitryon returned, announced his victory, and went to bed with Alkmene.  On this night Herakles' half-brother Iphikles was conceived.  Wondering about his wife's lack of enthusiasm, Amphitryon asked the famous blind prophet Teiresias, who told him about Zeus' appearance the long night before.

    When Alkmene went into labor before the birth of her children, Zeus announced to all the gods that the next descendant of Perseus to be born would be the next king of Mycenae.  He purposely kept his pronouncement vague so as not to make Hera jealous, but she of course knew that he was referring to Herakles and sent her daughter Eileithyia, a goddess of childbirth, to prevent Herakles' birth.  Eileithyia sat outside the room where Alkmene was in labor, and as long as she kept her legs, arms, and fingers crossed Alkmene could not give birth. During the protracted labor of Alkmene, Hera sped up the birth of Sthenelos' son Eurystheus, and, since Eurystheus was a descendant of Perseus, he won the kingship of Mycenae that Zeus had intended for Herakles.   Alkmene would probably still be in labor, in fact, if she had not had a clever servant named Galanthis, who recognized Eileithyia and came out of Alkmene's room to announce (falsely) that Alkmene had just given birth to a son.  Eileithyia jumped up in surprise and when she uncrossed her various extremities Herakles really was born.  Hera angrily changed Galanthis into a weasel, and on the next night Almene gave birth to her other son Iphikles, Amphitryon's child.

    Shortly after Herakles' birth, his mother Alkmene took the baby to a desolate plain out side of Thebes and abandoned him, since she was afraid of Hera's jealousy.  However Athena, the patron of most heroes, saw him from Olympos and suggested to Hera that they take a walk on earth.  They came to where the baby lay, hungry and crying, and Athena said to Hera, "I can't do anything to help this baby, but you're one of those mother goddesses.  Why don't you feed him?"  Hera, not knowing it was Herakles, began to nurse him at her breast, but Herakles sucked so hard that it hurt her.  Hera pushed him away, and the force of her rejection (and of his sucking) was so great that milk flew from his mouth and her breast up into the sky.  This is the Greek myth of the origin of the Milky Way.

    When Herakles was only a few months old, Hera put two enormous serpents in the crib where Herakles and Iphikles slept.  Herakles took a serpent in each hand and choked them to death.  Some said it was his step-father Amphitryon who put the serpents in the crib, since he wanted to learn which son was his; when Herakles killed the serpents and Iphikles whimpered in the corner, he knew the answer.

    As Herakles grew up, he had as private tutors the most famous practitioners of all the arts.  Eurytos, the world's best archer, taught him archery, Autolykos taught him wrestling, Kastor taught him the use of weapons, and Linos, the brother of Orpheus, gave him music lessons.  Herakles excelled in everything that required physical strength and ability, but he was a failure at music.  When his teacher chastised him for playing the lyre poorly, Herakles hit Linos on the head with his lyre and killed him.
 
 

    Alarmed by this gratuitous violence, Amphitryon decided that Herakles should spend some time away from the company of other people and gave him a job herding cattle in a distant area near Thespiai.  At the age of eighteen, Herakles performed his first heroic task, to kill a lion which lived on Mount Kithairon and was ravaging the herds of Amphitryon and his neighbor Thespios, king of Thespiai.  Thespios and his wife Megamede had fifty daughters; since he wanted to have Herakles (and therefore Zeus) as a relative, Thespios invited Herakles to stay with him while hunting the lion and each night sent in one of his daughters to sleep with Herakles.  In other versions Herakles spent only one night with Thespios, during which forty-nine of the fifty daughters visited his bed, or seven nights, during each of which he impregnated seven daughters; since these versions accounted for only forty-nine, the fiftieth was said to have refused Herakles’ embrace and to have become later the virgin priestess of the cult of the divine Herakles.  In any case Herakles never realized that Thespios had more than one daughter.  As for the lion, Herakles killed it and made its skin and head into his famous cloak and helmet; more often, however, this is said of the Nemean lion, which Herakles killed during his first labor.

    As he was returning to Thebes, Herakles met heralds from the Minyan kingdom of Orchomenos, just north of Thebes.  The Minyans had defeated  the Thebans in a war and compelled them to pay him an annual tribute of one hundred cattle, and the heralds met by Herakles were on their way to collect this payment.  Herakles cut off the heralds’ ears, noses, and hands and told them to take these as tribute to their king..  In the ensuing battle Herakles defeated the Minyans and forced them to pay double tribute to Thebes.  Kreon, king of Thebes, gave his oldest daughter Megara to Herakles as a reward for his valor, and he gave his youngest daughter to Herakles’ brother Iphikles (who already had a son named Iolaos).
 
