I'm Mike Rugnetta, this is Crashcourse Mythology and today we're talking about another hero.

One who eventually becomes a god.

A demi-god.

Which is another way of saying semi-god.

Kinda.

Anyway, it's our old friend Herakles!

Who some call “Hercules”: sometimes a man, sometimes a god, but always a guy who

really knows how to rock a lion skin, right Thoth?

[[Thoth in lion skin]] OH NO I MEAN - you look really good too!

Very heroic.

INTRO Herakles has a reputation for being kind of

a brute.

All brawn, no brain.

But… remember when we talked about Herakles in an episode on tricksters?

Remember how he tricks Atlas into holding up the sky forever?

He may be buff, but Herakles sure ain't dense.

Though, he doesn't always makes the best choices.

Sometimes Herakles is his own worst enemy.

Even worse than the hydra, and that was a pretty bad one!

But let's not get aHEAD... of ourselves!

Like many heroes, Herakles had a miraculous birth.

Zeus, God of lightning bolts but not consent, takes a liking to Alcmene, the queen of Thebes.

Zeus transforms himself into the form of the king, Amphitryon, and sleeps with the Queen.

Nine months later Alcmene gives birth to two boys, Iphicles and Alceides.

One of them is Amphitryon's son, and the other is Zeus'.

But oh DIVINE BOYS - which is which?!

This is how sitcoms get started.

When Hera finds out about this debacle ‒ yet another Zeus-ian infidelity ‒ she sends

two revenge serpents to Iphicles and Alceides' cribs.

When the king and queen rush in, Iphicles is crying and Alceides is holding the two

serpents, strangled in each of his tiny baby hands.

Mystery solved, I guess!

Alceides would later become … Herakles.

Alceides is raised as a prince of Thebes, but he's a bit of a problem child.

His godlike strength keeps getting him into trouble.

At one point, he gets so mad at his music teacher that he smashes a lyre over his head

and kills him.

This is the last straw for Amphitryon, and the king sends the dangerous demi-god princeling

away to tend sheep.

As a shepherd, Herakles gets to put his great strength to use.

A monstrous beast named the lion of Citharion had been terrorizing the cattle of Thespios,

king of Thespiae.

When Herakles catches it and slays it, Thespios is so overjoyed that he allows him to take

one of his fifty daughters to bed each night.

[PAUSE] Gross..

Eventually, Alceides moves back to Thebes and marries princess Megara.

They start a family, and things begin to settle down.

Despite the earlier adventures, though, THIS is where we get to the turning point in Alceides'

life: suddenly, he goes mad.

He takes his three children, and two of his nephews, and burns them alive.

There is some ambiguity here in the story, whether this madness was Alceides finally

giving in to his wild nature, or whether it was caused by a vindictive Hera, who can really

hold a grudge.

But either way - when Alceides comes to his senses he implores an oracle for help.

The oracle tells him ‒ appease Hera.

Change your name to Herakles.

And to atone you must travel to Tiryns, and allow your rival, King Eurystheus, king of

Tiryns and Mycenae, to set your punishment for killing your children.

This is the beginning of the ten labors of Herakles.

Yup, ten.

Don't worry.

We're gonna get there.

When Herakles arrives and tells Eurystheus what he's done, the king of Tiryns gives

him a set of impossible tasks.

These ten labors will take Herakles far and away, confronting all manner of monster.

And if he succeeds, he won't just atone for his family-murdering, he'll also be

granted immortality.

These are the heroic tasks that made Herakles famous, let's count them off.

ONE - THE NEMEAN LION Harkening back to his days as a lion-slaying

shepherd, Herakles' first labor is to go to Nemea and kill a monstrous lion.

This lion's skin can't be pierced by arrows or spears but Herakles doesn't let this

stop him ‒ he puts the beast into a chokehold and strangles him.

CHECK!

Herakles must then defeat the Lernean Hydra, a swamp dragon with nine heads.

Everytime he slices one of the heads off, two grow back in its place and before long

Herakles is practically drowning in craniums.

Luckily, his nephew Iolas (who somehow managed to avoid the nephew killing-by-fire from earlier),

brings Herakles flaming torches.

The torches cauterize the dragon-neck-wounds, preventing the hydra from multiplying.

Herakles kills the Hydra, dips some arrows into its bile, y'know: just in case, and

returns triumphant.

But, Eurystheus tells him: this isn't Herakles and Iolas' ten labors ‒ you can't get

outside help.

That one doesn't count.

Second labor: DISQUALIFIED.

For his third labor, Herakles must capture the gold-horned Hind of Ceryneia.

ALONE.

It's tough, but after some chasing or trapping (depending on which version you prefer), Herakles

snags the Hind.

CHECK!

Next, Herakles must go to Psophis and kill the giant Erymanthian Boar.

On the way he stops at the cave of the centaur Pholos and ... accidentally kills him with

one of those Hydra-bile soaked just-in-case arrows.

After burying the centaur, Herakles traps the Boar and takes it to Mycenae.

CHECK! but also rest in power Pholos.

So far, all of Herakles' labors have been giant scary beast related.

For this fifth labor, Eurystheus tells him he must ... clean out the stables.

Of Augeus, King of Elis.

Augeus owned 3,000 immortal cattle and hadn't cleaned his stables in 30 years.

Thats' about 650,000 pounds of immortal dung.

YEAH WE DID THE MATH.

