Diomedes was a son of Ares and Cyrene — not Apollo's Libyan lover `cyrene-nymph`, mother of Aristaeus — king of the Bistones, a very warlike Thracian people; he kept man-eating mares, and to bring them to Mycenae was the eighth labour set upon Heracles.1
Apollodorus reports that the eighth task Eurystheus enjoined on Heracles was to bring the mares of Diomedes the Thracian to Mycenae. This Diomedes was a son of Ares and Cyrene, king of the Bistones, a very warlike Thracian people, and he owned man-eating mares.2
Heracles sailed with a band of volunteers and, having overpowered the grooms in charge of the mangers, drove the mares to the sea. When the Bistones came in arms to the rescue, he committed the mares to the keeping of Abderus, son of Hermes, a native of Opus in Locris and a favourite of Heracles; but the mares killed him by dragging him after them.3
Heracles then fought against the Bistones, slew Diomedes, and compelled the rest to flee; he founded the city of Abdera beside the grave of Abderus. Bringing the mares back, he gave them to Eurystheus, who let them go free, and they came to Mount Olympus, where they were destroyed by the wild beasts.4
Hyginus, cataloguing the twelve labours, says Heracles killed Diomedes king of Thrace together with the slave Abderus, along with his four horses that fed on human flesh; their names were Podargus, Lampon, Xanthus, and Dinus.5
Elsewhere Hyginus lists Diomedes, son of Mars, among the chariot-teams that destroyed their drivers, recording that he was slain by his own horses; in this reckoning his maternal line is traced not to Cyrene but to Asterie, daughter of Atlas.6
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