 

    After Herakles and Megara had a number of sons (from two to eight, according to different sources), Hera drove him mad and he killed his sons (and, in some versions, his wife Megara as well).  He was purified for this crime by Thespios, presumably still grateful for Herakles’ insemination of his daughters, and went to Delphi to ask Apollo where he should live.  The Pythia (the Delphic priestess) gave him the name Herakles (he had earlier been called Alkaios or Alkides) and told him to live in Tiryns and to serve Eurystheus, king of Mycenae, for twelve years; if he successfully accomplished the labors imposed on him by Eurystheus, she said, he would become immortal.

The earliest evidence for all twelve labors together is the twelve metopes (reliefs) on the temple of Zeus at Olympia, each panel containing a separate labor (around 450 B.C.).  References to individual or several labors appear much earlier in both art and literature, but without a fixed norm as to their total number or sequence.
It may seem that the last six labors are a later addition to an original myth of Peloponnesian exploits performed by a local hero, but this is not necessarily so; while many of the details contained in the last six labors are no doubt late embellishments, references to these labors appear in the earliest Greek literature and, furthermore, we cannot assume that journeys to fantastic places beyond the known world could not occur in the earliest local myths. 
When we look at the labors as a connected series, however, and ask what it is about this achievement that constitutes Herakles’ heroic status—in fact, eventually and explicitly makes him a god—two conclusions seem most important.  First, the labors are primarily concerned with animals (nine of twelve) and especially with cattle (three).   Both emphases seem to point to prehistoric traditions of a shamanistic “master of animals,” to rituals and beliefs concerning hunting and the procurement of animals, or at a later stage to the Indo-European complex of stories about cattle raids, a dominant theme in myths from Britain to India.
If five of the labors do not fit readily into this pattern of the hunting and taming of animals (the Nemean Lion, the Hydra of Lerna, Kerberos of Hades, the Apples of the Hesperides, and the Belt of Hippolyta), they still can be explained in terms of early man’s concern with dangerous animals, with immortality, and with sexuality. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The only kind of female deer which has antlers is the reindeer.  This may be why Pindar placed this labor in the far north.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The four-legged half-man half-horse Centaurs are usually said to be the children of Nephele ("Cloud").  With a few exceptions, they are interested only in getting drunk and carrying off women.  The best-known myth of the centaurs tells how they went to a wedding in the land of people called the Lapiths in Thessaly, got drunk at the reception, and tried to run off with the bride and other Lapith women.
This story is the subject of the relief found most often on Greek temples, the battle between the centaurs and the Lapiths.
The great exception is the wise, gentle, and immortal centaur Cheiron, at whose academy on Mount Pelion in Thessaly Jason, Achilleus, and other future heroes studied.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Augeias is sometimes said to have had infinite cattle (in fact, a school text which Greek students used to study the problem of fractions of infinite numbers was a poem about the cattle of Augeias).  If he did have infinite cattle, it's no wonder he refused to pay Herakles a tenth of them (since a tenth of infinity is infinity).

Herakles' diversion of the river Alpheios has an historical parallel.  During the Middle Ages an earthquake caused the river to change course and flow over the site of Olympia.  When it later returned to its bed, the site was covered with silt and many ancient statues and artefacts were preserved.
 
 
 
 

Pausanias also notes a connection between Stymphalos and Hera (who seems always to be in the background when Herakles’ life is threatened); Temenos, son of Pelasgos, raised Hera in Stymphalos, and she returned there after a quarrel with Zeus.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 The mountain where the mares died is probably not the famous Olympos in Thessaly but one of the other mountains by that name in Elis, Lakonia, or Arcadia.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In Greek myth (or mythical history) there were three divisions of Amazons:  Skythian, Libyan, and those living by the Thermodon River at the east end of the Black Sea.  They were generally regarded as the daughters of Ares and the Naiad nymph Harmonia or of an incestuous union between Ares and his Amazon daughters.
 Since the Amazons were frequently said to remove their right breast by amputation or burning, to facilitate archery and javelin-throwing, their name was popularly derived from a-mazos (“without breast”).  Nevertheless the Amazons appear in art with both breasts intact, often with one exposed (the battle between the Amazons and the Athenians was one of the most popular subjects sculpted on the friezes and pediments of Greek temples).  The name probably refers to symbolic rather than actual loss; Amazons were women who renounced a woman’s role and maternal functions (like the goddesses Athena and Artemis) and chose to conduct themselves like men.  As Strabo says, belief in the Amazon myths “is the same as as saying that the men of old were women and the women were men.”
The Amazons appear most frequently in Greek myth and art as fighting the Greeks; in addition to their war against Herakles, the Amazons fought against Bellerophon, at some very early time against Dionysos, and against the Athenians.  Pausanias also says that the Amazons stopped at Ephesos (on the Aegean coast of Turkey) to offer sacrifice to Artemis on three occasions, when fleeing from Herakles and Dionysos and while on their way to attack Theseus in Athens.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

