There are legends about the physical strength of Hercules: terrible snakes, evil giants, angry bulls - no one can defeat him. Being a demigod, he favors people and protects them.

Hera's Revenge

Hercules' mother Alcmene descends from the hero Perseus, and his father is Zeus himself, the king of the gods. Zeus swears to the gods that the next baby from the line of Perseus will be the ruler of the Peloponnese. Jealous Hera realizes that her unfaithful husband has deceived her again. She delays the birth of Hercules and accelerates the birth of another descendant of Perseus - Eurystheus. Zeus cannot break his oath, and Eurystheus gains power over the Peloponnese. Thus, Hercules will have to spend many years in the service of an insignificant, cowardly relative.

Hero in the cradle

Hercules was still a baby when Hera sent two snakes to the child's cradle to kill him. The brother of Hercules, the son of Alcmene and Amphitryon, squealed in fear at the sight of the snakes. And Hercules silently grabbed the monsters and strangled them with his bare hands.

Why does Hercules perform his labors?

Hercules grew up and got married. But one day the vengeful Hera sends him mad, and he kills his wife and children. When the attack of madness passes, Hercules is overcome by grief. He asks the Delphic oracle how he can atone for this crime. The oracle replies that Hercules must enter the service of his relative Eurystheus and, within twelve years, perform ten great feats, after which he will receive forgiveness and immortality from the gods.

Nemean lion

To begin with, Eurystheus orders Hercules to get the skin of a lion living near the city of Nemea. This lion cannot be wounded by any weapon. Hercules tries to hit him with arrows, but to no avail. Then he drives the lion into his den, stuns him with a blow of his club, and then strangles him with his hands. To skin the beast, he uses the claws of the lion itself. The hero puts on the magical skin of the Nemean lion and becomes invulnerable.

Lernaean Hydra

The second feat is no easier than the first. By order of Eurystheus, Hercules must kill the hydra - a nine-headed snake that exterminates livestock and with its very breath kills anyone who approaches the swamp near the city of Lerna, where it lives. Hercules cuts off several heads from the snake, but in the place of each, two grow! Nephew Iolaus, called to help by Hercules, cauterizes the snake’s wounds with fire so that the heads do not grow back. Meanwhile, Hercules cuts off the main, immortal head, cuts the hydra’s body and smears the tips of his arrows with its deadly bile. Eurystheus does not include this feat in the count, since Hercules was assisted by Iolaus.

Hercules defeats the Lernaean Hydra - a terrible snake with nine heads

Augean stables

The third labor of Hercules is the capture of the golden-horned Cerynean fallow deer. After this, he catches the Erymanthian boar alive, which destroys the crop. His fifth feat was to cleanse the stables of King Augius from huge accumulations of fetid manure. “If I can clear the stables in one day, give me a tenth of your herd,” Hercules demands. The king agrees. Hercules, thanks to his superhuman strength, diverts the waters of two rivers into a new channel. Now rivers flow through the barnyard, and water gushing through breaks in the walls washes out the stalls.

Hercules connects the beds of two rivers to cleanse the Augean stables

But, despite the fact that Hercules cleared the stables in one day, Augeas does not want to give him the cattle. Then Hercules kills the king. But the insidious Eurystheus does not include this feat in the count, since Hercules demanded payment for it. The sixth feat of the hero is the extermination of man-eating birds with iron feathers, beaks and claws in the Stymphalian swamp.

Seventh labor - taming the bull

The god Poseidon gave the Cretan king Minos a beautiful bull so that Minos would sacrifice it to the sea god. But King Minos did not want to kill the bull. To punish Minos, God sends the bull into a frenzy. A ferocious animal ravages the island and keeps its inhabitants in fear. Hercules goes to Crete and fights a bull for several days. Finally, the hero tames the bull and swims across the sea on its back.

It takes Hercules several days to tame the ferocious Cretan bull

From feat to feat

Years go by. Performing the eighth labor, Hercules captures the mares of Diomedes, whom their owner feeds with human meat, and brings them to Eurystheus. The ninth labor is to steal the magic belt of the war god Ares from the Amazon queen Hippolyta.

Performing his ninth labor, Hercules must fight the warlike Amazons

Then Hercules kills Geryon - a giant with three bodies and three heads - and takes possession of his cows. The eleventh labor leads Hercules to the gardens of the Hesperides, where he steals the golden apples of eternal youth that mother earth Gaia once gave to Hera. Eurystheus, fearing Hera's wrath, refuses to take the apples from Hercules, and Athena returns them to the Hesperides.

