1. Ancient Greek mythology tells of many great heroes but the greatest of all must surely be Heracles.
2. This mighty warrior’s father was Zeus, and his mother was a mortal woman names Alcmene.
3. Many Greek mythological figures were characterized as the children of gods and mortals and they were known as “demigods.”
4. Zeus’s wife Hera became angry, when she learned of the baby born to a mortal woman.
5. Zeus named his son Heracles (“glory of Hera”) but the jealous queen of the gods hated her namesake.
6. Hera sent two snakes to strangle the baby Heracles in his crib but Heracles awoke and squeezed the life out of the snakes.
7. From that moment on, people expected marvelous things from the amazing baby and he grew into the world’s most powerful
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Alcmene’s husband was King Amphitrion and he taught the young Heracles how to box, wrestle, and make war.
9. Eurystheus was King of Mycenae but his subject Heracles was much better known and more respected.
10. Eurystheus grew jealous of Heracles’ fame, and ordered him to perform twelve impossibly difficult tasks.
11. The king hoped that Heracles would be killed performing the dangerous tasks but even these duties proved no match for the great hero.
12. The tasks Heracles performed have become known as the Twelve Labors of Heracles and any task that seems almost impossibly difficult is today known as “Herculean.”
13. Heracles submitted to the king’s command and the first labor he performed was to slay the dreaded lion of Nemea.
14. The lion could not be killed with weapons but Heracles caught it, and strangled it with his bare hands.
15. Heracles next killed the fearsome nine-headed Hydra and then he captured alive the golden-horned Hind (deer) of Mount Cerynea.
16. Perhaps Heracles’ most wonderful labor was, cleaning the Augean stables.
17. These stables housed 300 head of cattle, and had not been cleaned for thirty years but Heracles knocked a hole in the stable wall, and diverted two mighty rivers to rush through, and clean the filthy