According to Diodoros Herakles civilized the peoples of western Europe as he passed from Spain to Italy; he founded the city of Alesia in honor of his wanderings and built a highway through the Alps in order to enter Liguria.  In Aeschylus’ lost Prometheus Unbound Prometheus, while giving Herakles directions on how to get from the Caucasus to the Hesperides, also predicts what will happen to Herakles in Liguria:  he will be attacked by natives trying to steal his cattle and will run out of arrows; he will try to find stones to throw but will fail, since the ground of Liguria is soft mud; Zeus will pity him and send down a hail of round stones which Herakles will use to defeat the Ligurians.  In response to Posidonios’ objection that it would have been better for Zeus to rain down the stones on top of the Ligurians rather than require Herakles to throw them, Strabo says with equally acute logic that it would also have been better for Paris, the seducer of Helena, to have been punished on his way from Troy to Sparta instead of afterwards.
 
 

Herakles’ encounter with the viper-maiden reflects and clarifies previous symbolic elements in the myth.  Although Herakles’ labors have multiple determinants and levels of meaning, a recurrent theme is his attempt to demonstrate masculinity and potency, to meet and overcome sexual challenges (e.g., the daughters of Thespios, the Amazon queen). 
 There are furthermore several indications that Herakles’ affair with the viper-maiden is really an attempt on his part to prove himself equal to his father Zeus (and especially to Zeus’ performance on the night he spent siring Herakles):  (1) in one version Skythes is the son of the viper-maiden and Zeus, not Herakles; (2) Zeus’ threefold extension of the night he spent with Alkmena, a metaphor for his prodigious sexual ability, is recalled (and enlarged upon) by Herakles staying with the viper-maiden long enough to father three children; (3) having accomplished his task, Herakles leaves with the viper-maiden the weapon with which he kills his enemies and a belt with a cup attached; when Zeus came to Alkmena, he did two things before having sex with her:  he told her of the enemies he had (supposedly) killed and he gave her a cup.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The earliest full account of this labor is a fragment of Pherekydes:  Gaia gave a golden apple tree to Zeus when he married Hera, and Hera asked that it be planted in the garden near Mount Atlas; when Atlas’ daughters kept stealing the apples, Hera set the serpent to guard them; Pherekydes then tells of the nymphs and of Herakles’ struggle with Nereus, who changed into water and fire before resuming his true appearance and disclosing to Herakles the location of the apples; Herakles went to Libya and killed Antaios, then to Egypt, where he killed Bousiris and his son, herald, and servants at Memphis; from Egyptian Thebes Herakles went back through Libya, sailed through the ocean to Prometheus, for whom he killed the eagle as it flew overhead, then came to Atlas and followed Prometheus’ instructions.
 Apollonios has Herakles kill the guardian serpent and take the apples himself; he then grew thirsty and kicked a rock, from which a spring gushed.  This story is told by the Hesperides to the Argonauts and saves them from dying of thirst.
 

According to Herodotos Herakles went to the oracle of Ammon (the Egyptian Zeus), wishing to see his father.  Not wanting to reveal himself, Zeus covered himself with a ram’s fleece and held the ram’s head in front of his face, and therefore the Egyptian Zeus is portrayed with a ram’s head.  Herodotos, who believed that Herakles was originally an Egyptian god who had been taken over by the Greeks, also tells the story of Herakles and Bousiris but regards it as unbelievable.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  The Greek word for apples (mela) is used metaphorically for “woman’s breast,” and the Greek word for brassiere is melouchos (“apple-holder”)..  This is why golden apples are always associated in Greek myth with weddings (e.g., Zeus and Hera, Peleus and Thetis, Atalanta and Melanion), and why the earliest state of mythic humanity is so often a paradise of total bliss and contentment.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Herakles was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries by Mousaios, a legendary prophet and singer, and, since foreigners were prohibited from initiation into the Greater mysteries, the Eleusinians founded the Lesser mysteries specifically for Herakles, the benefactor of all mankind. 

    The Theban period of the Herakles myth, which began with Amphitryon’s exile, now ends with Herakles’ return to the Argolid, home of his ancestors.  The first six labors all take place in the northern Peloponnese (the first two in the Argolid, the fifth in Elis, and the other three in Arkadia).  The seventh and eighth labors will take Herakles to the farthest borders of the Greek world (Crete and Thrace), and the last four will carry him to and beyond the ends of the earth. 

    The order of the labors does not seem to be of great significance, except for two general distinctions:  between the first six, which occur in the Peloponnese, and the last six, which trace a map of the world, and between the first eight, which are relatively simple, and the last four, each of which is long and complicated. 