Dog Cerberus, guardian of Hades

Eurystheus falls into despair: no, he will never be able to get rid of Hercules! He makes the last, twelfth attempt: he demands that the hero bring Cerberus to him - three-headed dog, which guards the entrance to Hades. This task is impossible, because not a single person can come out of the underworld alive! But Hercules copes with this assignment. To deliver Cerberus to Eurystheus, Hercules has to lightly strangle the dog, but then Hercules releases him so that he can continue to guard the kingdom of shadows.

Hercules with his mighty hands strangles Cerberus - the three-headed dog guarding Hades

Hercules and Deianira

Hercules completed his labors. However, the battles and dangerous ignorance do not end there. Hercules marries the princess Deianira. During one of their trips, they both need to swim across a flooded river. Dejanira sits on the back of the centaur Nessus, who wants to kidnap her during the crossing. Hercules shoots an arrow at the centaur, but before his death, the treacherous Nessus manages to whisper to the beautiful Dejanira: “Collect my blood, soak your husband’s clothes with it - and you will preserve his love forever.” A few years later, Hercules falls in love with another woman. Dejanira is jealous and decides to use the centaur's magical blood. She does not know that the blood of Nessus, who died from an arrow smeared with the poisonous bile of the Lernaean hydra, itself turned into poison.

Death of a Hero

Hercules writhes in pain. He tries to tear off his clothes, soaked in the blood of the centaur, but the clothes are stuck to his body and are torn off along with the skin. Deianira, seeing that she has killed her beloved husband, commits suicide in despair. Hercules makes a big fire and throws himself into it to get rid of unbearable torment. He is the only hero whom the gods allow to Olympus and grant him immortality!

Hercules dies in fire and gains immortality. He remains the most famous Greek hero

King Perseus and Queen Andromeda ruled the gold-abundant Mycenae for a long time and gloriously, and the gods sent them many children. The eldest of the sons was called Electrion. Electryon was no longer young when he had to take his father’s throne. The gods did not offend Electryon with their offspring: Electryon had many sons, one better than the other, but only one daughter - the beautiful Alcmene.

It seemed that in all of Hellas there was no kingdom more prosperous than the kingdom of Mycenae. But one day the Taphians attacked the country - fierce sea robbers who lived on the islands at the very entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, where the Aheloy River flows into the sea.

On the top of Olympus, where the protected garden of the gods was laid out among the inaccessible cliff, the celestials feasted under the crowns of evergreen trees.

Zeus looked into the distance, where in distant Boeotia, in the sacred city of Thebes, his beloved son was to be born that day. Favorite of favorites.

Almost a whole year has passed since Alcmene gave birth to her babies. The one who was born first was named Alcides, the second - Iphicles.

The twin brothers grew up strong and healthy. But Zeus, knowing the bad character of his wife, never ceased to fear the machinations of Hera. “What will Hera come up with to destroy my son from the mortal Alcmene? What can I do so that she cannot harm him? What trick can I come up with against her hatred?” - thought the Thunderer.

Hercules grew up in the forests of Cithaeron and became a mighty young man. He was a whole head taller than everyone else, and his strength exceeded human strength. At first glance one could recognize him as the son of Zeus, especially by his eyes, which shone with an extraordinary divine light. No one was equal to Hercules in athletic competitions, and he wielded the bow and spear so skillfully that he never missed.

While still very young, Hercules killed a formidable lion that lived in the wilds of Cithaeron. He took off his skin, threw it over his shoulders like a cloak, and began to wear it instead of copper armor. Hercules' weapon was a huge club, which he made from an ash tree, hard as stone, torn out by its roots.

From the day Prince Eurystheus was born, he was surrounded by care and affection. True, nature did not give him intelligence, strength, or courage, but she gave him no small amount of power. When Sthenel died, the still young Eurystheus inherited his father's power and became king of all Argolis.

Hercules did not have to rest for long after defeating the Nemean Lion. The very morning of the next day, Copreus, the herald of Eurystheus, announced to Hercules that, by order of the king, he must go to a source near the city of Lerna, where a ten-headed monster, the Hydra, had settled in a nearby swamp.

“This time, I hope you will take me with you,” Iolaus told Hercules. “We will go there in a chariot, and I will be your driver.”

