The sixth labour he enjoined on him was to chase away the Stymphalian birds.As to the Stymphalian birds, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.1052-1057, with the Scholiast on 1054; Diod. 4.13.2; Strab. 8.6.8; Paus. 8.22.4; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica vi.227ff.; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.291ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 20, 30; Serv. Verg. A. 8.300. These fabulous birds were said to shoot their feathers like arrows. Compare D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, , p. 162. From the Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.1052-1057, with the Scholiast on 1054 we learn that the use of a brazen rattle to frighten the birds was mentioned both by Pherecydes and Hellanicus. Now at the city of Stymphalus in Arcadia was the lake called Stymphalian, embosomed in a deep wood. To it countless birds had flocked for refuge, fearing to be preyed upon by the wolves.In no other ancient account of the Stymphalian birds, so far as I know, are wolves mentioned. There is perhaps a reminiscence of an ancient legend in the name of the Wolf's Ravine, which is still given to the deep glen, between immense pine-covered slopes, through which the road runs southwestward from Stymphalus to Orchomenus. The glen forms a conspicuous feature in the landscape to anyone seated on the site of the ancient city and looking across the clear shallow water of the lake to the high mountains that bound the valley on the south. See Frazer on Paus. vol. iv. p. 269. So when Hercules was at a loss how to drive the birds from the wood, Athena gave him brazen castanets, which she had received from Hephaestus. By clashing these on a certain mountain that overhung the lake, he scared the birds. They could not abide the sound, but fluttered up in a fright, and in that way Hercules shot them.

The seventh labour he enjoined on him was to bring the Cretan bull.As to the Cretan bull see Diod. 4.13.4; Paus. 1.27.9ff., Paus. 5.10.9; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.293- 298 (who seems to follow Apollodorus); Hyginus, Fab. 30. Acusilaus says that this was the bull that ferried across Europa for Zeus; but some say it was the bull that Poseidon sent up from the sea when Minos promised to sacrifice to Poseidon what should appear out of the sea. And they say that when he saw the beauty of the bull he sent it away to the herds and sacrificed another to Poseidon; at which the god was angry and made the bull savage. To attack this bull Hercules came to Crete, and when, in reply to his request for aid, Minos told him to fight and catch the bull for himself, he caught it and brought it to Eurystheus, and having shown it to him he let it afterwards go free. But the bull roamed to Sparta and all Arcadia, and traversing the Isthmus arrived at Marathon in Attica and harried the inhabitants.

The eighth labour he enjoined on him was to bring the mares of Diomedes the Thracian to Mycenae.As to the man-eating mares of Diomedes, see Diod. 4.15.3ff.; Philostratus, Im. ii.25; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica vi.245ff.; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.299-308 (who seems to follow Apollodorus, except that he speaks of the animals in the masculine as horses, not mares); Strab. 7 Fr. 44, 47, ed. A. Meineke; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Ἄβδηρα ; Hyginus, Fab. 30 (who gives the names of four horses, not mares). According to Diod. 4.13.4, Herakles killed the Thracian king Diomedes himself by exposing him to his own mares, which devoured him. Further, the historian tells us that when Herakles brought the mares to Eurystheus, the king dedicated them to Hera, and that their descendants existed down to the time of Alexander the Great. Now this Diomedes was a son of Ares and Cyrene, and he was king of the Bistones, a very warlike Thracian people, and he owned man-eating mares. So Hercules sailed with a band of volunteers, and having overpowered the grooms who were in charge of the mangers, he drove the mares to the sea. When the Bistones in arms came to the rescue, he committed the mares to the guardianship of Abderus, who was a son of Hermes, a native of Opus in Locris, and a minion of Hercules; but the mares killed him by dragging him after them. But Hercules fought against the Bistones, slew Diomedes and compelled the rest to flee. And he founded a city Abdera beside the grave of Abderus who had been done to death,Compare Strab. 7 Fr. 44, 47, ed. A. Meineke; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Ἄβδηρα ; Philostratus, Im. ii.25. From Philostratus we learn that athletic games were celebrated in honour of Abderus. They comprised boxing, wrestling, the pancratium, and all the other usual contests, with the exception of racing—no doubt because Abderus was said to have been killed by horses. We may compare the rule which excluded horses from the Arician grove, because horses were said to have killed Hippolytus, with whom Virbius, the traditionary founder of the sanctuary, was identified. See Verg. A. 7.761-780; Ovid, Fasti iii.265ff. When we remember that the Thracian king Lycurgus is said to have been killed by horses in order to restore the fertility of the land (see Apollod. 3.5.1), we may conjecture that the tradition of the man-eating mares of Diomedes, another Thracian king who is said to have been killed by horses, points to a custom of human sacrifice performed by means of horses, whether the victim was trampled to death by their hoofs or tied to their tails and rent asunder. If the sacrifice was offered, as the legend of Lycurgus suggests, for the sake of fertilizing the ground, the reason for thus tearing the victim to pieces may have been to scatter the precious life-giving fragments as widely and as quickly as possible over the barren earth. Compare ii.97ff. The games at Abdera are alluded to by the poet Machon, quoted by Athenaeus viii.41, p. 349 B. and bringing the mares he gave them to Eurystheus. But Eurystheus let them go, and they came to Mount Olympus, as it is called, and there they were destroyed by the wild beasts.