     Nevertheless there is one aspect which all of the labors have in common (and which also defines becoming a god):  each labor is an apparently impossible task—this, after all, is why Eurystheus assigns them to Herakles, since he supposes that Herakles will fail and die.  And in myth the attempt to perform an impossible task is the role of a suitor, who must overcome the insurmountable obstacles put in his way by the father of the woman he desires.  In other words, behind every animal (or animals’ master) that must be killed or conquered is the paternal enemy who will not let the hero have his daughter.  The labors, like the rest of Herakles’ career, comprise an endless repetition of Herakles doing the impossible, overcoming innumerable earthly fathers to prove that he can have the status (and privileges) of his heavenly father Zeus.
 
 

1. Just as Tiryns seems to have been subject to the neighboring city of Mycenae during the Bronze Age, Herakles lived in Tiryns while carrying out the commands of his master, the Mycenean king Eurystheus.  His first labor was to kill the Nemean lion, a beast which could not be harmed by iron or fire.  The lion’s mother was the serpent-woman Echidna, its father was either Typhoeus, the great monster conquered by Zeus, or Orthos, a two-headed dog born of Echidna and Typhoeus, and its brother (in the latter version) was the Theban Sphinx.  Since Herakles could not kill the lion with his spear or arrows, he blocked one of the two entrances to its cave, then caught the lion and choked it to death. 

   When he returned to Mycenae carrying the lion, Eurystheus was so surprised and frightened that he ordered Herakles never again to enter the city.  From then on, whenever Herakles returned from one of the labors Eurystheus would hide in a bronze jar in the ground and send his herald Kopreus outside the city to receive Herakles and give him new instructions.  Kopreus, a son of Pelops, had been purified by Eurystheus for killing a certain Iphitos, and the price of his purification was to serve Eurystheus as herald.  Kopreus is in a sense a reflection of Herakles himself, since Herakles also will kill a man named Iphitos and be forced to seek purification.  The name Kopreus means “excrement” and might signify not only Kopreus’ and Herakles’ state of criminal pollution but also the debasement undergone by both, who must serve the coward Eurystheus.

    More difficult for Herakles than killing the lion was finding a way to remove its invulnerable hide.  He finally discovered that the lion’s hide could be cut only by its own claws, which he used to skin the animal and make a cloak for himself. 
 
 

2. Herakles’ second labor was to kill the Hydra of Lerna, a water-snake which Hera had raised to fight against him; the Hydra had nine tentacles with a head on the end of each.  Herakles had great trouble defeating it, since it wrapped its tentacles around him and immobilized him; furthermore, every time he knocked off one head with his club, two more grew in its place, and, to make matters worse, a huge crab who was the Hydra's best friend kept biting Herakles’ foot.  Iolaos, Herakles’ charioteer, saved him by using a torch to cauterize the Hydra’s necks so that no new heads could appear.  Herakles was finally able to dispose of all the heads but the middle one, which was immortal; nevertheless it was removable, so Herakles cut it off and buried it under a large rock.  He then dipped his arrows in the gall of the Hydra, the second deadliest poison in the mythic world (the most deadly was the blood from the left-hand veins of Medousa). 

    There are several parallels between Herakles’ slaying the Hydra and Perseus’ killing Medousa:  both monsters are female and must be decapitated with a sickle (Herakles uses a “golden sickle”), both heroes need help, both are threatened with immobility, and both make the power of the monster their own (Perseus by using Medousa’s head against his enemies, Herakles by dipping his arrows in the Hydra’s poisonous gall). 

    Lerna, on the Bay of Nauplion a few miles southwest of Argos, is where the daughters of Danaos buried the heads of their dead husbands after decapitating them on the wedding night.
 
 

3. Herakles’ third labor was to bring back the Kerynitian deer, who lived near the river Kerynitis in the north Peloponnese.  Sometimes described as fire-breathing and monstrous, the deer had golden horns (although it was female) and was sacred to Artemis, who amused herself by chasing it.  After pursuing the deer for a year, Herakles caught it by the river Ladon in Arcadia (with nets, arrows, or his bare hands) and brought it alive to Eurystheus after placating Artemis, who was angry with him for disturbing her sport.  In the poet Pindar’s version Herakles pursued the deer as far as the land of the Hyperboreans in the imaginary far north.
 
 

4. The fourth labor was to bring back alive the Erymanthian boar, a dangerous animal which lived in Arcadia on the mountain Erymanthos or by the river of the same name.  Herakles caught the boar by driving it into deep snow, and took it to Mycenae.