“I agree, but on one condition: you will only be a spectator. I will fight the Hydra one on one,” Hercules answered him.

For a whole year after the extermination of the Lernaean Hydra, Hercules and Iolaus enjoyed peace in Mycenae, amusing themselves with hunting and competitions. When the year had passed, Copreus appeared to Hercules.

“Listen to the new order of King Eurystheus,” he said to Hercules. “A doe with golden horns and copper hooves began to appear on the slopes of the Arcadian mountains. The peasants call her Keryneia, after the name of the city near which she was first seen. Many tried to catch her, but barely Seeing people, the doe disappears in the blink of an eye into the impenetrable forest. Bring this doe alive to King Eurystheus. For the winner of the Nemean Lion and the Lernaean Hydra, this will be a simple game.”

Both in summer and autumn, when the harvest ripened in the fields, the peasants who lived at the foot of Mount Erymanths anxiously examined their plots in the morning and each time found traces of terrible devastation: the ground was dug up, the crops were trampled and uprooted, and the fruits in the gardens crushed by someone's brute force.

People said that on the slopes of the mountain, covered with a dense oak forest, a wild boar settled, which at night descended from the mountain and devastated the fields. But its fangs and hooves were so terrible that no one dared to go into the forest and kill the beast.

The death of Chiron and his voluntary departure from life shocked Hercules. He never left the house, having an endless conversation with Iolaus about two worlds: the world of the living and the world of the dead.

“What is the meaning of life? What is its Truth?” Hercules asked Iolaus, and answered himself. Living life fights with the dead, and this is the whole truth - in their struggle. Truth is only in living life, where there are both joys and sorrows. In the world of dead life there is no Truth - there is only oblivion. I am mortal, but I have a thought. Isn't she fighting death? But to fight you need strength.

The Stymphalian birds were the last generation of monsters in the Peloponnese, and since the power of Eurystheus did not extend beyond the Peloponnese, Hercules decided that his service to the king was over.

But the mighty strength of Hercules did not allow him to live in idleness. He longed for exploits and even rejoiced when Koprey appeared to him.

“Eurystheus,” said the herald, “orders you to clear the stables of the Elisian king Augeas of manure in one day.”

The myths of Greece have preserved for us the 12 labors of Hercules, the famous hero and son of the lord of Olympus and all the gods of Zeus. Many difficult trials, incomprehensible to ordinary person, the famous Greek had to go through.

Reading the 12 labors of Hercules, we feel involved in his brave deeds. They always aroused disgust and envy among the gods, and even among a huge number of enemies who always tried to destroy him. Even summary The twelve labors of Hercules online can leave an indelible impression on children and adults.

Lev Vasilievich Uspensky, Vsevolod Vasilievich Uspensky

This book contains legends from ancient times.

They were put together by the ancient Greeks back in those distant times, when people were just beginning to study the world around them, just beginning to explore and explain it.

Combining truth and fiction, they came up with and told amazing stories. This is how many legends about gods, heroes and fantastic creatures arose- legends, naively explaining the structure of the world and the fate of people. We call these legends by the Greek word “myths”.

Infinitely long ago, two and a half thousand years ago, Greek children, sitting on warm sand at the city gates or on the stone slabs of temples, they listened as in a chant, plucking in tune the strings of a quiet cithara, blind rhapsodist singers began these amazing stories:

LISTEN, GOOD PEOPLE, ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED ONCE!..

Several years before the treacherous Pelias treacherously seized the royal throne in noisy Iolka, wondrous deeds took place at the other end of the Greek land - where among the mountains and valleys of the Argolid lay ancient city Mycenae.

In those days there lived in this city a girl named Alcmena.

She was so beautiful that, having met her on their way, people stopped and looked after her in silent surprise.

She was so smart that the wisest elders sometimes questioned her and were amazed at her reasonable answers.

She was so kind that the timid doves from the temple of Aphrodite, without running wild, descended to coo on her shoulders, and the nightingale Philomela sang his sonorous songs at night near the very wall of her house.

And hearing him sing among the rose bushes and vines, people said to each other: “Look! Philomela himself praises the beauty of Alcmene and is amazed at her!”

Alkmena grew up carefree in her father's house and did not even think that she would ever have to leave him. But fate decided otherwise...

