10th The cattle of Gergones
His tenth job
was to get the cattle of Gergones, an enormous monster with three heads,
three bodies and six arms. He lived in an island of the Spanish coast
and had a big herd of cattle that was watched after by a shepherd and a
big dog with two heads. Gergones had also three brothers sons of the
king of Spain and commanders of his army.
Heracles
gathered an army and left to Spain over Libya, where he killed the giant
Antaros. In the south border of Spain they met the three brothers, who
had heard about the enterprise and were waiting there with the whole
army. In the battle that started the leaders were killed and Heracles
and his soldiers managed to conquer almost all Spain. Then they
crossed over to the island, killed the shepherd and the dog and, before
they could run away with the cattle, the Gergones found them and started
another hard fight with Heracles. Hera hurried up to help the giant, but
Heracles wounded her and she had to flee.
Finally
Heracles managed to succeed and he took all the horses to Mycenae over
Italy. With this he had fulfilled his ten task, but Eurytheus did not
want to recognize two of them. In exchange, he gave him two new more
tasks with which he expected to finally kill the hero, who in the mean
time was known for his deeds further than Greece.
11th. The apples of
Hespriden
For the wedding
of Hera and Zeus, Gaia gave them a tree with golden apples which she set
at the end of the world sea. This is what Heracles was supposed to bring
to Eurystheus. However, the closest information people had was that the
tree was "somewhere" at the end of the world. But Heracles would not
stop so he started his next adventure. This time he had to fight with
the giant Termeros and also met the river God Nereus, who showed him the
way. After, he ran also into Prometheus and liberated him from his
agony.
He finally
arrived to the land where Atlas stood holding the vault of heaven. There
the four daughters of Atlas watched the tree of Hespriden, also guarded
by a dragon. Heracles persuaded Atlas to ask his daughters if he could
get the apples while he hold the Earth for a while. Of course, Atlas
agreed, slept the dragon and came back with the apples. But then he
thought he could now stop holding the Earth, so he threw the apples to
Heracles feet and started to leave. Just on time, Heracles found a good
excuse and asked Atlas if he could please hold the Earth just one moment
so he could have a last look at it for the last time... and then he took the apples and
left.
12th and last.
Kerberos the
hound of hell
In the meantime Heracles had become
the hero of the humans and almost everywhere there were celebrations.
Eurystheus received him for the last time with fear and gave him an
apparently impossible job. His last task was to bring the hound of hell
up from the underworld, a hound with snake hairs and three heads from
whose mouths dripped poisonous slaver. The priests instructed Heracles
about the underworld and then he left to Pylon, in Elis, where the
entrance was.
From there he crossed the river of
Styx somehow convincing the driver Charon to let him pass, and arrived
to the city of Hades. But in the entrance he met the king, who would not
let him enter. Heracles shoot him with an arrow on the shoulder and then
the king let him in on condition that he didn't use any weapons inside.
As soon as he saw the dog he jumped on him and strangled him until he
gave up. Heracles arrived to Mycenae carrying Kerberos on his shoulder.
There, the frightened Eurystheus let the beast free, which returned to
Hades.
After this, Eurystheus gave up to get rid
of this hated son of Zeus.
Perseus / Heracles / Theseus / The Argonauts / Odyssey / Phaethon / Orpheus