    While on his way to hunt the boar, Herakles stopped for dinner at the cave of the centaur Pholos.  Pholos ate raw meat but gave roast meat to his guest; however, he refused when Herakles asked him to open a jar of wine which belonged to all the centaurs, since he feared the other centaurs would smell it, even from a distance, and cause trouble.  Herakles insisted on opening the wine and the other centaurs, recognizing the smell, came and began fighting with Herakles.  Herakles killed some with his newly-poisoned arrows and chased them to Malea (a mountainous cape at the southern tip of the Peloponnese), where they ran for protection to the wise and immortal centaur Cheiron, teacher of many of the mythic heroes. 

    When one of Herakles’ arrows passed through the centaur Elatos and struck the knee of Cheiron, the poison caused him such anguish that he wanted to give up his immortality and die.  Our sources are very confused here, but there may have been a lost version in which Cheiron exchanged his fate with Herakles, thus explaining Herakles’ eventual acquisition of immortality.  This story then disappeared in the abundance of other myths concerning Herakles’ becoming a god (he drank Hera's milk, he completed the twelve Labors, he went to the underworld and returned, etc.).

    In one version the god Dionysos had left the jar of wine with the the centaurs four generations earlier, telling them not to open it until Herakles appeared.  During the battle the centaurs were helped by their mother Nephele who, since she was a cloud, was able to make the ground slippery with rain.
 
 

5. Herakles’ fifth labor was to clean the stables of Augeias, king of Elis (the region of Olympia), in a single day.  Herakles made a bargain with Augeias that he would do this in return for a tenth of the cattle, and Augeias’ son Phyleus witnessed the agreement.  After cleaning the stables by diverting the river Alpheios through them, Herakles demanded his payment.  Augeias not only refused to pay, but denied that he had ever agreed to pay.  When the matter was brought to court, Augeias’ son Phyleus testified against his father, but Augeias banished both Herakles and Phyleus before a vote could be taken.

    On his way back to Mycenae, Herakles stopped in Olenos at the home of Dexamenos.  When he learned that Dexamenos’ daughter was being forced to marry the centaur Eurytion, he killed the centaur.

    Augeias’ father is usually Helios, god of the sun, but some said that his father was the mortal Eleios and his admirers tried to flatter him by changing his father’s name from Eleios to Helios; others say that his father is Poseidon. 
 
 

6. Herakles sixth labor was to exterminate the Stymphalian birds, who lived in great numbers in the woods near Stymphalos in Arcadia.  When Herakles was unable to get the birds out of the trees, Athena gave him bronze castanets which Hephaistos had made; striking these together on a mountain nearby, Herakles made the birds fly up in fright and shot them as they flew.

    Like the Kerynitian deer, the apparently harmless birds are sometimes portrayed as dangerous, able to shoot their feathers like arrows.  The traveller Pausanias describes them as man-eating, possibly descended from large birds of the Arabian desert who were as savage as lions and killed men with beaks that could stab through bronze or iron. 
 
 

7. The seventh labor was to bring back alive the Cretan bull.  Poseidon had sent this animal from the sea in answer to the prayer of Minos for a divine sign, so that he could become king of Crete.  When Minos neglected to sacrifice the bull to Poseidon as he had promised, Poseidon drove the bull mad and compelled Minos’ wife Pasiphae to fall in love with it; assisted by the clever architect Daidalos, Pasiphae had an affair with the bull and bore a son, the Minotaur.  Herakles now caught the bull and took it to Eurystheus, then set it free.  It roamed through the Peloponnese and eventually came to Marathon in Attica, where king Theseus killed it.
 
 

8. The eighth labor was to bring back alive the man-eating mares of the Thracian Diomedes, a son of Ares.  Herakles sailed with a group of volunteers and captured the mares, then left them with his lover Abderos while he fought against Diomedes and his army.  After defeating the Thracians and killing Diomedes (in one version, by feeding him to his own mares), Herakles found that the mares had killed and eaten Abderos.  He therefore founded the city Abdera in honor of Abderos and returned with the mares to Eurystheus.  He set them free and they eventually were killed by wild animals on Mount Olympos.
 
 

    The last four labors are quite different from the first four.  They take Herakles to imaginary lands and peoples beyond the known world and (partly because of the great distances he must go) involve him in a large number of secondary adventures during his travels. 
 
 

9. The ninth labor was to bring back the belt of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, a warlike race of women who lived on the shores of the Black Sea.  Herakles enlisted a volunteer crew and sailed to the far east coast of the Black Sea where the Amazons were camped.  Hippolyte met him on the shore and agreed to give him her belt.  But once again Hera intervened; disguised as an Amazon, she came to the other Amazons who were watching the scene below on horseback from a hill above the shore.  Hera told them that the stranger was about to carry off their queen, and the Amazons raced down the hill and began a battle with Herakles and his crew.  Many Amazons died in the confliuct, including sometimes the queen Hippolyte herself, and Herakles sailed off with the belt. 