Herakles agrees, and says to Augeus ‒ “If I manage to clean all this out in a single

day, will you agree to give me a tenth of your immortal cattle?”

OOOOOO TRICKY HERAKLES IS BACK Augeus agrees, and instead of grabbing a dung

shovel, Herakles goes upstream and diverts two nearby rivers through the stables.

The water washes out the years of dung in minutes.

Augeus, who thought this labor was impossible, bails on their deal . Herakles takes him before

a judge and wins the case.

But, Augeus flies into a rage and banishes him before Herakles can claim the cattle.

Herakles returns to Eurystheus empty-handed, only to have Eurystheus announce that this

labor didn't count because Herakles tried to get paid for it!

Fifth labor: DISQUALIFIED!

After the immortal-dung-debacle, Herakles is back to wrangling monstrous animals.

This time, in Arcadia where he must drive away the Stymphalian birds.

Herakles scares 'em off with just a pair of bronze castanets.

Sixth labor: CHECK.

Easy peasy.

Birds hate castanets!

[[THOTH SHOWS UP WITH CASTANETS, DRESSED AS A FLAMENCO DANCER]]C'mon Thoth - you're

an Ibis… not a FLAMENCO.

Herakle's seventh labor is to capture the rampaging Cretan Bull.

Which he could do this in his sleep at this point.

Seventh labor: no sweat CHECK!.

Next , Herakles has to go to Thrace to capture the man-eating mares of Diomedes.

There's a lot of different versions of this one, but they all end the same way...

Eighth labor: CHECK!

Herakles' ninth labor is to fetch the belt of Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons.

At first, Hippolyte agrees to just give Herakles the belt.

But then Hera starts a rumor that Herakles has come to kidnap Hippolyte, and the Amazons

jump him.

In the ensuing struggle, Herakles kills Hippolyte and takes her belt.

Ninth labor: CHECK!.

Hippolyte, we barely knew thee.

Just one labor left, but there were two disqualifications!

For Herakles' final three labors, let's go to the Thought Bubble:

The tenth labor takes Herakles far to the west, to Erytheia, where he must seize the

red cattle of Geryon.

On the way, Herakles is so angry about how hot the Sun is that he aims his bow and arrow

at it.

The Sun is so impressed with Herakles' bravery that he gives the hero a golden cup.

And not just any cup.

A magic cup!

That's also a ship.

After Herakles kills Geryon and his herdsman and his two-headed guard dog, he uses the

cup to transport the cattle back across the sea.

But then they escape and he has to chase them all over Europe.

When Herakles finally gets them to Eurystheus, the king sacrifices them to Hera–thats labor

ten CHECK!–and tells Herakles ‒ okay, you screwed up twice.

Here are your two make up labors.

Labor eleven is collecting golden Apples from the nymphs, the Hesperides.

This is the one where he tricks Atlas into helping him.

He also frees Prometheus.

You how this turns out: CH-CH-CH-CHECK!

And the twelfth, and final labor is to travel to the Underworld and bring back that damned

doggo Cerberos, Hades' three headed guard pup.

Herakles travels to the land of the dead, where Hades happens upon Herakles and tells

him ‒ you can have Cerberos, but only if you can defeat him without any of the weapons

you've brought.

Herakles agrees, snags Cerberos around the neck and chokes him into submission.

He drags the dog to Eurystheus, gets him to sign off on the final labor––CHECK TO

END ALL CHECKS and then returns Cerberos to Hades.

Good boy, Cerberos.

And nice work Herakles.

Thanks Thoughtbubble.

After all that adventuring, Herakles manages to complete his ten-turned-twelve labors.

While this is Herakles' most famous story, it's far from his last adventure.

He gets married again.

That's right…no happily ever after with Megara.

Disney lied to you.

Eventually, he even manages to achieve that elusive immortality.

Though, at a great cost.

Well after his twelve labors, Herakles is crossing the river Evenus with his new wife

Deianeira.

The ferryman, a centaur named Nessus, tries to rape Deianeira midstream and Herakles kills

him.

But with his dying breath, Nessus tricks Deianeira into preparing what he tells her is a love

potion that she can use if Herakles ever loses interest in her.

Sure enough, Herakles later falls in love with Iole.

In order to win him back, Deianeira soaks his shirt in Nessus' “love potion” AKA

and of course a horrible, horrible poison because what else would it be NESSUS WAS CLEARLY

A BAD GUY.

Herakles puts on the shirt, and dies an extremely painful death, burning on his own funeral

pyre.

Finally Zeus tells Hera, hey, enough is enough and sends Athena down to make Herakles immortal

and bring him to Mount Olympus.

So Herakles becomes a god and gets to live on Olympus.

Right near Hera.

… Yay?

So... what makes Herakles, a screw up and a child murderer, such an enduring hero?

I mean as demi-gods go, the guy isn't exactly a role model.

He sleeps around.

He loses his temper and kills people.

The ancient world seemed to love him for the variety and excitement of his adventures.

But what do we do about Herakles today?

Herakles presents a real problem.

He's been given power and strength and brains, all courtesy of creepy, absent, irresponsible

father, but he still has to struggle to live an ethical life?

Maybe we don't have to fight hydras.

I hope we don't.

Well, I definitely hope I don't.

Yet we all have to work to try and live with each other respectfully and responsibly.

We can't rock a lion skin, but maybe we can rock that.

See you next time for the last in our hero series - about Ma'ui.

You're welcome.