The ninth labour he enjoined on Hercules was to bring the belt of Hippolyte.As to the expedition of Herakles to fetch the belt of the Amazon, see Eur. Herc. 408ff.; Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.777ff., 966ff., with the Scholiast on 778, 780; Diod. 4.16; Paus. 5.10.9; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica vi.240ff.; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.309ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1327(who follows Apollodorus and cites him by name); Hyginus, Fab. 30. She was queen of the Amazons, who dwelt about the river Thermodon, a people great in war; for they cultivated the manly virtues, and if ever they gave birth to children through intercourse with the other sex, they reared the females; and they pinched off the right breasts that they might not be trammelled by them in throwing the javelin, but they kept the left breasts, that they might suckle. Now Hippolyte had the belt of Ares in token of her superiority to all the rest. Hercules was sent to fetch this belt because Admete, daughter of Eurystheus, desired to get it. So taking with him a band of volunteer comrades in a single ship he set sail and put in to the island of Paros, which was inhabited by the sons of Minos,According to Diod. 5.79.2, Rhadamanthys bestowed the island of Paros on his son Alcaeus. Combined with the evidence of Apollodorus, the tradition points to a Cretan colony in Paros. to wit, Eurymedon, Chryses, Nephalion, and Philolaus. But it chanced that two of those in the ship landed and were killed by the sons of Minos. Indignant at this, Hercules killed the sons of Minos on the spot and besieged the rest closely, till they sent envoys to request that in the room of the murdered men he would take two, whom he pleased. So he raised the siege, and taking on board the sons of Androgeus, son of Minos, to wit, Alcaeus and Sthenelus, he came to Mysia, to the court of Lycus, son of Dascylus, and was entertained by him; and in a battle between him and the king of the Bebryces Hercules sided with Lycus and slew many, amongst others King Mygdon, brother of Amycus. And he took much land from the Bebryces and gave it to Lycus, who called it all Heraclea. Having put in at the harbor of Themiscyra, he received a visit from Hippolyte, who inquired why he was come, and promised to give him the belt. But Hera in the likeness of an Amazon went up and down the multitude saying that the strangers who had arrived were carrying off the queen. So the Amazons in arms charged on horseback down on the ship. But when Hercules saw them in arms, he suspected treachery, and killing Hippolyte stripped her of her belt. And after fighting the rest he sailed away and touched at Troy. But it chanced that the city was then in distress consequently on the wrath of Apollo and Poseidon. For desiring to put the wantonness of Laomedon to the proof, Apollo and Poseidon assumed the likeness of men and undertook to fortify Pergamum for wages. But when they had fortified it, he would not pay them their wages.Compare Hom. Il. 7.452ff., Hom. Il. 21.441-457. According to the former of these passages, the walls of Troy were built by Poseidon and Apollo jointly for king Laomedon. But according to the latter passage the walls were built by Poseidon alone, and while he thus toiled as a mason, Apollo served as a herdsman, tending the king's cattle in the wooded glens of Ida. Their period of service lasted for a year, and at the end of it the faithless king not only dismissed the two deities without the stipulated wages which they had honestly earned, but threatened that, if they did not take themselves off, he would tie Apollo hand and foot and sell him for a slave in the islands, not however before he had lopped off the ears of both of them with a knife. Thus insulted as well as robbed, the two gods retired with wrath and indignation at their hearts. This strange tale, told by Homer, is alluded to by Pind. O. 8.30(40)ff., who adds to it the detail that the two gods took the hero Aeacus with them to aid them in the work of fortification; and the Scholiast on Pindar (pp. 194ff. ed. Boeckh) explains that, as Troy was fated to be captured, it was necessary that in building the walls the immortals should be assisted by a mortal, else the city would have been impregnable. The sarcastic Lucian tells us (Lucian, De sacrificiis 4) that both Apollo and Poseidon laboured as bricklayers at the walls of Troy, and that the sum of which the king cheated them was more than thirty Trojan drachmas. The fraud is alluded to