Herakles’ First Labor - The Nemean Lion

222, Lot: 299. Estimate $200. Sold for $420. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PONTUS, Heracleopolis (as Sebastopolis). Gallienus. AD 253-268. Æ 27mm (14.12 g, 11h). Dated CY 266 (AD 263/4). Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right, seen from behind / Herakles standing right, battling the Nemean lion. RG 24; SNG von Aulock 137. VF, brown patina with some hard green deposits.

From the J.P. Righetti Collection, 8202. Ex Münzen und Medaillen 13 (9 October 2003), lot 276; Sternberg 25 (25-26 November 1991), lot 427.

Herakles (Hercules), made temporarily insane by the goddess Hera, murdered his wife and children. Once recovered, and distressed by his actions, he consulted the Delphic Oracle to find a means of expiating his sin. As a punishment, Apollo replied that the hero would have to serve his cousin Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns and a man whom Herakles despised, for a period of twelve years. Because Eurystheus also hated Herakles, he devised a series of ten feats of such difficulty that they would be either insurmountable, or Herakles would die in the attempt. Because Herakles received assistance in completing two of the tasks, Eurystheus added two more. Each labor became more fantastic, and eventually Herakles was compelled to break the bonds of the supernatural in order to complete his task. Once he accomplished the Labors, he was absolved of his guilt, and proceeded to perform many other heroic feats.

The First Labor was to slay the Nemean Lion and bring back its skin. The Nemean Lion, called thus as it had been terrorizing the area around Nemea, had a skin so thick that it was impenetrable to weapons. After making futile attempts to subdue it with his weapons, Hercules cast them aside and wrestled the lion to the ground, eventually killing it by thrusting his arm down its throat and choking it to death. Skinning the beast was no easy task, either. After Herakles spent hours trying unsuccessfully to skin the lion, Athena, in the guise of an old crone, appeared to him, and convinced him to use the creature’s own claws to cut the hide. Thereafter, the hide became the hero’s own impenetrable armor. When Eurystheus saw Herakles wearing his new fearsome outfit, he hid in a large bronze jar, and thenceforth commanded the hero through a herald.