Diodorus Siculus enlists nine Amazons who challenged Heracles to single combat during his quest for Hippolyta's girdle and died against him one by one: Aella, Philippis, Prothoe, Eriboea, Celaeno, Eurybia, Phoebe, Deianeira, Asteria, Marpe, Tecmessa, Alcippe.

He is best known for his stables, which housed the single greatest number of cattle in the country and had never been cleaned — until the time of the great hero Heracles.

The Thessalian Cycnus, he relates, challenged Heracles to single combat and was killed by him ; the same is recounted by Diodorus.

The Macedonian Cycnus, according to the Bibliotheca, also challenged Heracles to single combat ; Ares attempted to avenge his son's death, but a thunderbolt was hurled by Zeus between the combatants, causing them to part.

Heracles and Сycnus then clashed in single combat and Heracles hit Сycnus in the neck with a spear, killing him.

Heracles ' fourth labour — by some counts, for there is no single definitive telling — was to capture the Boar.

However there is just one day of the year — the day of the festival of Zeus -- when they chop up a single ram, skin it, dress the statue of Zeus in the way mentioned, and then bring the statue of Heracles up close to the statue of Zeus.

In Greek mythology, the Peneus and Alpheus were two rivers re-routed by Heracles in his fifth labour in order to clean the filth from the Augean Stables in a single day, a task which had been presumed to be impossible.

In Greek mythology, the Peneus and Alpheus were two rivers re-routed by Heracles in his fifth labour in order to clean the filth from the Augean Stables in a single day, a task which had been presumed to be impossible.

According to an anonymous essay on tragedy, Pherecrates wrote 18 plays, suggesting that one or more of the 19 surviving titles must be eliminated somehow ( i. e. by assigning the play to another author who wrote a comedy by the same name, and assuming an ancient scholarly error, or by identifying e. g. The Human Heracles and The Fake Heracles as a single play with multiple titles ).

Heracles as a boy strangling a snake ( marble, Roman artwork, 2nd century CE )

One version holds that Philoctetes was bitten by a snake that Hera sent to molest him as punishment for his or his father's service to Heracles.

Its site near the village Mili at the Argolic Gulf is most famous as the lair of the Lernaean Hydra, the chthonic many-headed water snake, a creature of great antiquity when Heracles killed it, as the second of his labors.

It is also compared to the Lernaean Hydra, the multi-headed snake from Greek mythology ( ironically, the Wyrm King was killed by fire-breathing giants while the Lernaean Hydra was also killed with fire by Heracles and his nephew Iolaus ).

Calchas, the Greek prophet, prophesies that the city of Troy will not fall unless the Greeks recover the arrows of Heracles from the hero Philoctetes, who was left behind on Lemnos when he was bit by a poisonous snake.

She attempted to make almost each of Heracles ' twelve labors more difficult.

The gateway to the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean, where the southernmost tip of Spain and the northernmost of Morocco face each other, is, classically speaking, referred to as the Pillars of Hercules / Heracles, owing to the story that he set up two massive spires of stone to stabilise the area and ensure the safety of ships sailing between the two landmasses.

Strabo notes that the two bronze pillars within the temple, each eight cubits high, were widely proclaimed to be the true Pillars of Hercules by many who had visited the place and had sacrificed to Heracles there.

She secreted a knife in the marriage bed and on the wedding night tried to kill Telephus, but Heracles separated the two with a flash of lightning and they both recognized each other as mother and son.

The sea monsters slain by Perseus and Heracles were each referred to as a cetus by ancient sources.

Seeing that Heracles was being overwhelmed by the multi-headed monster ( the Lernaean Hydra ), who grew two heads in place of each one cut off, Iolaus sprang to help, cauterizing each neck as Heracles beheaded it.

Helios " in admiration of his courage " gave Heracles the golden cup he used to sail across the sea from west to east each night.

According to some versions, Heracles drove his remaining cattle past a cave, where Cacus had hidden the stolen animals, and they began calling out to each other.

In the poem Shield of Heracles, Heracles and Iolaus encountered Cycnus and Ares on the way to Trachis, each pair riding a chariot ; it is mentioned that Heracles was directing to the court of King Ceyx, to whose daughter Themistonoe Cycnus was married.