by Verg. G. 1.502 and Hor. Carm. 3.3.21ff. Compare Hyginus, Fab. 89; Ov. Met. 11.194ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 8.157; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 43ff., 138 (First Vatican Mythographer 136; Second Vatican Mythographer 193). Homer does not explain why Apollo and Poseidon took service with Laomedon, but his Scholiast on Hom. Il. xxi.444, in agreement with Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 34, says that their service was a punishment inflicted on them by Zeus for a conspiracy into which some of the gods had entered for the purpose of putting him, the supreme god, in bonds. The conspiracy is mentioned by Hom. Il. 1.399ff.), who names Poseidon, Hera, and Athena, but not Apollo, among the conspirators; their nefarious design was defeated by the intervention of Thetis and the hundred-handed giant Briareus. We have already heard of Apollo serving a man in the capacity of neatherd as a punishment for murder perpetrated by the deity (see above, Apollod. 1.9.15, with the note). These back-stair chronicles of Olympus shed a curious light on the early Greek conception of divinity. Therefore Apollo sent a pestilence, and Poseidon a sea monster, which, carried up by a flood, snatched away the people of the plain. But as oracles foretold deliverance from these calamities if Laomedon would expose his daughter Hesione to be devoured by the sea monster, he exposed her by fastening her to the rocks near the sea.For the story of the rescue of Hesione by Herakles, see Diod. 4.42; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xx.146; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 34; Ov. Met. 11.211ff.; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. ii.451ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 89; Serv. Verg. A. 8.157; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 44 (First Vatican Mythographer 136). A curious variant of the story is told, without mention of Hesione, by the Second Vatican Mythographer (193, i. p. 138). Tzetzes says that Herakles, in full armour, leaped into the jaws of the sea-monster, and was in its belly for three days hewing and hacking it, and that at the end of the three days he came forth without any hair on his head. The Scholiast on Hom. Il. xx.146 tells the tale similarly, and refers to Hellanicus as his authority. The story of Herakles and Hesione corresponds closely to that of Perseus and Andromeda (see Apollod. 2.4.3). Both tales may have originated in a custom of sacrificing maidens to be the brides of the Sea. Compare , ii.150ff. Seeing her exposed, Hercules promised to save her on condition of receiving from Laomedon the mares which Zeus had given in compensation for the rape of Ganymede.The horses were given by Zeus to Tros, the father of Ganymede. See Hom. Il. 5.265ff.; HH Aphr. 210ff.; Paus. 5.24.5. According to another account, which had the support of a Cyclic poet, the compensation given to the bereaved father took the shape, not of horses, but of a golden vine wrought by Hephaestus. See Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1391. As the duty of Ganymede was to pour the red nectar from a golden bowl in heaven (HH Aphr. 206), there would be a certain suitability in the bestowal of a golden vine to replace him in his earthly home. On Laomedon's saying that he would give them, Hercules killed the monster and saved Hesione. But when Laomedon would not give the stipulated reward,As to the refusal of Laomedon to give the horses to Herakles, see Hom. Il. 5.638-651, Hom. Il. 21.441-457; Ov. Met. 11.213ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 69. Laomedon twice broke his word, first to Poseidon and Apollo and afterwards to Herakles. Hence Ovid speaks of “the twice-perjured walls of Troy” (Ov. Met. 11.215). Hercules put to sea after threatening to make war on Troy.As to the siege and capture of Troy by Herakles, see below, Apollod. 2.6.4. And he touched at Aenus, where he was entertained by Poltys. And as he was sailing away he shot and killed on the Aenian beach a lewd fellow, Sarpedon, son of Poseidon and brother of Poltys. And having come to Thasos and subjugated the Thracians who dwelt in the island, he gave it to the sons of Androgeus to dwell in. From Thasos he proceeded to Torone, and there, being challenged to wrestle by Polygonus and Telegonus, sons of Proteus, son of Poseidon, he killed them in the wrestling match.Compare Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.320 sq. And having brought the belt to Mycenae he gave it to Eurystheus.