The Lernean Hydra
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The second labor of Hercules was to kill the Lernean
Hydra. From the murky waters of the swamps near a
place called Lerna, the hydra would rise up and
terrorize the countryside. A monstrous serpent with
nine heads, the hydra attacked with poisonous venom.
Nor was this beast easy prey, for one of the nine
heads was immortal and therefore indestructible.
Hercules set off to hunt the nine-headed menace, but
he did not go alone. His trusty nephew, Iolaus, was by
his side. Iolaus, who shared many adventures with
Hercules, accompanied him on many of the twelve
labors. Legend has it that Iolaus won a victory in
chariot racing at the Olympics and he is often
depicted as Hercules’ charioteer. So, the pair drove to
Lerna and by the springs of Amymone, they
discovered the lair of the loathsome hydra.
First, Hercules lured the coily creature from the safety
of its den by shooting flaming arrows at it. Once the
hydra emerged, Hercules seized it. The monster was
not so easily overcome, though, for it wound one of its
coils around Hercules’ foot and made it impossible
for the hero to escape. With his club, Hercules
attacked the many heads of the hydra, but as soon as
he smashed one head, two more would burst forth in
its place! To make matters worse, the hydra had a
friend of its own: a huge crab began biting the trapped
foot of Hercules. Quickly disposing of this nuisance,
most likely with a swift bash of his club, Hercules
called on Iolaus to help him out of this tricky
situation.
Each time Hercules bashed one of the hydra’s heads,
Iolaus held a torch to the headless tendons of the neck.
The flames prevented the growth of replacement
heads, and finally, Hercules had the better of the
beast. Once he had removed and destroyed the eight
mortal heads, Hercules chopped off the ninth,
immortal head. This he buried at the side of the road
leading from Lerna to Elaeus, and for good measure,
he covered it with a heavy rock. As for the rest of the
hapless hydra, Hercules slit open the corpse and
dipped his arrows in the venomous blood.
Eurystheus was not impressed with Hercules’ feat,
however. He said that since Iolaus had helped his
uncle, this labor should not count as one of the ten.
This technicality didn’t seem to matter much to anyone
else: the ancient authors still give Hercules all of the
credit. Even so, Pausanias did not think that this labor
was as fantastic as the myths made it out to be: to him,
the fearsome hydra was just, well, a big water snake.
At the source of the Amymone grows a plane tree,
beneath which, they say, the hydra (water-snake)
grew. I am ready to believe that this beast was
superior in size to other water-snakes, and that its
poison had something in it so deadly that Heracles
treated the points of his arrows with its gall. It had,
however, in my opinion, one head, and not several. It
was Peisander of Camirus who, in order that the
beast might appear more frightful and his poetry
might be more remarkable, represented the hydra
with its many heads.