Labor VIII

The tradition of Heracles’ Labor of the fire-breathing Mares of Diomede is reviewed, with attention to literary and iconographic sources, and the richest of the former supplied in quotation. The Labor’s complex literary tradition may be analyzed into three major variants: (1) Heracles (acting alone) throws one of Diomede’s grooms to the horses to distract them so that he can bridle them; Diomede rushes to retaliate (and is presumably killed). (2) Heracles and his men overpower Diomede’s grooms to make off with the horses; when Diomede and his Bistones pursue them, Heracles leaves the horses in the care of his beloved, Abderus, so as to join battle; he kills Diomede and repels the rest, but in the meantime Abderus loses control of horses and they drag him to death; Heracles founds Abdera beside his tomb. (3) More simply, Heracles (acting alone) throws Diomede himself to the horses to distract them while he bridles them. The horse-taming episode in Heracles’ cycle and in other quest-myths (those of Perseus and Bellerophon, and even the mythologized childhood of Alexander the Great) may refract a rite of passage. This Labor serves as the insertion point in his cycle for Heracles’ rescue of Alcestis from Death.