One day, a dusty chariot drove into the city gates of Mycenae. A tall warrior in shining armor rode four tired horses. This brave Amphitryon, brother of the Argive king Sphenel, came to Mycenae to seek his fortune.

Hearing the rumble of wheels and the snoring of horses, Alkmena went out onto the porch of her house. The sun was setting at that moment. Its rays scattered like red gold through the hair of the beautiful girl, and enveloped her entire body in a purple sheen. And as soon as Amphitryon saw her on the porch by the door, he forgot everything in the world.

Less than a few days later, Amphitryon went to Alcmene’s father and began to ask him to marry his daughter to him. Having learned who this young warrior was, the old man did not object to him.

The Mycenaeans celebrated the wedding feast cheerfully and noisily, and then Amphitryon put his wife on a magnificently decorated chariot and took her away from Mycenae. But they didn't go to hometown Amphitryon - Argos: he could not return there.

Not long ago, while hunting, he accidentally killed his nephew Electrius, the son of the old king Sfenel, with a spear. The angry Sfenel drove his brother out of his possessions and forbade him to approach the Argive walls. He bitterly mourned his lost son and prayed to the gods to send him another child. But the gods remained deaf to his pleas.

That is why Amphitryon and Alcmene settled not in Argos, but in Theivae, where Amphitryon’s uncle, Creon, was king.

Their life flowed quietly. Only one thing upset Alcmene: her husband was such a passionate hunter that, in order to chase wild animals, he left his young wife at home for whole days.

Every evening she went out to the gates of the palace to wait for the servants loaded with booty and her husband, tired of hunting. Every evening the setting sun, as it happened in Mycenae, again dressed her in its purple clothes. Then one day, on the threshold of the palace, Alcmene, illuminated by the scarlet light of dawn, was seen by the mighty Zeus, the strongest of all. greek gods, and when he saw her, he fell in love with her at first sight.

Zeus was not only powerful, but also cunning and treacherous.

Although he already had a wife, the proud goddess Hera, he wanted to take Alcmene as his wife. However, no matter how much he appeared to her in sleepy visions, no matter how much he persuaded her to stop loving Amphitryon, it was all in vain.

Then the insidious god decided to conquer her with crafty deception. He made sure that all the game from all the forests of Greece came running to those Theban valleys where Amphitryon was hunting at that time. In vain the frantic hunter killed horned deer, fanged boars, light-footed goats: every hour there were more and more of them around him. The servants called their master home, but he could not tear himself away from his favorite pastime and hunted day after day, week after week, getting further and further into the depths of the forest wilds. Meanwhile, Zeus himself turned into a man, exactly like Amphitryon, jumped onto his chariot and rode to the Theban palace.

Hearing the familiar clatter of hooves and the clanking of armor, Alkmena ran out onto the porch, rejoicing that she would finally see her long-awaited husband. The wonderful resemblance deceived her. She trustingly threw herself on the neck of the lying god and, calling him her dear Amphitryon, led him into the house. So, with the help of magic and deception, Zeus became the husband of the beautiful Alcmene, while the real Amphitryon hunted animals far from his palace.

A lot of time passed, and a son was to be born to Alcmene and Zeus. And then one night, when Alcmene was sleeping peacefully, the real Amphitryon returned. Seeing him in the morning, she was not at all surprised by this: after all, she was sure that her husband had been home for a long time. That is why this deception, invented by Zeus, remained unsolved. The Lord of the gods, leaving the Theban palace, returned to his transcendental home on high mountain Olympus. Knowing that Amphitryon’s elder brother, the Argive king Sthenelus, had no children, he planned to make his son the heir of Sthenelus and, when he was born, give him the Argive kingdom.

Having learned about this, the jealous goddess Hera, the first wife of Zeus, became very angry. She hated Alcmene with great hatred. She never wanted the son of this Alcmene to become king of Argive.

Having planned to destroy the boy as soon as he was born, Hera secretly appeared to Sfenel and promised that he would have a son, Eurystheus.

Knowing nothing about this, Zeus called all the gods to a council and said:

Listen to me, goddesses and gods. On the first day of the full moon, when the moon becomes completely round, a boy will be born. He will reign in Argos. Don't think of doing anything bad to him!

Hearing these words, Hera asked with a sly smile:

And if two boys are born on this day, who will be the king then?

The one who is born first, answered Zeus. After all, he was sure that Hercules would be born first. He knew nothing about Eurystheus, the future son of Sthenel.

