The Ancient Greeks believed that Heracles completed twelve labors in penance for the killing of his wife and children. He was instructed by an oracle of Apollo to serve King Eurystheus for twelve years. During this time, the king gave Heracles a series of seemingly impossible tasks to complete. These same twelve labors appeared, however briefly, in the movie Hercules, mostly as assassination attempts by Hades. I will describe each as it appeared in Ancient Greece, and also as it is portrayed by Disney. They are:
 |
| Heracles wrestles with the Nemean Lion. |
For his first task, Heracles was instructed to slay and skin an invulnerable lion. Rather than attempt to use his sword, which would be useless against the invincible animal, he relied on his strength and strangled the lion. Heracles was well-known for wearing this or another lion skin.
The Nemean lion is shown to be a giant cat, much larger than Hercules. He gives the lion a few punches and sends it flying. Later, it reappears as a pelt worn by Hercules as he poses for a painting on a vase.
The hydra was an extremely poisonous nine-headed serpent that Heracles fought with help from his nephew. They found that although two heads grew back each time Heracles cut one off, they could halt this process if Iolaus, his nephew, cauterized the wounds. One of the nine original heads was immortal, and after they took care of the rest, Heracles cut off the immortal head and buried it under a large rock. The monstrousness of the hydra is open to debate. Pausanias claims it was simply a large water snake; poisonous, yes, but with only one head, no immortality, and no magical regenerating powers.
The hydra was a one-headed lizard that, upon having its head cut off, grew three more in its place. Hercules continued to cut the heads off until there were approximately two dozen and Phil called out, “Will you forget the head slicing thing?” (Hercules, “The Battle with the Hydra”). Hercules killed it when he caused an avalanche to crush it.
Disney began with the one-headed hydra, perhaps because of Pausanias’ view, and continued with the more traditional regenerative myth. The rockslide that buried the hydra in the movie is reminiscent of the rock Heracles used to cover the serpent’s grave in the myth.
Eurystheus told Heracles to capture Artemis’ pet deer. Because the animal was beloved of a goddess, Heracles could not risk harming it. After hunting it for a year, he took a chance and shot it. Artemis was angry but healed her animal and forgave him when she learned he was following the command of an oracle.
Artemis and her hind appear very briefly on Olympus, but no mention is made of this Labor in the movie.
Heracles was instructed to capture the boar alive. He chased it into exhaustion, trapped it in a net, and carried it back to a frightened Eurystheus.
The boar appears briefly in “Zero to Hero.” Hades set it in Hercules’ path in hopes that it would kill him. When Herc shot it with an arrow and served it up on a platter, Hades was angry.
Eurystheus commanded Heracles to clean out King Augeus’ stables in a single day. Augeus owned thousands of cows, bulls, sheep, goats, and horses. Heracles made a deal with Augeus that if he could clean the stables in a day, he could have a tenth of the cattle. To clean the stables, Heracles removed two opposing walls and redirected a river to flow through, washing away the muck. Because Heracles was paid for the work, Eurystheus said it didn’t count towards his penance.
“At one, you’ve got a meeting with King Augeas; he’s got a problem with his stables. I’d advise you not to wear your new sandals” (Hercules, “At the Villa”).
These were a flock of birds Heracles needed to drive away from the town they gathered near. He used a combination of “krotala” (castanet-like noisemakers made by Hephaestos and given to him by Athena) and projectile weapons such as arrows and his slingshot to complete his task.
During “Zero to Hero” Hercules was attacked by, and subsequently caged, a large bird. It is my best guess that this bird is supposed to represent the Stymphalian birds. I imagine Disney chose to represent the Labor this way because “giant scary-looking bird” is more interesting than “make a lot of noise so the birds fly away.”
The Cretan Bull was sent by Poseidon to Minos, king of Crete, to be sacrificed. When Minos decided to sacrifice another bull in its place, the god made it rampage the city. As a result of Poseidon’s further revenge, the bull is the father of the Minotaur, the half-bull, half-man child of Minos’ wife that that keep in a labyrinth. Hercules captured the bull and took it back to Eurystheus, who set it free. Instead of terrorizing Crete, the bull now terrorized Greece. It was Theseus who actually killed the bull, as well as the Minotaur.
Hades sends a large bull, a gryphon, and a Gorgon after Hercules at the same time. These were quickly and easily dispatched.
