Zero to Hero: the life and death of Heracles
- Argo Crew
- Aug 23
- 7 min read
Learn about Heracles' story, from birth to death, focusing on the greatest myth associated with him: his 12 labours.
The Prologue
Heracles was a demigod: half mortal, half divine. His father was Zeus, king of the gods, and his mother was Alcmene, a mortal princess. This alone was enough to cause trouble, since Zeus was already married to Hera, queen of the gods, who did not take kindly to sharing her husband's affections. Rather than direct her anger at Zeus, Hera turned it on the newborn child, determined to ruin his life.
Fearing Hera's wrath, Alcmene abandoned her infant son in the wild, but the gods intervened. By some accounts, the baby was brought before Hera herself, who, not recognising him, began to nurse him out of pity. The infant fed with such divine strength that it caused her pain, and when she pulled him away, her milk sprayed across the heavens and the Greeks believed this was the origin of the Milky Way.
Alcmene later raised the child alongside his mortal twin brother, Iphicles, but Hera's campaign against him had only just begun. While Heracles still lay in his cradle, she sent two venomous serpents to end his life. The infant seized a snake in each hand and strangled them both, an early, unmistakable sign of the strength that would define him.
Heracles grew up strong, brave, and, for a while, genuinely happy. He defended the city of Thebes from attackers, married a princess named Megara, and raised a family with her. Hera could not stand this, and as the playwright Euripides wrote, "Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first drive mad." Hera cursed Heracles with a fit of madness so severe that he killed his own wife and children, not even realising what he'd done until it was too late.
When the madness lifted and Heracles understood what had happened, he was devastated. Desperate for a way to make things right, he travelled to the Oracle at Delphi to ask Apollo for guidance. The answer was not what he wanted to hear: he must serve his cousin, King Eurystheus, for years and complete any 10 labours the king demanded. Heracles found this deeply humiliating because he considered Eurystheus a weak, unimpressive king, nothing like himself.
It was Hera, working quietly behind the throne, who devised the labours and whispered them into Eurystheus’ ear. She hoped they would finally accomplish what she had failed to do since his infancy and kill Heracles at last. In the end, Heracles was forced to do twelve labours when Eurystheus disqualified two of them in his ongoing attempts to kill Heracles.
The Twelve Labours
The Nemean Lion
This lion's hide could not be pierced by any weapon, so Heracles instead cornered the beast in its own cave and overpowered it with his bare hands, then used its own claws to remove its pelt. From that day on, he wore the lion's skin as armour, a mark of the labour that first proved his strength.
When Heracles returned, Eurystheus was amazed and terrified, and forbade him from entering the city. He had to display the fruits of his labours outside the city gates, and Eurystheus would send Heracles his tasks through a messenger. In later Latin variants, Eurystheus had a large bronze jar made for himself in which to hide from Heracles if need be.
The Lernean Hydra
A nine-headed serpent dwelt in the swamps of Lerna, and its regeneration made it especially dangerous: sever one head, and two more would grow in its place. Heracles enlisted his nephew Iolaus, who burned each stump the moment a head was cut away, preventing new ones from forming. The strategy succeeded, though because he had accepted assistance, Eurystheus refused to count this labour.
The Golden Hind
Sacred to the goddess Artemis, this deer had horns of gold and hooves of bronze, and could outrun an arrow in flight. Heracles pursued it for a full year before finally catching it as it slept. When Artemis confronted him for hunting her sacred creature, he explained his circumstances and was permitted to carry it to Eurystheus, on the condition that it be returned unharmed. Once delivered, he released the hind, which fled gladly back into the wild.
The Erymanthian Boar
This great boar terrorised the slopes of Mount Erymanthos. On the advice of the wise centaur Chiron, Heracles drove the animal into deep snow, where its bulk left it helpless, and captured it alive.
