Hercules: The Twelve Labors Of Hercules

Ancient Greek mythology has played a vital role in how we live our lives today. We can see instances of Greek myths, or stories, in a vast number of sources, including ancient Greek artifacts, literary texts, historical documents, Broadway plays and even in Disney movies. One Disney movie that comes to mind when I hear the words “mythology” and “Disney movies” in the same sentence is the movie “Hercules”. Now, we all know about how Hercules is this insanely muscular and vascular Greek God who is half-man and half-God and who must prove himself worthy of living with the Gods in Olympus. However, an aspect of Hercules’ life, as depicted in the Disney movie, that isn’t referred to are the twelve labors of Hercules. One labor that is prominent

This vase is said to be dated from 530 BCE – 520 BCE. We can tell that this is Chiron on the vase because the character is half man above the waist, and half horse below the waist. On the vase, it looks as though Hercules is about to hit the centaur with a club. Although this primary source and the previous one seem very similar, one difference that I can point out is the involvement of Chiron in the second source as compared to the first one. Chiron was the God of healing and prophet, and his role in Hercules’ fourth labor was an important one because Hercules accidentally shot him with an arrow as he was fighting the other tribal members, which eventually led to the relinquish of Chiron’s immortality. The third visual primary source that I decided to use is not a vase, but more like a bowl – like object said to be dated anywhere from 580 BCE – 570 BCE (Figure 1.3). On this bowl, we can pick out the characters of Hercules and the boar. I can’t quite weed out who the other characters are, but it seems definite that Hercules is in there based upon his muscular build and facial hair. The actions that are taking place on this vase seem brutal, but nonetheless important when referring to Hercules’ fourth labor because of how everyone seems to be attacking the boar just like in the