This presents a few problems. When Hercules first meets Phil, Phil says “I trained all those would-be heroes: Odysseus, Perseus, Theseus.” He even has a disk depicting Theseus’ fight with the Minotaur. This is an error in the timeline because Heracles predates Theseus as a hero. Heracles took the Cretan bull back to Greece, then Theseus slayed the bull in Marathon, then Theseus sailed to Crete to slay the Minotaur (The Cretan Bull). If we assume that Disney chose to use the famous Gorgon Medusa rather than one of her lesser-known sisters, then we have another hero problem, for Perseus slayed Medusa, not Hercules. Since the movie does not actually show the deaths of this trio (bull, gryphon, Gorgon), simply a pile of beaten bodies, we may assume that the Gorgon could be one of Medusa’s immortal sisters, even though Heracles did not fight a Gorgon in Greek legend. This scene also brings to mind another error: Pegasus. Pegasus was not made by Zeus, born from clouds, or in any way connected to Heracles. Poseidon impregnated Medusa and “[when] her head was cut off, there sprang from the Gorgon the winged horse Pegasus;” this “winged steed” was ridden by the hero Bellerophon (Apollodorus 2.4.2, 2.3).
Heracles was instructed to fetch Diomedes’ man-eating horses. There are several accounts telling how this was accomplished. Apollodorus says Heracles had assistance in this task, and when Diomedes sent an army after him to get his horses back, Heracles left the horses with a young man who was subsequently killed, fought the army, killed Diomedes, founded a city in the young man’s honor, and took the horses back to Eurystheus. The king set them free and they wandered aimlessly until they were killed on Olympus. Eurypides says Heracles took the horses alone, and that he either had to take Diomedes’ chariot as well, or that he had to harness them to his own chariot.
I found no mention of these horses in the Disney movie.
I take issue with this task in particular. Heracles had to complete the Labors as punishment for his killing his wife and children. One would expect that he would atone for the murders by doing good works for others. This task seems not only pointless, but also cruel. I can see no beneficial purpose in stealing carnivorous horses as there is in slaying a monster that has terrorized a city. I suppose Eurystheus set this task—as well as the others—with the assumption that he would be unable to complete it, given that they are all meant to be impossible, and should he have a fatal failure, repay the deaths with his own life. But to set free carnivorous horses—I see no logic in that. At least when they were with Diomedes, they were under control. To let them roam about Greece unhindered puts all the tasty people in their path in danger. And the horses were taken from the safety of their home and let loose in an unknown area where they were ultimately killed and eaten. This is no task for a hero.
Hippolyte was queen of the Amazons and her belt was a gift from Ares. Eurystheus wanted the belt to give to his daughter, so he sent Heracles to fetch it. Hera interfered, telling the Amazons that Heracles intended to take away their queen, and they charged off to stop him before he could. Heracles killed Hippolyte, took her belt, and after a battle between his men and the Amazons, he sailed, victorious, back to Mycenae and King Eurystheus.
When running through Hercules’ Hero Schedule, Phil says, “At three, you gotta get a girdle from some Amazons” (Hercules, “At the Villa”). This is the only mention Hippolyte or her belt in the movie.
Geryon was the son of Chrysaur, who was brother of Pegasus and son of Medusa and Poseidon. Hesiod says, “And the daughter of Ocean, Callirrhoe... bore a son who was the strongest of all men, Geryones, whom mighty Heracles killed in sea-girt Erythea for the sake of his shambling oxen” (Theogony 980). The task was long, bumpy, and did not appear in the Disney movie.
Heracles was instructed to fetch three golden apples for Eurystheus. The apples were a gift from Hera to Zeus and were in a garden guarded by Atlas’ daughters and a hundred-headed dragon. This task, like Geryon’s Cattle, was long, difficult, and multi-step. After many wrestling matches and hunts for information, Heracles took the weight of the cosmos from Atlas so the titan could fetch the apples for him. After task was completed, Heracles had to give the apples to Athena so she could return them to the garden.
There was no mention of this task in the movie, but there was an image of Atlas holding up the earth.
Again, this strikes me as an utterly pointless task. Why make him steal from the gods? Just to prove he can?
Heracles was instructed to kidnap Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the Underworld. Hades told Heracles he could take the dog if he could overpower him. Heracles did, and after showing Cerberus to Eurystheus, the dog was returned to his post.
In Hercules, Hercules rides Cerberus into the Underworld when he confronts Hades about Meg’s death.