The Stables of Augeas
One thousand immortal cattle lived in these stables, uncleaned for thirty years. Heracles struck a deal with the king who owned the herd: a hundred cattle in exchange for cleaning the stables. Rather than attempt the job by hand, he diverted two rivers straight through the stables, sweeping away decades of filth in a single day. Eurystheus, unimpressed that the labour had been solved with cunning rather than struggle, disqualified it on the grounds that Heracles had accepted a reward for his work.
The Stymphalian Birds
A flock of vicious man-eating birds with beaks of bronze and feathers sharp enough to be hurled as darts had overrun the town of Stymphalos. The goddess Athena provided Heracles with a bronze rattle, forged by Hephaestus, whose noise startled the birds into flight, allowing him to bring many of them down as they scattered.
The Cretan Bull
King Minos permitted Heracles to take this bull, the father of the Minotaur, which had been ravaging the island of Crete on the sole condition that he subdue it unaided. Heracles wrestled the animal into submission and carried it back to Eurystheus, later releasing it to roam free near Marathon.
The Mares of Diomedes
King Diomedes kept a herd of horses trained to devour human flesh. Heracles diverted their keepers, drove the mares off, and finally threw Diomedes himself to his own animals, an act that left them calm enough to be led away.
The Belt of Hippolyta
Heracles was sent to retrieve the belt of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, a gift once given to her by the god Ares. Hippolyta agreed to hand it over freely, but Hera, disguised among the Amazonian ranks, spread word that Heracles intended to abduct their queen. In the chaos that followed, Heracles mistook the resulting attack for betrayal and killed Hippolyta, taking the belt regardless.
The Cattle of Geryon
To claim the cattle of the three-bodied giant Geryon, Heracles travelled to the distant island of Erytheia, where he slew both the giant's two-headed hound and his herdsman before defeating Geryon himself. The journey home proved almost as difficult as the labour itself, as Hera scattered the herd with a swarm of biting flies, though Heracles eventually recovered most of them.
The Golden Apples of the Hesperides
The Hesperides were nymph-goddesses of the evening and the golden light of the sun, who lived in a magical garden in the West and guard golden apples that belonged to Hera.
This labour demanded that Heracles capture a shape-shifting sea god for directions, defeat a giant whose strength depended on contact with the earth, and finally persuade the Titan Atlas (who bore the weight of the heavens upon his shoulders) to retrieve the apples on his behalf. Heracles offered to hold the sky himself while Atlas completed the errand.
On his return, Atlas proposed that he should deliver the apples, content to leave Heracles bearing the heavens forever. Heracles, thinking quickly, agreed but asked Atlas to take back the sky for just a moment, so that he might adjust his cloak. Atlas obliged, and Heracles walked away with the apples, leaving the Titan exactly where he had found him.
Cerberus.
For his final labour, Heracles descended into the Underworld itself to retrieve Hades's three-headed hound. Hades permitted him to take the creature, on one condition: he must subdue it using nothing but his own strength, without weapons of any kind. Heracles succeeded, and when Eurystheus beheld the monstrous hound standing before him, he is said to have begged for its immediate return and released Heracles from more labours.
The Epilogue
Long after his labours were complete, Heracles continued to face trials, contending with monsters and even river gods. In time he married a woman named Deianeira. Their story, however, ends in tragedy: a dying centaur deceived Deianeira into keeping a vial of his poisoned blood, claiming it as a charm to secure her husband's love. Years later, fearing she had lost his affection, she used it. The poison consumed Heracles in agony, and he died soon after.
Yet Heracles's story does not end as other mortal stories do. As his body burned upon a funeral pyre, the mortal part of him was consumed by the flames, while the divine part he had inherited from Zeus rose to join the gods on Mount Olympus. There, at last, he was reconciled with Hera, and took the goddess Hebe as his wife.
It is a striking end for a life defined by struggle: a hero hounded from birth, ultimately welcomed among the very gods who had once sought his ruin. Perhaps this is what the Greeks understood about their heroes, that greatness is forged as much by hardship as by strength.
Until next time,
λεῖος πλόος!
Written by Eleanor Russell
Education and Programs Officer
Hellenic Museum
Comments