But Hera smiled even more slyly and said:

Great Zeus, you often make promises that you then forget about. Swear before all the gods that the king of Argos will be the boy who is born first on the day of the full moon.

Zeus swore willingly. Then Hera did not waste time. She called the goddess of madness and stupidity, Atu, and ordered her to steal Zeus’ memory. As soon as Zeus lost his memory, he forgot about Alcmene and the child who was supposed to be born to her.

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Hercules is a legendary hero, his physical strength was admired both in heaven and on earth. Hercules' father was Zeus. Zeus' wife Hera, offended by her unfaithful husband, decided to punish his son. Hercules had to for a long time to bring Eurystheus, his insignificant and cowardly relative, into the service. Hercules can only be freed from Hera's curse if he completes ten great feats within a decade. The Oracle told Hercules about this condition.

Even when Hercules was a baby, two snakes crawled to his cradle to kill him on the orders of Hera. But the hero grabbed them and strangled them without much difficulty.

Eurystheus ordered Hercules to bring him the skin of a special Nemean lion. The animal could not be killed with any weapon. Hercules was able to stun the lion with a club, and then strangle and skin it. After he put the skins on himself, he became invulnerable. The next feat of Hercules was the battle with the nine-headed snake Lernaean hydra. The hero cuts off her heads, but they grow back. He is helped by his nephew Iolaus, who, to prevent the heads from growing back, he cauterizes the places where they are cut off. The hero was able to cut off the immortal head. Hydra is defeated.

The third and fourth feats of the legendary hero are the capture of the Cerynean fallow deer and the Erymanthian boar. The next feat of Hercules was associated with cleaning the stables of King Augeas. He was able to channel the two rivers into the stables, and the water carried away the sewage. As a reward, Hercules asked Augeas for cattle. But the king refused, for which Hercules killed him. Eurystheus did not count this feat to the hero, since he demanded a reward.

In his sixth labor, Hercules destroys man-eating birds in the Stymphalian swamp.

Hercules then travels to the island of Crete, where King Minos' bull savagely lays waste to the island. The hero was able to tame the rabid animal and even swim across the sea with it on its back.

By order of Eurystheus, Hercules, thanks to his next feat, brings Diomedes to a relative of the captured mares.

The time for a new feat is coming. Hercules steals the belt of the god of war Ares, which was in the possession of Queen Hippolyta and the militant Amazons.

After some time, Hercules was able to kill the giant Geryon, who had three heads and bodies.

Then the hero finds himself in a garden belonging to the Hesperides and steals from there special apples that bring eternal youth. Eurystheus refuses to take them, as he is afraid of angering Hera.

The final feat of Hercules was associated with the dog Cerberus, guarding the gate to the kingdom of the dead. Eurystheus ordered the hero to bring the dog to him. Hercules managed to strangle Cerberus. But then the hero let him go. The hero's deeds are completed. He takes Princess Deniyara as his wife. The centaur Nessus tried to kidnap her when they wanted to cross the river. Hercules shot him with an arrow containing the poison of the Lernaean hydra. Before his death, Ness whispered to the girl that she could save eternal love a hero if his blood soaks his husband’s clothes. One day Deniyara, in a fit of jealousy, took this advice, not knowing that the centaur’s blood was poisoned. Hercules is poisoned to avoid excruciating pain; he throws himself into the fire of a bonfire and receives immortality. The gods let him into Olympus, the only one and heroes.

All the labors of Hercules

1 - The First Labor of Hercules: The Nemean Lion
2 - The Second Labor of Hercules: The Lernaean Hydra briefly
3 - The Third Labor of Hercules: Birds of Stymphalian
4 - The Fourth Labor of Hercules: The Cerynean Hind
5 - The fifth labor of Hercules: Erymanthian boar and the battle with the centaurs
6 - The Sixth Labor of Hercules: The Animal Farm of King Augeas
7 - The Seventh Labor of Hercules: The Cretan Bull
8 - The Eighth Labor of Hercules: Horses of Diomedes
9 - The Ninth Labor of Hercules: Hippolyta's Belt
10 - The Tenth Labor of Hercules: The Cows of Geryon
11 - The eleventh labor of the eleventh Hercules - The Abduction of Cerberus
12 - The Twelfth Labor of Hercules - Golden Apples of the Hesperides

Even briefly about the exploits of Hercules:

• Even before his birth, this amazing boy attracted special attention.
  The goddess of justice Hera, having once again learned that her husband had cheated on her, and, moreover, that an ordinary woman of non-divine origin was expecting a child from her Zeus, became seriously angry and decided that it was necessary, at all costs, to make life a random offspring unbearable.

