Most people have at least heard of the
great hero Hercules, but few
know the man behind the hero. When people learn about the great,
wondrous acts of Hercules, they usually hear mostly about his
courageous, often dangerous accomplishments, but he was equally proud
of his use of wisdom and knowledge. And although he may seem
conceited
and boastful from a distance, Hercules was actually quite humble and
congenial in his day-to-day activities. He simply had experienced
a
life that was unlike anything we could ever imagine - an upbringing
which produced a state of mind that, when provoked, would erupt into a
fury of passion and desire for approval.
The great Greek god Zeus had an affair with the mortal woman Alcmene
and she became pregnant, which is how Hercules was born. Of
course,
Zeus's wife, Hera, was not pleased with his infidelity, and thus spent
much of Hercules's life punishing him for her husband's
indiscretions.
In fact, when Hercules was only a few months old Hera sent two snakes
into his nursery to kill him! However, when Alcmene heard the
struggle
in her young son's room, she ran in only to find young Hercules with a
dead snake in each hand, playing with them as though they were rag
dolls. He had slain two snakes with his bare hands as an
infant! From
that point forth, Hercules's life took an extraordinary path.
As a teenager, Hercules was visited by two nymphs who offered him
either a pleasant, easy life or a glorious, yet severe life.
Hercules
knew he had much potential to help the world, and chose the life of
struggle and glory.
Once again, however, Hera was making attempts to thwart Hercules's rise
to glory. She cast a divine spell on him, making him go crazy and
kill
his wife and children. When he realized what he had done,
Hercules
traveled to the Oracle at Delphi to learn if there was something he
could do to make up for his murderous actions. However, he did
not
know the Oracle of Delphi was under Hera's control. The Oracle
told
him he was condemned to spend twelve years as a slave to King
Eurystheus, Hercules's sworn enemy. And so came about the tasks
Eurystheus set forth for the great hero, Hercules: The Twelve
Labors.
Hercules's Twelve Labors are regarded as the greatest feats of any
hero, the most treacherous and demanding tasks ever completed:
slaying the Nemean Lion and the Hydra, capturing the stag and the boar,
cleaning the Aegean Stables, scaring the Stymphalian birds, capturing
the Cretan Bull and Diomedes' mares, stealing the Amazonian
girdle, retrieving the herds of Geryon, stealing golden apples from the
Garden of Hesperides, and capturing Cerberus, the guardian of
Hades.
The
Twelve Labors were thought to be so perilous and impossible that if one
man could do them in his lifetime, he must have been sent with divine
purpose to deliver mankind from the evils of the world. And thus,
people began to believe that Hercules's status as a slave was not a
detriment to his character or glory, but rather a vehicle for the
deliverance of the human race from the greatest evils on this earth.
Chronicled here, for the first time in history, is what will without a
doubt be regarded as the most historically significant personal record
of all time; Hercules's journal, which not only contains first-hand
accounts of each of his Twelve Labors, but also documents his personal
experiences during the performance of those feats. Hercules'
journey begins with the task of slaying some of the fiercest creatures
in the world: The Nemean Lion and The Hydra...
Coverpage -
Introduction
-
The Lion, Hydra, & Stag -
The Boar, Stables, & Birds -
The Bull, Mares, & Girdle -
The Cattle, Apples, & Cerberus
The image on this page is a
statue of Hercules as an infant, killing the serpents sent by Hera with
his bare hands. It was retrieved from an image database on Flickr,
an online image sharing network.
Background information used for this page was retrieved from the
following source:
"Hercules: Greece's
Greatest Hero." Perseus Project.
Classics Department, Tufts University.
