Hercules

   The mythological hero whose attributes are the club and lion skin and who is well known for his 12 labors. Juno, jealous of Hercules' mother Alcmena, sent two serpents to kill the infant hero. Blessed with great strength from birth, Hercules crushed the serpents to death. He married Megara and killed his three children in a fit of madness caused by Juno. To atone his actions, he accomplished his 12 labors: killing the Nemean lion, the Lernean Hydra, and the maneating Stymphalian birds; capturing the Cerynean stag, the Erymanthian boar, the man-eating mares of Diomedes, and the Cretan bull; cleaning the stables of Augeas; obtaining the girdle of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, and the three apples from the Garden of Hesperides; fetching the cattle of Geryon; and bringing Cerberus from the underworld to earth. These labors brand him as the symbol of courage and strength.

   Hercules is a favored mythological subject in art. Tintoretto depicted him as a child suckling on Juno's breast in the Origin of the Milky Way (c. 1570; London, National Gallery). Peter Paul Rubens painted Hercules Fighting the Nemean Lion (1608; Bucharest, Muzeul National), and Albrecht Dürer presented Hercules Killing the Stymphalian Birds (1500; Nuremberg, Germanisches National Museum). Lucas Cranach the Elder (1537; Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) and Laurent de La Hyre (c. 1638; Heidelberg, Kurpfâlzisches Museum) painted Hercules and Omphale, with the queen of Lydia, who took him as her slave, donning his clothes and dressing him as a woman.

   See also Hercules and Antaeus; Hercules at the crossroads.