Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen The Ceryneian Hind.
The gallery
Heracles and the Ceryneian Hind
Attributed to the circle of the antimenes Painter (Unknown Attic vase-painter), c. 540–530 BC
On this Attic black-figure amphora (British Museum, B231), Heracles kneels astride the captured Ceryneian Hind, gripping its golden antler as he subdues the swift, divinely sacred deer of Artemis. The scene distils the third Labour into a single charged moment: the hero must take the beast alive rather than slay it, and the painter shows the muscular tension of restraint rather than the kill. The golden-horned hind, sacred to Artemis and hunted for a whole year through Arcadia, was among the most popular of the Labours in sixth-century vase-painting.
Heracles and Apollo Struggling over the Ceryneian Hind
Unknown Greek armourer (Corinthian helmet relief), early 5th century BC
This bronze Corinthian helmet, now in the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris, carries an incised relief showing Heracles and Apollo contending over the Ceryneian Hind. The episode follows Apollodorus' account, in which Artemis and Apollo confront Heracles for seizing the goddess's sacred animal; here the deer stands between the two figures as the prize of their tug-of-war. The choice of subject for a warrior's helmet underlines the Labour's heroic prestige, framing the wearer in the image of Heracles' year-long pursuit and divine confrontation.
Athenian Plate with Heracles and Apollo Fighting over the Keryneian Hind
Unknown Attic potter and painter, c. 560 BC
On this early Attic plate, Heracles and Apollo grapple over the golden-horned Ceryneian Hind, each laying a hand on the slender deer at the centre of the composition. The image visualises the climactic moment of the third Labour, when the god intervenes to protect his sister Artemis' sacred creature; Heracles must hold the hind without harming it. The compact tondo format makes the contested deer the literal pivot of the scene, a popular sixth-century treatment of one of the hero's gentler, capture-not-kill Labours.
Heracles and the Hind (Roman bronze statuette)
Unknown Roman sculptor (after a Greek original), 1st–2nd century AD
This Roman-era bronze, held in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Munich (SL54), depicts Heracles overpowering the Ceryneian Hind, likely derived from a lost Greek prototype of the type associated with Lysippus. The hero presses down upon the deer, whose folded legs and arched neck convey the exhaustion of the year-long chase ended at the river Ladon. As a freestanding sculpture in the round, it translates the third Labour from the flat narrative of vase-painting into a fully modelled group, emphasising the physical mastery by which Heracles took the sacred animal alive.
In play
Ceryneian Hind
The golden-horned hind sacred to Artemis remains the labour of sacred pursuit — caught alive after a year's chase, not slain.
Labours of Hercules
The Ceryneian Hind is still counted among the canonical twelve — the labour that tested patience over brute force.