Nemean Lion

The Nemean Lion was a monstrous lion of the region of Nemea in the Argolid, whose hide no iron, bronze or stone could pierce. Heracles killed it as the first of the Labours that Eurystheus set him, and afterwards wore its skin. In Greek tradition the beast was the offspring of Echidna, and the goddess Hera, enemy of Heracles, had reared it.

Origins of the Nemean Lion

In Hesiod’s Theogony the deadly Sphinx and the Nemean lion are born to the hound Orthus; the mother is Echidna, or by another reading of the lines her daughter the Chimaera. Hera reared the lion and settled it in the hills of Nemea as a plague to men; there it preyed on the people of the district, ruling over Tretus, Nemea and Apesas (Hesiod, Theogony 326–332). Apollodorus calls it an invulnerable beast begotten by Typhon (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.1). Hyginus says it was nursed by the Moon in a cave with two mouths (Hyginus, Fabulae 30).

Diodorus describes it as an enormous beast that could not be wounded by iron, bronze or stone and had to be overcome by human hands. It spent most of its time between Mycenae and Nemea, near the mountain called Tretus, which has a cleft right through its base where the lion lurked (Diodorus Siculus 4.11.3–4). Pausanias, travelling from Cleonae to Argos by the pass of Tretus, was shown the cave of the famous lion, about fifteen stades from Nemea (Pausanias 2.15.2).

The First Labour of Heracles

According to Apollodorus, Eurystheus first ordered Heracles to bring him the skin of the Nemean lion. On the way Heracles lodged at Cleonae with a day-labourer named Molorchus, who was about to offer a sacrifice. Heracles told him to wait thirty days: if he came back safe from the hunt, Molorchus should sacrifice to Zeus the Saviour, and if he were dead, to him as to a hero (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.1).

At Nemea Heracles tracked the lion and shot an arrow at it, but when he saw that it could not be wounded, he raised his club and drove it back. The lion took refuge in a cave with two mouths. Heracles blocked up one entrance and went in through the other, put his arm round the lion’s neck and held it until it was choked (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.1). The lion was thus overcome without weapons, which fits Diodorus’ statement that only the compulsion of human hands could subdue it.

The hide could not be cut by steel or stone. In the poem of Theocritus on Heracles the Lion-slayer, the hero says that one of the immortals put it into his mind to cut the hide with the lion’s own claws, and he flayed it that way and wore it as protection in battle (Theocritus, Idyll 25). Heracles carried the carcass to Cleonae and arrived on the last of the thirty days, just as Molorchus was about to sacrifice to him as to a dead man. He sacrificed to Zeus the Saviour instead and took the lion to Mycenae (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.1).

Eurystheus and the Lion Skin

Amazed at the hero’s strength, Eurystheus forbade Heracles to enter the city again and told him to show the fruits of his labours before the gates. Apollodorus adds that, in his fear, Eurystheus had a bronze jar made to hide in under the ground, and that from then on he sent his commands through a herald, Copreus (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.1). Heracles kept the skin as a covering, as Hyginus says (Hyginus, Fabulae 30). In Sophocles’ Trachiniae the dying Heracles recalls his arms that once subdued the lion, the dweller in Nemea and scourge of herdsmen, a creature no man could approach (Sophocles, Trachiniae 1091–1094).

The Constellation Leo

Hyginus reports that Zeus placed the lion among the stars because it was regarded as the chief of all wild beasts. Some also said this was done because the lion was the first contest of Heracles, who killed it without weapons (Hyginus, Astronomica 2.24).

Nemean Lion Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 326–332; Apollodorus, Library 2.5.1; Diodorus Siculus 4.11.3–4; Pausanias 2.15.2; Hyginus, Fabulae 30; Hyginus, Astronomica 2.24; Theocritus, Idyll 25; Sophocles, Trachiniae 1091–1094.

See Also: Typhon, Echidna, Selene, Eurystheus, Heracles, Labours of Heracles, Copreus, Hera