1) THE NEMEAN LION Heracles was ordered by Eurystheus to bring him the skin of the Nemean lion. The lion had terrorized the Nemean Valley. The lion was a monstrous descendant of Echidna and one of Orthus or Typhoeus, or had fallen from the moon (Selene) to the earth. Heracles used his bow and arrows to strike the lion, but noticed that the arrows could not penetrate his skin. He then attacked him with his clubs causing the lion to run into a cave which had two entrances. Hercules blocked an entrance, then wrestled with the lion and strangled it. Subsequently, he skinned him and wrapped himself in his skin after offering a sacrifice to Zeus. Hercules returned to Micana with the lion hanging on his shoulder. Eurystheus was terrified when he saw Heracles dressed in the lion's skin and ordered him to leave all his future trophies outside the city gate. Eurystheus then had a large bronze jar built and buried in the earth, so every time Heracles returned from a task he would hide in this jar and use a messenger to convey his next orders to the hero out of fear.2) THE HYDRA OF LERNEA Heracles' second labor was to kill the Lernaean Hydra (water serpent). The hydra was the daughter of Typhoeus and Echidna and sister of Ortho and Cerberus. The hydra that lived in the Lernaean marshes consumed people as well as animals. The hydra was a female monster with a large dog-like body and several serpentine heads. One of these heads was immortal. The hydra possessed a poisonous breath that killed anyone who inhaled it. Heracles was accompanied by his nephew and charioteer Iolaus, son of his twin brother Iphicles and Automedusa. They arrived at the Amynone Spring, where the monster lived in isolation. Heracles drove away the beast...... middle of paper......ion of the Argonauts, he had innumerable flocks. When Hercules asked the king for a tenth of the animals as compensation for cleaning the stables, the king accepted because he was convinced that the task was impossible. But Hercules proved to be more intelligent than the king had imagined: he knocked down a wall and diverted the waters of the Alpheius and Peneus rivers into the stables. The stables were cleaned within a few hours, but Augeas refused to keep his promise, insisting that Hercules had a duty to do this work for Eurystheus. To make matters worse, Euristeo refused to give him credit for finishing the job, claiming that he had done it as a commissioned job. As other narrators insist, Eurystheus denied credit and Augeas refused payment, because they claimed the feat had been accomplished by the river gods Alpheius and Peneus, rather than Hercules himself..