Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Cretan Bull.
The gallery
Heracles and the Cretan Bull (Olympia metope)
Unknown (workshop of the Master of Olympia), c. 460 BC
Marble metope from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia: Heracles grapples Poseidon's white bull — the seventh Labour — locking horns and neck as he prepares to bring the beast alive to Eurystheus. The original relief is in the Archaeological Museum of Olympia.
Heracles and the Cretan Bull (detail of the Labours of Hercules mosaic from Llíria)
Unknown Roman mosaicist, 3rd century AD
A panel from the Roman Labours pavement found at Llíria (Edeta) and now in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid: Heracles captures the Cretan Bull, the living prize of the seventh Labour before the beast's later mythic career in Crete.
Heracles and the Cretan Bull (drawing after a red-figure vase)
Unknown draughtsman (after an Attic red-figure vase), 19th century (drawing after a classical original)
A BnF drawing after a red-figure vase: Heracles subdues the Cretan Bull in the formula vase-painters used for the seventh Labour — the same bull Poseidon sent to Minos and that later sires the Minotaur's line.
Heracles and the Cretan Bull (engraved reconstruction of the Olympia metope)
Guillaume-Abel Blouet, 1831
Blouet's 1831 engraved reconstruction of the Olympia Temple of Zeus metope, published after the early excavations — a scholarly image that fixed the Early Classical struggle with the Cretan Bull for nineteenth-century viewers.