    As he sailed through the Dardanelles to the Aegean sea, Herakles stopped at Troy and learned that king Laomedon had offended the gods Apollo and Poseidon by not paying them for fortifying the citadel of Troy.  The two gods sent a plague and a sea-monster, and oracles told Laomedon that he would be released from punishment only if he sacrificed his daughter Hesione to the sea-monster.  Herakles now saw Hesione in chains on the coastal rocks, about to be killed by the monster (just as his ancestor Perseus had seen Andromeda in Ethiopia), and he offered to save the princess.  However, unlike Perseus, who had asked for the hand of Andromeda in return for saving her, Herakles promised to save Hesione if Laomedon would give him the prized mares which he had received from Zeus as compensation for Zeus' abduction of Ganymede, Laomedon's beautiful son.  Laomedon agreed to this and Herakles saved Hesione, but Laomedon refused to give up the horses and Herakles was forced to leave.

    How is this labor an impossible task?  A woman’s belt (or, as it is often translated, “girdle”) commonly had a sexual significance in Greek and Roman myth and poetry; “to loosen a woman’s belt” meant to take her virginity.  Thus Herakles’ ninth labor is essentially a representation of a sexual test.  He must acquire the token which proves that he has won in a sexual encounter with the queen of the Amazons, presumably of all women the one most resistant to male  overtures, the one most difficult to conquer sexually.

    Herakles wins Hippolyte, and then kills her, just as he won the Trojan princess Hesione but asked for a pair of horses instead, and as he killed his wife Megara (or gave her to his lover Iolaos), and as he will give Hesione to Telamon and, especially, his concubine Iole to his son Hyllos.

    Herakles’ fondness for women of the Amazon type (his next wife will be Deianeira, a famous warrior and huntress) would seem to be an extreme example of his general preference for non-maternal women, no surprise for the hero most subject to recurrent persecution by a maternal figure (Hera).  On a cultural level the same sort of anxiety about maternal or sexually mature women (an anxiety embodied in the head of Medousa) may help to explain not only why Greek males were led to invent the myth of the Amazons (or Medousa) but also related cultural phenomena (e.g., the cultural restrictions imposed on women, the significance of homosexuality, etc.).  Because of this anxiety Herakles cannot have a lasting relationship with any woman; the woman who loses her virginity must inevitably become maternal, and the Amazon must become Hera.    Thus the many women in Herakles’ life, like the labors themselves, are trials, occasions for him to prove his strength, courage, and virility; that he kills them, leaves them, or gives them away as soon as the test has been passed demonstrates not only his inability to deal with mature female sexuality (the desirable virgin becomes the feared woman) but also the insatiablity of Hera’s demands and the futility of Herakles’ repeated attempts to appease her.
 
 

10. Herakles’ tenth labor was to bring back the cattle of Geryon, a triple-bodied warrior who lived on Erytheia, an island in the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Spain.  The cattle were guarded by the giant herdsman Eurytion and by Orthos, a two-headed dog whose parents were Echidna and Typhon and whose children, by his mother Echidna, were the Nemean lion and the Theban Sphinx.

    During this labor Herakles made a circuit of the Mediterranean, going first to Crete, where he killed all the wild animals, then crossing to north Africa, across the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain, and returning through Europe.  While in the African desert he became irritated at Helios (the sun) for making him hot and shot arrows at the god; impressed by this bravado, Helios gave Herakles a golden cup with which to cross the ocean (presumably the same cup Helios used to sail back each night from his landing place in the west to his starting point in the east).  At the western end of the Mediterranean Herakles erected the Pillars of Herakles, and sailed across to the home of Geryon.  After killing Orthos, Eurytion, and Geryon, he sailed back with the cattle to Tartessos on the Spanish mainland, returned the cup to Helios, and set off through Europe.

    In Liguria (southeast France/northwest Italy) he killed two of Poseidon’s sons, who tried to steal his cattle; during the battle with the Ligurians, Herakles ran out of arrows, but Zeus rained down a shower of stones which Herakles used to defeat his enemies.  When one of the bulls escaped and swam to Sicily, where Poseidon’s son Eryx put it in his herd, Herakles followed and killed Eryx in a wrestling match.

    When he came to the Ionian sea, Hera sent a stinging fly (the Oistros) to bother the cattle; they ran away, with Herakles in pursuit, to the part of Skythia north of the Black Sea.  Here, according to Herodotos, Herakles awoke one morning to find that his chariot-horses had disappeared; he came to the cave of a viper-maiden (a woman from the buttocks up and a serpent below), who told him that she had the horses but would not give them back unless he spent the night with her.  Herakles stayed long enough to have three sons by the viper-maiden, who finally returned his horses and asked him what she should do with their children.  Herakles gave her a bow (he always carried two) and a belt with a small gold cup attached, and showed her how he strung the bow and put on the belt; he then told her to send away any of the boys who could not duplicate what he had done.  When the children grew up she named the eldest Agathyrsos, the next Gelonos, and the youngest Skythes, and tested them as Herakles had instructed.  The first two failed the tasks, but Skythes succeeded and became the eponymous ancestor of the Skythians, who ever afterwards wore belts with little cups attached, in honor of their ancestor Herakles.