Heracles, the hero whose exploits always celebrate the new Olympian order over the old traditions, came to Thebes, one of the ancient Mycenaean cities of Greece, and found that the Greeks were paying tribute of 100 cattle ( a hecatomb ) each year to Erginus, king of the Minyans.

Heracles cut off each head and Iolaus cauterized the open stumps.

The Greek phrase found in the front-matter of the novel is from Euripides's Heracles: ( existatai gar pant ' ap ' allêlôn dikha ), English " for all things change, making way for each other ".

According to some versions, Heracles drove his remaining cattle past a cave, where Cacus had hidden the stolen animals, and they began calling out to each other.

Heracles knew that he had to return the hind, as he had promised, to Artemis, so he agreed to hand it over on the condition that Eurystheus himself come out and take it from him.

One version of a late Classical tale relates that she was of such striking beauty that both Heracles and Achelous wanted to marry her and there was a contest to win her hand.

Iole was claimed by Heracles for a bride, but Eurytus refused her hand in marriage.

Eustathius of Thessalonica informs that Ares changed Cycnus into a swan rather than let him die by the hand of Heracles.

Heracles knew that he had to return the hind as he had promised, so he agreed to hand it over on the condition that Eurystheus himself come out and take it from him.

Youthful, naked Heracles, crowning himself with right hand, with lion skin and upright club resting on his left arm.

Another male lover was Cyparissus, a descendant of Heracles.

In Greek mythology, Alcmene or Alcmena () was the mother of Heracles.

In Homer's Iliad, when Alcmene was about to give birth to Heracles, Zeus announced to all the gods that on that day a child, descended from Zeus himself, would be born who would rule all those around him.

As soon as Lucina leapt up, Alcmene was released from her spell and gave birth to Heracles.

It is said that after Heracles was apotheosised, Hyllus, having pursued and killed Eurystheus, cut off Eurystheus ' head and gave it to Alcmene, who gouged out the eyes with weaving pins.

More purely Hellenic myth would have Amathus settled instead by one of the sons of Heracles, thus accounting for the fact that he was worshiped there.

One of the tasks imposed upon Heracles by Eurystheus was to obtain possession of the girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyta.

* Andromache, an Amazon who fought Heracles and was defeated ; only known from vase paintings.

When Alexander was trying to show that he is divine so that the Greeks and Macedonians would perform proskynesis to him, Anaxarchus said that Alexander could " more justly be considered a god than Dionysus or Heracles " ( Arrian, 104 )

Its mythical foundation was attributed to Heracles ( on behalf of his fallen friend Abderus ), its historical one to a colony from Klazomenai.

According to the Roman poet Ovid ( Fasti v. 379 ), the constellation honors the centaur Chiron, who was tutor to many of the earlier Greek heroes including Heracles ( Hercules ), Theseus, and Jason, the leader of the Argonauts.

Capturing Cerberus, without using weapons, was the final labour assigned to Heracles ( Hercules ) by King Eurystheus, in recompense for the killing of his own children by Megara after he was driven insane by Hera, and therefore was the most dangerous and difficult.

When Heracles had pulled Theseus first from his chair, some of his thigh stuck to it ( this explains the supposedly lean thighs of Athenians ), but the earth shook at the attempt to liberate Pirithous, whose desire to have the wife of a god for himself was so insulting he was doomed to stay behind.

Heracles was able to overpower Cerberus and proceeded to sling the beast over his back, dragging it out of the underworld through a cavern entrance in the Peloponnese and bringing it to Eurystheus.

The king was so frightened of the beast that he jumped into a pithos, and asked Heracles to return it to the underworld in return for releasing him from his labors.

Capturing Cerberus alive was the twelfth and final labour of Heracles.

In Greek mythology, Eurystheus ( pronounced, meaning " broad strength " in folk etymology and pronounced ) was king of Tiryns, one of three Mycenaean strongholds in the Argolid, although other authors including Homer and Euripides cast him as ruler of Argos: Sthenelus was his father and the " victorious horsewoman " Nicippe his mother, and he was a grandson of the hero Perseus, as was his opponent Heracles.

In the contest of wills between Hera and Zeus over whose candidate would be hero, fated to defeat the remaining creatures representing an old order and bring about the reign of the Twelve Olympians, Eurystheus was Hera's candidate and Heracles — though his name implies that at one archaic stage of myth-making he had carried " Hera's fame " — was the candidate of Zeus.