Eurystheus decides that the easiest way to get rid of this problem of having to think up tasks is to kill Herakles ... he thinks a bit and sets Herakles his first task. He must kill the Nemean Lion.

The Nemean lion is not an ordinary lion, but a monster who is the child of Typhon, thus it is a descendant of Poseidon and Medusa. Its coat is a shield that no weapon can pierce, thus making the lion almost invulnerable. On his way, Herakles stops at Cleonae, where Molorchos offers to sacrifice to Herakles. Herakles says: Just wait a month... If I'm dead you can sacrifice to me as a hero... If I'm live then you can sacrifice for me to Zeus, the Savior.

Herakles chokes the Lion and kills him. The lion has to die, of course, because this is only the first of many adventures.

On his return to Tiryns, Herakles throws down the lion skin before Eurystheus. Eurystheus is so scared he hides in a bronze jar and tells Herakles that from now on he should keep his animals outside and report to him indirectly through the state herald Kopreus, son of Pelops.

By Zeus' command, the lion becomes the constellation Leo in the sky, and its invulnerable skin becomes a cloak and the emblem of Herakles.

The second task: Kill the Hydra of Lerna.

The Hydra is half-sister to the Nemean Lion through Typhon or the Echidna, and is said to have been nourished by Hera. It lived near a spring (Amymone) with a crab for a friend (in a cave with two entrances); it has many heads which grow back as two or more heads when cut off, and it is partially invulnerable.

Herakles' half-brother, Iolaos, the son of Iphicles, joins him as charioteer in this adventure. He helps Herakles by cauterizing the wounds where the necks of the Hydra were cut through before a new head could grow back. The central neck of the Hydra was immortal and Herakles can only bury it along side of the road.

The body of the Hydra provides Herakles with a deadly poison for his arrows; this poison will play an important part later in the story of Herakles.

Hera makes the crab, the companion of the Hydra, into the constellation Cancer. On Herakles' return to Tiryns, Eurystheus refused to count this as one of the ten Labors because Herakles had received help from Iolaos (thus ten 10 tasks is now 11).

The fourth task: Capture the Erymanthian Boar.

On his way to Arcadia, Herakles visits the home of centaur Pholus. Other centaurs are invited to dinner and get wildly drunk. They attack Herakles, and in alarm he kills them all. There are no longer centaurs in the Peloponnesus, so that certainly explains that.

Herakles eventually traps the boar in the deep snow of mount Erymanthos. He again takes his live quarry to Eurystheus. And again, Eurystheus jumps into his bronze jar.

Herakles is a bit bored with his tasks and he hears that Jason is preparing an expedition to Colchis to seek the Golden Fleece. Herakles joins up on the adventure.

Like every great Greek hero or god Herakles has one or more boy friends. During the first part of the expedition, Herakles' boy friend, Hylas, is kidnapped near Mysia in Asia Minor and drowned. Herakles' grief at this loss causes him to leave the expedition.

The fifth task: Clean the Stables of Augeas in a single day.

Herakles trots off to Augeas and agrees to remove dung from the huge herds of cattle in exchange for a 10% commission.

To do this purpose he diverts the River Alpheus and succeeds in cleaning the stables.

Remember Coleridge!

'...where Alph the sacred river ran
through caverns measureless to man
down to a sunless sea'

King Augeas refused to honor the contract and pay Herakles. As a double whammy when Heracles arrives back in Tiryns, Eurystheus refuses to count this task as one of the labors, since Heracles had demanded payment.
(Thus, for the purposes of counting tasks 10 now equals 12).

The sixth task: Kill the Stymphalian Birds.

These cannibalistic birds were making a nuisance of themselves by eating all the local barbers. They certainly were not afraid of men, since they ate them for lunch. Herakles borrowed a set of bronze castanets from Athena, special ones that Hephaestus had made to create an unusual sound (something like a modern ambulance traveling backward at close to the speed of sound on Acropolis Drive in Athens). When the birds heard this noise they flew upward in surprise, who could blame them. Herakles then shot them with his magic arrows.

The seventh task: Bring back the Cretan Bull.

This bull is the father of the Minotaur, whose mother was Pasiphaë, wife of King Minos of Crete.

After the usual difficulties Herakles captures the bull, and brings it back to Tiryns, and then he frees it.

The bull wandered eventually to Attica, to the plain of Marathon, where it was finally captured by Theseus and sacrificed at Athens to Athena.

The eighth labor: Bring back the Cannibalistic Mares of Diomedes.

The mares were fed on human flesh by King Diomedes of the Bistones. Herakles overpowered their grooms and drives the mares down to the sea.

Turning back to deal with his pursuers, he leaves the mares with his current lover Abderus. When he returns, however, he finds that Abderus has become their lunch. So Herakles feeds them their master Diomedes to cure them.

He then takes the mares to Tiryns and releases them; later the mares were eaten by wild animals on Mount Olympus.

Kopres announces the tenth labor: Bring back the Cattle of Geryon.

Geryon is king of Erytheia. Geryon had three heads, or maybe three bodies from his waist down -- in any event his physiognomy is highly unusual. He has a watchdog named Orthus (which has two heads). On the way to Spain, by way of Libya, Herakles sets up the Pillars of Herakles (Gibraltar and Ceuta). He kills Geryon's watchdog and shepherd with his club.

When Geryon comes after Herakles, Herakles shoots him with poison arrows. He then drives the cattle back to Greece, by way of southern France and Italy, where he runs into the robbers Ialybion and Dercynus (this is a common event for tourists in Italy, then and now). At the future site of Rome, a city named Cacus, Herakles founds an altar which was still being tended by two aristocratic Roman families in the third century B.C.

Eventually Herakles makes it back to Greece with the cattle.

The eleventh labor: Get the golden apples of Hesperides.

These golden fruit were a wedding present to Hera from Gaia. They are guarded “at the ends of the earth” in a sacred grove by a hundred-headed serpent, Ladon, and by the nymphs called the Hesperides or “The Western Ones”. Herakles goes to Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, to find out where the apples are. Nereus tells him a long transformation story until he accidentally reveals to Herakles how to get to the Hesperides.

Herakles makes a visit to Atlas (brother of Prometheus). He relieves Atlas of his burden of holding up the earth for awhile so Atlas can do what he needs to do. This is what created the Grand Canyon in the United States. Then Herakles goes the Hesperides and takes the apples from the tree. In doing so Herakles kills Ladon, the serpent that protects them.

On his return, Herakles dedicates the apples to Athena, and she returns the apples to the Hesperides.

Hera makes Ladon the constellation the Serpent.

In many versions of the Labors story this is the 12th labor. And in art Hercules is often represented as resting after this last labor holding the golden apples.

Kopres announces the twelfth labor: Bring back Cerberus, the three headed dog that guards the Underworld.

Herakles goes to Taenarum in Sparta and enters the underworld through the same entrance used by Orpheus.

He released Theseus and his friend Perithoos, king of the Lapiths, who were alive in the House of Hades, but were being held captive in chairs of forgetfulness; they had tried to steal Persephone, but were captured and stayed for what almost became an eternal meal.

He brings back the Three-headed Dog. Thus he completes his tenth labor and his penitence for his serial killing; although he certainly hasn't lost the ability or will to kill.