    Diodoros gives two variant explanations of the Pillars of Herakles:  either the entrance into the Atlantic was once very wide and Herakles narrowed it by extending the two continents, so as to keep sea monsters out; or the continents were previously joined and Herakles cut a channel, connecting the Mediterranean with the ocean.

    Diodoros also says that Herakles, after passing through Liguria and Tyrrhenia (Etruria, home of the Etruscans), camped at the future site of Rome on the river Tiber, then fought a war with men called Giants at the Phlegraian plain near Mount Vesuvius.  In Roman myth it was at this time that Herakles killed the monster Cacus, who stole some of Herakles’s cattle and dragged them backwards by their tails to his cave, so that Herakles could not follow their tracks.  Diodoros continues that Herakles swam from Italy to Sicily while holding onto a bull’s horn; he then walked around the entire island (apparently not realizing that he had made a wrong turn in his journey from Spain to Greece) while nymphs created warm baths for him; Eryx challenged him to wrestle, demanding the cattle if Herakles lost; when Herakles demanded that Eryx wager his land, Eryx protested that the land and cattle were not of equal value, but Herakles replied that the cattle were invaluable since without them he would have to forfeit his claim to immortality; after defeating Eryx Herakles gave the land to the natives to hold in trust for one of his descendants (this is the city Herakleia, founded by the Spartan Dorieus and eventually razed by Carthage); he conquered the Sikanoi in the interior of Sicily, dedicated shrines to both his late opponent Geryon and his nephew Iolaos (who was with him), and at Agyrion first accepted honors and sacrifices as if he were a god (he began to be convinced of his future immortality when he noticed that both he and the cattle left footprints in the hard rock); he then went back to Italy and around the Adriatic coast to Greece.

     When Herakles finally arrived in Greece with the cattle, one last obstacle awaited him; a giant herdsman named Alkyoneus attacked him, either at the Isthmus of Corinth or in Thracian Phlegrai.  Herakles is sometimes regarded as accompanied by an army at this time; after Alkyoneus crushed twelve chariots and twenty-four warriors with a stone, he was killed by Herakles and Telamon.
 
 

11. Herakles’ eleventh labor was to bring the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides.  The Hesperides were three (or four) beautiful nymphs, daughters of Nyx (Night); the literal meaning of their name is “daughters of evening (hesperos).”  Their garden is one of the several paradises in Greek myth, and is located by Hesiod somewhere beyond the Ocean, by Euripides in the far west, by Hyginus in northwest Africa, somewhere beyond Mount Atlas in Morocco, and by Apollodoros in the far north among the Hyperboreans.  The golden apple tree had been a wedding gift from Gaia to Zeus and Hera, and Hera had placed it in the garden, where it was guarded by a hundred-headed serpent named Ladon (each of whose heads spoke a different language).  At the entrance to the garden stood the giant Atlas, who supported the sky on his head and shoulders.  In Ovid’s version, the golden apple tree belonged to Atlas, who had received an oracle from Themis warning him that Zeus’ son would steal the apples and so put the serpent on guard.  When Perseus arrived at Atlas’ home after killing Medousa, Atlas thought the oracle was being fulfilled and tried to force Perseus away; Perseus therefore used Medousa’s head to change Atlas into a mountain so huge that the heaven rested upon its summit.

    In Macedonia, by the river Echedoros, Ares’ son Kyknos challenged Herakles to fight but a thunderbolt fell between the combatants and ended the contest.  Like Perseus, who needed the help of three nymphs to discover where the Gorgons lived, Herakles now met certain nymphs, daughters of Zeus and Themis, who told him where to find Nereus, an old sea god who knew the location of the Hesperides.  Herakles seized Nereus and held him tightly, although he changed into many shapes, until he told him where the Hesperides lived. 

    Herakles now came to Libya and was challenged to a wrestling match by Antaios, a son of Poseidon and Gaia who used the skulls of strangers he killed to make a roof for the temple of his father Poseidon.  Every time Herakles threw Antaios to the earth, he arose stronger than ever (from contact with his mother Earth); finally Herakles held him up in the air and killed him by breaking his back. 

    In Egypt Herakles was captured by the king Bousiris, son of Poseidon and grandson of Epaphos; some time earlier, during a plague in Egypt, the Greek prophet Phrasios had advised Bousiris to sacrifice strangers and the success of this strategy had persuaded Bousiris to sacrifice all strangers who came to his country (including Phrasios).  However Herakles, like Samson among the Philistines, broke his chains at the altar and killed both Bousiris and his son.

