Hercules

Hercules, known to the Greeks as Herakles, is one of the most enduring heroes of the ancient Mediterranean, appearing in literature and art from the early Archaic period through late antiquity and well into the Renaissance. His myth centers on the Twelve Labors, a cycle of penitential feats imposed by King Eurystheus after Hera drove him into a madness that caused him to kill his family. These labors, which include slaying the Nemean lion, capturing the Ceryneian hind, and retrieving Cerberus from the underworld, became a symbolic structure for stories of endurance, moral testing, and the boundary between the human and the divine. Later retellings, from the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides to Roman interpretations by Ovid and Seneca, recast Hercules as a figure caught between heroic glory and psychological suffering. In medieval and Renaissance Europe, he was reimagined as a moral exemplar, while modern adaptations portray him as everything from a demigod action hero to a tragic, flawed warrior. Across these variations, Hercules remains a powerful and flexible figure for exploring strength, vulnerability, and the consequences of violence.