Labours Of Hercules
The twelve labours of Hercules or dodekathlon (Greek: δωδέκαθλον, dodekathlon) are a series of episodes concerning a penance carried out by Heracles, the greatest of the Greek heroes, whose name was later romanised as Hercules. They were later connected by a continuous narrative. The establishment of a fixed cycle of twelve labours was attributed by the Greeks to an epic poem, now lost, written by Peisander, dated about 600 BC.
Read more about Labours Of Hercules: Context, The Labours, First Labour: Nemean Lion, Second Labour: Lernaen Hydra, Third Labour: Ceryneian Hind, Fourth Labour: Erymanthian Boar, Fifth Labour: Augean Stables, Sixth Labour: Stymphalian Birds, Seventh Labour: Cretan Bull, Eighth Labour: Mares of Diomedes, Ninth Labour: Belt of Hippolyta, Tenth Labour: Cattle of Geryon, Eleventh Labour: Apples of The Hesperides, Twelfth Labour: Cerberus
Famous quotes containing the words labours and/or hercules:
“Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the publick interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.... He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.”
—Adam Smith (1723–1790)
“I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.... The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)