Now a little more about the great achievements of the hero themselves.

During the first labor of Hercules strangled a huge Nemean lion. At first, the son of Zeus fired arrows, but they only scared the beast a little. Then the lion was stunned with a club, and soon strangled by Hercules with his own hands. With Hercules in mind, he founded the Nemean Games, named after the slain lion; subsequently, this event was widely celebrated in the ancient Peloponnese every few years, with an interval of 1 year.

This event was very significant, as it became the 1st of the 12 labors of Hercules.

Next feat (second feat) was that it was necessary to destroy a huge hydra, a monster with the body of a snake and the heads of a dragon. Hydra killed people and livestock, and therefore everyone was afraid of it. Hercules did not immediately manage to deal with this monster.

The hero cut off one head at a time, but each time two new ones appeared in place of each severed part. And this continued until the fire was used to burn the hydra’s necks.

The third feat is associated with the Stymphalian birds. They terrorized just like the hydra and killed people and livestock with their copper claws and sharp beak. They also threw their metal feathers from a great height, which, like arrows, were capable of killing in one second. The goddess of war gifted the hero, giving him two special musical instrument, the sounds of which caused the birds to fly away.

Hercules shot a little more than half of the flock with a bow, and the surviving birds, under pain of death, left their original habitat and never returned to Hellas.

What awaited our hero next? Then a fallow deer appeared on nearby lands. Of course, not a simple one, but with hard copper claws and golden horns. The question arises, where did she come from there? It turns out that the goddess of the hunt was angry with the people and sent them this doe as punishment. For days on end, the doe ran around the nearby territory and destroyed forests and fields. The fourth labor of Hercules was precisely to pacify this very doe. After a year of unsuccessful attempts and pursuit of the animal, Hero overtook her and shot her. Then he took it and went to Eurystheus, presenting him with the carcass of the killed animal as a trophy.

What awaited Hercules in his fifth labor? It turned out that one of the representatives of the animal world, the owner of unreal physical strength, the wild boar, instilled fear in everyone. This is what Hercules had to deal with. Having discovered the boar, the hero dealt with it, driving it into a snowdrift. Hercules tied up the beast and brought it to Eurystheus, who, at the sight of the huge boar, got scared and hid.

King Augeas had large herds of bulls, which were kept in a fairly large cattle yard, which included stables. Augeas launched his farm strongly. It turned out that no one had cleaned there for almost 30 years. Hercules kindly invited the king to clean out his stables, saying that he would do it in just one day, asking for a considerable part of his bulls from the general herd, if his plan was successful. Augeas considered that Hercules would not keep his promise, the task was too overwhelming, and agreed to the adventure. However, Hercules, as you know, is not so simple; if he takes on something, he is firmly confident in own strength With the help of a dam, he blocked the nearby rivers and directed their waters to the court of Augeas. The stables were thus cleared in due time.
Only the indecently greedy and greedy King Augeas did not want to give Hercules what he promised as payment for the business. Therefore, after a certain number of years, having finally freed himself from Eurystheus’s oppression, Hercules gathered an army, defeated Augeas in a fair fight and killed the king. After this event, as the myths say, he established the Olympic Games we all know.

The king of the island of Crete, Minos, disobeyed Poseidon and did not carry out the sacrifice and did not provide him with a bull. Angry God water element He sent the bull into a frenzy. The animal began to run all over Crete, simultaneously destroying everything around, as if not noticing the obstacles in its path. Hercules acted as follows: he managed to calm the bull and with its help crossed the sea surface to the Peloponnese. Eurystheus decided not to accept this heroic feat and ordered the bull to be released. The animal, in turn, again getting out of control, rushed to the north of Hellas, where it was killed by Theseus. This is the story of the seventh labor of Hercules, which he accomplished almost without difficulty.

In order to accomplish his other feat, Hercules went to the king of Thrace, Diomedes. This king was distinguished by his cruelty and composure. He had horses of unprecedented beauty and unsurpassed strength, but so violent that they could only be held by tight iron chains. The king used human meat as food for his pets, after first killing the foreigners who arrived in his domain. Hercules using his great power took the horses from Diomedes. Of course, Diomedes resisted, but the brave Hercules defeated him.

