Hercules’ Eighth (8th) Labor: The Mares of Diomedes.

Hercules’ eighth labor, set by his cousin Eurystheus, was to capture and bring back to him, the four mares of Diomedes.
Diomedes, the king of the Bistones, was a troublesome warrior that enjoyed a fight. He was the son of Ares and Cyrene.
He owned four man-eating mares, named Podargus, Lampon, Xanthus, and Dinis. These were savage animals and some sources say that they were fastened with iron chains to brass feeding troughs, and fed human flesh by Diomedes himself.
Hercules set off to Bistonia with a number of his friends. On arrival they managed to subdue the grooms looking after the animals. Before they could leave with the mares Diomedes became aware of their intentions and gathering a number of soldiers set of to confront Hercules. Abderos was left to look after the animals while Hercules and his friends did battle with Diomedes. During the fight Hercules killed Diomedes, and his soldiers fled.
On returning to the mares Hercules discovered that the animals had killed Abderos. Some sources say he had been eaten and others that he had been dragged to death.
Hercules fed the body of Diomedes to the animals. After eating their previous owner the animals became calm and subdued, never to eat flesh again.
Hercules then established the town Abdera in honor of Abderos.
Hercules then took the mares to Eurystheus who was terrified at the sight of them. So much so he his in his underground jar to escape them and Hercules.
The animals were then set free to roam around Argos, and legend has it that Alexander the Great later owned one of their offspring..
Another version is that wolves later killed the animals
Image from Wikipedia

Summary of the 12 labors and links to other posts on this blog can be found here

The Labors of Hercules: Ninth labor, the Belt (Girdle) of Hippolyte an Amazon Queen

Hippolyta was a warrior woman and one of the queens of the Amazons. Ares the god of war gave her a belt of armour. Some sources refer to a belt of leather and others to a golden girdle. Nevertheless, she wore this belt around her upper body and used it to secure her sword and spear.
I could not find much on what made the belt special, but it was important enough for Eurystheus to send Hercules off to find the belt and bring it back to him as a present for his daughter.
This was Hercules’ ninth labour.
Hercules did not undertake this task on his own, and a number of his Greek friends accompanied him, to help out if needed. The Amazon woman were well known for their bravery and fighting skills.
When Hercules arrived in the land of the Amazons their ship was peacefully welcomed by Hippolyta herself, who would have no problems in handing over the belt to Hercules as a gift of love.
This was not what Hera wanted. She then disguised herself as an Amazon woman and spread a rumour that Hercules and his men were there to kidnap queen Hippolyta. To protect their queen the Amazons donned their armour and went to her aid. When Hercules and his men saw the armed Amazons quickly approaching on horseback ready for war, he responded, and a fierce battle took place.
Other sources state that Hercules killed Hippolyta before a battle could take place, and took her belt and weapons from her body.
In any event, Hercules took the belt from her, and returned it to Eurystheus as a gift for his daughter Admete

List of the 12 labors and links to other Heracles posts on this blog here

EDIT on 5 November 2008
After doing the above post I felt that I had not really done justce to the occasion, but published anyway. My argument is to create an awareness and stimulate further reading and finding out.
I received this article from Arras and am posting it as well. Excellently written and really does justice to the occasion. Thank you Arras
Arras said...
The girdle was a symbol of office, like the ceremonial necklaces that mayors still wear today for their inaugurations and parades--a bit of regalia. The point of sending Herakles after it was, as with all the labours, to get him killed. Eurystheus was Hera's agent, and each labour was chosen not so much to test Herakles but to finish him off. The bait to lure him to his death was the promise of immortality if he could succeed at all of them--he may have been a demigod, but he was still fully mortal at the time.

The presumption in this case was that sending him into the Amazon capital to steal their regalia would be an impossible task. So far from home, surrounded by thousands of angry Amazons, he'd surely be slaughtered.

Hera's miscalculation in this case was that she expected Herakles to stupidly barge in and try to steal the girdle, which would have certainly been his undoing. Instead he and his companions were diplomatic and respectful of the Amazons and their customs, and were treated like guests--famed heroes from Athens (Theseus, the slayer of the Minotaur and future King of Athens was with him)--and this set a very different kind of tone.

Herakles and Hippolyte had great respect for one another, from one champion to another, and they hit it off. He explained to her the nature of his labour and what it required, and she willingly gave him the girdle as a token of her respect.

Hera, furious at this clever circumvention of her murderous plot, appeared among the Amazons as one of their number and incited them by claiming that Herakles and his men were about to kidnap the Queen. The Amazons rose up and attacked Herakles and his companions, accidentally killing Hippolyte when she got in the middle.

Badly outnumbered, the men fled to their ship, but they did not leave empty-handed. Herakles had the girdle he came for, and Theseus brought with him Hippolyte's sister Antiope, who had technically become Queen when Hippolyte died. Some versions of the story paint this as a love story, with Antiope having fallen for Theseus and agreeing to return to Athens with him, while others are clear about it as a trophy kidnapping. In any case, it was the event that would spark the Attic War, when the Amazons massed to attack Athens itself to rescue their Queen

Hercules (Heracles) and the Hydra: Mythology, Second labor

This was the second task that Hercules had to undertake to atone for his sins. The Hydra was a terrible nine-headed water serpent that lived in the swamps of Lerna and guarded the gates of the underworld.
The Hydra had nine heads. Eight of the heads were mortal, and the ninth head, surrounded, by the other eight, was immortal. However should one of the mortal heads be removed, two would grow in its place. The Hydra also had an obnoxious and poisonous breath.
The Hydra would devour cattle and other livestock in the surrounding areas, and in general, terrorize the locals. To solve this problem Hercules was sent off to kill the monster.
Hercules took his nephew along with him, Iolous, who was an expert charioteer and Olympian.
Before Hercules could kill the Hydra, he had to kill a giant crab, sent by Hera to make things more difficult. He killed the crab with his club. The crab was rewarded with a place in the constellation, Cancer, by Hera for services rendered.
To flush the Hydra from hiding, he shot a number of flaming arrows into its lair.
Hercules soon found out that it was impossible to kill the beast with a club, his preferred weapon, and took a sword, (some sources say sickle), covered his mouth with a cloth, and chopped the heads off one at a time. His nephew then cauterized the neck wound with a flaming torch, so that no further heads could grow.
After a long struggle the eight mortal heads were removed, leaving the immortal head. This was chopped off and buried under a large and heavy stone. (If the head was immortal, why would this help? Just to keep it out of the way? Somewhere I read that this head came back later to cause problems..will find out in due course)
Hercules then dipped the points if his arrows in the poisonous blood of the hydra, (some sources say gall), for future use.
The interesting part about this story is that it was seen as incomplete, as he had help from his nephew, and did not undertake the task on his own.
Some sources maintain that the original tasks set were increased, to make up for the slip-up.
Image from Wikipedia.:
(Hercules from Roman Mythology and Heracles from Greek. If you do a net search use both, different range of hits)
First Labor, the Nemean lion