The Hero of the Twelve Labors
Heracles, son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene, was the strongest of the Greek heroes. Hera persecuted him from birth, sending two serpents against his cradle; the infant strangled them with his bare hands. As a grown man he was driven mad by the goddess and killed his own wife and children, and the Delphic oracle sentenced him to serve King Eurystheus of Mycenae and perform twelve labors in atonement.
He strangled the invulnerable Nemean lion and wore its skin ever after; cut down the many-headed Hydra of Lerna, searing each neck to stop it regrowing; captured the golden-horned hind and the Erymanthian boar; turned a river to wash out in one day the stables where Augeas kept three thousand cattle; fetched the belt of the Amazon queen, the cattle of Geryon, and the golden apples of the Hesperides; and at the last dragged the hound Cerberus up from the underworld with his bare hands. He died in a robe soaked with the poisoned blood of the centaur Nessus, burned himself on a pyre atop Mount Oeta, and was received into Olympus as a god, wedded to Hebe, goddess of youth. His cult spread across the Greek and Roman world, where he was called Hercules.