For ninth labor Eurystheus came up with a more difficult problem. The daughter of Eurystheus wished for permanent use the belt of the Amazon Hippolyta, who kept and protected this belt as a sign of her power, having received it from Ares. To do this, Hercules and his squad went to the habitat of the Amazons. Hippolyta was ready to give up the belt of her own free will, but the other Amazons rebelled, as a result of which Hercules had to fight with the strongest and most cunning warriors, seven of whom were killed, the rest chose to flee. As a result, Hippolyta gave Hercules the belt as a ransom for the Amazon, who was captured by the hero.

Then, at the direction of Eurystheus, Hercules went on his tenth labor. He needed to deliver the giant Geryon's herds of cows to the king. The matter was not at all simple. The giant had only three: three whole heads, three whole torsos, and three pairs of arms and legs, for a total of six. Although the long journey to get the cows in itself was already a real feat, because Geryon lived on the distant island of Erithia, the hero’s task was different. To somehow cope with it, Hercules needed help, and none other than Helios, the very embodiment of the sun, helped him. He lent him his horses and a golden chariot, the same one on which God himself flies across the sky every day, warning him that driving the cart is very difficult. One awkward movement, and the structure will immediately fall down and break on the ground.
Hercules, having reached his destination, killed Geryon's guards, captured the cows and led them towards the sea. But Geryon did not want to give up and began to resist Hercules. Only Hercules was not at a loss and killed the giant, using his trusty bow and well-aimed arrows, and transported the cows on Helios’ raft to Mycenae. But the troubles didn't end there. Hera once again decided to show her hatred towards the illegitimate heir of her husband, and therefore sent rage. With great difficulty, Hercules still managed to pacify them and re-gather them into a single herd. The cattle were subsequently offered to the goddess of marriage as sacrifices.

Once again, on behalf of Eurystheus, Hercules went to fulfill his penultimate eleventh feat.

This time he needed to get to the great titan Atlas, or as he was also called, Atlas, who all his life carried out one important task, independently held the firmament, and was at the very end of the earth. Eurystheus wished Hercules to deliver him three golden apples from the golden tree of the Atlas garden. Throughout the hero's journey, difficulties were expected, which he bravely dealt with and reached the final goal. Atlas agreed that he himself could get to his own and bring the golden apples, but only Hercules at this time had to replace him at his post and hold the firmament on his shoulders, just as the titan did, because otherwise he would fall down . But not everything was so simple, in fact, Atlas wanted to trick Hercules. He offered to personally take the apples to Eurystheus while Hercules continued to carry out his duties. But the hero, having figured out the not too sophisticated, but still quite cunning plan of the titan, did not succumb to his tricks and did not fall for anything. Hercules asked Atlas to hold the sky for a few minutes to rest, and in the meantime he took the apples and ran away. This is how the last of the many labors of Hercules was accomplished.

Thus, Hercules came to the end of his 12 labors.

To do this, he had to get to the dark kingdom of Hades, but the descent itself was not a feat; Hercules had a much more difficult task. He needed to deliver from there to Mycenae the main guard and faithful companion of Hades, a three-headed dog named Cerberus, who, among other things, had the head of a dragon on his tail. The God of the Dead personally gave Hercules permission to take Cerberus to the earthly world, but the hero was obliged to calm him down on his own. Having found the monster, Hercules began to tame it. He practically strangled the dog, when the animal finally calmed down, Hercules was able to take him to the earth’s surface and took him to Mycenae. The cowardly Eurystheus showed his worthlessness not for the first time. As soon as he looked at the terrible beast, he wished Hercules to return scary dog back to Hades, and, of course, the hero did just that.

As soon as all the exploits were finished, Hercules was finally freed from the oppression of Eurystheus forever. No obstacles prevented the hero from achieving his goal; even the supreme goddess Hera herself could not do anything. Hercules was so strong and smart that he didn’t care about anything.

In addition, he knew how to quite easily find an assistant, including one of divine origin. This, of course, made his task much easier, but it is still unlikely that the hero would have managed it, even with the support of the gods, if he had not actually been so exceptional.
The order of the 12 labors of Hercules can be interpreted in different ways, very often the 11th and 12th labors are swapped, but this doesn’t really change the essence, Hercules is another real hero that antiquity gave us. And it really is impossible to argue with this.