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The Twelve Labours (Greek: dodekathlos) of Heracles (Latin: Hercules) are a series of archaic episodes connected by a later continuous narrative, concerning a penance carried out by Heracles, the greatest of the Greek heroes. The establishment of a fixed cycle of twelve labours was attributed by the Greeks to an epic poem, now lost, written by Peisandros of Rhodes, dated about 600 BC (Burkert).
As they survive, the Labours of Heracles are not told in any single place, but must be reassembled from many sources. Ruck and Staples (pp 169–170) assert that there is no one way to interpret the labours, but that six were located in the Peloponnese, culminating with the rededication of Olympia. Six others took the hero farther afield. In each case, the pattern was the same: Heracles was sent to kill or subdue, or to fetch back for Hera's representative Eurystheus a magical animal or plant. "The sites selected were all previously strongholds of Hera or the 'Goddess' and were Entrances to the Netherworld" (p 169).
A famous depiction of the labours in Greek sculpture is found on the metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, which date to the 450s BC; in the Archaic period, it may actually have been the labours' display on the twelve available metopes on temples which led to their being counted as twelve in number.
Zeus, having made Alcmene pregnant with Heracles, proclaimed that the next son born of the house of Perseus would become king. Hera, Zeus' wife, hearing this, caused Eurystheus to be born two months early as he was of the house of Perseus, while Heracles, also of the house, was three months overdue. When he found out what had been done, Zeus was furious; however, his rash proclamation still stood.
In a fit of madness, induced by Hera, Heracles slew his wife and children; the fit then passed. Realizing what he had done, he isolated himself, going into the wilderness and living alone. He was found (by his cousin Theseus) and convinced to visit the Oracle at Delphi. The Oracle told him that as a penance he would have to perform a series of twelve tasks, or labours, set by King Eurystheus, the man who had taken Heracles' birthright and the man he hated the most.
In his labours, Heracles was often accompanied by a male companion (an eromenos), according to some Licymnius, or by others Iolaus, his nephew. Although he was only supposed to perform ten labours, this assistance led to him suffering two more. Eurystheus didn't count the Hydra, because Iolaus helped him, or the Augean stables, as he received payment for his work (in other versions it is because the rivers did the work). In other versions both did count as his part of the 12 labours.
A traditional order of the labours found in Apollodorus (2.5.1-2.5.12) is:
Walter Burkert has called the labours and other myths of Heracles "a conglomerate of popular tales which was exploited only secondarily by the high art of poetry", and it was not until the fifth century that poets of the Classic age could draw the myth into "a tragic, heroic, and human atmosphere and away from its natural thrust outwards to a carefree realm beyond the human" (Burkert 1985:208). As philosophical, moral, and eventually allegorical overlays came to be applied to his death-cheating superhuman exploits, behind their outer, literal meaning, the Heracles figure came to represent an inner mystical tradition, and thus the labours could be interpreted in terms of the spiritual path. The last three labours (10-12) of Heracles are generally considered metaphors about death. Heracles was unique among Greek heroes in that no tomb of Heracles was ever localized, and the Olympian sacrifices and chthonic libations were offered simultaneously to him everywhere.
Pointing to a possible location for their origin, or at least their formalisation, is the fact that most of the geographic locations are in, or on the borders of, Arcadia, or connected with it significantly.
The Twelve Labours have been spoofed a number of times in comic books:
Howard Waldrop also reset the Twelve Labours to the Depression-era American South in his novella A Dozen Tough Jobs.
Agatha Christie used the twelve labours as allegories for the last twelve cases that her detective Hercule Poirot would solve before his retirement in the 1947 short story collection The Labours of Hercules. (He didn't retire until Curtain in 1975.)
The alternate reality game Perplex City involves a puzzle card entitled The Thirteenth Labour, which is likely a reference to the Twelve Labours of Heracles (as this puzzle is one of the few still unsolved by any participant, the allusion to a "herculean effort" may well be appropriate).
In the Japanese anime Fate/stay night, the antagonist Illyasviel von Einzbern's servant Berserker, whose true name is Hercules, can not die until he is killed twelve times. When explaining this, Illyasviel makes a direct reference to The Twelve Labours of Hercules.
In the Japanese anime Heroic Age (anime), the savior of humanity is a boy named Age who is a Nodos, or a being merged with one of the Heroic Tribe. The Heroic Bellcross must complete Twelve Labors for humanity (aka the Iron Tribe) by decree of the Golden Tribe, the galaxy's previous elder race. Age's superhuman strength, as well as Bellcross' inhuman strength (on a solar flare scale), is a direct parallel to Hercules.
Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely 's "All Star Superman" series revolves around the 12 Labours Of Superman -- a progression that may or may not (as of this writing) lead to the hero's death.