    After leaving Egypt Herakles came to Rhodes, where he stole an ox from a cattle-driver’s wagon, sacrificed it, and ate it, while the unfortunate driver stood on a hill nearby and cursed.  For this reason, says Apollodoros, sacrifices to Herakles are accompanied by ritual curses.  He also went to Arabia (or Ethiopia) where he killed the king, Tithonos’ son Emathion.

    At some time during his travels Herakles came to the Caucasus and freed Prometheus from his punishment by shooting the eagle which was eating the Titan’s liver.  To commemorate the bonds of Prometheus, Herakles put on a wreath of olive.  This wreath, which Herakles made the prize of the Olympic Games, is evidently a symbolic replacement for the chains which had bound Prometheus; since Zeus’ decision to punish Prometheus eternally could not be rescinded, some symbolic continuation of it had to be devised.  Hyginus has a similar explanation for the custom of wearing rings made of stone and iron.  The usual reason given for Zeus’ willingness to allow the release of Prometheus is his need to know the name of the woman whose son could overthrow him, a secret known only to Prometheus (the woman, as Prometheus will tell Zeus after he is freed, is Thetis).

    When he finally arrived at the garden of the Hesperides, Atlas told him that only he was allowed to touch the apples and that Herakles would have to hold up the sky while Atlas picked the apples.  Herakles agreed and Atlas went for the apples; when he returned, not wishing to take back the sky, he said he would take the apples to Eurystheus.  Herakles, who had been forewarned by Prometheus, pretended to agree but asked Atlas to hold the sky for a moment while he put a cushion on his head; when Atlas took the sky, Herakles picked up the apples and left.  After Eurystheus received the apples, he gave them back again to Herakles, who gave them to Athena; the goddess returned them to the Hesperides, since only they were allowed to possess them.

   Two of Herakles’ primary motives, the attainment of immortality and the search for maternal nurturance, are embodied in the eleventh labor.  On one hand the magic fruit in the paradise garden, like the golden apples of north European myth or the fruit of the Tree of Life in Genesis 2, are a means to immortality; for the same reason the streams of the garden of the Hesperides flow with ambrosia, the food of the gods and the source of their immortality.  On the other hand both the apples and their location represent the idyllic existence of the infant at its mother’s breast; the garden of the Hesperides, like the garden of Eden and other paradise gardens, is a symbolic state of abundant maternal nurturance.  Herakles’ winning of the apples is one of several attempts he makes to obtain this nurturance, the denial of which was graphically portrayed in the episode of Hera rejecting him from her breast.
 
 

12. Herakles’ twelfth and final labor was to bring back Kerberos, the three-headed (or fifty-headed or hundred-headed) dog which stood before the house of Hades in the underworld and ate anyone he caught trying to escape.  Herakles first went to Eleusis (30 miles west of Athens, the site of the Eleusinian mystery religion), where he was purified by Eumolpos, son of Poseidon and founder of the Eleusinian mysteries, for killing the centaurs during his second labor. 

    He then went to the entrance of the underworld at Tainaron, at the southern tip of the Peloponnese, or near Herakleia on the Black Sea, and entered Hades.  All the souls of the dead fled in fear, except for Medousa and the hunter Meleager.  Herakles tried to strike Medousa with his sword, but it was like stabbing air, since she was a phantom.   He then fell in love with Meleager and started making advances to him.  When Meleager told him, "Forget it, Herakles, I'm dead," Herakles asked Meleager if there was anyone like him in the world above, and Meleager told him about his sister Deianeira, a huntress whom Herakles will eventually marry.

    While in Hades Herakles rescued Theseus, who with his friend Peirithoos had been imprisoned since they came seeking to win Persephone, but he was unable to release Peirithoos.  He freed Askalaphos from the stone which Demeter had put on him because he informed on Persephone, but Demeter then turned Askalaphos into a horned owl.  He killed one of Hades’ cattle so that the thirsty souls could have blood to drink and wrestled with Hades’ cowherd Menoites, breaking his ribs.  Finally Hades told him he could have Kerberos if he defeated him without weapons; Herakles squeezed Kerberos around the head until the dog was exhausted.  He exited from the underworld at Troizen, not far from Mycenae (or at Tainaron, Skythia, or Mount Laphystios near Koronea), showed Kerberos to Eurystheus and then took him back to Hades.

    Herakles’ winning of immortality appears three times in this labor:  successfully returning from Hades is itself a conquest of death, initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries promises a happy afterlife, and successful completion of the labors, as the Delphic oracle told Herakles, will make him immortal.  The same motive (and reward) have already occurred in his drinking Hera’s milk, the hypothetical exchange with Cheiron, and his quest for the apples of the Hesperides).