Eurystheus did not let up. He sent Heracles straight back to work on his sixth labour. For this one, he had to travel further afield than before. He set sail to the island of Crete, where king Minos was king. You may know the story of how Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, helped Theseus to defeat the half-man, half bull, known as the Minotaur. Now this was a different beast; It had come out of the sea, and the sea god Poseidon claimed it for his own. He demanded that King Minos make a sacrifice of the bull on the beach. When Minos saw how beautiful the bull was, he played a sneaky trick – he took a different bull down to the beach and sacrificed that one instead- but it is foolish to try and deceive the gods. Poseidon was angry, and he sent his bull trampling all over the island. Its hooves were so heavy that they made the ground shake and buildings fall down. Heracles wrestled the Cretan bull, tied it up, and brought it back as another living exhibit for Eurystheus. The king saw the beautiful bull from the top of his tower. He called down to Heracles and ordered him to set it free:
“Oh King, I advise against that!” called back Heracles. At this Eurystheus grew angry:
“Slave, do not disobey me, or I shall strike this labour off and it shall not count,” replied the King - and so Heracles did as he was told. The bull set off over the hills and trampled the fields, making the walls of the city tremble and the people were afraid that their roofs would fall in. The strongman impassively awaited his next order from the King.
Heracles' eighth labour took him to Thrace, which today would be the North of Greece, and the South of Bulgaria. The people of Thrace in those days were very warlike, and none more so than King Diomedes. Now this king had four horses known as the Mares of Diomedes. Their names were Podagros- the fast, Lampon- the shining, Xanthos the blond, and Deimos the terrible. They were totally mad and quite uncontrollable – quite the wildest horses that there ever were. In fact, if they had a particularly nasty trait – it was that they were man-eating horses. Nobody had ever succeeded in riding them – until one night. Heracles crept into their stables, tethered them together, and rode off on the back of Deimos while leading the others behind them. King Eurystheus was impressed to see Heracles riding on the back of a man-eating horse, but he did not want the horrid creatures for himself. He ordered the hero to set them free on Mount Olympus so that Zeus could decide what to do with them. I am glad to say that their fowls were much calmer, and some time later the Greeks took their descendants to fight in the Trojan War.
Heracles’ ninth labour was a more delicate mission. The daughter of King Eurystheus was going to be 18 years old, and he had promised her a very special birthday present – a particularly beautiful belt studded with precious stones. The only problem was that this belt belonged to Hippolyte, the Queen of the Amazons. The Amazons were a fierce tribe of women fighters who lived on the shores of the Black Sea. The belt had been given to Hippolyte by her own father, Ares the god of war. King Eurystheus would never have promised such a gift to his daughter if he did not have Heracles to fetch it for him. Now, Heracles might have been a strongman, but he was no bonehead. He understood that it is always better to try diplomacy before war. He met Queen Hippolyte on her royal barge, and he turned on all his charm. The warlike queen took a liking to the man of muscle, and she agreed to give him her belt. Hera, as always, was keen to cause trouble for Heracles, so she thought that this was all way too easy. She appeared amongst the Amazon guards and called out that Heracles was trying to kidnap their queen. They rushed in with their swords drawn and Heracles did not get away without a fight he had not wished for. He took the belt back to Eurystheus in time for his daughter’s birthday – and I am glad to say that she was very pleased with her present.
Heracles’ labours were getting further and further away from home. For his next task, he had to cross the Libyan desert to get to the other side of Africa. His orders were to get the cattle of Geryon, a three-headed monster. Getting there was worse than the deed itself, for the rays of the sun were more irksome to our thick-skinned hero than a cloud of Amazonian arrows. He wasn’t used to taking punishment without giving as good as he got, and so Heracles fired one of his own arrows up into the sun. Apollo, the god of the sun, was so impressed that he appeared in his chariot and drove Heracles to the shore of the sea. There he gave him his golden cup which floated like a boat, and Heracles rowed out to the island where Geryon and his cattle lived. As he came onto the beach, a double-headed guard dog charged at him. He bopped the first one, and then the other head of the mutt with his club. Next three-headed Geryon came at him, with three swords and three shields, all growing out of one body. He did not bother Heracles much – our hero shot the triplicate monster with one of his poison arrows – and that was the end of him. He loaded the cattle onto a ship, and sailed them back to the mainland – but once on land, he had more trouble
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