Some traditions add to this account that Heracles killed the dragon Ladon. On his return Eurystheus made him a present of the apples, but Heracles dedicated them to Athena, who, however, did not keep them, but restored them to their former place. Heracles, however, contrived by a stratagem to get the apples and hastened away. Atlas accordingly fetched the apples, but on his return he refused to take the burden of heaven on his shoulders again, and declared that he himself would carry the apples to Eurystheus. Prometheus had advised him not to fetch the apples himself, but to send Atlas, and in the meantime to carry the weight of heaven for him. Apollodorus assigns the fight with Antaeus, and the murder of Busiris, to this expedition both Apollodorus and Diodorus now make Heracles travel further south and east: thus we find him in Ethiopia, where he kills Emathion, in Arabia, and in Asia he advances as far as Mount Caucasus, where he killed the vulture which consumed the liver of Prometheus, and thus saved the Titan.Īt length Heracles arrived at Mount Atlas, among the Hyperboreans. As one of the Twelve Labors, Hercules stole one of these apples with the. They are guarded by Ladon, who is cared for by the Hesperides. Main article: Garden of the Hesperides A Tree of Golden Apples grow in the Garden of the Hesperides. It was believed that whoever ate of them will become immortal. They are fruit endowed with magical qualities. On the advice of Nereus he proceeded to Libya. Golden Apples are recurrent items in the series. He thence passed through Illyria, and arrived on the banks of the river Eridanus, and was informed by the nymphs in what manner he might compel the prophetic Nereus to instruct him as to what road he should take. In Macedonia he killed Cycnus, the son of Ares and Pyrene, who had challenged him. in Macedonia, after having killed Termerus in Thessaly. Heracles, in order to find the gardens of the Hesperides, went to the river Echedorus. The mention of the Hyperboreans in this connection renders the matter very difficult, but it is possible that the ancients may have conceived the extreme north (the usual seat of the Hyperboreans), and the extreme west to be contiguous. 1 In other accounts the apples are described as sacred to Aphrodite, Dionysus, or Helios but the abode of the Hesperides is placed by Hesiod, Apollodorus, and others, in the west, while later writers specify more particularly certain places in Libya, or in the Atlantic Ocean. They were the apples which Hera had received at her wedding from Gaea, and which she had entrusted to the keeping of the Hesperides and the dragon Ladon, on Mount Atlas, in the country of the Hyperboreans. This was particularly difficult, since Heracles did not know where to find them. The eleventh of the Twelve Labors of Heracles.
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