The Twelve Labours of Hercules — The Impossible Tasks

Why ten labours became twelve

In the most detailed ancient account, the mythographer Apollodorus says Eurystheus first set ten labours, not twelve. He then refused to count two of them. The Hydra did not count because Heracles' nephew Iolaus had helped him, and the Augean Stables did not count because Heracles had made a deal with Augeas for payment, a tenth of his cattle. Two more labours were added, the apples of the Hesperides and Cerberus, which is why they come last in Apollodorus.

The number twelve and the list itself were not fixed early. Homer knows Heracles laboured for Eurystheus and mentions the fetching of Cerberus, but gives no list. The earliest firm evidence for the canonical twelve is visual: the twelve sculpted metopes over the porches of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, carved around 460 BC and described by Pausanias. The order also varies between writers such as Diodorus and Apollodorus.

The side stories behind each labour

Almost every labour came with side adventures that ancient audiences knew as well as the tasks themselves.

• Nemea. On his way to the lion Heracles stayed with a poor labourer named Molorchus, who was about to sacrifice his only ram. Heracles asked him to wait thirty days: if he came back, they would sacrifice to Zeus the Saviour, and if not, Molorchus should make offerings to him as a dead hero.
• The Hydra. Hera sent a giant crab to bite Heracles' foot during the fight. He crushed it, and Hera placed it in the sky as the constellation Cancer. More on the monster is on the Hydra page.
• The Ceryneian Hind. Pindar's Olympian 3 has Heracles chase the golden-horned hind all the way to the land of the Hyperboreans in the far north, where he first saw the olive trees he later brought to Olympia.
• The Erymanthian Boar. On the way Heracles was entertained by the centaur Pholus, who opened a jar of wine belonging to all the centaurs. The smell drew the others, a fight broke out, and in the confusion one of Heracles' Hydra-poisoned arrows struck the immortal Chiron. The wound could not heal, and Chiron eventually gave up his immortality to escape the pain.
• Augeas. When Augeas refused to pay, Heracles later made war on Elis and killed him. Pindar's Olympian 10 makes this victory the occasion on which Heracles founded the Olympic Games.
• The Mares of Diomedes. Heracles left the horses in the care of his young companion Abderus, and they tore him apart. Heracles founded the city of Abdera at his tomb. Euripides' Alcestis catches Heracles on his way to this labour: he stops at the palace of Admetus and wrestles Death (Thanatos) to bring back Admetus' wife.
• Hippolyta's belt. On the way home Heracles reached Troy, where King Laomedon had chained his daughter Hesione out as an offering to a sea monster. Heracles killed the monster, but Laomedon cheated him of the promised horses, and Heracles later came back and sacked Troy, a generation before the Trojan War.
• Geryon. To cross the river Ocean, Heracles threatened Helios with his bow, and the sun god lent him the golden cup in which he sailed back east each night. The archaic poet Stesichorus wrote a whole poem, the Geryoneis, that treats the three-bodied Geryon with real sympathy. Fragments of it survive on papyrus.
• The Hesperides. Heracles did not know where the garden was. He caught the shape-shifting sea-god Nereus, who told him. On the way he wrestled Antaeus in Libya, a giant who was invincible while he touched the earth, and freed Prometheus by shooting the eagle that ate his liver. The trick on Atlas is only one version. Others have Heracles kill the serpent Ladon and pick the apples himself.
• Cerberus. Before going down, Heracles was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. In the underworld he freed Theseus from the Chair of Forgetfulness but could not free Pirithous. He also met the ghost of Meleager, who asked him to marry his sister Deianira. That marriage would lead to Heracles' own death.

A major variant: when did the madness happen?

The page above follows the common order: madness, then the murder of Megara and the children, then the labours as penance. Euripides reverses it. In his Heracles, the hero has already finished the labours and comes back from Hades just in time to save his family from the tyrant Lycus. Then Hera sends Madness (Lyssa) and he kills them. This makes the labours a heroic achievement and not an atonement, and turns the murder into the tragedy that wrecks a finished life. Other sources say Heracles served Eurystheus because Hera had tricked Zeus over the birth: Zeus swore that a descendant of his born that day would rule, and Hera held back Heracles' birth while hurrying Eurystheus'. That trick is told in Iliad 19.

Labours in art

The labours were among the most popular subjects in Greek art. Black-figure vases from the 6th century BC show Heracles wrestling the lion in many variations, and the scene of Eurystheus cowering in a storage jar while Heracles holds the boar over him was a comic favourite. The Olympia metopes (some now in the site museum, others in the Louvre) show Heracles ageing across the series, beardless and tired at the start, mature by the end.

Ancient sources

• Apollodorus, Library 2.5.1–12: the fullest single account of all twelve labours and their side episodes, including why Eurystheus discounted two of them.
• Diodorus Siculus, Library of History Book 4: a continuous narrative of the labours, sometimes in a different order and with rationalising touches.
• Hesiod, Theogony: describes the births of the Nemean Lion, the Hydra, Geryon and Orthus and says Heracles killed them.
• Euripides, Heracles and Alcestis: the madness placed after the labours, and Heracles' detour on the way to the Mares of Diomedes.
• Pindar, Olympian 3 and 10: the hind and the Hyperborean olive, and the founding of the Olympic Games after the defeat of Augeas.
• Pausanias, Description of Greece Book 5: describes the twelve labour metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.

Frequently asked questions

What was the hardest of the twelve labours?

Ancient sources treat the capture of Cerberus as the climax, since it meant going into the land of the dead and returning alive. The Augean Stables were designed to be the most humiliating, not the hardest.

Why did Hercules have to do twelve labours?

In the usual version, the Delphic oracle ordered him to serve Eurystheus as atonement for killing his children in a madness sent by Hera. Apollodorus says ten labours were set first and two more added when Eurystheus refused to count the Hydra and the Stables.

Did Hercules do the labours alone?

Not always. Iolaus helped with the Hydra, Athena gave him the rattle for the Stymphalian birds, Helios lent him his cup, Hermes and Athena guided him in the underworld, and Atlas fetched the apples in one version. That help is exactly why Eurystheus disqualified the Hydra.

Is "Hercules" or "Heracles" correct?

Both. Heracles (Herakles) is the Greek name, meaning "glory of Hera," and Hercules is the Latin form the Romans used. The Heracles page covers his whole life.