Labours of Hercules
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The Labours of Hercules or Labours of Heracles are a series of tasks carried out by Heracles, the greatest of the Greek heroes, whose name was later romanised as Hercules. They were accomplished in the service of King Eurystheus. The episodes were later connected by a continuous narrative.
Roman relief (3rd century AD) depicting a sequence of the Labours, representing from left to right the Nemean lion, the Lernaean Hydra, the Erymanthian Boar, the Ceryneian Hind, the Stymphalian birds, the Girdle of Hippolyta, the Augean stables, the Cretan Bull and the Mares of Diomedes
Mosaic of Llíria (Valencia, Spain)
The Heracles Papyrus, a fragment of a 3rd-century Greek manuscript of a poem about the Labours of Heracles (Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2331)
The Origin of the Milky Way by Jacopo Tintoretto, 1575
Lernaean Hydra
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The Lernaean Hydra or Hydra of Lerna, more often known simply as the Hydra, is a serpentine lake monster in Greek mythology and Roman mythology. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, which was also the site of the myth of the Danaïdes. Lerna was reputed to be an entrance to the Underworld, and archaeology has established it as a sacred site older than Mycenaean Argos. In the canonical Hydra myth, the monster is killed by Heracles (Hercules) as the second of his Twelve Labors.
Pollaiuolo's Hercules and the Hydra (c. 1475). Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Portrait of Henri IV as Hercules pinning the Hydra of Lerna, an allegory of the Navarrese king's defeat of the Catholic League during the French Wars of Religion. Workshop of Toussaint Dubreuil, c. 1600.
Caeretan black-figure hydria (c. 346 BC)